All the Broken Places

by Anise Eden

  “All right, what are you here for, then?”

  “Well…” My face began to burn again. I was a therapist, for God’s sake. I was supposed to treat these kinds of problems, not have them. “The reason I can’t go to work or do anything else, really, is that lately I’m afraid to be around people. Not people I’m close to, I mean. I’m fine around them for some reason. But with other people, including clients…I’m afraid this is going to sound weird.”

  “Go ahead.” She waved her hand.

  Apparently “weird” was fine with her. “It just feels like I’ve become hyper-sensitized to people’s emotions, almost like I’m allergic to them. Whenever I’m around someone who is in emotional distress, I can feel it slamming into me like a wave. It throws me completely off-balance. I don’t leave the house most of the time because of it.”

  To be more precise, the only time I left the house at all was to go to the twenty-four-hour grocery store between three and four in the morning when I was likely to be the only customer. I even used the self-checkout line to avoid the cashiers. I opted not to share that information with Dr. MacGregor, however—and especially not with Ben—for fear of sounding even more pitiful.

  She tapped her pen against the desk. “You left the house today, and here you sit with two strangers, but you don’t appear to be overwhelmed. How do you account for that?”

  My cheeks heated up again. I had always despised the fact that I blushed so readily. “I just kind of assumed you’d be safe to be around—you know, emotionally stable. Plus, I took some pills.”

  Her eyebrows lifted slightly. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Dr. Nelson gave me these pills to take when I have to leave the house.”

  “Oh.” She held out her hand. “May I see them?”

  Feeling like a child who had been caught shoplifting from the corner store, I fished the samples out of my purse and handed them to her. “They’re for anxiety,” I explained. “They don’t stop me from getting emotionally slammed, but they help me worry less about the possibility that it might happen.”

  She examined the pills. “Ah. Well, you won’t need these after a few days here,” she said, handing them back to me. “So, can’t be around people, unable to leave the house. Any other symptoms?”

  “Those are the major ones.” I decided that I might garner more respect from her if I used some professional jargon. “I’ve also been having insomnia, along with some other depressive symptoms—low mood, no energy, anhedonia…and social isolation, I guess you could say, but that kind of goes along with not leaving the house.”

  “I see.” She absently jotted some notes down on a pad. “Anything else?”

  Either I was imagining things or she looked positively bored. Was this the brilliant Dr. MacGregor who had come so highly recommended? Well, if she thought that she had obtained a complete clinical picture in less than five minutes, I thought it was about time she said something useful. “No, that’s pretty much it,” I said. “So what do you think?”

  Dr. MacGregor slowly removed her glasses, folded them, and placed them on the desk. “Miss Duncan, so far, you haven’t told me anything about yourself that can’t be fixed by those pills Dr. Nelson gave you, perhaps alongside an antidepressant. In order for this meeting to be anything other than a waste of time for all of us, you’re going to have to tell me everything that’s going on with you. No leaving things out, no holding things back because you’re afraid they’ll sound strange. What’s that you always say, Benjamin?” She gestured over her shoulder at him with her pen.

  “Embrace your inner freak.” I thought I saw Ben flash me a droll smile, but it happened so quickly I couldn’t be sure.

  “Yes, that,” Dr. MacGregor said. “So tell me then. What else is going on with you?”

  My stomach churned uneasily. My inner freak? Surely she couldn’t be talking about…no. Simone was the only person who knew I had “intuitions” about my clients, but even she didn’t know how I got them. And I’d never told anyone about the other strange things I did. Was it possible that Dr. MacGregor had sensed it somehow?

  Once again, she showed her keen sense of perception. “Don’t worry, dear, this meeting is confidential. I won’t be sharing any details with Zeke.”

  My leg began to bounce up and down. As long as it wasn’t going to get back to Dr. Ezekiel Nelson, maybe I could reveal my inner freak—just a little. “Well,” I ventured, “there are some things I’ve never told anyone, but they’re kind of bizarre. And I’m not even sure they’re real.”

  “Yes. Those kinds of things.” She held her arms open wide, as though to encompass the room. “The ‘bizarre.’ That’s what I want to hear about. Go ahead.”

  A tight fist formed in my chest. I had never tried to explain my unusual experiences to anyone before. “Well, I do have this technique I use with clients that’s sort of unconventional. No one else knows about it, though.”

  “Yes, good,” Dr. MacGregor said. “Tell me about that.”

  They already knew I was crazy. I sighed in resignation. “All right, well, if I look into someone’s eyes and concentrate, I can sort of…go inside of them. I get a general sense of the person and I can feel what they’re feeling. Sometimes I get flashes of images, too—from their memories, I think. And sometimes I can even hear them talking to me, but they’re not really talking. Out loud, that is.” I half-smiled to indicate that I was aware of how insane that sounded.

  “Interesting.” She pursed her lips and examined me. “And why do you do that, instead of just asking your clients what they’re feeling?”

  “I do ask them what they’re feeling, and a lot of other things.” I slouched down in my chair a little. “But when I mind-meld with a client, I can see what’s going on in their subconscious—things they may not even be aware of, but that are keeping them stuck where they are and preventing healing. Once I see those things, I have a better idea of how to guide the session for the client’s greatest benefit.”

  One of Ben’s eyebrows arched. “Mind-meld?”

  Just when I thought I was finished blushing for the day. “I grew up on Star Trek reruns, okay? What would you call it?”

  “Empathic submergence,” Ben said matter-of-factly.

  I couldn’t tell if he was serious or just had a really dry sense of humor. “You mean it’s actually a thing? There’s a term for it?”

  “Yes,” Dr. MacGregor said, “and people who have certain natural talents can be trained in this skill. You seem to have learned it all on your own, however.” She gave an appreciative nod. “I can see why Zeke thinks you’re so talented. Tell me, when you submerge into someone else, does it have any side effects?”

  “Oh, no,” I shook my head vigorously. “My clients don’t even know I’m doing it. And I don’t tell them what I see. Since the conscious mind blocks things for a reason—usually to protect us—I respect its wisdom. I just use the information I’ve gathered while inside to figure out where the client’s pain is and how best to approach it.”

  She leaned forward and pointed her pen at me. “That’s very wise. But what I meant was, are there any side effects for you?”

  “Oh.” I looked down at my hands as my fingers twisted around each other. The truth was that each time I returned from mind-melding with a client, I brought some of their pain back with me. I’d never thought of it as a side effect, though. I figured it was just part of being a healer; you alleviate others’ suffering by taking it on yourself. But over time, the accumulated pain had grown heavier. I worried that at some point, I’d reach capacity and wouldn’t be able to take on any more.

  I didn’t know how to explain that to Dr. MacGregor, though, so I just told her what Simone always said about me. “I tend to take my work home with me more than the other therapists do.”

  “I see,” she said with a note of skepticism. Ben pulled out a pad and started taking notes while Dr. MacGregor asked, “Is that all, or is there more?”

  What was he writing? I pressed
my hand down on my knee to stop my leg from bouncing. “More what?”

  “More weird.”

  “Oh. Well…” I couldn’t tell whether she was really curious, or whether she was convinced that I was nuts and was humoring me to get more information.

  It was Ben who spoke next. “There’s no need to feel self-conscious. Believe me, you can’t tell us anything we haven’t heard before.”

  I fought to keep from rolling my eyes. Fine. If he was so sure that nothing I could say would surprise them… “Then maybe you can explain why I can tell what my clients are feeling, even when I’m not with them.”

  “Meaning?” Ben asked.

  “I don’t know,” I lobbed back. “I wish I did. All I know is that in some sense, my clients are with me all of the time. After a couple of sessions with someone, it’s as though a filament forms between us. It’s not visible, of course—I can only see it in my mind’s eye—but it connects us. Then, whenever I wonder how they’re feeling, I can focus my mind on that filament, and just…know.”

  Dr. MacGregor asked, “And what use do you make of these filaments?”

  She actually appeared to be taking me seriously. I slid forward in my chair. “When I was still at work, I used them to check on clients I was worried about. For example, if someone missed a therapy session and I couldn’t reach them by phone, I’d use their filament to connect with them and make sure they weren’t in crisis.” In spite of Dr. MacGregor’s promise of confidentiality, I decided not to confess that I was still doing those daily check-ins. I was pretty sure that Dr. Nelson wouldn’t approve, and I didn’t want to say anything that might get Simone in trouble.

  “And how did you know the information you received from the filaments was accurate?”

  “That’s a good question.” It was a question that I’d never been able to answer to my full satisfaction. Years of good, solid Western education had left me constitutionally uncomfortable with anything for which there was no scientific explanation—and that included filaments and mind-melding. I was relieved to discover that Dr. MacGregor was appropriately skeptical and appreciated the need for evidence. “There’s no way of knowing for sure, I guess, but I have been keeping documentation—writing down what I was feeling about which client and when. As far as I know, all of the information I’ve gathered so far has corresponded with my clients’ objective experiences.”

  “Very interesting.” Dr. MacGregor gave me a collegial smile. “I can tell you that the filaments you describe are related to empathic submergence. How is a subject that will be covered in good time.”

  “Oh, wow. Okay.” They didn’t seem to think I was crazy after all. There must be something wrong with them, I thought, but allowed myself to feel slightly encouraged.

  “In the meantime, I’m pleased to hear that you have an instinct for research—something we have in common.” Then she turned and said something to Ben. He left the office, closing the door behind him.

  I barely had a chance to wonder where Ben was going before Dr. MacGregor said, “You’ve said you’re not here to work on your grief issues, and that’s fine. We won’t force you. But I still need to obtain a family history, starting with your mother.”

  A bit thrown off by the abrupt change of subject, I slid back in my chair. Family history was a fair topic of discussion, though. “Okay.”

  The mask of Dr. MacGregor’s professional composure slipped, replaced for a few moments by a pained expression. “Dr. Nelson said your mother overdosed on pain pills. Did she have a pain condition?”

  “Fibromyalgia.”

  “That can be very difficult. Do they know if the overdose was accidental, or…?”

  Or suicide, she meant. I supposed she was trying to be sensitive by not asking outright.

  One of my mother’s coworkers at the hospice had stopped in to check on her after she didn’t show up for her morning appointments and wouldn’t answer her phone. Mom had still been alive, but barely. An ambulance had taken her to the hospital, where I’d arrived just in time to spend a few minutes with her before…

  Tears slithered into my eyes. I blinked them back. “She was found in bed with a copy of her ‘Do Not Resuscitate’ order tucked under her arm.” That was my mom—meticulous, detail-oriented. Never leaving anything to chance.

  “I see.” There was a long, aching pause. Finally, Dr. MacGregor cleared her throat. “Did she have a history of mental illness?”

  “Not that anyone knew of.” In other words, not that her own daughter, a trained psychotherapist, had observed. I clasped my hands together in my lap, squeezing until my fingernails dug painfully into my skin.

  “What about the ‘weird’ experiences you’ve been telling me about? Did your mother have those, too?”

  “What? No.” At least not that she’d ever told me about. Mom had an uncanny ability to sense how I was feeling, but she’d always chalked it up to “mother’s intuition.” If she’d had the types of strange experiences I was having, there was no reason why she would have kept it from me.

  Dr. MacGregor jotted something down on her notepad. “And on your father’s side? Any history of mental illness?”

  First my mother, then my father. I turned to look out the window, but all I could see was boarded-up glass. “I don’t know. He left us before I turned one. My mother never told me much about him, not even who he was. Or is.”

  “All right, then,” she said, returning to her usual businesslike demeanor. This time I welcomed her coolness. Over the years, any pain I had felt about not knowing my father had dulled to almost nothing. I certainly didn’t need any comforting about it.

  She paused for a moment, then leaned forward. “And you? Do you ever have suicidal thoughts?”

  She gave me an incisive look, like a bird of prey that had just spotted a rabbit on open ground. I suspected that if I gave the wrong answer to her question, I’d end up in the back of an ambulance on my way to the psych ward.

  Suicide had always been an evil force that I fought against, a dangerous enemy that I tried to keep as far away as possible, both from others and myself. But in the wake of my mother’s death, I’d felt compelled to better understand my nemesis by drawing closer to it. I tried to imagine what it would take to make me suicidal, and was alarmed to discover that it wouldn’t take much. After all, what use was my life anymore? I’d failed my mother in the worst way possible. By definition, I was failing my clients since I couldn’t even make it in to work. And although they’d never admit it, I knew I was starting to become a burden to my friends.

  As I thought more about suicide, I started to develop a strange relationship with it. At my lowest points, it appeared dangerously seductive, beckoning to me with a long, dark finger. But most of the time the thought of it was somehow soothing. Just knowing that death was a possibility—that there was a way out, should I ever need one—made it somehow easier to tolerate the pain.

  I found myself spending hours online reading about various methods, searching for the most painless and idiot-proof. I had also developed a new obsession: practice-writing suicide notes. It turned out to be harder than I thought to compose something that explained my hypothetical act of self-destruction while also saving the reader from feelings of guilt, outrage, or sadness. Discarded drafts lay scattered around my house.

  But Dr. MacGregor could rest easy. I had no intention of actually acting on any of those thoughts. I reasoned that I was simply appeasing my shadow self, entertaining its morbid fantasies so that it wouldn’t take me to even darker places. Besides, I was a therapist; I knew better. However, I had no way of knowing whether Dr. MacGregor would take my word on that.

  So instead of the truth, I told her what I thought she expected to hear. “Look, I don’t have very many people in my life, but the ones that I do have—I would never put them through what I’ve been through lately.”

  She tapped her pen against the desk like a metronome. I could tell she was trying to decide whether or not she believed me. “I understan
d,” she said. My shoulders dropped with relief. “The good news is that we can help you.”

  “What?” Another quick change of direction. “No more questions?”

  “I know everything I need to know.”

  “So you know what’s wrong with me?”

  “Nothing is wrong with you, dear. You’re grieving, but as you requested, we’ll leave that alone for now. The problem is that you have some special abilities that you don’t know how to handle properly. You’re like a toddler playing with a pocketknife; naturally, you keep hurting yourself. In order to treat your symptoms, we have to teach you how to manage your gifts.”

  “Hurting myself? Gifts?” I shook my head. “I’m sorry, what are you talking about?”

  Ben walked back into the office carrying some papers and a clipboard.

  “I’ll leave that to Benjamin to explain,” she said. “I’m afraid I have to run. He’ll take care of you from here.” Dr. MacGregor put on her coat. “It was nice to meet you, Cate. I’ll let Zeke know that you’ll be joining us.”

  I stood as she headed for the door. “Joining you for what? I don’t—”

  She waved me aside. “Don’t worry, just follow Benjamin’s instructions. I’ll see you sometime next week.”

  The door closed, and all at once, she was gone.

  Chapter Two

  I could have caught flies in my wide-open mouth. I turned around to find Ben sitting at the desk, arranging papers on a clipboard. While Dr. MacGregor had been with us, Ben had faded into the background. Now that she was gone, his presence seemed to expand into the room, pressurizing the air around me.

  My self-consciousness crept back. I figured that the peculiar interview I’d just been through had thrown me off-balance. I tossed my hands into the air. “What just happened?”

  Ben glanced up. “What? Oh yeah, Dr. MacGregor can be a little abrupt. Don’t take it personally.” He returned to the papers.

  “I…what…” I hated being at a loss for words. Finally, I landed on, “What are you doing?”