The Temptation of Demetrio Vigil

by Alisa Valdes

  “But I don’t need fixing.”

  “The ones who need it most never think they do,” she said.

  “I’m calling dad. He’ll get me out.”

  “No he won’t. We already spoke. He’s signed off on all your paperwork. He agrees it is not in my - I mean, your - best interest for you to date a hoodlum. Plus, Kelsey’s mother told me about you having bad dreams about death and coyotes, and your father said he overheard the two of you talking about ghosts as thought you believed it. But worst of all, Missy - whom I normally despise but who seems to care about you, though I have no idea why - tells me you might have even seduced an elderly plumber they hired.”

  “What?

  ”My mother regarded me with disgust.

  “I don’t know what happened to you when you had that crash, Maria, but it has to stop. You’re endangering yourself. You must understand.”

  “I did not seduce that old man!” I screamed. “Are you completely crazy? He - he heard us talking about the dream, and he’s some kind of religious person. He said he thought it meant something. That’s all. He thought I was seeing ghosts. I swear, you’re crazy. You. Not me. You!”

  “And the way you’re speaking to me! It’s shameful.”

  “Mom. Please. You have to believe me.”

  “I’m doing this because I love you. I know that’s hard for you to understand right now, but someday you’ll thank me for it.”

  “How long are you leaving me here?” I asked in a panic as I looked around and realized just exactly how isolated, and barricaded, this place was. There was a razor wire fence around the entire encampment, as though it were a fortress, or a prison. For a brief moment, I did wonder if she were right, if I were imagining all of it, including the ceremony, and the dead dog, and the cows and traveling with Demetrio via descanso. It was all so absurd, viewed from afar. God, maybe I was losing my mind.

  “I’m leaving you here until they fix you.” She smiled her politician’s smile at me, sending a cold wave through my flesh. “There are visitation days, and I will come to see you. Your every need will be met, including a tutor to keep you up to date with schoolwork, and there’s a gym here, and a salon, and a spa. Everything you could want or need.”

  “What about my friends?”

  “Once you’re settled, I’ll tell Kelsey and Victoria where you are, if that’s what the doctor thinks I should do. It would be nice for you to have your friends visit you.”

  “This isn’t happening,” I groaned.

  “Cheer up, it could be the best thing that ever happened to you. You can’t know yet. Try it before you judge. I picked the best facility in the state, the most exclusive and luxurious. You really will be very comfortable here.”

  Soon, we had parked in the small lot in front of Building 19, a two-story adobe house flanked by towering cottonwood trees whose naked branches looked to be begging the sky for forgiveness. Pots of dead flowers sat on the porch, as did two girls who looked to be about my age. They did not look happy. Or nice. I caught sight of the arms of one of them, and it was crisscrossed with long cuts, scabs and scars. I shuddered.

  “Come on,” said my mother, popping the hatchback. “Get your suitcase. In you go.”

  “My suitcase? Why?”

  “Oh, never mind” she said, seeing a woman in nurse’s scrubs walking toward us with a clipboard. “I’m sure they’ll get it for you. God knows I paid them enough. They better have valet.”

  The nurse came directly to my door, and waited for me to open it.

  “Maria Ochoa?” she asked, smiling fakely.

  “Yeah.”

  “Hello. I’m Debbie. I’ll be your intake nurse. Welcome to Rancho la Curación. We’ve been expecting you.”

  My mother waited impatiently just behind Debbie, with a cold, hard, vindictive look in her eyes.

  “Why are you doing this to me?” I asked my mom. “There’s nothing wrong with me.”

  “You’ll have someone get her things, I assume?” said my mother in her regal way.

  “Of course, Ms. Romero. Joshua will get them shortly.”

  “Good.” My mother exposed her heartless smile to nurse as the orderly, Joshua, a bald man with kind eyes, fetched my suitcase in a servile way.

  “I really don’t need to be here,” I told the nurse. “My mother does. But I don’t.”

  “Follow me, please,” said Debbie, flashing my mother a knowing look, as though everyone who was brought here said the same thing.

  My mother let the nurse pass her, then put her arm around as though she loved me, holding me close to her, pinching my arm and saying in my ear, “I’m doing this because no one, and I mean no one, is going to ruin my chances at the mayor’s seat, Maria. I have been very clear with you. I cannot afford to have a crazy daughter. They’ll fix you here. I’m paying a lot of money for it, so they had better fix you here. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said, resolutely.

  “Good. I’ll be back for you when you’re ready to cooperate.”

  ♦

  An hour or so later, after having stood at the window of my upstairs suite and watched my mother drive away in the increasingly heavy snow, I found myself face to face with Dr. Bergant. She was an elegant woman in her early 30s, with short light brown hair and intelligent brown eyes that seemed to pull you in as you spoke. The doctor didn’t wear clinical doctor-type clothes; rather, she wore jeans and a dark brown cashmere sweater, with diamond stud earring and a delicate pendant necklace with gold in the shape of a star contained within a circle. Her boots looked to be designer. Her nails were perfectly manicured.

  We both sat on a small floral sofa in the cozy sitting area of my suite, near a kiva-style corner fireplace that crackled with good cheer. Dr. Bergant had brought a plate of hot and gooey chocolate chip cookies and a pot of green tea with her, and was pouring me a cup. The room was exactly the sort you might find at one of the upscale resorts my mother favored, done in a pueblo Indian style and decorate in muted earth tones with splashes of red and black for accent. The main difference, I soon realized, was that the windows here did not open, and the doors locked from the outside. It was, in every sense, a beautiful prison.

  “Tell me why you think your mother sent you here,” said the doctor, her eyes oozing sympathy and understanding. It was a far cry from the cold, hard, spectacled male doctor I had somehow expected. This almost felt like talking to one of my girlfriends.

  “I think my mom thinks I’m at great risk of ruining her political career,” I said. “And her political career comes first. It always has, now that I think about it. That’s why I’m here.”

  I felt tears sting my eyes, unexpectedly. I hadn’t realized how deeply it wounded me to realized I came second for my mother.

  “And why do you think she thinks you’re going to ruin her political career?” asked the doctor, as she stirred a dollop of honey into her own cup of tea.

  “Because, my mom wants everything to be perfect. She thinks people will only vote for perfect people. Family problems of any kind ruin things for politicians, I guess. And in a city like Albuquerque, where everybody knows everyone else, news gets around, especially in the political world. A lot of my classmates have powerful parents in town, and I guess everyone knows I’m ‘crazy’ now, and my mom thinks it’ll ruin her.”

  Dr. Bergant looked thoughtful, and sorrowful, as she listened.

  “And how does all of that make you feel?” she asked.

  “Terrible. Like a failure.”

  “Why a failure?”

  “Because I’m not the perfect daughter my mom wants me to be. Because I tried to be for so long, and now I just can’t.”

  “Why not?” she asked.

  I sighed and watched the fire jump and dance for a moment before answering. “Because I fell in love with the wrong kind of boy for her tastes, I guess.”

  Dr. Bergant smiled peacefully at me. “Do you want to tell me about him?”

  I shrugged. Truthfull
y, I did. I wanted to tell her everything, and I felt like maybe I could because she was such a nice person. But part of me also knew it would be foolish to mention to a psychiatrist that my boyfriend was a ghost.

  “He’s this nice, sweet guy from Cerrillos,” I began. “He used to be in a gang, but he got out and got his life together, and even had a scholarship to go to St. John’s.”

  “Had?” she asked. “Did he lose it for some reason?”

  “No. Not exactly.”

  Dr. Bergant watched me, and I was aware of how uncomfortable I must have looked.

  “Is he in school now?” she asked.

  “No. Yes. Sort of,” I said, in rapid succession.

  “Maria,” she said, patiently. “If we’re going to make any progress here, and I want that very much so that you can go back to your life, then you’re going to have to be honest with me. There’s no room for lies here.”

  “Yes ma’am,” I said.

  Dr. Bergant laughed. “You make me feel so old with that.”

  “Sorry.”

  “No, no, it’s fine. I guess I’m almost twice your age.”

  We sat in silence for a while before she spoke again.

  “I should tell you, when I was your age I had a similar situation.”

  “Oh?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she smiled fondly at the memory. “I came from a strict Baptist family, down South, and I fell in love with a black man from the wrong side of the tracks.”

  “Really?”

  “You can imagine how well that went over with my family. He was a mechanic, of all things, but very smart, and so handsome and kind to me. We met at a science fair.”

  “What happened?”

  “I married him,” she said with a smile. She took her wallet out of the designer handbag next to her and opened it to show me photos of herself and her husband, and their two children.

  “Wow,” I said.

  Dr. Bergant put her hand on my arm and said, “Sometimes, you have to follow your heart, and not your mother’s heart. I’m sure your mom wouldn’t like to hear me telling you this, so here’s what we’re going to do, okay?”

  I nodded, feeling an incredible sense of relief that I wasn’t in the clutches of someone who agreed with my mom, or even respected her having brought me here.

  “You and I,” said Dr. Bergant, “are going to have a few sessions like this, and I’m going to chat with you about life and love, and we’re going to come up with some positive strategies for finding ways to coexist in your mother’s world for the remaining time you have in it, so that she never forces you into anything like this again, and then we’ll call her, and you’ll go back, and everyone will be happy. How does that sound?”

  I smiled broadly. “It sounds really nice.”

  “Good.” Dr. Bergant stood as if to leave. “I think Debbie told you about meals, and the rules, and so you’re all set there. You can eat with the others - but honestly, I’d recommend against it. The room service is quite good here. If you need anything, you call her. We have a TV in your room - not all the girls here get one. You can use the gym, and walk around if you like. Is there anything else I can help you with for now?”

  “I’d like to let my best friend know I’m here,” I said. “And my art teacher. My mom took my phone.”

  “Sure,” said Dr. Bergant. She lowered her voice to a whisper, as she handed me her own smart phone. “Use mine.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course. I’ll step into the hall for a moment to give you some privacy. We don’t have to tell Debbie or anyone else, okay?”

  “Really?”

  “Sure.”

  “Wow. Why would you do that for me?”

  Debbie sighed, and smiled sadly at me. “Because, Maria, and I’m going to be completely honest with you, just like you’ve been honest with me. We get a lot of hard cases here. Most of them are very serious. Schizophrenics, sociopaths, suicidals, masochists, severely bipolar. People who simply cannot function in the world. You name it, we have it. And I’ve seen enough and done enough to know pretty quickly when I’m facing someone who has a serious mental illness. That’s what this institution is for, young people with serious mental illnesses.”

  “I realize that.” I felt guilty because I hadn’t told the doctor the part about me believing in ghosts. I knew that if I did tell her, she might change her opinion of me, and quickly.

  “Well, as a doctor and a professional, I will tell you - and I’d stake my license on what I’m about to tell you, Maria - you are a normal girl who has some disagreements with her mother about how to live her life. You don’t belong here.”

  “Then why don’t you just release me?” I asked.

  The doctor looked at her feet for a moment before locking eyes with me. “Because, think of where you’d end up. Back with your mother. I hope to give you skills in your time here that will help you cope with her. Sadly, sometimes you have to go through the motions to assuage the egos of certain people who think they know everything, just enough to calm them down, in order to avoid even worse situations.”

  “Thank you,” I said, tears filling my eyes again.

  Dr. Bergant smiled warmly. “You remind me a lot of myself,” she said. “More than you probably realize. Now, I’ll just be outside for a few minutes. Call or email whomever you need to. Visiting hours are from four to six in the afternoons.”

  I called Kelsey and Yazzie, and told them quickly where I was. Kelsey was mortified, and after professing her undying hatred for my mother, promised to fly back from New York early if her parents would let her, to help get me out of this place. Yazzie promised to come see me the next afternoon, adding that she’d seen all of this play out in a dream. “Be very careful,” she said. “There are shape shifters among you there.” It seemed an overstatement, considering the vast quantity of crazy people in the place.

  After that charming bit of news, I called Demetrio, but he didn’t answer. I texted him, to let him know where I was, and to warn him against texting or calling me on my phone, which was under my mother’s control.

  When Dr. Bergant returned, she had a small paper cup with two pink pills in it, and a glass of water.

  “I know being here can provoke anxiety,” she said. “I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with you at all, Maria. But if you want to take the edge off, and just relax a little bit, these should help.”

  I took the pills, and looked curiously at them, and at Dr. Bergant. “I don’t like to take drugs unless I really need them.”

  “Oh, these are harmless. Not addictive or anything like that. If you don’t want them, don’t take them. I just thought I’d offer, since we have so many of them lying around.”

  She smiled calmly, reclaimed her phone, and told me when to expect her tomorrow for our next session.

  ♦

  I got through the night, somehow, with the help of room service (filet mignon with garlic mashed potatoes, strawberry cheesecake with whipped cream) and cable TV. I was, however, horrified to see a story on the national cable news channels, about a local child who was missing - an adorable, big-eyed four-year-old girl named Nicole Archuleta, from Valencia County, whom no one could find. I watched in shock for a moment, and thought about my little half-sisters, who were roughly the same age. They were so defenseless. Who would kidnap such a tiny child? I quickly changed the channel, to a romantic comedy, and thought about Demetrio. I wondered if he was trying to reach me on my phone, and if he was, what my mother was saying to him when he called. I hoped he’d gotten my text.

  Around eleven o’clock, I readied myself for slumber, the whole routine with brushing of teeth and tossing of used clothes into my duffle to take back home. It took about half an hour after flipping off the light for me to actually drift into sleep, because I could hear someone crying violently in the next suite over, but it finally happened. I had the myoclonic jerk of electricity that was like a kick-start, and off I went, away from this horrible place.

&nbs
p; At first, I suppose, it was a sleep like any other - blank and sort of numb. But then I felt like I woke up, yet didn’t; I was still asleep, but I felt awake. I have seen this state described as a night terror. At first, however, there was nothing terrifying about it. More like uplifting, as I literally felt myself rising out of my body in the bed.

  Before I knew what was happening, I found myself floating in the room, with my back against on the ceiling, able to look down and see myself there in the bed. I had no idea I looked so unattractive when I slept, with my mouth appearing unhinged and saliva dribbling onto my pillow. Oh well. That didn’t matter. What mattered was that my soul was out of my body, or at least out of the version of my body down there; I had another body of my own, too, and it looked exactly like my other. It was very confusing. I wasn’t willow and spirit like. I was solid and me-like. Dimensions, I thought. That’s what it had to have been. I wondered then how many dimensions there actually were, and whether there were other versions of me out there right then. If there were, I hoped they weren’t doing anything too stupid, like dancing the Macarena or running around with their underwear on their heads.

  Honestly, and all joking aside, it panicked me at first to see myself sleeping below myself, as it should have, and I drifted down to get a closer look at myself, to make sure I was still breathing. I was. My hovering self breathed a sigh of relief, which meant there were two Marias breathing in the room. This brought me little comfort and much distress.

  You ain’t dead, mamita. Quit worrying so much.

  I heard his voice, but couldn’t see him anywhere. I felt him, though, as soon as I heard the words. I felt light and energy all around me, and a spinning, sort of like when I’d conveyed with him before, but different this time. The light and energy were Demetrio. I knew this. I will never know or understand how I knew it, only that I did. It was almost how I felt when I played piano or danced. I was within him, and he was soaking through me, and we were mixed and it was truly the most ecstatic and glorious feeling I’d ever experienced.