by Bonnie Grove
Heather glared at me over the roof of the car. “Okay? No. I’m definitely not okay, Kate. I’m the total opposite of okay.” She pointed the remote-control door opener at the car and jammed a finger down on a button. The trunk popped open.
Heather and I watched the trunk lid bob for a moment. She pushed another button and I heard the door locks click open. I slid into the passenger seat while Heather closed the trunk with a slam. I reached for the seat belt.
Heather got in and stared at the dashboard. I watched her out of the corner of my eye. She put her head down on the top of the steering wheel. I contemplated offering her a there-there pat on the shoulder, but I kept my hands in my lap. I hadn’t expected Heather to react this way. In truth I hadn’t thought much about how my situation had been affecting her. My panicked phone calls, my accusing questions. Throwing her out of my house. It must have been difficult.
She cast me a sideways glance. “What happens now? Do you have to go back?” She jerked a thumb toward the hospital. “Or what?”
“I’m really sorry about all of this—”
“No. Don’t be sorry. Let’s just move ahead. What happens next?”
I shifted in my seat. “Heather, I can see this is hard on you. I feel terrible—”
“I know you feel terrible,” she bellowed, hands flying in the air like demented butterflies. “I feel terrible. Mom feels terrible. Everyone feels terrible.” She looked at me, eyes brimming with unshed tears. “All I want is to get us from terrible to … to … not terrible. Better. Good, even.”
I pressed my lips together, not knowing what to say.
Heather looked straight ahead, out the windshield. “We used to be good. You. Mom. Me. We had happy lives and happy times together …” Her voice drifted off. She pulled in a long breath. “So what’s the next step for you?”
I swallowed a lump of misery. She was right. Somehow I had to get through this train wreck of fear and pain. “They set up an appointment for me with a doctor in the city next week. A psychiatrist.” I shrugged. “Maybe that will … make things better.”
Heather gave a slow nod.
“The doctor here at the hospital said I need to begin treatment with a Dr. Alexander, because he specializes in this sort of, um, problem.”
“Which problem?”
I examined my hands on my lap. “Hearing voices sort of problem.”
Heather started the car and backed out of the stall.
When we arrived at my house, I told Heather she should leave, go home, that I’d be fine alone, but she ignored me and started picking up the codeine pills on the kitchen floor. Part of me resented the help. I wasn’t a child who required watching, and I could clean up my own messes. On the other hand I was relieved she was staying. Maybe Kevin would leave me alone with Heather here. And it gave Heather something to do, a place to direct her energy.
So I left her tidying up the kitchen, and wandered into the den. I was looking for a package of blank recipe cards and a pen. Kevin used the cards to write out speeches he occasionally gave at bank functions.
I took the top card and began to write. There was much to tell the psychiatrist, and I wanted to get it right.
19
Two days later I arrived at Dr. Alexander’s thirty-first-floor office with fifteen recipe cards tucked into the side pocket of my purse. I had written every important event that had happened to me since Kevin died. I didn’t think I would end up using the cards, but I felt better knowing I had them with me. Their presence calmed me. This was a different experience from the counselor’s appointments I had before. This was serious. This was mental illness.
I had gone to counseling by my own choice. A woman looking for answers, poking around her own mind. But now I was being shoved toward a medical doctor. A part of me felt like a schoolgirl being called to the principal’s office. I could protest, but I was told in calm, certain terms that it was in my best interest to comply.
Dr. Alexander’s waiting room was painted tranquilizer taupe. Classical music played softly from the ceiling. A secretary asked for my insurance details and medical history in calm tones. No other patients were waiting. I sat in a low chair and hugged my purse, waiting to be called.
After what seemed only seconds, the secretary stood and called me. She walked me to an enormous oak door, our footsteps swallowed by the thick carpeting. She pushed opened the door and led me into a large, wood-paneled room. My first impression was something like “zowie.”
It was an expansive space, more like a living room than an office—that is, if the living room was six hundred square feet of opulent luxury on the thirty-first floor of a downtown high-rise. Straight across from me a bank of windows covering the entire wall looked out on an impressive view of the cityscape, including a part of the river. In front of the windows, a massive wooden desk, larger than some people’s apartments, glistened in the sunshine.
To my right I noticed a couch and chair placed in a formation that suggested their therapeutic purpose—sofa against the wall, chair positioned just above the arm of the sofa. Tastefully framed art covered the walls. Plush, neutral carpet hugged my feet. The entire room seemed to say, “Shhh. There, there.”
The secretary offered me a choice of bottled water, herbal tea, or decaffeinated coffee. A gentle variety of drinks to soothe bruised psyches. I asked for water. She left the room only to reappear almost instantaneously holding a chilly, clear bottle. Magic, I thought as I accepted it.
She smiled and silently closed the door behind her. I blinked at the opulence of the office and sat down on the couch. It seemed to embrace me and I sank into its folds. I put my water down on an ornate wooden side table and stretched out on the sofa. This place seemed specially designed for people to spill the contents of soul and psyche onto the soft pile carpet. I let my thoughts drift and bump gently up against the caramel-colored walls.
I heard a door open.
Dr. Alexander contrasted with the comfort of the room, exuding a lofty confidence. I could picture him striding the halls of hospitals insisting everyone get better. He was tall, but from my position, seated on the couch, he seemed gigantic. He walked over to where I was and towered over me.
He offered a huge, meaty hand. “I’m Dr. Alexander,” he said and sat down on the leather chair. I sat ramrod straight on the edge of the couch. His presence unsettled me and I felt unable to look directly at him. I silently wished for a few more minutes alone in the room.
I threw him a quick glance. “Hello.” I looked down at my shoes.
I glanced at him again. Something was definitely strange. Something about his head.
I raised my eyes and met his gaze. I thought he was cocking his head slightly to the right. I peered harder. No, his chin and forehead were a line running straight up and down. It wasn’t his head that was tilted.
It was his hair.
He was wearing a rug. It was sitting atop his head, slightly off center, causing the illusion.
Dr. Alexander said, “We are going to spend the next forty-five minutes together.” He reached up and scratched his temple briefly. As he did, the toupee wiggled, and then settled back to its original, offside position.
I was transfixed. “Okay,” I said to the toupee. I reached into my purse and pulled out my recipe cards.
“What does the voice tell you?” Dr. Alexander asked.
The voice? I told him it was Kevin’s voice. Not an anonymous voice. Kevin’s. Dr. Alexander and I had been talking for twenty minutes. I had self-consciously read the contents of the first two recipe cards aloud. He had made no comment as I moved from card one to card two. It wasn’t until the end of card two, the part about hearing the voice of my dead husband, that Dr. Alexander seemed to get interested in what I was saying.
I sat slumped on the couch, too self-conscious to lie down. “He doesn’t really tell m
e anything. I mean, we are not having conversations about the hereafter. He doesn’t tell me what heaven looks like, or how my Great-Aunt Clara is doing.” I picked at the corner of the recipe card. “I mean, he doesn’t tell me stuff. He just talks, comments … on … things.”
“What sorts of things?”
I threw a look at Dr. Alexander. He sat motionless, eyes glued to the notebook in his hands. I glanced at the top of his head. It was still there, still perched askew.
“Uh, day-to-day things,” I answered. “I burn the toast, that kind of thing.” I felt like a broken record. How many doctors would I tell about this? Maybe he didn’t have my records from the hospital yet.
“Why toast?” he asked, his pen poised above his pad of paper. Probably about to write “whacko” in medium blue ink.
I stared at the carpet. “What do you mean?”
Dr. Alexander made an ahem sound. “Why would he say something about toast, in particular?”
“Because it’s toast, in particular, that I burn,” I said. I couldn’t think of a better explanation. If I knew why Kevin said the things he said, I probably wouldn’t be here.
Dr. Alexander lowered his notepad to his knee and reached up to scratch his forehead with his pen. I couldn’t bear to watch. “I see,” he murmured, then fell silent.
I pushed the toe of my shoe into the carpet and clutched the edge of the couch.
Dr. Alexander flipped back a page of his notebook and seemed to be enthralled by what was written there. “And this last time he spoke to you, just before you were admitted for observation, what was he talking about then?”
I swallowed hard.
“Can you talk about it?” he said to the notepad.
I pulled an invisible thread from the couch. Could I? Up until that moment, it hadn’t occurred to me that I could choose to talk or not to talk to this man. I suppose I felt that I had to tell him everything. That was the reason I was sent here, wasn’t it? I rolled the choice around in my mind. I looked at the brown toupee, still perched crookedly on the top of his head. “I’d rather not.”
Dr. Alexander gave me a long, steady look. “I’m going to prescribe something.”
“Prescribe? Like a drug?” I said stupidly.
He pulled a prescription pad from his jacket pocket. “An antihallucinogen.”
A shock pulsed through my body. “Hallucinating? Doesn’t that mean seeing things?”
He handed me the prescription. “Not necessarily. These will help with the delusions.”
I stared at Dr. Alexander’s toupee. I may be hearing the voice of my dead husband, but it was clear to me which one of us was delusional.
20
It had been a couple of weeks since the night Kevin screamed at me and Heather had taken me to the hospital. Silent weeks. I had moments when I believed it was over, the voice was gone, and other times I felt sure it would return.
I had arrived at Dr. Alexander’s office for my third visit sporting new state-of-the-art UV-protection sunglasses that I had bought the other day. They guaranteed to keep my eyeballs as safe as if I had them wrapped in tissue and stowed in my coat pocket. For what they cost, they should also do my laundry.
I wasn’t looking to become a material girl, but I had done a lot of shopping lately. Donna had finally come through, unfreezing my account. The first statement since Kevin’s death had come a few days before, bearing only my name. The balance made my eyes hurt. So much money. And shopping provided me with something to do besides skulk around my house and not answer the phone. And the phone kept ringing, the answering machine collecting each message for me, storing them inside the flashing red light on my phone. My sister’s endless questions; Blair’s teary, long-winded messages about how sorry he was to have “crossed the line of our friendship”; my mother’s brief but steady “just checking in” calls. And Maggie.
Heaven help us all from Maggie and her machine-gun approach to friendship. She called nearly daily, leaving meandering messages peppered with questions ranging from where under God’s blue skies could I be at this hour (I had stopped answering the phone or returning calls, but Maggie apparently concluded that I was cavorting all over town at all hours of the day and night), to asking for details about my therapy sessions. “Does he have a couch? Does he wear a beard? Freud had a beard.” Twice I hid behind the living room curtains and watched Maggie limp up to my front door. She rang the bell, knocked, sometimes both at once before giving up and shambling back to her car.
I wasn’t answering the phone or the door because I didn’t have a sane answer for the question, “How are you?” The answer changed at any given moment. And while I was home, the answer could best be described as “uptight.” I mostly just clung to corners and tried to make myself very small, like a ball, on the floor.
But Dr. Alexander’s office in the city was like another world, safe from the mundane yet traumatic life back in Greenfield. I felt more like a happy tourist in his office, far away from the life that troubled me. I found myself arriving in the city earlier than necessary for my appointments and strolling downtown sidewalks, peering into store windows, and buying things I didn’t need at a probably alarming rate.
On my feet was a pair of creamy leather sandals that rubbed a bit on the right heel, and a matching handbag so teeny I could only cram in a credit card, driver’s license, and coral-sunrise lipstick (also new). These were the spoils of sudden wealth and a newly developed desire to avoid being home alone.
Now that the insurance issues were dealt with, my bank account out of the freezer, and my bills were being paid, I had money to do whatever pleased me. Problem was, I was fast running out of things that pleased me. This, according to Dr. Alexander, was a good thing. He called it shop-therapy and warned it had very short-term benefits and long-term complications.
Dr. Alexander peered at me over his desk, reading glasses perched on the end of his nose. “What do you think about joining group therapy, Kate? I think you’d get a lot out of it. There is a grief group starting soon.” He rifled through some papers. “I don’t know when.” He pushed a button on his phone. “Sally?” Sally didn’t respond. He pushed another button. “Sally!” he hollered.
I heard a soft sigh from the phone. “Yes, Doctor?”
“What’re the dates for Laura-Lea Autumn’s group?”
“Wednesdays at 6:30 starting next week,” Sally answered immediately.
“You catch that?” Dr. Alexander said to me. I nodded.
“Laura-Lea is very good. Young, so you’ll be able to relate to her. Lovely girl. Smart, too. Runs a good group.”
“Uh, okay,” I said blankly. At least it was another excuse to get out of the house.
“I’m glad that’s settled,” he said. “I’ll let her know you’ll be taking a spot in the Wednesday evening group.
The following Wednesday, I arrived at the run-down Glen Hills Community Center for my first group-therapy session. It was in the heart of a poor and crime-ridden neighborhood in the city. The center was a floppy-roofed building shaped like a giant Quonset.
I parked in front and got out of the car. I looked at the neglected surroundings, then took a careful moment to lock the car doors and gave the hubcaps a glance. I hoped they’d be there when I returned.
I noticed the double doors of the hall were painted a too-bright blue, a strong contrast to the dirty beige walls. The wind picked up some garbage and swirled it around in the small alcove beside the doors. I took a deep breath. Keep an open mind, I told myself.
Inside, I saw a handwritten sign that read Group Therapy, with an arrow pointing to a narrow hallway. Straight ahead was another set of double doors. I peeked inside, then went down the narrow hall. The room was identified by another handwritten sign posted on the door.
I was the first to arrive. The room was so drab and utilitarian I wondered h
ow anyone was supposed to feel better while sitting in it. It had the ambience of an abandoned classroom.
Two walls were taken up by peeling chalkboards (no chalk in sight). A third wall was covered by an orange pushpin board that was covered with an assortment of government-issue public health posters. One listed the symptoms of depression. I read the first three—depressed mood, inability to enjoy activities, problems concentrating—but it was too discouraging to finish. Another warned of HIV/AIDS and the high-risk behaviors that can lead to contracting the virus. I merely glanced at it. I knew I wasn’t in the high-risk category. I’d never done drugs of any kind. Also, I had never engaged in what the poster described as “casual sex.” Kevin and I were high school sweethearts. We were each other’s first—and only—lovers.
Other posters on various topics hung haphazardly from single pushpins, offering phone numbers to hotlines, mental health tips, and safety advice. On the corner of the poster listing the dangers of hepatitis C, someone had scrawled “this sux.”
Folding chairs were arranged in a circle in the center of the room. I was about to walk over and sit when a woman entered and without a glance in my direction grabbed a chair and carried it to the far wall. I stood, uncertain if I should do the same. Soon others arrived, two more women and three men. Each of them picked up a chair and found a spot along a wall. Everyone seemed intent on having the maximum space between them.
I selected one of the two remaining chairs and started to pull it toward the orange bulletin board, but about halfway to the poster the chair started making a horrible farty noise. Every head turned in the direction of the squealing rat-a-blat-vvvtt being emitted from my chair.
I stopped and cast a longing glance at the exit. I could just flee. Run away and never return. But everyone was looking at me.
Paralyzed by indecision, I finally slumped into my chair and stared at the floor. How was I going to get through this evening? Clearly I was the only crazy person here. I stole a glance around the room. I saw seven completely normal-looking people.
