by Bonnie Grove
The morning after group therapy, in my kitchen, I hung up the phone with the insurance agent and looked at the figure I’d written on a pad of paper. I was finally dealing with the financial implications of my car wreck. The number on the paper was huge. I sighed. I’d just received an education in the finer points of car insurance. It seemed Kevin didn’t have the proper kind of insurance on his leased Mazdaspeed3, and fixing it would be costly.
I dropped the pencil onto my kitchen table and sulked. Why didn’t he know to put gap insurance on the car? Sure, I’d never heard of it until moments ago when the insurance agent told me about it, but it was Kevin’s job to know these things. He had been fastidious about details such as insurance, investment, and squeezing every last dollar out of a contract. For some reason he’d messed up on the Mazda.
I got up to put on the teakettle. I noticed a slight tremor in my right hand. The kettle trembled in my grip, and I couldn’t steady it no matter how hard I tried. I set the kettle down with a plunk and pulled a long breath in through my nose just like Laura-Lea taught us. Dr. Alexander—who I still saw once a week—had told me to take note of physical signs of stress because they can be gateways to what he called “cathartic breakthroughs.” I didn’t know if a cathartic breakthrough was something I particularly wanted, but he said they were important.
A sudden tremor I couldn’t control could be a sign that my body was attempting to relieve stress—in other words, it was trying to tell me something. I let my breath out in a slow, thin line between my lips. I took another slow breath in and closed my eyes. Dr. Alexander had said I could mentally journey through my body in order to locate what he called the “seat of emotion.”
“We feel different emotions in different parts of our bodies,” he had told me.
Eyes closed, I imagined traveling through my body, looking for the part that was feeling stress.
First I checked out my heart and lungs, and then moved on to my stomach. Everything seemed normal. I moved down to my legs and feet, then back up to my arms and hands. Nothing. The kettle boiled. I opened my eyes and reached for a cup. My hand trembled as I placed the cup on the counter.
“I don’t know,” I said to the kettle. “Maybe this is just malarkey.” I closed my eyes and repeated the exercise. This time it occurred to me that I should examine my back, spine, and neck. My eyes opened wide as I reached around and touched the base of my neck. Something was rolling around in there, like a tiny ball, in my spine. Now what? I thought back to Dr. Alexander’s instructions.
I could hear his instruction, “Picture the stress, Kate. Give it a form, give it substance.”
I pictured the ball as a marble lodged between my vertebrae. I mentally reached out and touched it with a soft, exploring finger. It was hard, but instead of feeling cold as I for some reason expected, the marble was hot, like fire. The moment my finger made contact, it howled and then let out a growling yell and began to spin faster and faster. Startled, I pulled my eyes open, gasping for air. “That’s enough,” I said. I sucked on my fingertip as if cooling a burn.
An hour later I took a sip of cold Earl Grey and spat it back into the cup. I had been thinking about the marble of anger, but I was still staring at the enormous sum the insurance company quoted to fix Kevin’s car.
I dragged my hands over my face and stared at the number again. My Ford was getting old, but was fixing the Mazda the best solution? I reached back and rubbed my shoulder. With one finger I touched the spot on the back of my neck where I had “seen” and touched that spinning, burning hot marble of anger.
I was angry. I had told Blair as much, but after the marble experience, I realized that I had probably been angry for a long time, even before Kevin’s death. But my Swiss-cheese memory hadn’t told me the whole story. Bits and pieces continued to come, but never enough for me to see the whole picture. I supposed that hearing Kevin’s voice wasn’t my only mental health issue.
I sat and contemplated my mental health. No doubt I was doing better than the Kate who sat unbathed and rumpled on the living room floor day after day after Kevin died. In fact I was the opposite of her. I was barely ever home. Sure, I was still sleeping in my living room, but I’d made remarkable progress. Hadn’t I? I was improved from the Kate who snapped harsh words at her sister without warning or warrant, ordering her out of my house. My conversations with Heather were quieter now, calm, sparse dialogues centered on our mutual desire to lead normal lives, to be normal people. For me to be cured.
But cured of what, exactly? Dr. Alexander had no hesitation in labeling my condition as mental illness. He had handed me a prescription (still sitting, unfilled, on my counter) with the assurance of a man who knew crazy when he saw it. But I flinched at the label. I didn’t feel mentally ill. Fractured maybe—a temporary fissure that would, in time, heal. But ill? Mental diabetes? Cancer of the thinking? No, I couldn’t accept that. Besides, I was improving every day.
A picture of a burning, spinning marble formed in my mind.
I pushed the teacup away, frustrated. “Am I fixed or not?” I muttered.
“It’s not worth fixing,” Kevin said.
I shot out of my chair, slopping Earl Grey onto the table. My heart expanded and fell in huge, pulsing thuds. “No. Stop. Don’t do this. I don’t want to do this.”
Kevin’s voice came calm and easy. “I don’t think you should.”
I shook my head, trying to clear it. Fear roared in my ears, drowning out his words. “Should what? This makes no sense.”
“I agree.”
Even as my skin rose up in goose pimples and my heart began to pound, some part of my mind yelled out. Don’t listen. Make it stop. I crushed my fists into my eye sockets. “I’m not going to do this.”
Kevin’s voice was conversational. “Don’t do it.”
Tears flowed down my cheeks. “What do you mean, ‘don’t’? You’re doing it, not me.” I thought about running out the back door. Would his voice follow me? I remembered the afternoon in the playground with Blair. Kevin’s voice had followed me there. There was no reason to think it wouldn’t now. Desperation flooded my body. “I can’t do this anymore.”
Kevin said, “It’s not worth it.”
Worth? He thinks I’m not worth fixing? That I can’t get better? I raised my face toward the ceiling and roared, “I’m worth it. My sanity is worth it.”
“The car isn’t worth fixing,” came the unfazed response.
Slow realization, like a sunrise on a rainy day, dawned and pulled the tension out of my body. I felt like a deflated balloon. “You’re talking about the car.”
“It sounds like waves in the ocean.”
Ocean? We were miles from any ocean. “I don’t understand.”
The kitchen clock ticked in the silence.
“Why is this happening?” I said to the air.
I could hear my own breathing, the rapid little breaths that were flooding my brain with too much oxygen, making me feel dizzy. “This has to stop, Kevin. I need you to stop doing this. Do you hear me?”
Nothing.
Inspiration struck; a benevolent poke in the eye. I knew what to do.
I grabbed the phone and dialed. “No more arguing with a dead guy,” I mumbled.
Dr. Alexander’s receptionist, efficient as ever, answered in one ring.
“Hi, Sally,” I said, “Listen, Dr. Alexander told me to call him if I heard Kevin’s voice again.”
Sally’s smooth tones slid over the phone lines. “Hold the line, Kate.” The sound of rushing water filled my ear. Dr. Alexander didn’t believe in playing music when a patient was put on hold. Instead I was treated to the sounds of nature, in this case, water. It irritated me. I had to pee. The soundtrack was approaching what sounded like Niagara Falls and I was crossing my legs hard, when Dr. Alexander’s voice came on the line.
&nbs
p; “Yes, Kate, I’m here.” That was his line. No What’s the problem? or even What is the nature of this call? Just, I’m here.
I clutched the phone hard. “Kevin. He spoke.”
“When?”
“Just now. Minutes ago. I called you right away.”
He mumbled something that sounded like excellent. “What did he say?”
My bladder poked at me. I bit my lower lip. “He said I shouldn’t bother to get the car fixed.”
There was a long pause. “Anything else?”
“He hears the ocean.”
Another pause. “I see.”
I gave my head a quick shake. “But, listen, the reason I’m calling is because I’ve figured out how to make him stop talking.”
I heard rustling paper. “You’re taking the medication as I prescribed?”
I rolled my eyes. “That’s not the point, Dr. Alexander. Listen to me. I know how to make Kevin’s voice stop. There are rules he follows. I’ve been trying to figure them out for weeks. But I was always trying to figure out how to get Kevin to talk more. You see? I wasn’t trying to get him to stop. I was trying to get him to talk. I’ve always known how to get him to stop talking. It’s simple. Whenever he speaks, I mention something personal—like how much I miss him. Or I ask him a question. He can’t seem to answer direct questions. That’s one of the rules. You see? I can control it. So I don’t need to be afraid anymore. “
“I’d like you to come in this afternoon.”
I shook my head. “Don’t you see? I have the control. All this time I thought I had no control. But I do. I have all the control. I can make his voice stop.”
Dr. Alexander cleared his throat. “Can you be here by 2:30?”
25
“Why can’t you cooperate with me?” Kevin says, running a hand through his hair. I notice it’s thinning at the top. I can see veins of scalp snaking through his short-cropped hair. When did that happen? Is he going bald? “I’m building a whole new life here.”
We’re in the kitchen, at breakfast. I hold the coffeepot in my right hand, poised above Kevin’s favorite mug, but I don’t pour. “We don’t want a whole new life, Kevin. We want our life, the one we planned since high school.”
Kevin’s arms fly in a gesture of frustration. “Plans change. People change.” He lowers his voice to a near whisper. “I’ve changed. I want more from life than just getting by.”
I gape at him. “We’re not ‘just getting by.’ We have a house, two cars, our bills are paid, there’s money in the bank. We’re doing well. Great, even.” I pour the coffee and set it down on the kitchen table.
He stands, arms crossed, looking at it as if it might be poisoned. He presses his fists onto the table, supporting his weight. “Exactly. And why is that? I’ll tell you why, it’s because I’ve worked hard to make it that way. But you decide to quit your job without even telling me. It seems the only thing you want is to drag me down, hold me back.” He sits down hard on one of the kitchen chairs and the table shakes. The coffee flops around inside the cup, but doesn’t spill. “Don’t you see? I’ve been offered the world. Donna has told me time and again that the sky is the limit for someone like me. She’s shown me the brass ring, and I want to reach for it.”
I skid a chair over beside him and sit. I touch his arm. “Kevin, I’m not—”
He holds a hand up in front of my face. “I want the whole show, Kate. I don’t want to sit here in this go-nowhere town for the rest of my life. I have a real future and I’ve no intention of blowing it.”
“Go-nowhere? You love this town. We grew up here.”
His face turns red and he shouts, “See? You’re doing it right now. I’m talking about the brass ring, a future filled with possibilities, and all you can do is sit there talking about the past, and how you love this nothing of a town.”
I blink twice, then again. His temper, his yelling—coming from nowhere—startle me. We’ve disagreed before. I know there have been times I’ve stretched his patience thin, but he’s never yelled before. I’ve never seen his face bloat with anger, swelling his eyes and stretching his skin with violence. Some small instinct tells me to be still, be quiet, don’t move. But I push against it, shoving aside the warning that the man I’m speaking to now is not like the man I once knew. “Nothing? How can you call Greenfield nothing? You love this town. You’ve always talked about staying here and raising our children in a safe—”
Kevin shoots out of his chair, roaring like a grizzly. “You talk as if everything were already decided. Like there’s nothing left to discuss.” He rakes his hands over his face. “You don’t hear a word I say. You won’t listen.”
I stand and put a hand on his shoulder. He turns fast, raising his hand. In a flash I see his palm, then feel a sharp sting, the force of which throws me off balance. I grab the back of a kitchen chair to steady myself. I’m not even sure what happened, not sure where the pain came from. I look at Kevin, his mouth is open, his hands limp at his sides, the red fury gone from his face. In fact his skin is pale and slightly green, as if he’s suddenly caught a stomach flu. I shake my head, once, twice, imitating him as he shakes his head, no, no.
I raise my hand to my face and feel the burning spot on my cheek. Kevin’s eyes fill with tears, he keeps shaking his head, whispering, “No, no.” His hand reaches toward me, to steady me, catch me. I grab hold of it, like a lifeline, a buoy in dark waters.
“I’m sorry,” I sob. “Kevin, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
He shushes me. “It’s okay. Everything is okay.”
I look into his eyes, nodding, searching. “It’s okay,” I say.
He leads me to a kitchen chair, our movements stiff and shuffling like we were suddenly very old. We sit, slow and jerky, side by side, his arm around me like a cloak, his other hand rubbing my hand and arm. I cling to him, hide my face in the crook of his neck. I’m shaking, bereft as a refugee. I close my eyes.
Kevin holds me close, tucking me under his arm like a child. “It’s over. It was nothing. I didn’t mean it. Okay? I love you; I’d never hurt you.”
I nod. I cling to his neck. I say, “It was nothing.” I want it to be okay now. To be over. To have never happened at all.
At 2:28 I pulled up in front of Glen Hills Community Center, miles from Dr. Alexander’s office. He hadn’t believed me when I had called him, hadn’t even listened to what I had to say. I felt no compulsion to keep the impromptu appointment. I sat in my car, looking up at the bright blue doors. The community center had begun to have an effect on me. A kind of attraction I couldn’t define. When I wasn’t there, I thought about being there.
I closed my eyes and was immediately able to conjure up the sensations of being in the group-therapy room. I could smell it (damp gym odor mixed with coffee). I could see the faces: Janice jabbing a tissue at the tears that wouldn’t come. Grace who flittered on her chair like a nervous hummingbird. Mimi, who was constantly touching people and displaying her cleavage despite the fact hers could never compare to Laura-Lea’s extraordinary buoyancy. Bobby, who obviously pined for Laura-Lea.
I wondered what Bobby’s story was. What loss had brought him there? He hadn’t shared his story yet. Then again, neither had I. I usually sat staring at my shoes, feigning indifference while I absorbed every detail of the conversations.
I was beginning to feel connected to these people somehow. Even Malcolm held a fascination for me. What possessed a man to rattle off the most bizarre personal events imaginable to a group of people he didn’t even know? I could barely recall my memories, and even though they were coming back over time, it was a slow, unsteady process. But being there, with people who were at least as muddled up as I was, felt like balm. Perhaps in time they would help me piece together the remaining missing pieces of my memory. Maybe then I would feel brave enough to share them. And tell t
hem about the voice that haunted me.
Plus I knew I wouldn’t be allowed to sit and soak up the atmosphere for much longer. Soon Laura-Lea would insist I share my story with the group. It was expected. At the last session I saw her eye me at the beginning and look like she was about to say something to me. I ducked my head down, letting her know I wasn’t in the mood to talk. I didn’t relish the prospect of talking about Kevin’s death.
I sat in the car until the clock read 2:30, in an act of stubborn determination. Then I got out and did a quick sprint to the hall. Once inside I noticed an odd fluttering sensation in my stomach. Nerves? Guilt? I wasn’t supposed to be here. I was supposed to be downtown getting lectured to by a psychiatrist. And who would be here on a Thursday afternoon? Not Laura-Lea, not the group-therapy gang, not the basketball players.
Jack. That’s who would be here.
When we had talked the night before, I had felt a sense of … what? A kind of relief, I supposed. The news of Big Tim’s death had been a shock, but it had felt good to be on the other side of grief for a while. To be the one offering comfort rather than receiving it.
I pushed open the gym doors and was surprised to see a group of teens milling around under a basketball net on one end of the gym. A boy held the ball under his arm and spoke to the small group gathered there. I couldn’t hear what was being said, but the feeling in the gym was hushed, subdued. These must have been friends of Big Tim, apparently skipping classes in order to gather together here.
I stopped short, holding the door open, not wanting to disturb the conversation. Jack came out of his office and walked over to the group. No one noticed me. The moment Jack stepped into the circle, Sekeena began to sob. Jack tucked her under one arm and gave her a hug. She clung there, crying into his shoulder. The boy with the ball put a hand on Jack’s shoulder and Jack returned the gesture, reaching out with his other hand and grasping the boy’s arm. The rest of the group stepped closer, a circle of shared grief.
