She

by Shireen Jeejeebhoy

chapter six

  TARC

  EVER SINCE ITS violent beginning, this experience seems to be all about her waiting for someone. Waiting to see her GP, waiting to see the specialists, waiting for the scan, waiting for the results, waiting to get into TARC — what does it stand for again? Oh it doesn’t matter, something to do with recovery and Toronto. January snows have given way to March slush. She hates how the white recedes into a blackened wall of ice-rock that separates sidewalk from street and how lawns emerge from their white blanket, brownish, soggy, and flattened. Even the trees look dispirited, their naked limbs drooping to the ground. She stands at her sun room window contemplating the tree across the road. Suddenly, Lenny Kravitz’s Supersoul Fighter screams her appointment alarm out of her Palm. Christ! Time to leave for this long-awaited TARC day.

  She had mapped out her route beforehand. Take the St Clair streetcar east to Avenue Road and then transfer to the Avenue Road bus. Only problem is the bus is so infrequent what will happen if she misses it? She’ll be late. She hates being late. When Jim drives her, she usually isn’t. When she has to go on her own, the hands on the clocks and watches stand still before rushing forward, and she’s always late. But this time lateness will make her lost. The TARC person who’d visited her and asked her a bunch of questions had instructed her to get to the parking lot of a mini strip mall at Eglinton and Avenue Road for 12:45 p.m. for her ride to their centre. Funny how she’s passed that intersection a gazillion times and can’t remember a strip mall.

  Somehow she arrives at the intersection on time. She steps off the bus and puffs along the wet sidewalk under the grey sky to the lights and across to where the Ride Link car is waiting.

  Its sides are emblazoned with “The Jenny and Sammy Thrumper Ride Link: TARC Serving You.” “Wow, this is embarrassing,” she thinks as she opens the door and asks the driver if she has the right car. To his yes, she gets in the back seat, sinking into velour, down into springs. Two others arrive after her, climb in like old hands, and then they’re off. They drive along streets lined with solid brick homes, stately trees, and lawns that somehow don’t look so bad in the March melt. They slow before an open gate and drive through it and up to the entrance of a low-slung 1960s-style building of grey-painted concrete block. She heaves herself out and stands for a moment contemplating the letters above the sliding glass doors: “Toronto Akaesman Recovery Centre”: TARC. She moves through the sliding glass doors barely glancing at the others still extricating themselves from seatbelts and seats. A reception counter, perpendicular to the doors, greets her. Solid walls below and glass on top with an open sliding window enclose the counter and the room behind it. The room is filled with filing cabinets. The counter faces mostly empty seats that sit in rows. No one’s there. She stands before it until someone pokes their head out from behind one of the file cabinets and asks if they can help her. She says yes.

  She picks up the clipboard pointed out to her and sits down in the front row facing the counter. She skims through the sheets that require endless reading and sighs. Taking the pen out of the clip, she begins writing. Her name, age, birth date, address, phone number, date of meeting Akaesman; GP’s name and address and phone number (she consults her Palm for those); symptoms for the last forty-eight hours.

  She flips to the next page.

  She scribbles over the now-familiar human outlines where she’s feeling pain.

  She flips the page over the top of the clipboard.

  She ticks off all the problems that apply. Top of her list is fatigue. She would kill for energy. Fatigue is her constant companion, and she hates it. It’s cost her her weekly coffee outings with Nance, their together time to gossip over cooling cups about the men in their lives, co-workers and musicians, work situations and sillinesses, and that favourite of all Canadian topics: the weather. When she’d bowed out of one more coffee date, Nance had said that they’re such good friends they can keep the friendship going over the phone. But phone calls drain her. She ends up lying on the floor so that she can talk longer, yet she’s still sapped only fifteen minutes into a good conversation. Why do the phone calls have to be so long? Yeah, maybe she talks a lot about her situation, her health, her doctors, and her therapists with Nance and Charlie, her culture bud, and Belinda, her fun friend, but what else is there to talk about? She can hear their impatience with her. But nothing else is happening in her life.

  She cocks her head. Well, there was that play Charlie and she went to at the Factory Theatre, the one they’d booked last year and the only one she hadn’t been able to weasel out of this year. It was interminable. And afterwards Charlie had gone on and on about it, enthusiastic about this actor or that scene. She couldn’t remember a thing about it two minutes after it was over. The best part for her was the Häagen-Dazs dark chocolate ice cream bar she licked while standing in a corner of the lobby.

  A blast of cool air hits the left side of her face as the sliding doors whoosh open. She looks down at the paper beneath her hand, trying to remember where she is in this endless form filling. The page looks full of ink, and so she flips the page and sees endless lines of consent form text. Her body caves in on itself. She straightens her back, trying to read the words, but they melt into gibberish. Forget it, she decides, signs at the bottom, and then returns the clipboard.

  She sits and closes her eyes. Suddenly, she realizes a slim, young woman is standing in front of her.

  “Oh, hello, I’m sorry I didn’t catch your name,” she says as she stands up. She’s begun asking people their name whether or not they gave it already. She never understands them the first time. It’s like English has become her tenth language.

  “It’s Zenobia.”

  She looks blankly at her.

  The woman smiles at her sympathetically and speaks slowly, clearly, “It’s unusual I know. It’s spelt Z-E-N-O-B-I-A.”

  “Oh … it’s … it’s Zoroastrian, right?”

  “Yes. How did you know?”

  “My grandmother.”

  At Zenobia’s raised eyebrows, she continues, “My grandmother was Zoroastrian, Parsi sh-sh-she said.”

  “That’s wonderful! You’re the first fellow Zoroastrian I’ve met in my job. Are you involved in the community? I don’t think I’ve seen you at the Darbe Mehr before?”

  “No,” she pauses before continuing. “Grandmother wanted me to integrate into Canadian so-so-society.”

  “I can see that. Well, shall we start? My office is this way, down the hall here. We’ll go and get acquainted first.”

  They walk down a brightly lit hall with white-painted concrete block walls and blonde wood doors appearing every so often, some open, some closed. Zenobia leads her through an open door, closing it behind her, and then through another door into a smaller room, where black curtains partly cover the window, blocking out the flat daylight. They sit at a faux-mahogany table in the centre of the room across from each other. Boxes with letters on them wait on one side of the table.

  She tunes in slowly to what Zenobia is explaining to her: “… you’ll be seeing an OT, occupational therapist, that’s me; a social worker; and a speech therapist. I understand you have fatigue issues, like many of our clients do, and so we’ll be meeting just once a week. But I see from the intake worker’s notes that you’re aware and bright, so this shouldn’t be a problem. Between appointments, you’ll have homework to do. We’ll work with you to ensure you remember to do it, and if you have any questions or concerns about things that come up, please don’t be afraid to bring them up at the next appointment. Okay?”

  She nods.

  “I’ll be conducting what we call a neuropsych assessment. The speech therapist —”

  “Um, why do I need a speech, speech therapist? My s-s-speech is okay. That’s what everyone says.”

  “A speech therapist does more than work with speech per se. She also works with communication, both written and verbal, and we think you need some help with that. Why don’t you try it, see how it goes, and if y
ou don’t like it, you can stop. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Today’s appointment will be longer than usual because I want to complete the assessment in two sessions. Normally though, a regular session will be forty-five minutes long. You’ll start with me and then see the social worker and finish up with the speech therapist. The Ride Link will take you back to where it picked you up at 3:30 p.m. We have it pick you up fifteen minutes after the end of your last appointment so that you have time to put on your coat and finish up anything you’re in the middle of. Do you have any questions?”

  “No.”

  “If you do, just stop me and ask.”

  She follows Zenobia’s hands as she reaches over and pulls one of the blue-grey boxes toward her. The boxes look like something out of one of those 1960’s psychology tests. A neuropsych test she’d said. She wonders if that’s the same as an IQ test.

  “This series of tests assesses your verbal and math skills, your comprehension and visual-spatial skills, and yes it does test your IQ, although there is no correlation between your IQ and your functionality. Are you ready to begin?”

  She doesn’t think so. “Yes.”

  They begin. It looks familiar. She tries to think from where while she’s waiting for Zenobia to write down her scores before going on to the next test. It seems easy to her. Something stirs in her memory, something to do with those psychology labs back in university or was it those IQ tests they did in school. She’s not sure. Even the stories or cartoons Zenobia says are supposed to be new to her, are supposed to test her long-term memory are familiar. Maybe Grandmother told them to her or more likely gave her the books. Grandmother liked English cartoons and Greek myths. Perhaps she should tell Zenobia she knows these stories; that she’s familiar with the cartoons. But they’re moving on to the next test. It probably wouldn’t matter anyway. Her memory is fine. Everyone tells her so. Everyone says how much she remembers about the news, how amazing she is, how much more she knows than they do. That’s probably because they don’t pick up a paper or turn on the radio, and so she can get away with talking about the headlines as if she’d read the whole article. Reading an entire column is a chore, going over the first paragraph again and again. Sometimes she skips to the end to see if that’s any easier. Usually not. Anyway, the articles are too long. Television news is much easier. If she zones out in the middle of a story, she can always flip to another station. They all cover pretty much the same stuff, and they don’t take too long to tell it either. Jim isn’t thrilled with her flipping, and they fight over the remote. Stupid as he flips all the time too. He’s just jealous that she now has control of the remote since she’s pretty much parked on the couch.

  The sound of paper being straightened against the table focuses her eyes on Zenobia, who smiles at her and says, “We’re done here for now. Only one more appointment, and we’ll be finished with the assessment. Then we can get started on helping you begin your new life. I’ll take you to see Sunny. She’s your social worker.”

  “Thank you.” She gets up and follows her out the door, back down the hall, right into another hall, stopping in front of a closed door.

  “Wait here,” Zenobia says as she points to a wooden chair sitting against the wall across from the door. “She’ll come out when she’s ready.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I’ll see you next week.”

  It’s not long before Sunny comes out her door and ushers her into her cramped office. Despite the confined area, she feels safe and free.

  “Hi, how are you doing today?” Sunny asks her as she looks directly at her with an encouraging smile.

  “Fine, thanks.”

  “That’s good.” But she doesn’t look like she buys it. “Let me tell you who I am and what our sessions will be about. I’m a social worker. That means I’ll be answering any questions you may have about what’s happened to you. It also means I’ll be helping you cope and understand everything that’s happened to you and what you’re going through now. I’ll also help you find community services that you may need.

  “Now from the notes that Dr. Dering sent, I see you have complete AS. Do you understand what that means for you?”

  She shakes her head.

  “It means a lot of problems cognitively — you know things like attention and memory — and sometimes physically. Although, I see that you have no trouble walking, and from the notes Dr. Dering sent us not much trouble with balance or proprioception. Haoma is helping you with what issues you have there, which is great. We at TARC are here to help you compensate for the cognitive and social changes. We’ve learnt already that by strengthening the brain and body, but particularly the cognitive functions of concentration, memory, learning, and strategic thinking, we can boost your ability to recover and lead a full life. This is particularly important because we are starting to wonder that if Akaesman cannot change his victim permanently, he might drive them to commit suicide. But we don’t know that for sure. We do know that the stronger you are, the better you will be.

  “I also see that the Shadow Court is filing a full defence. As the intake worker told you, we’re covered by OHIP, so we won’t be directly involved in your case. There are other facilities that the Shadow Court uses, but we take OHIP-only cases, and we’ll be working with you for as long as you need our services. The one thing you won’t have to worry about here is the cost. The nice thing about living in Canada is that medicare covers many of your medical expenses.”

  Relief relaxes her into the chair. Thank God OHIP covers it. She had known that the government paid through OHIP, but she hadn’t known if it was time limited or not. Perhaps hope does lie at the end of the tunnel. At last, she’s seeing people who look at her as a genuine human being, not as a hypochondriac. The Shadow Court filing a complete defence had thrown her and Mr. Quickley too. He had immediately sent her for an assessment. Doubt surrounds her everywhere but here.

  Suddenly the word “your” catches her attention, and she tunes back in to what Sunny is saying: “… lawyer may ask us to provide copies of our notes to him, and we will do so only if you have signed the consent forms. We take confidentiality here seriously.”

  Sunny continues to explain what they’ll be doing during their sessions, how they’ll be mostly one-on-one counselling to help her with the social aspects of her experience. “Anything you say here in this room will be confidential. You’re safe here. We work as a team — Zenobia, Rona, and I. We hold team meetings about your progress once a week. That way we can provide you the best possible care. We also encourage family involvement. We find support from family and friends so important to recovery. They too will have questions about the changes they see in you, and we’re here to help them adjust to your changed circumstances and to understand how Akaesman has affected you. We like to set up a family meeting within the first month. Often friends come too because for so many these days friends are their family.”

  Sunny pauses and looks at her expectantly.

  “I’m not sure,” she says.

  “In what way are you not sure?”

  “I don’t have any f-f-family except my grandmother,” she pauses. “When I left home, she, she made it clear that now I was an adult … sh-sh-she had her life and I had mine. We meet on special, special occasions like, like birthdays and Christmas, but sh-sh-she’s not involved in my day-to-day life.”

  “What about friends?”

  “I have three close f-f-friends,” she says carefully. “I don’t know if they’ll, if they’ll come or not. They’re s-s-supportive,” she pauses. “But… ”

  “Don’t worry about it. We don’t have to set this up now. Think about it, talk to your friends, see how it goes, okay?”

  She nods. Tears wet her corneas, creep to the far edges of her eyes. She sees the Kleenex box on the edge of Sunny’s desk, within easy reach of her hand. But the tears are gone. She’s fine.

  “Our time is up for today. I’ll take you to see Rona now. She’s our communicatio
ns specialist.”

  She follows Sunny back to the main hall and then into another wing of the building where she’s handed over to a short, serious-looking woman who leads her into a sun-filled office with a table and two chairs on either side.

  “Hello, I’m Rona,” she introduces herself. “I’ll be helping you with your reading and writing, speaking and hearing. I understand from the intake worker that you don’t have obvious speech problems, but I’d like to do a series of tests to determine your exact issues. Alright?”

  “Yes,” not like she has any choice in the matter. This is all weird. How can anything be the matter with her speech? Still, she knows something’s not right, and she’s willing to do what it takes to get better. Six weeks of this, she figures, and she’ll be back to normal.

  She suddenly realizes that Rona is speaking to her and that she’s supposed to be doing something. She’s so tired, she just wants to lie down. That’s her problem, nothing to do with being unable to listen. She sits up straighter and asks Rona to repeat herself. She hears and follows but registers nothing. It’s like everything she hears, everything she does happens in the moment and then disappears like mist. She battles to stay focused, to obey Rona’s instructions, to break through the dizziness that’s come upon her, and to remember what she’s being asked to do. Her forehead hurts something fierce too; it’s such an unusual headache, right in the front and only within her forehead.

  She’s sitting in the waiting room, sitting with her coat on, staring straight ahead, waiting for Ride Link, listening to Sam Roberts’s Brother Down pour into her ears from her gold iPod Mini.

  ~~~*~~~