Today, there’s no outburst from Reagan. Or a visitor waiting for me in the dayroom.
All morning and afternoon I’ve held out hope that something would happen until the very last second. But as I stand in front of Dr. Calloway’s door, I know I can’t put it off another second. I have to get this session over with.
Taking a deep breath, I loudly knock on her door.
“Come in,” she calls out.
I push it open and step inside her office.
I don’t hate Dr. Calloway. In fact, she’s not so bad. But I’ve never gone into depth with her about my foggy past. That’s not a hit to her personally; I don’t trust any of the doctors here. They crack open your feelings and you’re expected to let the truth spill out.
Crazy or not, that’s hard for anyone.
I can’t remember how long I’ve been seeing her. Maybe a few months? In that time span Dr. Calloway has never pushed and prodded me to get information. Not like the other doctors who ask the same questions ad nauseam. Your husband’s dead. Tell us what you know.
Some have different approaches though. Some have this astonishing ability to put me on—nodding their heads at everything I say, acting as though they understand me. Got me. Liked me. But inevitably, they always, always go in for the kill.
She doesn’t give me the kid glove treatment like all the rest. At the beginning she asked the generic doctor questions, but after a while she stopped. Now when I see her, she’ll ask how I’m doing. How Evelyn’s doing. How I’m handling my medication. And then, when I offer up nothing else, she’ll turn to lighter topics. I’ve actually had good conversations with her. Normal ones.
I know she’s been married once. Divorced. She and her first husband drifted apart. She’s been with a man named Tom for three years. Tying the knot is not in her future. No kids. She’s not human until she’s had a cup of coffee in the morning. She hates to cook and orders in a lot.
She’s forty-one and loves her job.
Her openness is not common. Here at Fairfax she’s the exception. At times we slip into a silence that is neither awkward nor comfortable. It’s just…there.
This morning, I told myself that everything would be okay if I told Dr. Calloway that I wanted to leave this place. Now I’m incredibly nervous. Nervous to voice my thoughts. Nervous to get shot down.
“Good morning, Victoria.” Dr. Calloway lifts her head slightly, gives me a smile, and goes back to reading the paper in front of her. Blindly, she gestures at the seats angled toward each other and facing her desk. “Please sit down.”
I take a seat and almost instantly my legs start to bob up and down nervously. Evelyn shifts in her sleep and I stop moving my legs. I remind myself that I have to do this. I have to talk to someone. If not for me, then at least for Evelyn.
Dr. Calloway drops her pen and finally gives me her full attention. “How are you doing today?”
I start to break out in a sweat. I can’t give her my routine reply of “I’m fine.” It doesn’t cut it.
“Great, great,” I start out slowly. “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“How long have I been here?”
Dr. Calloway cocks her head to the side. “How long?”
I nod anxiously. My nerves are getting the best of me. So I hold Evelyn a little bit tighter and grasp her hands in mine.
“Well, I’m not sure. That’s something I’d need to look up.” She glances at my mammoth file and back at me and then glances at her computer. She smiles at me. “It’s much faster to look it up here.”
Her fingers fly across the keyboard. It takes only a few seconds, but it feels like years. Finally, she turns the computer screen toward me. It’s my admission sheet. She points at the very bottom of the screen. I see my signature and right next to that is the date: 5-19-2015.
Sinclair was right. Six months.
I sit back in my chair and my mind is running. Why did I think I’ve been here for three years? I feel Dr. Calloway’s eyes on me and meet her gaze.
“Why do you ask?” she gently prods.
I answer honestly. “I thought I’d been here for three years.”
“Three years?” Dr. Calloway’s brows lift. “That’s a long time. Why did you think three years?”
I shrug and go on to tell her I don’t know, but just then I hear the sound of Wes’s voice. It’s very faint at first, but soon the sound turns up and it feels like his lips are against my right ear as he says, “We’re coming up on three years of marriage…”
I meet Dr. Calloway’s eyes. “I have no idea,” I say. Before she can prod any further, I change the subject. “I’ve been doing some thinking lately…”
Say it, my mind urges. Just say it!
Calloway says nothing, just waits patiently for me to continue. God, I wish I had her patience. Nervously, I lick my lips. “I want to leave Fairfax.”
She doesn’t look shocked, just nods agreeably. There’s a look of interest in her eyes. “Why are you ready to leave Fairfax?”
Because I feel like I’m really starting to lose it. I need to take my life back. I need to feel normal again. No, I can’t say that.
“Because I don’t want to be here,” I finally reply.
My words are met with silence. She laces her hands together and rests her chin on top of them.
“Why not?” Dr. Calloway finally asks.
Don’t tell her about the voices, my mind whispers. That will just fuck everything up.
If I’m going to tell the truth, I have to go about it wisely. The last thing I need is for her to think I’m crazy.
“Has anything occurred that’s made you come to this decision?”
My mouth opens and closes. I certainly can’t tell her that I’ve stopped taking my medicine. So I give her a sliver of the truth. “No. I just know I don’t belong here anymore.”
Dr. Calloway stares at me carefully. I don’t see judgment in her eyes. “In order for you to leave, you need to be evaluated by me and a board of doctors before we sign off on discharge papers. We need to see that you’ve made a vast improvement from when you were first checked in.”
That’s what I figured. And even though I prepared myself for how big a battle this will be, I’m still deflated.
I don’t say a word.
Silence wraps around us. This is the worst kind of silence too. It eats at me. Dr. Calloway stares at me expectantly, waiting for me to say something.
“If you leave, I want to be confident. I’m not disagreeing with you that you might not belong here anymore, but…”
God. I hate that word. Has any sentence ever had a positive ending that began with but? No. I don’t think so.
“But there’s a lot of work to do before you can reach that goal. If you’re willing to let me help you, I want to.”
“You want me to open up and tell you how I’m feeling?” I ask skeptically. Just saying that out loud leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.
“No, not that.”
“Then what?”
“It’s nothing bad, Victoria. I know you’re a private person.” She glances at Evelyn, her smile slightly fading. “You love your daughter and want to protect her, but I need you to open up. I need you to trust me.”
She stands up abruptly. With the sun shining in, her shadow dwarfs my own. Instinctively, I flinch. Dr. Calloway doesn’t notice. She goes over to a filing cabinet and pulls out a file. My name is on the side. There are so many papers; it looks close to falling apart. “Is that my file?”
She nods and opens it up. Some papers are paper clipped together. Red tabs run the length of the edges. In the back, tucked into the pocket, is a thick stack of pictures. She only takes a few out and holds them in her hands.
“I want to show you some pictures.”
I try to get a look at them, but Dr. Calloway hides them like we’re playing a game of poker.
“Pictures of what?”
“Yourself. I’ll start off slowly showing you each photo. Once you’ve got a good look at them I’ll speed it up. If any of them are familiar tell me to stop and I will.”
“Who gave those to you?”
Dr. Calloway lowers the pictures. “Your mother. When you checked into Fairfax she gave them to your doctor at the time in hopes that you would remember…something.”
“Why am I just seeing these?”
“Because every time these pictures were brought out, you refused to look at them.”
I refused? I can’t remember, but I don’t doubt her.
“Are you willing to try and look at these pictures?” she asks gently.
When someone wants to retrace their steps, where does one start?
The beginning.
The problem is, I don’t know where my beginning is.
But here it is: my chance to taste life twice through a prism of pictures.
I’d be a fool to say no, but an even bigger fool not to be nervous. This is a quantum leap from my everyday routine and I have no idea where I will land.
Very slowly, I nod my head.
“Excellent,” she says. “It’s time to untangle your past.”
First picture: Wes and me on what looks like our wedding day. We’re walking down the aisle, our hands intertwined. Wes is smiling at me, and I’m beaming with joy. We look like the perfect happy couple. Deeply in love.
Second: my mother and me. We are sitting outside on my mother’s back deck. It’s the same house I grew up in. My mother holds a super-slim cigarette in one hand, a picture in the other. Stacks of photographs are in front of me and drinks are on the patio table. We’re both smiling at the camera.
Third: I’m inside a hospital. I’m dressed in scrubs. An unknown blonde is standing next to me. I’m leaning against a counter, looking exhausted but extremely happy.
True to her words the process speeds up. One after the other, the images appear until I feel like I’m looking at a flipbook. Soon the colors start to bleed together until I don’t know when one picture ends and the next begins.
My head’s starting to spin. I feel like I’m on a roller coaster, seconds away from making a hairpin curve. My stomach drops. I think I’m going to be sick.
“Stop,” I say. The pictures move faster. “I said stop.”
Dr. Calloway stops at the picture of Wes and me, but my mind doesn’t. It’s latched on to all those memories, clinging to them like starving animals. My heart is pounding a mile a minute. I can barely take a deep breath. I feel trapped, as the walls slowly close in on me.
I’m pulled into the memory, getting smaller each second, while the picture grows larger, slowly surrounding me. Dr. Calloway’s office fades. She’s still talking but her words are impossible to make out.
My ears start to ring and a bright, searing light surrounds the edge of my vision before it’s all I can see. I feel myself detaching from the present and merging into the past. My clothes dissolve and are replaced by a cotton summer dress. My hair shines and my skin begins to glow. A breeze brushes against my skin. And in front of my very eyes, Evelyn starts to disappear. I cry out for her but it’s too late….I’m already gone.