November 2015
Everything I remember, Dr. Calloway writes down. Her hand moves quickly across the paper. I talk rapidly and I know that doesn’t make it easy for her, but part of me is so afraid that if I don’t say it right at that second, then I never will. She keeps up with me, never telling me to start over.
When I’m done, she sets the pen down and looks over at me. “So things were difficult between you and Wes.”
Here it is. I knew we would have to have a patient-doctor chat. With anyone else, I would try to change the subject. But I feel the smallest amount of loyalty to Calloway and answer: “It seems like it.”
My hands shake as I brush back Evelyn’s hair from her forehead. She picks up on my nerves and tilts her head back to look at me.
“Two outbursts that came out of nowhere…I think that would make anyone nervous.”
I stare down at the floor, trying to handle the rush of memories slamming into me. “I was scared.”
Dr. Calloway remains silent.
My eyes close. “It just didn’t make sense. I didn’t understand what was going on. I felt like I was—”
Abruptly I stop speaking. Because if I admitted that I felt like I was going crazy, it would just be used against me.
I stand up. “Can I go now?”
Dr. Calloway doesn’t appear shocked by my request. She shrugs. “If you want to.”
“I want to.”
I can’t move fast enough to the door. I’m almost out when Dr. Calloway says my name. I turn even though I don’t want to.
Calloway smiles at me. “It’s okay to be scared.”
And it’s okay for her to say that because she’s not the one revisiting her past. She doesn’t have to live through it. The door clicks shut behind me. Evelyn’s fussing in my arms. Her head is moving left and right. I quicken my steps, to my room, completely ignoring Alice. The second I’m in my room, I grab the bottle on the end table. Most times, I give Evelyn the bottle and she’s back to being the calm and sweet angel that I love. Today she rejects it as if it’s poison. I change her diaper. I swaddle her. I give her a pacifier. I gently rock her.
Nothing seems to work.
My patience is starting to wane. Her cries ring until my eardrums feel like they’re going to burst. I can’t focus on a thing. I can hardly breathe. Everything feels like it’s closing in on me.
“Stop crying!” I shriek.
My outburst only makes her cry louder. It’s not her fault. None of this is her fault. I take a deep breath and place my daughter in her bassinet and hurry to the bathroom. If the door had a lock, I’d be using it right now. I want a minute alone. Just a single minute where I don’t have to worry about nurses knocking on the door.
Just a single minute to think everything through.
My hands curl around the lip of the sink. My shoulders droop as I take a deep breath. Turning on the water, I watch the clear liquid circle around the drain and take another deep breath before I cup my hands beneath the water and splash my face with it. Blindly I reach out for the towel always hanging to my left and pat my skin dry. When I look in the mirror I see myself but it’s all wrong. I’m wearing the clothes I did when we first moved into the house. My eyes, which normally look completely blank, are now filled with fear.
I’m staring at Young Victoria.
She’s so beautiful that when she smiles at me, I lean against the sink for support.
She knows her fairy tale isn’t how she pictured it would be, but she holds out hope. I can see it in her eyes. Young Victoria believed in love. She didn’t know that she would become one of the many souls who were left behind.
She didn’t know.
I reach out and trace Victoria’s features across the mirror. My heart is breaking.
“What happened to us?” I whisper to her.
She leans in and I brace myself for her to reach out and pull me into her life.
But she doesn’t.
I blink and the image of her is gone, and I’m back to staring at my present self.
There’s a sharp rap on the door. I turn around just as a nurse peeks her head in. Thank God, it’s not Alice, but a much nicer day shift nurse. “Just checking on you.”
I’m not ready to leave the bathroom. I’m not ready to face my daughter. If I could hide out in here all day I think I would. “I’m going to take a quick shower,” I blurt.
The nurse nods. “Okay.”
“But can I have a razor? I need to shave my legs.”
I’m a woman in my late twenties and I’m asking for permission to use a razor. The past aside, that might be the saddest thing I’ve heard.
The nurse looks doubtful, considering whether I’m a suicide risk. “I’m not going to kill myself or anything,” I hastily add.
She finally nods. “I can give you one, but I have to be standing right outside the door.”
She leaves and returns seconds later with a pink razor. I wonder if they have a storage closet filled with pink razors.
I close the door behind me and turn on the shower. It blasts out cold water that slowly becomes warmer. I quickly shed my clothes, hanging them on the hook on the wall. The cold air causes goosebumps to appear on my skin.
I step into the shower and slide the curtain shut. The warm water beats against my body. My muscles instantly relax. I close my eyes and tilt my head back so the water reaches my hair. When it’s good and wet, I turn in a slow circle, letting the water reach every inch of my skin.
It’s a crazy thought but I can’t help but think that if I stand here long enough maybe all this darkness around me—stuck inside me—will wash away.
I’m beginning to see that truth has its price.
It’s your sanity it wants and craves more than anything.
It lures you in under the stipulation that it can make you free, but if you look at the fine print you’ll finally see that it will leave you alone with your doubts and fears until it makes you feel like you’re going crazy. Sometimes it comes in and saves you. Sometimes it doesn’t.
And everything I’m reliving just piles on the pain.
It seems like the more memories that come back to me, the louder the voices become. But sometimes I think they’ll get louder until I discover every last detail of my past. Then they’ll go away.