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For three months, we had been building up to it, to me telling her what I remembered about my mother. She used the months to prime me with a trigger phrase, "that day," which she said in very a particular way, in a slow, relaxed voice. But I fought her every time. I didn't want to remember. Half the time, the anxiety that memory triggered made my head hurt-just knowing she was going to use it soon did, too. The other half of the time, I'd imagine my ears melting off my head, sliding into a puddle on the floor. Then, I'd wrap my arms tight across my chest and stuff my fingers into the creases at my elbows and pinch. Not hard enough to leave a mark. If I let myself do what I really wanted-curl up and drift away-she would have had a field day.
"That's precisely why we should talk, Miss Patel." Her voice was all soft and soothing.
"We," I shook my head. It happened every week. She'd tell me to talk about my mom and I'd tell her to suck it. Well, in my mind. Outwardly, I whined. "Do I have to?"
"We made a deal: one detail a week. That's all. One memory." She rested her folded knuckles over her lap. "We are learning to communicate our feelings, to change those harmful patterns of behavior. There can be no progress if there is no change."
I rolled my eyes. She thought she was so deep.
I picked my brain for something meaningless, something she wouldn't be able to read into. "Her name was Margaret Barry."
But even that small fact made me wince, because if you think about it, it really was a telling detail. My mother never shared the identity of my father with me, just like she never shared her own last name. She so obviously didn't want me and that bald-faced rejection of a simple commonality made me want to contract into a tiny ball. Like that old movie, Incredible Shrinking Woman, I wanted to become too small to see. Too small to feel.
Doctor Williams' spectacles slid down the slender bridge of her nose the way they always did when she was serious. The sounds of crashing waves lingered while she responded, "You gave me that one last week." Her tight curls seemed to stiffen as she sorted through her session notes. "Tell me the first thing that comes to mind when you think of that day."
"Empty," I blurted and wanted to kick myself. All the honesty with Jake made me too aware, too open.
What that doctor didn't get was talking about my shit only made it worse. Like a flare gun to the chest, it seared me to think of those days: times when I assumed, as most kids do, that all people are good. I made a conscious choice not to think of her, not to go to that dark place, and still, her two words echoed-"that day"-and a memory flashed.
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The scene opened up like a blanket unfolding a backdrop that put me on a roadside. I was there, standing, empty, watching a far away part of my life play out in third-person. I stood at the end of a gravel driveway, looking on at a little blond girl, all pigtails and smiles. She was a sharp contrast to the woman beside her. The woman-the girls' mother-was all dark hair, dead eyes, and a long frown. The day was young and cool, though the sun was bright. The woman lifted the girl by the waist, taking her upon her hip. Their mouths were moving, but I heard no sound. The girls' tiny white dress seemed to sparkle in the stark sunlight as she was set in the front seat of a big brown car.
The overall feeling of the moment is one of . . . wholeness. But only because my five year-old mind couldn't put a label on it. It was not a happy scene. It was a goodbye-my mothers' last monologue, her big send-off-and my young heart couldn't comprehend. I only recalled that moment with happiness because when my mother cuddled me and spoke, I didn't know what she had planned.
It's amazing how much harm a little ignorance can do.
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I pulled myself out of the memory. Looking at Doctor Williams' calm face irritated me. I noted the ocean soundtrack seemed to be playing louder.
"I don't get why we have to do this. When people are gone, they're gone. And I barely remember her. It's like she never existed."
"But you remember that day." Doctor Williams declared, and I felt the pull of that phrase.
The scene . . . her words . . . they sucked me back in. I wanted to run, to shrink away, but the sound of her voice cemented me in that faraway place I'd spent my life trying to forget.
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An old brown, boat of a car clipped the curb as it backed out of the gravel driveway onto what I assume was a suburban street and took off a little too fast down a long stretch of road. The little girl in the white dress was standing in the front seat, holding onto the headrest as she bounced up and down.
I couldn't see the edges of the memory. There might not have been any other houses beside the one they left behind. It might have been surrounded by desert.
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"You remember her. Why do you feel like she never existed?" Doctor Williams' glasses slipped again and she pressed them back in place with her thumb and index finger.
Her question triggered something and my mind switched back to her office. But then, I let it go again, refusing to focus. I didn't want to be there, either.
When I was sitting in her office, I'd do it all the time-make myself be somewhere else. The images that used to spring up were so vivid, as if I could reach out and touch them. They were full and alive, they could block out anything. Everything.
So that's what I did. I blocked out her office and my session. I didn't curl up and float away I just let my lively imagination explore the first ridiculous scenario that popped into my head when I looked at Doctor Williams holding her pen up near her chin.
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I was sitting in a dim lounge at a small round table. Doc Williams was standing at the other end, in the center of a small stage, holding a microphone, staring out at the audience. There was a poster advertising an open-mic night on the wall behind her. The dark tables surrounding the low stage were filled with eager patrons and a two-drink minimum. She'd just told her best knock-knock joke and the punch line was met with silence. Crickets comically chirped.
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