Dead Echo

  *

  She found the address with no difficulty, the neat red-brick building at the far end of a long row of identical, neat red-brick buildings; some adjoining, some not. Some had been painted to help break up the monotony, and landscape crews had brightened the area with azalea rows, crepe myrtle bunches, and little islands of Bradford pears among the concrete and cobbled sidewalks. As she rolled slowly past the buildings she noticed this was also the home of CPAs, contractors, insurance firms and other health organizations besides psychology. She found Dr. Skate’s brilliant blue sign hedged up alongside a cluster of roses and pulled into an empty parking slip close by, but on the opposite side of the parking lot. It was beginning to get hot and the slip was within a copse of tall pines lining the perimeter, but it was not because of the shade she parked there. She did so for escape. The whole long way down the drive had been one of suffocating nervousness. It seemed a hand was pressed to her throat, squeezing her breath away. Her hands shook and a cold sheen of sweat slicked her forehead. She turned off the ignition and sat still in the car, trying to gain control. She gripped the steering wheel and closed her eyes. Within the darkness the image of the two little girls playing in the backyard hunched into view. Once again, Terri was not among them. Patsy’s eyes snapped open to the light and she quickly moved her left hand and popped the latch on the door, swinging it back and disengaging her seatbelt in the same moment with her right. She knew this imperative would not last and hurried out of the seat, walking stiff-legged to the same colored door as the sign. She looked at the Welcome mat briefly, took a breath, and opened the door.

  The waiting room was not much bigger than her den and decorated much as she’d expect a residence to be: warm colors and serious framed artwork, an equal mixture of the right leather and upholstery, track lighting on the ceiling that pointed in all the right directions. The reception window was directly ahead, outlined in richly-stained mahogany, and a woman in her early 20s sat behind the glass, looking her way and smiling. Patsy noticed someone else (a patient, of course, she thought rapidly) sitting to the right, leafing through a Home and Garden magazine. For the first time she heard a Phil Collins melody carrying lightly through the room. The girl was reaching for the sliding glass partition; there was no turning back now. Patsy walked briskly across the carpet, looking neither right nor left. She forced a smile and said hello to the young woman seated before her.

  “May I help you?” she the young woman asked.

  “Yes. I’m Patsy Standish. I have an appointment with Mrs….er, Dr. Skate. Excuse me.” The woman looked down at her book and circled something before looking up again. “If you’ll just have a seat, it won’t be long.” She remained smiling but offered nothing more. Patsy turned from the window and moved right, away from the woman she’d noticed on the way in. Luckily, there was a wide range of reading material lying about and the next twenty minutes subsequently went by quicker than Patsy had ever hoped them to. Another woman, this one in nursing scrubs, opened a door to the right of the reception window and quietly gestured her way when Patsy looked up. As she stood, Patsy noticed the other woman covertly eyeing her over the top of the Home and Garden magazine. Patsy watched her as she crossed the room, but the woman’s gaze never faltered. The nurse stepped back from the doorway as Patsy came on and gestured with her arm to step inside. Doing so, Patsy found herself in a narrow hallway, this too replete with expensive-looking artwork, the walls done in a relaxing neutral shade of beige. Straight down the hall, at the very end, a door stood open on what looked to be a conference room or some sort of large office. The RN, smiling like the receptionist had earlier, backed a few steps farther into the hallway, turned and opened another door on Patsy’s right. “Please,” she said, and Patsy moved past her into the small, typical patient’s room. An examination table sat on her left, a blood pressure wall unit above it. A medium-sized supply cabinet and desk occupied one corner, while next to it stood a cheap office chair. The tiny, pencil-shaped camera mounted in the corner by the door she’d entered was missed by her quick inspection. Patsy went to lean against the table, wondering where this would lead. She’d never been to a psych before and had no idea what to expect, but this was surely not it.

  The nurse sat down at the desk and pulled a medical chart from a drawer in front of her. She motioned for Patsy to sit down in the office chair next to the desk and for the next ten minutes they discussed her medical history. Not once did the RN mention or inquire as to what had brought Patsy there. The nurse’s manner put her at ease and when the last questionnaire was complete, the RN thanked her and stood up. “If you’ll just step this way, please, the doctor is waiting.” Patsy almost laughed at the juxtaposition. In another second they were both in the hallway again, Patsy just a step behind as they headed for the large room at the end. The RN stopped before the open door, once more gesturing for Patsy to step through, and backed away as she did.

  “Hello, Mrs. Standish,” Patsy heard and turned left toward the voice. From behind she heard the door close. “Feel free to sit wherever you please,” the woman standing in front of the desk across the room said. She was dressed in a simple, blue business suit, her hair brown and shoulder-length. She was slim and looked to be in her early or mid 30s. Her face was full, open, with large brown eyes set widely apart. She gestured to the room in general and pushed a leather swivel chair sitting in front of a large desk to face Patsy and sat down. Patsy spied its twin and walked over to it, putting her hands on its high back. Dr. Skate placed a pair of reading glasses she held in her hand on the corner of the desk just off her left shoulder and turned her full attention to Patsy. “How may I help you?” she asked.

  “I’m not completely sure,” Patsy began, running her fingers over the top of the chair. “Everything seems so complicated, but then again, that could just be me.”

  “Yes, it could.”

  Patsy took the remark in silence and moved in front of the chair, pursed her lips and sat down. “I think I’m losing my mind,” she admitted, surprised it came out like that.

  The psychologist remained non-pulsed. She put her hands in her lap, smoothed out the skirt. “What makes you think so?”

  “My daughter, Terri, my husband, John…they were both killed in a car accident not long ago. I was involved, hurt, you know, but…I lived.” She cut her eyes straight to the doctor. “I’ve been seeing things lately. I’ve seen Terri.”

  “Where have you seen her, Mrs. Standish?”

  “In the attic of my new house. I bought it because I thought it might do me some good, but….There were others too…” and Patsy looked at the floor.

  “You said you were involved in the accident. Were you driving?”

  “No. John was. I was in the passenger seat. An eighteen wheeler blew a tire. He, John I mean, lost control of the car. There was a fire…”

  “When did it happen?”

  Patsy told her but Skate didn’t write it down. Instead, she nodded her head and steepled her fingers in her lap. “You said there were others. Where else have you seen your daughter? Where else have you seen Terri,” and the woman leaned forward.

  Patsy shook her head, looked back at the floor. “No, that’s not it, exactly. I’ve really only seen her once. But the ‘others’ I mean…I’ve seen other…uh, hallucinations, if that’s what they are.”

  “What kind of hallucinations?”

  Patsy bit her lip. She cleared her throat. “Children,” she said. She put her hand to her mouth. “Dangerous children,” she whispered.

  The doctor nodded. “And where did you see these children? Were they with Terri?” It was Patsy’s turn to nod. “What were the circumstances?” She watched closely as Patsy closed her eyes and shook her head. She waited until the woman looked up, but said nothing. This was important, the first few minutes; everything was already here. All she had to do was interpret it correctly.

  “It’s not just them,” she thought she heard Patsy whisper.

  “Come again,” Skate
said, leaning farther in.

  “I said, it’s not just them.” Patsy bit her lip again, so hard it looked on the verge of bleeding.

  “Tell me.”

  “I…I moved into the house not long ago, like I said. I don’t know,” and she fluttered her hands before her, “maybe, I guess, to try and start over. Put the past somewhere safe, where it’s not always right there in front of me.” She looked at the woman and Skate nodded encouragingly. “But…I don’t know…these things never happened before….” Skate saw her struggling and came to the rescue.

  “Mrs. Standish,” she said. “Obviously you are concerned enough to come and see me, and I know this must be difficult for you. Regardless of what it says in the phone book or on my door, I’m a stranger, and a lot of the time it’s hard to speak such things to people you don’t know. Let me help you—“ but Patsy cut her off.

  “You’re not the first head doctor I’ve seen,” she said abruptly. Ahh, now we’re getting somewhere, Skate thought, careful not to change her expression. “I might as well tell you now. I wasn’t raised in a very…productive…family situation. My grandmother, who happened to be an ignorant, mad-at-the-world bitch, had me until I couldn’t take it anymore, but along the way I did a couple of stints at Rehab. Once when I got busted for selling weed, and another time when I felt like I couldn’t take it anymore…”

  “It…?” Skate suggested.

  “Huh?”

  Skate smiled and sat back, giving her the semblance of more space. “You said, you couldn’t take it anymore. What couldn’t you take?”

  Patsy looked at her and smiled grimly. “Life, I guess. Like now.”

  “Okay. Did you find satisfaction in these doctors when you saw them?”

  “No.”

  “But still you came to see me.” Skate let the statement hang in the air, untouched. Patsy looked back to the floor. “Mrs. Standish, you did the right thing coming here, whether you know it or not. I have not been forced upon you and still you came. That is the first step toward getting better.”

  Patsy looked up. “You think so?”

  Dr. Skate decided to move forward. “You said that these…sightings of the children have not been the only thing.”

  “That’s right, there’s been other stuff too.”

  “Like what?”

  Patsy whistled through her teeth. She cleared her throat. “Umm, things when I was walking. There are these trails all around the neighborhood, and one time, I think it was a couple of days before the children, I thought I saw something else.”

  “What?” Skate persisted.

  “Something moving in these large plastic bags. Also I thought something was following me before that, a dog or something. Then, right at the end, two people standing side by side, almost like they were going to block me from getting out of there. I don’t know if they were men or women or both. It was too dark. But there was something wrong with them. Something I couldn’t put my finger on. Then they turned and disappeared into the ditch…”

  Skate leaned forward again. “Okay, so you’re not completely sure what you saw.” Patsy shrugged because it was hard to say. “But,” the doctor continued, “you don’t have the same lack of reservation when it comes to the two girls and your daughter. Terri.” She said the name to see Patsy’s reaction: a flinch as if struck.

  “And?” Patsy said, the tone of her voice starting to veer left.

  Skate held her hands up and shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m just restating what you said. The episode involving your daughter seems much clearer in your mind than these other…occurrences.” She stopped and looked across the space at Patsy. The woman was pale; it didn’t appear she’d been eating right lately. There was a look in her eyes that spoke of insomnia. She waited.

  Patsy looked up finally. She was gripping the arms of the chair and didn’t appear to notice. Her bottom lip began to tremble. Skate leaned back in her chair again, her face fixed for decompression.

  “Mrs. Standish,” she said, reverting to the formal. Sometimes it seemed to add direction, a sense of responsibility. “We may already be onto something. From what you’ve told me I know this: You are a newly widowed woman who also had the misfortune of losing a child. You were directly involved in the accident and by some act of nature you survived while your family did not. In my business I know this strikes at the very heart of a person, to the core. These things do not pass lightly. So,” and she stood up from the chair. “You have, rightly enough, took steps to put the horrible event that separated you from your family behind you, and it must have taken an enormous amount of courage for you to do this. These…hallucinations…whatever you want to call them, are an important key to getting you well. This is the way your mind seeks to create a balance.” She paced over to a wall of bookshelves, wall to ceiling, hardbacks jamming every inch. She touched a shelf but did not look at the books. She looked at Patsy. “Now,” she said, turning her back to the bookshelves. “You’ve told me some very enlightening things already, whether you know it or not.” She smiled disarmingly. “You are afraid of losing your mind. Many people involved in circumstances similar to yours have voiced similar concerns. That is not unusual. It’s a defense mechanism, a way to get help. You have done that; you are here. Then there is the case of these hallucinations, as you call them. From the simple fact of you using that term, hallucinations, it shows you have not made a break with reality. You can still distinguish what is real and what is illusion. But, within these hallucinations, I think we can find even more. Let’s look. One: you did not start having these episodes until the move. This, in itself, is not surprising. Nervousness and tension many times manifest themselves in strange ways. Two: the substance of the very illusions. You say the ones, excuse me, the one, involving Terri is really the only one of extreme clarity. The others are somewhat foggy. Again, not surprising. You have suffered two extreme losses and your mind is trying to make sense of them.” She moved back to the chair and looked at it for a moment before si:tting down. Then she looked at Patsy.

  “Maybe you’re right,” Patsy said very quietly. She fidgeted with the chair. She nodded her head. “Maybe you’re right,” she repeated.

  Skate smiled. Patsy looked at her hands and noticed the nails were long and polished. Her own were short and bitten to the quick and she tried to hide them. “Things have just seemed so…” and Patsy shrugged. Skate nodded.

  “I’m sure things have not been going well. Trying to make sense of the tragedy you’ve suffered has been harder on you than you realize. But you’ve started in the right direction. You’ve turned your feelings into words. That’s the only true place to start.”

  Patsy ran a hand across her mouth. Then drew it up into a small, sad smile. “So what do I do now?” she asked.

  Skate leaned forward. “You’re doing it.”

  Patsy looked away, out of the closest window. “It seems so easy here. So clear.” She looked back at the doctor. Then she began to cry. She did so for the next twenty minutes, going steadily through a box of tissues Skate handed her. But afterward, she had to admit, she felt a little lighter, a bit more self-possessed. And in the end she thanked the doctor and made another appointment for the following week.