Always Watching

  “Something traumatic that could have made me scared of the dark and small spaces. Like maybe I got stuck under something.”

  “You’ve never liked the dark.” She took her hands away from her hips.

  My thrill disappeared as I picked up the new tone in her voice. The one that said: Is this what you came here to bother me about?

  “It’s not just nervousness, it’s more than that. I have panic attacks, and when I think back to the commune, I get uncomfortable sometimes.”

  “About what?” She looked confused, her brows pulling together.

  “I think I was scared of Aaron. I didn’t like being around him.”

  “Why on earth would you have been scared of him? He was so nice to you. When he took a few of us on that picnic up at the lake because we’d been working hard, you even got to sit in the front of the truck with him.”

  I tried to think about a time we might have gone on a picnic, but nothing came to mind. I shook my head.

  “I don’t remember any of that.” But I did remember the fog my mom had been in back then. “Are you sure it was me?”

  “Of course it was you. You liked Aaron. After Coyote died, Aaron spent hours down at the river teaching you how to swim.”

  I thought back. “I can’t remember that either.”

  My mom looked like she couldn’t understand why I was being so dense. “We couldn’t get you back in the river until he started helping you.”

  “I didn’t like him. He made me nervous.”

  She sounded surprised now. “He’s the reason you know how to swim.”

  I was embarrassed that I had no recollection of any swimming lessons, and that I’d voiced my uncomfortable feelings about Aaron—feelings she obviously didn’t share.

  “Do you remember a girl named Willow?”

  She paused for a minute, thinking, and then nodded. “What about her?”

  “She was just really nice to me. The commune, some of the people there, for a kid it was scary. But I liked her.”

  She said, “Aaron could get carried away with all that New Age spiritual stuff, but they were all just harmless hippies.”

  It was the first time my mom had ever given an opinion on the commune’s beliefs, and her tone made me wonder if she hadn’t been on board with them as much as I’d thought. I said, “Maybe, but I just wanted to go home.”

  She looked upset for a moment and almost defensive, as she said, “You had it a lot better there than at home.”

  Feeling defensive myself, I said, “Then why did we leave?”

  Her whole body flinched, like I’d hit her, and it took her a moment to speak. “That little boy…” Her eyes were sad. “He was so sweet, just a baby still.” I was surprised by her emotional reaction after all this time, the sorrow in her face, and thought she might cry. But then she took off her glove and rubbed her hand across her nose, tossed her head with an angry jerk. “Social services were involved, the cops. It wasn’t good for you kids to be there anymore. Your dad said he was going to be home more, and I wanted to give our marriage another try.”

  Though Dad forgave her for running away, and he quit working on the boats, their marriage had never improved. If anything, it was worse. I couldn’t count how many times we had to buy plates because they’d thrown them at each other. Eventually, Dad had started spending all his time hunting, or at the pub, until Robbie came to collect him. Mom spent all her time with the horses.

  Mom put her glove back on and took another flake out of the wheelbarrow, dumped it on the ground. “The commune left after that—moved down to Victoria.” She held my gaze. “Don’t go looking for trouble, Nadine. You’ll only cause yourself pain.” She touched my cheek gently, the glove rough on my skin. “I might make a lot of mistakes, but that one I know for sure.” She grabbed the handles on the wheelbarrow and headed back to the barn.

  It was only a few weeks later that she died in the car accident.

  * * *

  I didn’t have any more luck with Robbie. Back then, he was living in a rental house with two guys in the village. They worked for the same logging company, building roads. I caught him alone a while later, changing the oil on his truck.

  He stopped, lit a cigarette, took a long drag. “What’s going on?”

  “I was just out at the ranch talking to Mom.”

  “Yeah? What about?” He took off his baseball cap, ran his hands through his sweaty hair and jammed it back down, black tufts winging out by his ears. He was twenty-nine at the time and still handsome, in a tough don’t-mess-with-me way, though he was uncomfortable in his body, pacing restlessly, especially in social situations, like he couldn’t wait to escape. And he never seemed to date, or have a girlfriend, that I knew of anyway.

  Since I’d moved to Victoria after high school, we didn’t spend much time together anymore, only seeing each other at family dinners and holidays, where I’d sit, depressed, staring at my father’s and brother’s beer cans on the table, their stony faces as they dug into their mashed potatoes and gravy. Mom, mixing wine with whatever pills she was taking, just picked at her food. If Mom and Dad hadn’t erupted into a fight by that point, she’d disappear to the barn after dinner, and Robbie would head outside for a smoke. I’d follow him, making small talk that hurt my heart as I babbled about my life, trying to find something that would interest him. Once in a while I’d make him laugh, then, mistakenly thinking that meant we were on the same team again, I’d say something about being concerned about Mom and Dad, who was having trouble keeping a job since he’d left the boats. Robbie would angrily butt out his smoke, and say, “They’re fine. Worry about your own life.”

  Now I said, “I was asking her about the commune.”

  He took another drag before he said, “She doesn’t like to talk about it.”

  I didn’t know he’d tried to talk to Mom about the commune and wondered what they’d discussed, if anything.

  “I know, but I’ve been seeing a therapist, and I underwent hypnosis, so I can—”

  “You’re letting some guy hypnotize you?” He raised an eyebrow, a smirk playing at the corner of his lips.

  “It’s called Recovered Memory Therapy. It’s a real thing. He thinks something happened to me when we lived there, and that’s why I have claustrophobia and have to sleep with the light on.”

  “You were always freaked out about the dark. When you were little, I had to give you my flashlight to sleep with.” Now I remembered Robbie sneaking into my room when I was crying one night. He’d whispered, What’s wrong? I’d told him there were bad things in the dark.

  “But it seems like it got worse when we came back.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know anything about that.”

  I said, “Do you ever think about the commune?”

  “Not really.” But he took another long drag and looked away.

  I said, “Remember Willow?”

  His face was blank, but his eyes narrowed, like he was wondering where I was going with my question. “What about her?”

  “It was weird how she left. Did she say good-bye to you?”

  He shook his head. “As far as I know, she didn’t say anything to anyone.”

  “Don’t you think that was strange?”

  “No. She probably knew everyone would give her a hard time.”

  “Why do you think she left?”

  Another shrug. “She was probably sick of the commune, being told what she could and couldn’t do. She was a free-spirited kind of chick.”

  “She left her stuff, though.…”

  “She left one bag.” He sounded annoyed. “She probably forgot it.”

  “I guess.… There’s some other stuff that’s freaking me out. Mom told me about some picnic we all went on and how Aaron taught me to swim, but I don’t remember any of it.”

  “Shit, there’s tons of stuff I don’t remember from when I was a kid.” He took another long drag. “You gotta stop letting this doctor mess with your head. He’s giving you pr
oblems.” He blew his cigarette smoke out in a laugh. “If you weren’t fucked up before, you will be now.”

  * * *

  I went home that day more confused than ever, wondering if Robbie was right—my therapist was trying to make something out of nothing. A theory I started to believe more when he never could unlock my trauma. Instead he taught me some coping techniques for my claustrophobia, and I was eventually able to sleep with the lights off. We ended our sessions, and I moved on with my life.

  In my last couple of years of earning my Bachelor of Science, I worked part-time at a vet clinic and fell in love with Paul. We married as soon as I graduated and had Lisa a year after. There were new challenges, raising a family, finishing medical school, commuting, but we were happy for the most part.

  In the nineties, Recovered Memory Therapy was discredited, and I grew even more convinced that there hadn’t been any mysterious trauma in my past. But once in a while, when my claustrophobia was triggered, by a small room, someone standing too close, or even a busy shopping mall at Christmas, I’d think back to those sessions with my therapist. Was he right after all? Did something traumatic happen at the commune? I always managed to push the doubts away.

  Now I remembered something else my therapist had said, that my psyche was protecting me, and when I was ready, the memories would come back. They might be triggered by a scent, photo, or even a voice or phrase.

  If they were coming back now, I wasn’t sure I was ready.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The day Francine was admitted, I came home exhausted, and still confused by the memory that had surfaced that day. I needed to talk it out with someone, so I called Connie, my best friend in Nanaimo, also a psychiatrist. We met at university and have been close ever since. Even when we were both married, we tried to vacation together once a year. Sometimes we only managed to meet up at a conference, but we had fun together, spending as much of the time as possible in our hotel room, eating ourselves silly on junk food and watching bad movies.

  Connie had been traveling in New Zealand for a couple of months with her husband and had just arrived back, so we caught up. We’d e-mailed while she was away, but I shared more about my move and new job. Then I explained about Heather, leaving out her personal information, but divulging that it had stirred up some memories of my time at the commune. I’d never shared that part of my life before with Connie, or that it could be the cause of my claustrophobia, so it led to another long conversation. I finished by telling her about my recent flashback of Willow. At the end, I said, “Many of my memories center around her.”

  “She obviously meant a lot to you.”

  “I was painfully shy then, and she was kind to me. We spent a lot of time in her greenhouse.” Another memory fluttered forward. I was in the greenhouse with Willow and she was explaining how the First Nations cured leather. I asked about her vest, if she had made it herself, and she told me it was a gift from her brother, who died in Vietnam, the only thing she had left of him.

  I told Connie about the glimpse. “Strange that I just remember that now.”

  “She’d confided in you about something important to her. You must’ve felt special—and probably very abandoned after she left.”

  “It was confusing, I do recall that. So was that memory of being at the river with her and the horses. I don’t know why I reacted so badly.”

  Her voice softened. “Do you think that Aaron may have done something to you? And that’s why you were so ashamed to talk about it?”

  “I’ve been considering that possibility all afternoon, and it’s deeply upsetting to think that he might’ve molested or hurt me in some way. But I just don’t see how he could’ve. There were always so many people around.”

  “Did he ever take you anywhere?”

  “I don’t know. My memory is still murky about so much.” I thought back, remembered the conversation with my mother. “He apparently taught me to swim, so I suppose I would’ve been alone with him then, but I don’t recall anything about that, certainly nothing bad or him being inappropriate with me or any of the other younger girls. I was just uncomfortable around him. I do remember that.”

  We were both silent for a moment. I’d stepped away from viewing this as something that might’ve happened to me and was just looking at the situation analytically. I didn’t want to react to anything until I had more information.

  I said, “His center has become very successful. If he was a pedophile, I find it hard to believe there have been no other reports over the years.”

  “His success could be part of the problem. Victims might be scared to speak up.”

  “I don’t know, maybe.… Or maybe something happened to me during one of the lessons. Perhaps I got trapped underwater.” I told her about Coyote.

  She said, “It certainly would’ve been traumatic if you’d nearly drowned after already witnessing a death and definitely could cause claustrophobia.”

  “Exactly. I’ve never been comfortable near rivers since.” More memories came back now, how I always wanted to swim in a lake or the ocean, the time I’d made my boyfriend leave the old commune site. “It’s the more likely scenario. Willow might’ve witnessed my coming back from a lesson when I was upset.”

  “That’s also very possible.”

  * * *

  We talked until Connie’s husband came home. By that time, I’d had a headache and had to take some Tylenol. Later, resting on the couch with my eyes closed and the fireplace warming the room, my mind drifted back to the memory of Willow’s leather vest. She’d loved that vest; why would she just leave it by the campfire? And why didn’t she say good-bye to anyone? She knew we would be upset. Then I thought back to the last time I saw her, talking with Robbie at the forest’s edge, when the rest of us were leaving for our walk. I narrowed my focus, tried to think of her face. How did she look? I got an image of Willow seeming annoyed, her forehead pulled in a frown and her hand gesturing, an angry motion. That’s when Robbie had left. Then I flashed to the memory of Aaron watching her as she walked down to the river, the malevolent energy in the air, the sick tugging in the pit of my stomach, my body full of dread.

  I opened my eyes, stared up at the ceiling, a thought stopping my breath. Did Willow really leave the commune? What if Aaron did something to her?

  I wanted to turn away from the question, at the impossibility of it, but then I began to consider the facts. He was the last person to see her, and her departure had been odd. She’d had many friends at the commune, and no reason to walk out without saying good-bye or explaining her decision. The only person she had a problem with was Aaron. There’d been lots of tension between them, especially the day before she left. He said they were okay after their talk, but what really happened that day? And why did he follow her down to the river?

  I sat up abruptly, my mind filled with terrifying images: Aaron and Willow in an argument, him striking her, or hitting her with a rock, maybe even strangling her. I tried to stop my runaway thoughts. Quit it, this is ridiculous. What would he have done with the body? She would have been found by now. Then again, would she have? That mountain was remote, the river wild, there were many spots that had probably still never been seen by human eyes. Unless a hiker or someone with a dog had come across her, she could’ve remained out there for years. I wondered if her body was in the woods somewhere, rotting alone in the leaves and dirt, animals carrying her bones off into the mountain.

  I thought about it until exhaustion finally took over and I fell asleep. Hours later, I woke, rain pounding on my roof, my heart racing, the scent of lavender in the air, and Willow’s husky voice in my head: Don’t let him follow me.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Over the following week, Heather continued to improve, and we moved her to the floor below, where she would have more freedom. Noticing she had no visitors other than Daniel, I asked about her parents, and she said they still hadn’t gotten hold of them. I got the feeling they weren’t trying too hard and that she probab
ly didn’t want them to know what had happened. I’d walked by her room one day when Daniel was visiting and heard them laughing. It made me hopeful that we would be able to stabilize her enough that she could go home and continue to improve on an outpatient basis. Daniel also seemed optimistic, and I told him if she continued to do well, she might be home in a couple of weeks.

  * * *

  On the weekend, I forced myself to take a break from everything and made plans with a friend. I hadn’t had more memories surface that week while working with Heather, but I was still struggling with the suspicion that something could’ve happened to Willow. I needed a distraction. I met up with a friend, a retired psychiatrist, to celebrate my birthday, though I wasn’t much in the mood. We decided to catch a romantic comedy at the movie theatre. Elizabeth’s also widowed, and we joked that it was the closest either of us had come to romance in years. But as I watched the characters fall in love, I had a little ache of loneliness, a remembrance of what it felt like. Then I flashed to Kevin and wondered if he was seeing anyone. That surprised me—was I interested in Kevin? I thought he was intelligent and always enjoyed our conversations. I’d also noticed that I’d started to scan the parking lot for his vehicle in the morning. So maybe I did find him attractive, but I quickly reminded myself, there was too much of an age difference.

  My thoughts drifted to Paul, how secure I’d always felt with him. Our relationship hadn’t had the intensity of the ones in my youth—men molded after my father, distant or dominating, usually drinkers—but the sweet comfort of being so connected to another human being you could coexist in harmony, supporting each other while still being your own person. Then I realized that as much as I missed Paul, I also missed being married and wondered if I ever would be again. I shook off the idea. That time was over, and though it was difficult to find pleasure in any aspect of my life when my daughter was on the streets, I tried to remind myself that it was okay to enjoy the good things in my life. I loved my house, my job, and I was blessed with wonderful friends who I could travel with, and—I glanced over at Elizabeth—laugh with at the movies. But it was still hard.