Dreaming a Reality (8 page)

Dr. Sandue never pressured me to make my appointments, but always implied to stay on track. It was important I followed a regular routine.

I took a deep breath and laid it all out on the table, pouring out my feelings about my symptoms, and the side effects I had been experiencing. All the while, in the back of my mind, I debated telling him about Dean.

I shifted from one thing to the next. “I’m having these awful dreams, Doctor, and I’m not getting much sleep either. There are things, so many things, on my mind.”

The doctor didn’t say anything, he just let me continue.

“I’m not taking my medication as prescribed.” That’s where he stopped me.

“Katherine, you know it’s most important to stay on your meds on a daily basis. You have to allow them to work correctly. They will have poor effect if not taken as prescribed.”

“I know. It’s just the side effects, Doc, and my headaches are getting worse. I have a lot on my mind, all the time. My thoughts keep spinning.”

“Tell me more of what’s going on, Katherine,” he said, shifting in his seat and then writing something down in my file.

“Well, I haven’t been super-out-of-control with my emotions. I’ve had bouts of crying periods, though. John is getting married again.” I looked out the window and could feel the tears welling up again, but held them back, trying to focus on the visit. After a moment or so had passed, I looked back at the doctor and continued. “I just can’t see them together.” I told him about my mom too. “I’ve been so worried. I tried calling, but she hasn’t responded. Not one call back. I can understand why she is ignoring me, Doctor. She’s sick—cancer.”

“Oh, Katherine, I am very sorry to hear that. Perhaps she isn’t calling because she doesn’t want to burden you. She knows you have an illness of your own. Please try to concentrate on that.”

“Something else is bothering me too, Doctor.”

“What is it, Katherine?”

“Well, there’s this guy. I met him online.”

I began to tell the doctor what happened and explained about Dean’s visit. Although I left out how forceful he was, I inferred it. It was hard to talk about, and I felt myself begin to shake. I remembered Dean’s last words to me: “This isn’t over.”

“Katherine, listen to me. You need to take your medication properly, and you must stay away from potentially dangerous people. You are like a vulnerable flower; you will wilt if someone doesn’t pay attention to you. You can’t let people like that enter into your life. Have you notified the police?”

“No.” I stumbled on the word.

“I suggest you do so, Katherine. Protect yourself.” Dr. Sandue scribbled on his notepad and ripped off the small note of prescriptions. “I am going to prescribe something new for you. The reason I prescribe the meds a certain way is for you to get better. Stay better. Stay healthy, Katherine.”

“I know, Doctor. You’re right. I will try to stay on track.”

I left the doctor’s office and thought long and hard about what he’d said. Should I report what happened to the police?

Chapter Thirteen

Thinking of the doctor’s visit a little more, I filled my prescriptions at the drugstore just before I went home. The visit caused me to think about just what I was doing to Jeremy; he was probably telling John how off I’d been behaving. Jeremy knew I wasn’t getting much sleep, and lately he wasn’t sleeping much either. For the past few months, he’d been sleeping on the couch in the front room, like a watchdog. I continued to worry about what he was thinking of me and felt as though I’d lost touch with him somewhere along the lines. Even though I went to every game and picked him up from hockey, that wasn’t enough. He was doing exceedingly well in school, so I didn’t have to worry about that. Every now and then I would ask him if he had a girl on the side, but nothing was ever confirmed. He too seemed to keep things hidden, just like his mother. I guess his devotion to hockey and getting the scholarship to the University of Lake Superior College glazed over all that.

Once home, I raced upstairs to check on my e-mails. I was appalled. There were over thirty messages from Dean. I can’t continue on with this sick charade, I thought. What in God’s name have I done to deserve this? The e-mail subject lines included: Forgive
me, and: You’ll be sorry, bitch. Just reading them, I knew I was dealing with a very mentally ill man. I checked off each one and deleted them all and afterward felt somehow relieved they were gone—that I’d deleted him in some way and been strong enough not to read them. I wasn’t about to enter inside his sick world, but in my heart I knew it wasn’t over. Not by a long shot.

When I looked at the time, I realized my meds were ready to be picked up. Just as I was about to head out the door, my cell phone rang.

“Hey, babycakes. Did you make our plans?”

“No, I haven’t thought about that much, Mitch. I’m sorry.”

“How about I give you a break and do the bookings myself. I will make the plans this time. Just leave it up to me. We could go on my yacht in the Bahamas. How’s the end of November sound?”

“Mitch, that’s less than a month away. I’ll have to make sure Jeremy will be okay, and I’ll have to let Mr. Ming know I’ll be gone.”

“I’m sure it won’t be a problem, you’re always traveling. It’s your job, Kat. Besides, Jeremy is almost an adult. He’ll be fine by himself. Who knows; maybe he’ll even have a big party while you’re gone?”

“Ha! Jeremy’s not like that,” I yelled out. “Don’t say that.”

“Oh, lighten up, Kat, he’ll be fine.”

I had mixed emotions about going on this supposed trip. I did want to get away―that feeling inside me never escaped my mind―but I didn’t want Mitch thinking I was getting excited about it. The thought of an escape calmed my thoughts enough for me to agree.

“Okay, Mitch, you got me. Make the plans. I’ll talk to my boss in the morning.”

* * * *

After I picked up my prescriptions at the drugstore, I headed back home. While I was in the car, I rummaged through my purse for another smoke.

Damn, my last one
. I turned around to the nearest convenience store.

As I walked in, I noticed the same coffee-complexioned girl behind the register. She was new, having started there a few weeks before. Her lips were penciled with dark lip-liner, and her eyebrows had piercings. She slipped me my Newport Lights across the counter. The tattooed construction worker poured Columbian roast as the scent mingled in the air. I swiped my debit card through and glanced at the man’s tattoos, and just as I did, a thought of Dean pierced through me like a first blood draw.

A paper-thin lady was standing near the magazines scratching rub-off tickets with her thumb-nail. She looked strikingly similar to the old woman in my dream, and I couldn’t help but notice the heart-shaped liver spots on her hands and how her bones spread out like the spokes of the wheel―as in the dream. I remembered how much my parents liked playing the lotto.

I walked out and slipped into the car, holding my cigarette firmly between my fingers. As I lit up I watched the flame, slightly blue in tint, and thought of the girl again. I stared out the car window and no longer felt see-through anymore. Now I was clouded like the cigarette smoke itself.

I thought of the last time I spent at the hospital. It had been about a year and a half ago, in the summer, and I’d developed the same erratic behavior due to stress and anxiety about my financial issues. I was having difficulty with money problems from all the spending sprees and, again, I was off my meds.

That mid-July, Jeremy came home to a crazed mother. I was dancing in the yard, saying odd things like, “Shh, I’m talking to Grandma Marie.” She’d been dead for several years.

Marie was always there for me. After I mentioned I was conversing with her, Jeremy immediately got scared and called John at work. His dad raced to my place, knowing full well I was having a manic episode again.

I continued to prance around the yard, singing melodies of songs I heard back when I was a child. I was talking in rhyme and uttering off-the-wall comments to Jeremy. “Your eyes are the skies—the big blue skies. I die and die and die in those pretty blue eyes.”

Jeremy kept me contained in the yard, fearing I’d flee, which I’d done in the past. I went to swat at a bumble bee buzzing around the flower pots and then proceeded to pick the petals one-by-one, mumbling about wishes and dreams. He explained to me later that I had a look in my eyes like I was hollow, empty and someone else completely.

“Come on, you’re going in, Mom,” John said once he got there.

When we were married, he used to call me “Mom”, as I would call him “Dad”.

“Oh, please, Dad. Not now,” I told him, glaring out into the sky again.

John told me later that I seemed to come down to earth a little after seeing him enter the yard.

“If you don’t go willingly, I’ll call the police and have them take you away again, Mom.”

By then, I knew I was in deep trouble. John, dressed all in black from a meeting on a building project, was livid with me. He thought I’d been taking my meds and trusted me about it. He was blown away at what Jeremy had to witness.

I called him “Johnny Cash” that night. I didn’t think I was manic.

After waiting in E.R. for two hours, the nurses gave me a gown and sat me in a room. That’s when I knew I was staying. Although there are large parts of the event I don’t remember, like when I usually have an episode, I do remember having to sit there for what seemed like forever before they finally admitted me.

At that point, I was extremely upset and wanted out. I became vicious and wild, pacing frantically around the room like an animal in a zoo cage. They’d locked me in. Once the doctor entered the room, he ordered for me to be strapped down onto the bed. I fought hard against the team of security guards and nurses that swarmed me. In my file, it read that I was chanting over and over, “God, help me. God, help me.”

Two days later, I awoke in another room. This time it was the psychiatric unit, and I was in for a full week of observation.

* * * *

I couldn’t look at the hospital anymore, and after my third cigarette I started up the car and left the parking lot to go home. I felt so miserable at this point, drowning in my own sorrows.

Chapter Fourteen

It was now the middle of November with very little snow on the ground. It felt like freezing temperatures with the wind-chill factor, yet it was forty-five degrees outside. The waves along the lake sprayed up against the jagged rocks as the deciduous trees had already lost most of their foliage. The fallen leaves fluttered and blew in the wind, as I took my mid-morning walk. Evergreens with their fresh pine needles absorbed the fierce cold and angry breezes. I bundled up for the invigorating walk, and when I got to the lake, I jogged along the graveled shoreline. I stopped to pick up a small, smooth pebble and found a tarnished locket. I opened it, and inside was a picture of a man and woman, presumably married. My mind began to wander again to the dream I’d had last night.

The girl was in her late teens, standing with a man on a balcony, somewhere warm and full of palm trees. The sky had an ominous green hue and threatened to rain as the palms flapped back and forth. Ocean waves melted into the sand, soaking it in rhythmic motions.

She was truly beautiful with long, undulating hair waving in the tepid air. She was staring at the sea, holding tight to the railing, and the man stood behind her, molding his arms around her waist. She was fidgeting a little, trying to loosen his grip.

I stood inside the room watching as the man turned his head to rest alongside her back. The window blinds tap-danced against the glass doors, making a shuttering sound, while I continued to watch. I felt extremely uncomfortable as I stood there, like I was invading their privacy, yet I couldn’t help but watch.

It wasn’t until I stood closer that I got a better glance at the man. I couldn’t believe it. I had to get in even closer to see if it was him. It was John. He was the one holding onto to the girl on the balcony. She gave me the impression that she wanted to escape.

As I stood there in the cold, thinking of my dream, I closed the locket and put it in my pocket. Surprised to find such a beautiful trinket along the beach, I looked around to see if anyone was there. For some reason, I thought I saw a dark figure standing behind the trees across the lake. When I saw the shadow move, I got scared and turned back, yet I dared myself to look back. As soon as I turned around, a flock of crows fluttered off the tree where the shadow stood—I must be losing it, I thought.

I came back home after walking around the neighborhood and near the lake for over two hours. I couldn’t believe I was gone that long. More and more, I was losing track of time.

I made it a point once I got back to the house to call Mr. Ming.

“Do you have time for a meeting?”

“Sure, what time do you want to come in, Kat?”

“Well, I was hoping as soon as possible.”

“Sure. I am just finishing up on the Johnson package. Come in when you are ready.”

I hung up the phone and hopped in the shower. I hadn’t been to the office in over a month, and since I’d started working from home, there wasn’t much reason to go in. However, I wanted to see my boss face-to-face to tell him about the trip I’d be taking with Mitch, of course leaving the Mitch-part out. I thought it only fair since I hadn’t seen Mr. Ming in a while. He’d been so good to me, and I respected him, as he did me.