Entangled (27 page)

She wasn’t taking notes at all, but sketching
a picture of me. She looked up from her drawing and smiled. “My
therapy,” she said in explanation. “It helps me think. You know —
like all great mystery solvers. Sherlock had his violin, and I have
a sketchpad and pencil.”

I laughed lightly. “Make sure you airbrush
the cellulite from my hips.” I flopped back into my chair and
sighed. “So what’s the verdict, Doctor? Am I curable or not?”

She lowered the tablet to her lap and pursed
her lips in thought. “If your nightmares didn’t start until after
your father’s death, I think perhaps there is something else going
on here other than memories of a thirteen-year-old date-rape
attempt.” She set the pad and pencil on her desk and returned to
her chair. “Your father was your protector in life, at least for
the most part.” She sat down, her gaze direct. “All daughters think
their fathers are indestructible, part super-hero, part super-dad.
Once he was gone, you no longer were protected from your greatest
fear.”

“What are you talking about? My fear of
what?” Dark images of the thing I struggled with in the night
filled my thoughts, pressing in upon me with the overwhelming
tendency to suck the breath from me. I breathed in deeply through
my nose.

She shrugged. “You have a block of time
missing. Granted, many children forget much of their childhood, but
this was a special trip taken when you were eight. By all accounts
it should be ingrained in your mind as one of your favorite
adventures. But instead of good memories when once again you return
to your uncle’s winery, you have nightmares.”

My eyes widened as I stared at the woman
before me, seeing the circumstances with sudden clarity. “I can’t
believe I didn’t think of this before. Something happened when I
was eight, and I blocked it from my mind.” Frightening images
flooded my imagination; my father bending over Uncle Jack’s bloody
body; my father carrying me to the house and telling me to pack,
because we were going home where I’d be safe. Or was it
imagination? I couldn’t be sure. I met the doctor’s gaze
unblinkingly, a sudden overwhelming urgency filling me. “I need to
know. Can you hypnotize me or something? I have to know what I’ve
been blocking all these years.”

Lizzy slowly shook her head and steepled her
fingers beneath her chin. “Digging for memories is often a
dangerous thing. They have been lying dormant for a reason. You
couldn’t deal with them at the time and shut them out. Pushing to
the fore what God allowed you to forget is asking for trouble.”

I gasped. What kind of therapist prefers not
to dig up the root of the matter? “What are you talking about?
Isn’t that what I’m here for?”

“I’m just saying you need to take it slowly.
Forcing things often leads to more confusion and destructive
behavior, in your case, probably also escalating nightmares. It
sounds like you’ve already been having minor breakthroughs,
glimpses of the past that you’re safe in remembering.
Eventually…”

“At this rate, eventually could be ten years
from now. I won’t be a prisoner of nature taking its course any
longer. I need the truth now.”

Lizzy pressed her lips together and calmly
nodded. “What do you think will be accomplished by knowing?”

I ran a hand through my hair, pushing it back
from my forehead. “For starters I can get some sleep.” Sleep was
actually the farthest thing from my mind. I wanted to know what my
father had been protecting me from for all those years. And why he
suddenly quit.

She sat back in her chair and folded her
hands in her lap. “You do realize that after this long any recall
is a process of reconstruction. Returning memories will be
distorted to some degree. How you perceived things at the age of
eight may not look the same to you now.”

“So, what are you saying?”

“Just be careful. The past can be a big, mean
dog. The bite is always worse than the bark. Your nightmares are
only the bark.”

~~~

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

M
y mother’s eagerness
to know the outcome of my session with Dr. Berger was annoyingly
obvious as she very carefully skated around the topic at dinner.
She prepared my favorite meal of steak, baked potatoes, and garden
salad, with fresh peach cobbler for dessert, plying me with food as
though buying my confidence.

“You don’t have to try so hard, Mother.” I
put down my fork and swallowed a bite of warm peach covered in
whipped cream. “But I’m glad you did. This is delicious.”

She dabbed at her mouth with a napkin. “I
don’t know what you mean. I just wanted to make you something nice
for dinner. You haven’t been eating properly. But I thank you for
the compliment.”

I knew what she wanted to ask and so I told
her. “Dr. Berger was helpful. I’m actually glad you set up the
appointment with her. I don’t agree with everything she said but
now I have a new perspective.”

Mother stood and carried her dishes to the
sink, trying not to appear too eager. “About your dreams?”

I nodded and handed her my plate and glass.
“Yes, and I think she’s right. But I need to ask you something.” I
waited until she faced me again; tiny lines of worry forming across
her forehead. “When did I start having the nightmares? Before or
after Dad died?”

She looked startled by my question, much as
I’d felt when Lizzy asked the same of me. Then she released a
breath and closed her eyes, recollecting memories like a fairy
sweeping up scattered dust. “I remember the night after the
funeral,” she said slowly, her eyes still tightly shut. “You woke
screaming about two a.m. I’d taken something to help me sleep, so
had a hard time pulling out of my groggy state.” She paused as if
the years had taken her away. Her voice cracked when she continued.
“You were huddled against the wall in the corner of your room,
between your bed and the window, whimpering like a beaten dog.”

I held my breath, bated feelings in check,
not allowing past pain to swallow me alive. I was no longer beaten,
lost in fear of the unknown. Power to act had come to me and I
intended to use it fully. With or without help from Dr. Berger.
“And that’s the first episode you remember?”

She opened her eyes and nodded. “I think so.
Did Dr. Berger imply there was a connection?”

“Actually yes.” I explained the scenario and
watched as a stunned expression filled my mother’s face. She turned
away and began washing the dishes at the sink. Her image of my
father was now blurred with questions. If something happened to me
and he was aware of it, why didn’t he tell her? I put my arm around
her shoulders and squeezed as she stood with her hands in soapy
water. “Don’t worry, Mom. I’m going to find the truth.”

*****

After lying in bed for two restless hours, I
decided there was no use in trying to sleep. Dr. Berger’s words
kept crashing through my head like a gorilla let loose in a hall of
mirrors. I climbed from bed and pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt.
The house was nearly silent as I paused outside Mother’s open door
and listened. Her quiet, even breathing could barely be heard above
the soft whir of the ceiling fan. I padded down the hall to the
kitchen where I slipped on tennis shoes and retrieved the
flashlight.

The dark hulking shape of the winery filled
my vision as I rounded the corner of the house and hurried along in
the cool night air. Gravel crunched beneath my shoes and I glanced
nervously around, half expecting something to slink out of the
trees and follow. Once inside the building, I reset the alarm and
used the flashlight to find my way, not wanting to alert Mother to
my absence if she should happen to wake and look out the
window.

Searching the cellar again would help me pass
the night hours and perhaps lead to something more. Since my return
to the winery, my dream had mutated. Beginning with the groping
assault on my bed, where clinging vines held me down, it progressed
to another scene that frequently played, that of the faceless man
waiting for me at the cellar door. In this new addition I was still
a little girl, and I believed it was closer to reality than the
other. I intended to haunt this place like the ghost of Marley
until my memories came out of hiding.

I unlocked the door at the top of the stairs
and paused with my hand on the knob. “And the truth will set me
free,” I quoted in a whisper. The words didn’t inspire courage as I
hoped they would, but rather cynicism. Belatedly, I thought to
whisper a prayer for help. Was God listening? I hadn’t spoken with
him for so long, I wasn’t sure if he remembered my name. But Dr.
Berger implied that God allowed me to forget what I couldn’t deal
with, and I hoped he would now allow me to remember.

The doctor refused to use hypnosis, wanting
the memories to surface in their own time. But time was no longer
an option to me. I wouldn’t know peace until the shroud surrounding
my past was lifted away. The good memories of my father were also
in limbo, and I wondered if holding fast to anger and resentment
had destroyed any chance of reconciling them. Thrust back into the
past by my uncle’s last will and testament, I now had the chance to
clarify, conquer, and banish what had been hidden for so long.

I closed my eyes and willed images to appear,
needing to rediscover that time lost to me through self-induced
amnesia. I pictured myself standing there, as in my dream, waiting
expectantly. The way I’d waited each morning by the door of the
cellar for Uncle Jack to come and teach me more. An excitement felt
only by the very young, joy of discovery, happiness in the moment,
filled my chest and limbs as I remembered being eight-years-old
again, ready to start a new day

I recalled the feel of sweet, ripe grapes
popping and squishing beneath my bare feet, warm juice sliding
between my toes as Uncle Jack allowed me to hop around in a tub of
the succulent orbs one morning while he explained the crushing
process people used in days gone by. Jack watched me, his eyes lit
with laughter at my contagious joy. I remembered slipping and
nearly falling, but he reached out and caught me just in time. We
laughed and laughed. My feet were purple for days after.

I opened my eyes, supplanting memories with
the here and now as the knob turned easily in my hand. The bulb had
been replaced in the stairwell; seventy-five watts worth of courage
to get me down the stairs. I glanced back, but no one followed. The
temperature dropped as I descended, and I shivered regardless of
the heavy sweatshirt I wore. Rusted hinges creaked as I swung the
door open at the bottom of the stairs and peered into the dark
room, my eyes adjusting to the gloom.

I managed to find the light cord without
turning the flashlight back on. The naked bulb shed a yellowish
glow over stone walls and cardboard boxes, sickly fingers of light
poking into corners. I gazed around the crowded chamber with an
eagerness that belied my inner trepidation. The boxes were first. I
sorted through the contents and then restacked them in an orderly
way, giving my hands something to do while my brain whirred trying
to rewind.

Since my return to California, the lucid
memories I’d dredged up had been pleasant enough: Uncle Jack
teaching me, Handel and I in the vineyard, swinging on the tire;
while dreams became more frightening as though my self-preservation
techniques weren’t strong enough in repose to keep them at bay.
Perhaps a stint alone in the cellar would be the catalyst I needed
to reveal the source of my nightly terrors. Would I be able to box
them away when I was done, like the things Uncle Jack left behind,
or would they follow me to the end of my life and go down to the
grave to be worked out in eternity?

Hours later I sat back on my haunches and
took a deep breath, hot and tired after moving everything around.
The boxes now resided in one corner, stacked neatly in rows nearly
to the ceiling. That opened up quite a lot of the cellar floor
space and gave me access to a huge monstrosity of metal, some kind
of separating machine left over from years gone by, that had
blocked access to Uncle Jack’s desk on the far side of the room.
With all the other things stacked in front of it and on it, the
desk had been hidden well. I stood up and wiped sweat from my
forehead with the sleeve of my shirt, then glanced at my watch.
Still three hours before anyone should arrive at the winery. I had
time to finish cleaning up and go through the desk.

Pushing against the rusty machine with all of
my strength, it finally moved a mere two inches. I grunted and
shoved again, but made no headway, the solid steal monster standing
its ground. I couldn’t very well pull out the desk without moving
the machine and I couldn’t move the machine without help. I was at
an impasse.

For the last ten years I jogged three or four
miles each and every morning to stay in shape. Obviously, I needed
to work on my upper body strength as well. But leg strength would
do for now. I wedged myself against the wall and slid down to a
sitting position, braced my feet against the machine and pushed
with all my might. It began to move, the metal grinding across the
floor in a loud screech.

I stood up, wiping dusty hands on the legs of
my jeans and smiled at the small accomplishment. The cheap office
desk had a laminate top and metal frame, a pullout file cabinet on
one side and three sliding drawers on the other. Once I scooted it
away from the wall, the drawers opened easily.

The top drawer was filled with five-year-old
sailboat magazines. The middle drawer was empty except for a few
stray rubber bands and paperclips, but the bottom drawer stored
snacks. Or at least it once did. Two empty boxes of crackers lay on
their sides, small holes chewed through the cardboard containers,
mouse droppings leaving a trail of evidence as to the culprits.