Indulgence (211 page)

Everything of importance to me was packed in the three bags
I carried. Mom had wired me money which I carried in a pouch around my neck. I
left my cell phone, having already purchased a ‘pay as you go’ phone so he
couldn’t track me. Though, after some time, I’m sure he’d figure out that I had
moved back home, across the country. I hoped and prayed he’d just let me go.

I pulled into the parking lot around the block from the bus
station. Gathering my bags, I removed all the papers linking the car to me,
threw the keys on the seat and left it unlocked. Given the shady neighborhood,
the car would be gone soon. Becky, a coworker from the hospital was the only
one who suspected what was going on with Derek. I’d put in my notice at work a
month ago, at Derek’s insistence. Though I didn’t tell Becky that I was going
to flee. The less she knew the safer she would be.

The attendant working the desk took in my appearance and
gave me a heartfelt smile. My attire wasn’t appropriate for a June day in sunny
San Francisco and she seemed to understand why I was wearing jeans, a hoodie
pulled over my head, and big black designer sunglasses, trying to mask the
black eye Derek had gifted me with. I made my way onto the bus finding an empty
seat in the back. Once the bus pulled away and we were twenty minutes down the
road, I put my ear buds in and let out a relieved breath trying to forget.

“Jane, you’re done with work. I make more than enough to
support us and you’re place is here at home.”

I was shocked at the words coming from his mouth. This
wasn’t the Derek I moved across the country with. How could he have fooled me?
“Derek, I love my job, please.”

He towered over me and I tried to shield myself from his
angry words and his beating fists. He was convinced I was cheating on him,
which was absurd. I’d already lost the baby, which he was also convinced wasn’t
his, thanks to another encounter with him. After his true colors emerged I told
myself I was better off alone.

I shook the memory away as a rogue tear slid down my cheek.
I was done crying for him, what he made me believe and what I found out. He was
an abusive monster who turned me into someone I didn’t recognize. Never in my
life did I understand why women would stay with abusive pricks. I understood
now. But I was determined to get myself back. I refused to become another
statistic.

J.M. resides in Metro Detroit, MI with her husband and four
small children.

I've dreamed of writing romance novels since I was little.
After having baby #4, who may or may not have been fathered by Christian Grey,
I decided it was time to pursue my dreams.

When I'm not volunteering at the schools of my children,
running to various appointments, enjoying time with my friends and my book
club, dating my husband, or avoiding cleaning my house, I'm writing!

I love music and believe that books and music can't exist
without the other. My goal is for you to read more than a good book, but for
you to have an experience!

You can find her at

www.jmwittbooks.com

Twitter #wittymomauthor

www.facebook.com/jmwittbooks

by
Kelley Grealis

I knew I wasn’t dying. At least that was what the other
doctors had said. But what I didn’t know, and neither did any of those other
doctors, was the cause of my symptoms. In fact, those supposed specialists had
all declared me to be perfectly healthy and viewed my symptoms with skepticism.
But I knew they were mistaken; there was
something
wrong with me.

I waited for Doctor McNally in the cramped exam room; she
was the seventh doctor I’d visited in the past six months. The drab, yellow walls
and fluorescent lighting did little to comfort me, but I was still optimistic
that this appointment was going to be different from the others. After all,
this specialist had run more tests and labs and exams than the others, which
gave me hope that she would not only be the doctor to diagnose me, but to cure
me.

There was a knock at the door, and Doctor McNally entered
the room. She was slender, maybe in her late thirties, with chestnut hair and
green eyes. Her blue scrubs were hidden under a white lab coat.

“Good morning, Allison. How are you today?” she asked with a
smile.

What a loaded question
, I thought. Let’s see –
depressed, confused, tired, angry, sad, scared, all of the above? I decided to
go with something less dramatic. “I’m okay. I’ll be better after you tell me
what’s wrong with me.”

The doctor pulled a caster stool from under the counter and
sat down. Rolling closer to where I sat on the exam table, she crossed her arms
over the clipboard in her lap and looked me in the eyes. “There’s nothing wrong
with you, Allison.”

My heart skipped. Blood flooded my cheeks. Anger boiled in
my stomach. Not again. Not another doctor insisting I was well. She couldn’t
tell me nothing was wrong with me. There had to be an explanation.

“But how can that be?” I pleaded. “Can you look again,
please? There has to be something.”

“Your blood work is normal, your scans are clean. You are
well, Allison. I reviewed the information as it came in and looked it over
again before meeting with you. There’s nothing here to indicate you are
anything but healthy.”

I shook my head and dropped my eyes to the floor. What was
happening to me wasn’t normal. Something wasn’t right.

I looked back at the doctor and tried to control my temper.
“I don’t believe this. You are just like all of the other doctors. There
has
to be something causing all of this. I’m not making this up.”

Doctor McNally flipped through my file. “Allison, I’m
telling you – according to these results, there is nothing unusual going on
with you.”

“Then how do you explain my lack of appetite?” I asked
through gritted teeth.

“You haven’t lost any weight over the past months. Your iron
levels are normal…”

“What about my body temperature?” I interrupted. “I flare up
at night like a furnace but I’m freezing cold in the morning, like I am now.
Just last night, my blistering body heat kept me awake as I wallowed in bed in
a pool of sweat. But now? Now I’m freezing, absolutely chilled to the bone. And
my sweatshirt, jeans and socks are doing little to warm me. It makes no sense
considering it’s eighty-some-odd degrees outside. How do you explain that?”

“Allison, your temperature has been normal every time we’ve
taken it, regardless of when it was taken. Even today, your temperature is
ninety-eight point six degrees.”

“What about my insomnia?” I challenged. “I’ve barely slept
in months.”

The doctor pursed her lips and seemed to carefully ponder
her next words. “You say you dream, right?”

My mouth parted and my mind went momentarily blank as I
stared at the doctor. I had no idea she knew about my dream. I didn’t think I’d
shared it with anyone. I hadn’t even told my husband Matt let alone some doctor
I’d only known through a handful of visits. It was my secret, or so I thought.
I made no mention of the dream to anyone because it made little sense to me. I
knew Matt and Jenna, my best friend since kindergarten, were already worried
about my omnipresent sour mood and inexplicable symptoms, and they didn’t need
something else to worry about – a mysterious dream that somehow imparted temporary
serenity upon me.

“I told you about my dream?”

“Mmm hmm. I have it written here from our last visit. You
have a recurring dream about a garden.”

“It’s not just any garden,” I snapped, and then immediately
felt foolish. For some unknown reason, I was highly protective of my dream. But
calling it a simple garden didn’t do this paradise justice.

In my dream, the ground is a rich brown and exudes an earthy
scent. Large tree roots break through the forest floor, undulating over the
landscape like hypnotic waves. The atmosphere is completely saturated with
fertility. Abundant, flourishing plant life is everywhere and flowering shrubs
cling to the base of trees making it impossible to see where the trunks
converge with the ground. Berry bushes are plentiful, as are ferns and thorny
hedges.

The trees are a spectacular sight, massive in height and
width. If the breadths of the trunks are any indication, these trees have been
around for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. The branches soar up into the
air, twisting and weaving, creating a sort of jungle gym. Branches kiss the sky
where the foliage unfolds into an emerald canopy. Sunlight filters through this
ceiling, casting a kaleidoscope of color within the jungle. An ever-present
cool breeze sways the leaves, revealing patches of crisp, blue sky.

Beyond the wooded area are lush carpets of grass dotted with
flowers in every imaginable color. There are large red blooms, tiny yellow
buttercups, tall blue bells, orange lilies, purple puffs, and an array of exotic
blossoms. The colors are splendid, so vibrant and full of life. It is as if a
luminary is lighting each plant from within, showcasing the flower’s beauty. In
the distance, wild grasslands dance in the breeze in spellbinding repetition.
The air is fragrant, almost overpoweringly so, yet delightful. The individual
scents– roses, honeysuckle, freesia, and some unfamiliar ones – blend to form a
pleasant perfume.

Other dreams reveal that animals of every kind make this
paradise their home. Fluttering birds whistle melodious tunes while monkeys
dangle from trees with bananas in hand. Koala bears cling to tree limbs near
camouflaged lizards, and toucans perch on branches as they keep a watchful eye
over the revelry. Lions, deer, elephants, and other large beasts roam freely,
yet there are plenty of smaller creatures, too – rabbits, butterflies and a
variety of insects. Friend and foe, hunter and prey live here in magical
harmony, making the garden like no other place that has existed before. At
least no place I have ever known.

“Allison?” Doctor McNally’s voice floated through my ears.
“Allison, hello, are you with me?”

I cleared my throat as I realized I had drifted off to my
paradise. “Um, yeah. Sorry, I was ah, just thinking.”

“Do you want to talk about it? Your dream.”

“Not really. It’s just um -- it’s not
just
a garden,”
I stated, trying to justify my earlier reaction. The last thing I wanted was a
suspicious doctor exploring my paradise with me. “It’s more of a tropical
oasis, of sorts, something like that.”

“Allison, is there something else going on?” The doctor
stood up from her stool and peered down at me. This was starting to feel like
an interrogation and I didn’t like it. “Is there something else bothering you
besides the symptoms that brought you here?”

“What do you mean?”

“Are you under stress or worried about something? Have you
had a major life event like losing a job or a loved one?”

Her questions caught me off guard, but in that moment I
suddenly realized something. I wasn’t sure what she had asked or how she had
asked it, but the doctor’s words struck a chord with me. After all of these
doctor visits, all it took was one doctor to ask a certain question in a
certain way to make me realize the cause of all my ills.

I’m having a midlife crisis
, I thought to myself. I
was sure the good ole doc here would really think I was nuts if I told her. It
did sound ridiculous, after all; I was only thirty-two years old. But somehow,
it also made perfect sense.

I’d always had this need to do something great, to have an
impact on the world and to leave it a better place. That need started the day I
was born when the doctor told my parents that I was special, that he could see
it in my eyes. Of course, as it had taken my parents fifteen years to conceive
me, their only child, they already knew that. But those words took hold in
their minds and they constantly reminded me of how special I was. Though I
never felt important or significant, they encouraged me to keep looking for
that one thing that would make me truly happy, my life’s calling. Dad died six
years ago from a heart attack and mom followed three weeks later with a broken
heart, but their words still haunted me.

But I couldn’t possibly tell the doctor I thought I was
having a midlife crisis. Combined with all of the symptoms she apparently
thought I was making up, I was sure she’d think I was crazy. Plus, Matt had to
be the first person to know what was really going on with me, not her. He had
been the one dealing with my sleepless nights, extreme body temperatures and
volatile moods, and he deserved to know before anyone else. But I had to tell
the doc something and I suddenly knew just the thing. It had to be in my file
and was likely the source of her suspicions.

“Well, there is something,” I finally said.

Doctor McNally patiently waited.

“Matt and I haven’t been able to have a baby. We’ve been
trying since we got married seven years ago. We’ve seen plenty of doctors. They
say the problem is with me but they can’t pinpoint what it is.”

“Have you talked to anyone about this? About how you are
feeling?”

“You mean besides all of the fertility doctors?”

“Mmm hmm.”

“No, I haven’t,” I said tersely.

“Well maybe…”

“Maybe what?” I stood up. I had a hunch what Doctor McNally
was about to say and I didn’t want to hear it. Another doctor had suggested it
years ago; I didn’t like the idea then and I wasn’t going to like it now.

“Maybe you should see a psychiatrist.”

“Excuse me?”

“Well – it’s possible that the stress from not being able to
have a baby has been causing the symptoms you think you’ve been having.”