Sounds Like Crazy (42 page)

“How do you know you didn’t?” He winked.

Am I there? Nah.
Narnia was too big to carry around in my head. Besides, I felt ready to live in the real world.

The Silent One nodded. Then he picked something up off the floor and handed it to me. I opened my palm and received the gift. As I closed my fingers around it, the Committee’s room disappeared.

“Thank you,” I whispered.This time I knew they were truly gone.

I opened my eyes. Milton sat there contemplating me.

“They’re gone,” I said. “The Committee, the house, all of it.”

Milton nodded his head.

“I made Betty Jane leave.” I wiped my eyes.

“How do you think you were able to banish Betty Jane?”

“I am Ruffles,” I said.

Milton smiled and said, “Yes, you are, and then some.”

“Hang on there. Ruffles minus about three hundred pounds,” I said. Milton laughed, and I appreciated his giving me a way to cover the awkward moment. “How?”

“Psychic weight,” said Milton.“You buffered Ruffles with so much fat that you couldn’t see who or what was hidden underneath the surface.”

The only thing people got wrong when they said I walked around with my head in the clouds was the clouds part. My head was in the Committee’s house, sitting on a large pillow in the left corner of the room.

“At the theater, they asked me to do Harriet and it all came together,” I said. “I did her voice.”

“Your voice was always a close match to Ruffles’s,” said Milton. “Her weight reflected confidence, which you did not have until you integrated her into your core self. Once you did that, her voice became your voice.”

“But she did the integration by not returning after I’d unearthed the memory of Aiden’s death.”

“Yes, somehow having your history intact enabled you and her to integrate without your being aware of doing so,” said Milton.

“Has my voice changed?” I said. I hadn’t noticed, but my lack of awareness didn’t surprise me anymore.

“It has, yes,” said Milton. “A couple of weeks ago I noticed the difference, and then I knew you had integrated her.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” I said. Milton shook his head and I was grateful for the pass he’d given me on this rather large detail. But after what I’d been through, I had earned it.

“So, I guess I am not going to get my job back now that Betty Jane is gone,” I said. And at that moment, I felt the full weight of their departure.They were all gone.

“Good-bye,” I whispered.

A heavy sorrow spread throughout my body. I felt small. Fragile. Alone.

“Holly.” Milton leaned forward.“Remember, we always keep the best parts of the ones we love.”

W
ho was the Committee and how did I end up with it? This was what Milton and I would spend our time on now. I thought after I let them go, I would graduate, or something, from analysis. But instead of handing me a diploma, Milton told me the real work would now begin.After what I’d just gone through, I admit to a feeling of unease over what the “real work” journey looked like. Especially since I still had an aversion to introspection. But fear didn’t stop me from taking the first step and on Tuesday afternoon I sat, alone, in Milton’s waiting room. Waiting, because that was what one did in a place like this.

I reached over for the
NewYorker
. My hand paused in surprise.
Car and Driver
? As I thumbed through the stack, I noticed that Milton had added most of the Committee’s magazine selections. He still drew the line at the unrealistic women’s magazines. I guess because he had patients—me included—who obsessed about ass size.

The doorknob turned. I felt a jolt of anticipation. Milton peered through that doorway. “Holly,” he said softly.

I nodded my head. Checked my nicotine patch—I was down to one—then stood and followed him.

“So here we are,” he said as I took a seat on the pink commode.

“Here we are.”

“Any thoughts since our last session?”

I had let go of my Committee and he asked me a question analogous to, “Did you enjoy your breakfast cereal?” Then I realized there really was no right question to convey what had happened. “You took an awful risk giving Betty Jane more power.” Arching my eyebrows I added,“What if it hadn’t worked?”

“Well, worst case, your life would be ruled by a vacuous, entitled self who floated through life without responsibility or conscience,” said Milton.“You would be employed and hoarding Charmin.” He smiled.

I laughed. “But it could have backfired.”

“I agree. It could have,” said Milton. “We were not making progress.The voice acting gave me an opportunity to understand Betty Jane’s power. I knew that you were stronger than she, and the other Committee members were benevolent.You had chosen people who represented different aspects of comfort and security.” Before I could say it, Milton held up his hand. “Even Betty Jane. At any rate, once you recognized that you ultimately had control, I knew you would be able to integrate them. In time,” he added.

“In time? Funny how you are so nonchalant about time. It was hell.”

“Remember I told you when we began our work that it would get far worse before it got better?” said Milton.

“Yeah. But I had no idea what I was agreeing to. Had I known, I don’t know that I would have done it. But”—I nodded my head—“being on the other side of it, I am glad I did.”

“Holly,” said Milton,“you should commend yourself on your effort to take on the hardest task any human being can face.”

“What is that?” I said.

“Most people form a fragmented life in an effort to escape boredom.They pursue things that are elusive, emptily self-serving and escapist possibilities instead of self-knowledge.The Committee was that for you.”

“The fragmented life is a despairing means of avoiding commitment and responsibility. In order to raise oneself beyond the merely aesthetic life, a life of drifting in imagination, possibility, and sensation, one needs to make a commitment,” said Milton.

“What have I committed to?”

“You have to ask?” He sat back.

“I guess not,” I said. My gaze drifted to the window.

“Then the answer is . . .”

I turned back, looked Milton straight in the eye, and said, “Myself. I have committed to myself.”

“And that, Holly”—Milton maintained the eye contact—“is quite an achievement.”

We shared an embarrassed silence.

“And how do you feel now?” he asked.

“I am scared,” I said, “but I also feel excited. Kind of like Bambi starting out with wobbly legs hoping to become strong enough to run. Sappy, I know. Especially from me, but that is how I feel.”

Milton considered this. “It’s an apt analogy.”

 

We talked for the remainder of the hour. Ironically, I didn’t feel an urgency about the time. For once, it felt as if there was enough. And I knew that from now on, there would always be enough.

When I left Milton’s building, I decided to walk. I wanted to appreciate these last moments. Imprint them in my mind. I wasn’t ready to share them with the noise and jostling of the subway, and I didn’t take cabs or use a car service anymore on principle.

I ambled along slowly until my wobbling legs felt strong.

A
t the end of February, my phone rang right as I turned the corner of First Avenue. Peter. I hadn’t programmed his number into my new cell phone, but I still recognized it. I reflected on how the thought of not speaking to him for more than two months had been unbearable to me a year ago. The phone rang for the third time. After one more ring it would go to voice mail.

I pressed answer. “Hello.”

“Hey, it’s me.” I waited for the familiar lurch, like someone had dropped a cannonball in my gut.

“I know,” I said. I felt nothing. Time and distance really do work if given the chance, I thought. I tucked away this insight for the next time I found myself facing a possibility I couldn’t or didn’t want to accept.

“How are you?” Peter’s voice was tentative. I finally understood that in his own way, Peter had loved the image I projected to him. But that image required a monumental effort to maintain.
How could he really know me when I had only recently met myself? I wish there were a way to truly see and know yourself as another does. But there isn’t.

“Pam gave me your number,” said Peter.

Pam and I had talked about Peter after we split up. She had told me I should take comfort in the fact that Peter genuinely loved the woman I had made him think I was.

“I wondered.” Even though she had given him my number, my friendship with Pam was one of the good things to come out of my failed relationship with Peter.Who would have thought?

“So, I am defending my dissertation next week,” Peter said awkwardly.

“Good luck with that,” I said. I meant it. Peter had languished as a student when we were together. Our separation appeared to have had a positive outcome for him too.

“I’d like to see you, Holly. How about tonight?” I listened to his breathing. I used to love to do that at night while he slept. I told myself it was because I loved him, but really I was trying to find the clue to what gave him such peace. Now I would never know.

“Tonight’s not good,” I said. “I’ll call you.”

We both knew I wouldn’t call. I probably should have just told him the truth. But I had learned that a lady lets a man down easily.

 

When I arrived at my front door, I saw two large envelopes and one brown paper-wrapped parcel. I picked them up in a stack. I recognized the envelope on the top, so I transferred it to the bottom of the pile. The next one was from my mother. I had told Sarah what had happened in Milton’s office and left it to her to fill in my mother. Facts were Sarah’s job. I didn’t know if my mother and I would ever talk about the years after Aiden had
died. But for my part, I preferred to move on and see what the future held.The only depth in our relationship was the ugly scars from the past. No point in building a bridge over those. Still, I hoped that somehow we’d finally find a common ground in the vast expanse of superficiality.

I tore at the envelope with my teeth as I turned the key in the dead bolt. The contents inside made me laugh. Sarah must have been thorough in her telling, and even with her faults, my mother’s gesture showed me that she understood—or that she at least had a sense of humor.

I dropped both envelopes on the side table and looked at the parcel. The handwriting on the paper was Sarah’s. Sort of heavy, I thought. I tossed my keys on the table, lifted the strap of my bag over my head, and dropped it on the floor.

I went into the living room. I removed the brown paper from the package Sarah had sent. Underneath it, I found a box neatly taped shut. Smiling, I thought about how Sarah was so meticulous about the littlest details. I pushed my finger in between the box flaps and slid it around all four sides.With the box bottom on my lap, I wiggled the top off.The contents inside were wrapped in pink tissue paper secured with a little gold sticker. I parted the paper. On top was something in bubble wrap. I caught my breath. Then I carefully lifted out the item underneath.

I held it against my chest and closed my eyes as I buried my face in the satin lining. Distant laughter from a time long past echoed in my head. Peace gently knocked on the door of my heart. After a moment I opened my eyes and picked up the note that had fallen onto my lap.

Now the three of us really were together.

Holding the coat close to my body, I picked up the bubble-wrapped object. Inside the wrapping was a framed photograph of me and Aiden wearing our Narnia coats.We were holding hands. Our faces bore smiles of promise. The promise of innocence, adventure, and escape. I hugged the coat close to me, hoping for a lingering scent of my long-dead brother. I was sure I could smell him. But I also knew that memory is a powerful thing.

As I sat there, grief finally packed its bags and left through the back door.

 

My phone rang just as I was getting into bed. Ten o’clock. I smiled. I knew it was Mike.Tomorrow was the big day—my first day back on
The Neighborhood.
It was a strange feeling to be able to count on someone other than my family or analyst without fear of what it would cost.

After I was rehired, Mike started calling me a couple of nights a week under the guise of monitoring the situation for Walter. He always called right at ten o’clock.We’d now shared twelve phone calls, or fourteen hours and twenty-two minutes of conversations about everything except work. Not that I was counting.

Before we hung up, Mike suggested we meet for dinner Friday night to discuss the week’s progress.

“It sounds like you’re asking me out on a date,” I said.

“If you’re lucky,” said Mike.

I laughed. “See you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow.” The phone went dead. I still hated good-bye, and somehow Mike had just intuited this. I never told him.

Before I turned off the light, I put the photograph of me and Aiden on my nightstand. It was the last thing I looked at before I went to work the next morning. I took public transportation.

 

“Holly, we’re ready for you.”

I smiled and said, “Great. I’m on my way.”

I walked into the room.The others were already in the sound booth in front of their mics.

“Hi, Holly.” Everyone waved, including the people behind the glass.