Spirit Legacy (12 page)

Well, it hadn’t gone exactly as I’d envisioned, but all things considered, I was relieved. I’d managed to get signed into the class without giving Professor Pierce too much of my story. I was happy that he’d been ready to accept my claim to have experienced something out of the ordinary; I suppose I shouldn’t have been too surprised, once I thought about it. After all, his entire career was based upon his ability to believe that the impossible might be possible. Still, I felt like I was living on borrowed time. I didn’t have to explain myself that day, but that wouldn’t last very long. Sometime soon, I would have to tell David Pierce exactly why I was taking his class. I just hoped he turned out to be less of a jerk than he appeared at first glance.

Chapter 9—Unexpected Gift

Chapter 9—Unexpected Gift

I
have always hated waiting rooms.
My whole life I’ve had this mortal dread of having to sit in a waiting room. I actually have a theory about why that is. Waiting rooms are basically torture chambers designed to heighten anticipation and breed fear in those of us unlucky enough to have to wait in them. Whatever was lurking on the other side of the door was never as bad as the waiting room prepared you for. I knew this, and yet, I would always break into a cold sweat as I sat there,
waiting.

Every waiting room is only a slight variation on the universal waiting room design concocted, I believe, by scientists well versed in color and prop combinations that trigger irrational emotional responses in unsuspecting victims. The walls, if not a sterile white, are painted in some pastel color, perhaps a peach or pale blue. Hung upon these innocently hued surfaces are framed pictures, most of them neutral in content: a water color bouquet of flowers, a wheelbarrow of gardening supplies. Scattered among these are the pictures meant to calm us with their cute or humorous occupants. Children dressed in grown-up clothing or examining each other with stethoscopes grin precociously down at you. Kittens cling precariously to tree branches with captions like, “Just hanging around!”

To escape the hypnotic stare of these photos, you can amuse yourself by counting the plastic ficus trees sprouting from baskets, or by flipping through magazines that no one but waiting rooms subscribe to. When these inane occupations fail to calm you down, you can look around at the other people sitting scattered around the room, but the barely contained panic on their faces will only amplify your own. When they took me to the hospital the night my mom died, I refused to go sit in that damn waiting room; I just sat outside on the sidewalk with a police officer. Hell must have a waiting room… or be one.

And so I found myself outside Dr. Thomas Hildebrand’s office, which had a particularly horrible waiting room, though I had a feeling that my actual appointment was, for once, going to be worse. Karen had offered to stay with me, but I’d sent her out for coffee. There was no reason to subject both of us to the waiting room torture, and I really didn’t want the added pressure of knowing she was there. I think I’d freaked her out enough, quite frankly. And I also hadn’t quite forgiven her for making me go through with this in the first place.

Karen had pasted on a carefully lighthearted demeanor from the moment she’d picked me up for winter break, but I wasn’t fooled. She hadn’t yet recovered from Dean Finndale’s phone call or my feeble explanations, and I could tell that there was something she wasn’t telling me. Her eyes kept darting to me anxiously the whole way home and all throughout dinner. I finally faked a headache and went up to bed at eight o’clock just to get away from her. My escape was only momentary. She dropped the real bomb when she came up to say good night.

“You can’t be serious.”

“It’s a condition of your return to St. Matthew’s for second semester.”

“Can they even do that? How do they have a say in my personal life like this? It’s none of their business.”

“It becomes their business when they start investing scholarship money in you. You are an investment, Jess, and they want to see a return.”

“And if I refuse to go?”

“It’s this or you lose your scholarship.”

“But a
shrink?”

“There are worse things in the world, Jess. It might even be good for you, the whole Evan thing aside. You haven’t even really dealt with your mom yet.”

“I’m dealing.”

“Well, now you can talk to a professional, someone who has experience with these things. You may be surprised at how much it helps.”

“I’m pretty sure you couldn’t be more wrong about that,” I grumbled.

Apparently she decided it wasn’t worth trying to convince me, because she left me alone after that—or so I thought. When I awoke sobbing from my familiar nightmare in the middle of the night, her slippered feet were there, casting a long shadow under the door in the light from the hallway. I’m sure she, like everyone else, thought I was completely nuts, or that I was going through some sort of post-traumatic stress thing. The difference was that she was the closest thing I had to a parent now, and she probably felt responsible for keeping me from falling apart.

The secretary’s saccharine voice broke through my musings. “Jessica? Dr. Hildebrand will see you now.” I stood up and followed her through the door and down a narrow hallway.

“Would you like to hang up your jacket?” she asked, gesturing to a coat rack in the corner.

“No, thanks,” I said. It was probably childish, but having my coat with me made me feel like I was just passing through.

The secretary knocked quietly and then, without waiting for an answer, opened the glossy paneled door.

Dr. Hildebrand’s office was full of pretentious mahogany furniture. The doctor was sitting at his desk, his various diplomas and certificates floating above his head like halos of academia. He was overweight and balding with a bulbous nose and a weak chin that he compensated for by jutting his jaw out thoughtfully.

“Jessica. So very nice to meet you.” Dr. Hildebrand’s voice was unctuous and fluid, like one of those narrators on self-help tapes. He probably was one, actually.

“You too,” I lied.

“Won’t you sit down?” He gestured to a chair that I was very glad wasn’t a sofa I was being asked to lie on. I sat.

“So Jessica, why don’t we talk about why you’re coming to see me and what we hope to get out of these sessions.”

Unable to identify a question that required an answer in that, I just nodded.

“I spoke with your dean. She is very concerned about you and would feel better if you had someone to help you sort things out. I think you might feel better, too.” He smiled smarmily. “I’d like to be that person. Is that alright with you?”

“Whatever.” Like I had a choice.

“Splendid,” he said as he pulled a leather-bound notebook out of his desk drawer and prepared himself for whatever it was he did. I could think of nothing that was less appropriately suited to my definition of “splendid”.

 “So, Jessica, I want to start out by getting to know you a bit better. Why don’t you tell me about your childhood?”

“What do you want to know?”

“Oh, just anything at all that you would like to tell me about your life growing up.”

I assumed that “nothing at all” was not an option, so I stuck to the basics. He started writing feverishly before I’d even opened my mouth.

 
“Well, I lived with my mom growing up. I’ve never met my dad. We moved around a lot; I was born in New York City. Then we moved all the way across the country to live in San Francisco, but I was still too young to remember it. From there we moved to L. A., then to Seattle, then to Chicago, Milwaukee, Houston, Albuquerque, Richmond, Charleston, Cleveland, D.C., and finally back to New York again. My mom died this past summer, so I went to live with my aunt while I’m attending St. Matt’s. I’m moving out soon, though.” I felt compelled to tack on this last detail. I really didn’t care what this guy thought of me, but I didn’t want to give the impression of being a charity case.

 
“And why did you move around so much, Jessica?” Dr. Hildebrand asked, tapping his gold pen loudly against his blotter.

 
“My mom liked a change of scenery every once in a while.”

 
“Mm-hmm.” Hildebrand smiled, jotting a note on his paper. I could feel the blood rising in my face, splashing carefully concealed anger right across my features. “And what was it your mother was so eager to run from?”

“I never said she was running. She wanted to see the country, to have as many experiences as possible.”

 “Certainly, certainly,” Hildebrand said, clearly humoring me. I was just a little disturbed though; I did always have a feeling that my mother was trying to keep something at bay, an undefinable something that she never wanted to catch up with her. Our moves were always sudden, spurred by no change of circumstances I could identify, other than my mother’s apparent restlessness. “Life’s getting stale here, kiddo! Time to open a new door,” she’d always tell me. I usually went without complaint because complaining had never turned the Green Monster around, but it was always odd to see the gleam of relief in her eyes as we drove on to our next destination, leaving whatever mess she’d made far behind us.

 
“How did the frequent moves affect you?” Hildebrand continued, with the maddening air that he already knew the answer and merely needed my confirmation.

“It wasn’t so bad. I had to adjust to new schools, new kids, things like that,” I said, downplaying it with a shrug. It had generally been miserable, but I’d always been a bit of a loner anyway. I’d never stayed in touch with any of my friends.

“And did you find that difficult … adjusting?”

“It was fine.” I wasn’t about to hand him psychological ammo.

Recognizing that he was not getting over this particular wall, he moved on. “Let’s talk about your mother’s death,” he continued, almost cheerfully.

I shot him a look that should have fried him where he sat. Sadly, he remained uncharred. “I’d rather not, thank you.”

“Now, now,” he began in what I can only assume he meant to be a fatherly tone. “We can hardly get to the root of your behavioral issues if we can’t even discuss the source.”

I smoldered. So I had behavioral issues, did I?

“Why don’t you tell me
why
you don’t want to discuss it,” he prodded again.

I barely repressed a roll of my eyes but couldn’t keep the biting sarcasm out of my voice. “Well, Dr. Hildebrand, I don’t actually know you at all, and you don’t know me, so I’m sure you can understand why I don’t exactly want to have a heart-to-heart with you about something so personal.”

“But I’m trying to get to know you, Jessica.
 That’s the whole idea of you being here,” he explained in a tone dripping with condescension.

I narrowly avoided shouting expletives at him and channeled my excess frustration into my rapidly bouncing leg.

 
“Now, Jessica, I can’t really get a handle on your current mental state if you refuse to discuss your mother’s suicide, which I’m sure—”

 “—My mother did not commit suicide!” I growled.
My fingers clutched at the leather armrests of my chair, digging in against the emotion.

 “Oh, I see.” Hildebrand sighed as though he had just come to a brilliant conclusion. He walked out around his desk and perched on the end of the chair right across from me, leaning his elbows forward on his knees, surveying me thoughtfully.

 
“What do you
see
?” I hissed between my clenched teeth.

 
“Jessica, Jessica. I understand, my dear. Of course I understand.”

I was unsure of many things at the moment, but I was pretty damn sure that he did
not
understand.

“I can see perfectly well why you would want to believe that your mother’s death wasn’t a suicide,” he said.

“And I can see perfectly well why you would like it to be one,” I shot back.

Hildebrand’s oily eyebrows arched up in exaggerated confusion. “I’m afraid I don’t follow. I certainly wouldn’t want such a—”

“—Of course you do!” I flung the words at him like verbal grenades. “That would fit me very nicely into one of your predetermined little pigeonholes, wouldn’t it? The perfect explanation for the set of behavioral issues you see me exhibiting.”

“I was merely pointing out that the circumstances of her death were—”

 
“—Undetermined. That’s what the coroner ruled her death: undetermined. It was an accident. My mother wouldn’t ….” My voice trailed off as I bit back the vulnerability that was fighting its way to the surface. This man would
not
see me cry.

 
“Very well, then. I can see we aren’t going to make any headway with that particular issue. Perhaps next week.”

“Don’t hold your breath.”

“Why don’t we focus instead on the event that brought us together.”

This was it—the part of this conversation I had been dreading the most, the part I couldn’t dodge and couldn’t justify in any sane way. If I told the truth, I was certifiable. But what lie could explain it away?

“Why don’t you tell me about what happened between you and your English professor,” he said, pen poised at the ready.

I was done with the polite pretenses. “What about it?”

“Do you have an explanation for your actions that you’d like to share with me?”

For the tiniest fraction of a second I considered telling him the truth. I imagined the look of wariness and fear that would flit across his chubby face; it was tempting, just to see his reaction. But my defenses quickly shot the impulse down.

 He took my silence as reluctance instead of indecision and tried to prompt me further. “Well, did the two of you get into some kind of argument?”

 
“No.”

 
“Did she perhaps give you a poor grade on a paper? Embarrass you in front of the class?”

 
“No,” I repeated blankly. Why was he asking me these questions?

 
“Can you think of no reason why you chose to target this particular teacher? Why her and not another of your professors?”

Oh. “You think it was … some sort of practical joke,” I realized out
loud.

“Not a very funny one, to be certain, as I’m sure you can see in retrospect,” Dr. Hildebrand said.

I stood up. “Okay, we’re done here.”

“No, my dear, your session lasts an hour. We still have half of your—”

“—No, I mean I have nothing more to say to you.” I pulled on my coat.

“Now, Jessica, I disagree. Let’s not be brash here. There is still much to be discussed, but if you won’t be open about things, then ….”