11-11 Read online

  “Where should we start?” he asked, easing his back to the chair and readying his pen and paper.

  “You got your hair cut,” Heather began.

  “Ah. Concentrating on me today, huh?” he asked.

  The banter was familiar. She assessed him, he noticed her assessments, and soon they would begin the actual session. She sometimes wondered why she continued to see him when she always knew what he would say.

  She mused she would save a lot of money if she just put a picture of his face on a big stick and sat it on her living room chair. The thought made her smile and caused her mild concern at the same time.

  “Where did we leave off last time?” she asked.

  He was quiet. She knew he wouldn’t answer the question. One of the rules they’d established long before was that Heather would remember things for herself.

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  her to unblock the thick bricks she’d erected where an active memory was supposed to be.

  “That’s right,” she continued, as though he had been an active respondent. “We were talking about Benny.”

  At the thought of her friend’s memory, Heather’s heart saddened instantly. His face and his voice were still so clear in her mind. It was intense clarity for a woman who often forgot where her shoes were.

  Benny had played an important role in her circle of friends. His suicide four months earlier had been devastating to all of them but Heather felt as though she had been affected on a different level. The guilt she had experienced in the months since he’d shot himself had, at times, threatened to impede her daily functioning. Most of all, Heather just really missed him.

  “That’s right,” Angel encouraged. “You were still struggling with guilt over not answering the phone. Can you remind us what that was about?”

  Heather smiled. As corny as it was, she loved when he referred to them as “us and we.” She was completely aware that he worded things the way he did intentionally.

  She knew enough psychology to know what he was doing and why he was doing it but the knowledge didn’t dampen the effect. She loved him for knowing how to speak to her better than anyone else ever had.

  “You know what it was about,” she said.

  Though she would never be outright disrespectful to him, Heather sometimes liked to play head games with her psychiatrist. She found it amusing that she could peg 83

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  him so well. She’d choose a response she wanted and then design a question or statement to force it out of him. To her dismay, she realized she did that with everyone else she knew and the amusement passed just as quickly. She continued without sarcasm.

  “I feel bad still,” she said softly.

  “Because you didn’t answer the phone or call him back?” he reminded her.

  “Yes, of course. Wouldn’t you feel bad if your friend called to say he missed you and needed to talk and then blew his brains out after you didn’t respond? I mean, seriously?”

  She rolled her eyes in an effort to pull in the outgoing tears.

  “Do you remember the conclusions we came to about that?”

  “That he would have done it anyway,” she repeated, still disbelieving. “And even if I called back or went to him that night, he’d have done it eventually. That I don’t have as much power as I think.”

  “You do have power. It’s just not over other people, it’s over yourself.”

  “Exactly. I had the power to call back and I didn’t. I just ignored him. I didn’t know.”

  She shook her back and forth. She really hadn’t known that Benny was in such a bad place. If she had known, she would have gone to see him. She would have at least called back.

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  It was during Benny’s funeral that Heather decided to remain more available to her friends and never allow work or daily frustrations get in the way of real people.

  She still didn’t have the heart to tell him she was already backsliding on the self-made deal.

  “I don’t think I’ll ever really get over this,” she admitted. “Can we change the subject for a minute?

  There’s something I wanted to talk about before I forget.

  My sister called me on the way here. Lisa, not Jade.”

  He seemed interested in her topic of subject change and she took it as an invitation to continue.

  “She hates me, you know. She can’t hide it at all anymore. She hates Jade too and my mom.”

  Heather shook her head back and forth, still in disbelief at the way her family had fallen apart. She had always thought of Lisa as someone who knew all the answers and she had always trusted her big sister’s judgment. At least, she did until Heather became the object of her judgment.

  “What makes you say that?” he asked

  “Well, let’s see,” she answered, sarcasm forcing its way into her tone despite her attempts to keep it away.

  “She said, very seriously in fact, that we were no longer allowed to say more than hello or ask how she’s doing.

  She knew her expression told him she was still appalled by the conversation.

  “And what did that mean to you?” he continued.

  “Uh, it means she’s a cold-hearted, bitch,” she said angrily.

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  “What is the overriding feeling here, Heather?”

  “Anger,” she said fi rmly.

  She knew she wasn’t being honest with herself but anger was safer than the truth so it was what she clung to.

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  Heather knew what he wanted her to say but she couldn’t do it. She knew that anger wasn’t the strongest feeling but she refused to admit it out loud. Vocalizing her real feelings would make it real.

  “I can’t say it,” she whispered. The need to cry got stronger and it stung the backs of her eyeballs.

  “Why?” he prodded.

  Her fi rst tear found an opening and Heather’s automatic response was to deal with it the only way she knew to deal with pain. She blurred it out. She closed her eyes and deleted the vision of Lisa’s face looking back at her with disgust. She hid her real feelings behind one of the many locked doors within her mind and produced a new thought that was completely unrelated.

  It wasn’t so much a thought as it was a song. Girls Just Want to Have Fun poured out of her mental speakers and Heather smiled at the feelings it brought with it. She knew the song reminded her of happier days with Lisa and that her subconscious had chosen it for a very real reason.

  “I like Cyndi Lauper,” she said.

  She realized that the progression of thoughts that led to that statement made it sound much more sensible to 86

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  her than it would to him. She had forgotten to give him warning that she was taking a mental break.

  “Sorry,” she whispered.

  Her doctor didn’t smile, exactly. He was used to the random intrusive thoughts and wasn’t fazed by the fact that she did it. Heather did believe the content of her compulsive thoughts amused him to no end, however.

  “You moved away from something there, I see. Did it get too hard to contain again?”

  Heather nodded. She loved that he had a vocabulary for all the things she couldn’t say.

  Dr. Angel was quiet for a minute and Heather became as uncomfortable by the silence as she always did.

  “What? What are you thinking? I’m crazy, right?” she asked.

  It was his turn to shake his head.

  “No. I’m actually gonna go out on a limb here but I feel like there’s a theme here. First on your own, you’re able to remember that we ended up talking about Benny last time.

  You recall the decisions we came to and the resolutions you were comfortable with. Then your thoughts jump to your sister and her callous words to you. Words that, I believe, you don
’t think say enough.”

  “Oh, they said enough,” Heather countered as she fought the sarcasm again.

  “Well, I know it felt like a lot but what she actually said was not to expect anything more of her. She didn’t say why she feels that way and that’s what you’re interested in, right?”

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  “Right,” she answered slowly.

  “So, do you believe she said enough?” he asked.

  “Well, the words hurt me a lot but did they give me information? No. She communicated to me how she felt now but she never tells me why. She won’t tell me why she hates me so much and I don’t get it. We’re all grown ups now. Why can’t she just tell me?”

  “What do you want from her exactly?” he asked.

  “I want her to join me. I want her to be with me in the memories of the pain, not against me.”

  Heather remembered how they had been bonded by their abuse. It felt better than dealing with it alone.

  “Is that what you think Benny wanted from you?” he asked gently.

  Tears streamed down her face as she was struck defenseless by what she perceived as a cruel question.

  “Are you trying to hurt me?” she asked, betrayal outlining her words.

  “No, Heather. This isn’t how I feel. I’m just repeating your words back to you.” He glanced down at his notepad and Heather knew what he was saying. His furious scribbling wasn’t done in vain. It helped when they needed to remember things together.

  “Yes, that’s how I think Benny felt,” she answered sadly.

  She didn’t plan to waste anymore energy on trying to keep the tears at bay. She knew when to throw in the towel.

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  “It’s interesting how very opposite the situations are,”

  he ventured.

  “How do you mean?” Heather sniffl ed.

  “Well, in one situation, you get a phone call asking for help, almost begging you. In the other, the person is telling you she doesn’t want or need you at all.”

  “Hmm. I hadn’t thought of it that way,” she said.

  Heather put a tissue to her eyes before her mascara seeped in and did even more damage.

  “Why do you think Lisa feels the way she does?” he asked.

  “She has faulty perceptions,” Heather intellect-ualized.

  “In what way?” he asked, interested.

  “Well, she stayed where she was when Mom moved us out of state. She was eighteen and didn’t want to leave all of her friends. Jade and I had no choice but to become close. We left our home together and started all over again in another state. I think our relationship hurts Lisa. She’d never admit it but she’s jealous. She hates that Jade and I have such a strong bond and she feels left out.”

  “Have you left her out?” he asked.

  Heather’s fi rst response was defensiveness.

  “Of course not,” she said, anger raising the level of her tone. “It’s not my fault we moved. I was just a kid. And whatever else she thinks I did is wrong too.”

  A fl ash of memory sliced into her thoughts and Heather experienced it has a pinprick to the heart. Lisa was young in the memory, about twelve years old. She was 89

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  protecting her little sisters from something but Heather couldn’t see what it was. The familiar frustration forced her fi sts to ball up in her lap.

  “What was it?” Dr. Angel asked. “What did you see just now?”

  Heather’s voice trembled when she spoke. She didn’t know what had shaken her so badly.

  “It was Lisa. She was keeping us away from something,” she answered fl atly.

  “Something?” he countered.

  “I don’t know what. It was like she was holding us away from something. All I saw was the three of us and I don’t know what it means.”

  “Okay, that’s all right,” he said, an eagerness detectable in his voice. “Don’t worry about who or what else is there.

  How does the memory feel? How do you feel about Lisa in the memory?”

  “Love,” she whispered. “I love Lisa in the memory.

  She was protecting us. She loved us.”

  Heather couldn’t continue the conversation. When feelings became too overwhelming, her cognitive skills were the fi rst to go.

  She knew it was happening by the blurriness that overtook her pupils. Dr. Angel’s face appeared to her as though it were underwater and the words that came from his mouth stopped making sense altogether. Nothing came together anymore.

  “I’m getting blurry,” she told him.

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  It was the code that told him where she was, both mentally and emotionally. On a scarier level, it told him where she wasn’t.

  “Okay,” he said fi rmly. He wouldn’t push her. At times he did, but not on this occasion.

  “Is there another direction you think we can go?” he asked.

  He was trying to see if she was capable of continuing at all.

  “Yes, actually,” she began, but then paused. “I know you probably won’t fi nd this important but I want to talk about the attacks again.”

  He smiled a sincere smile.

  “You automatically assume I won’t fi nd that important?” he asked.

  She knew what he really meant by the question.

  At the last minute, Heather had chosen not to share with him anything that had happened that day. She didn’t tell him about the outburst in court and she didn’t disclose the incident in the garage. She couldn’t bear the possibility of him not believing her.

  She had sped to his offi ce with every intention on purging herself but decided in the end that she could still draw needed strength from their session without baring all. She also fi gured that if she began talking about the attacks again, it may help her to better visualize the men who had tried to harm her throughout her life. Somehow, she knew that important answers hid themselves in the memories of the attacks.

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  “What are you looking for, Heather?” he asked.

  She cringed at the thought he could read her mind so she broke the eye contact.

  “I don’t know,” she lied. “I just feel that it’s important we talk about it right now.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  She shifted her position on the cold leather until she found one more comfortable. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to get lost in the memory of that night long before.

  ’11:11,” she said to herself.

  She recited the time whenever she needed help taking a trip to the past. The eerie number had come up so often during her lifetime that she had begun to think of it as a sign. Research into the 11:11 symbol told her that its presence meant she was headed in the right direction and Heather had started to rely on it as a mantra.

  An eerie coldness welcomed her to the vivid memory she’d been seeking. Heather squeezed her closed eyes even tighter than they had been and tried to envision the attack on the side of the interstate.

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  Chapter 6

  Psycho

  She had been seventeen years old and was grounded as usual. Despite her restrictions, her mother had allowed her to spend the night at a girlfriend’s house. Rene had decided it would be a good idea to sneak out with Tom and Joe, their latest male companions, so the two couples went to the beach with a cooler of beer and a couple of joints. Heather often wondered if her life would have gone differently had she not gotten into the van with her friends that night.

  She remembered the sound of the crowbar that rolled around the back of the van every time they made a turn.

  She remembered the fear of getting back to Rene’s too late and missing her mother’s good night call, exposing her rebellion.

  They were headed home when Joe pulled over on the shoulder so that he could jump out and pee “rea
l quick.”

  She clearly remembered the feeling of the van as it veered too quickly to the right side of the road. Joe had parked in the emergency lane and laughingly took a lumberjack 93

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  style piss break. When he got back into the van and turned the key in the ignition, there was no sound and no vibration

  The guys were drunk and neither one of them knew what to check when they opened the hood. They tinkered with gadgets in the engine but their assessment of their vehicular troubles was as about as mature as two four year olds with a Lego car problem. Rene got tired and went to nap in the van, leaving Heather to fl ag down late night drivers on her own.

  Heather recalled for her doctor how she had stood on the side of the road, waving to anyone who happened to drive by. She practiced apologies and desperate for a ride, hiked up her skirt just a tiny bit. The only car that pulled over was a light purple Volkswagen which the driver parked about thirty feet ahead of the van. Its brake lights turned on and off for awhile and Heather remembered hoping against hope that there had indeed been a driver behind the wheel of that car.

  “Do you need a ride?” a man’s voice called out.

  Both the Volkswagen and its occupant were motionless except for the brake lights that continued to blink on and off. Heather declined the offer and called out a “thanks, anyway’ before the driver backed the car toward the van and asked what he could do to help. She remembered he seemed to be reacting to some unknown source of amusement. Heather’s instincts screamed their savior’s intentions were bad but she brushed it off.

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  As Heather spoke the memory out loud for Dr. Angel, she heard the strain slide into her own voice. She knew he could see her squinting as she tried to look more closely at the motorist in her memory. She needed to see him more clearly so she sped up the memory and saw herself walking closer to him, as she had done that night. The man still sat in the driver’s seat and as she neared him in her memory, her heart pounded from her seat on the doctor’s couch.

  When the stranger in her mind made his next move, Heather became rigid before her doctor’s eyes. The guy had reached out and grabbed her wrist as he tried to pull her into his car. She fought him immediately but he started to drive away, still holding onto her as he did. Though she tried her hardest to pull away, she realized he was too strong to fi ght. He badly wanted her in his car.