Mirage(23)

“That’s a good sound.” My mom’s voice comes from behind. She plops her straw bag on a chair and kisses both Gran and me on the cheek, then gives me an appraising look. “Might want to throw a wrap over that hair,” she says. “You haven’t let it go so wild since you were a small thing.”

I touch my hair self-consciously, unable to remember the last time I looked at it. Mirrors haven’t exactly been my friend.

“We’d better head out soon for Dr. Collier’s office. Besides, I don’t think any of us want to be here when your father gets home. They raised prices again on aviation fuel. This world is conspiring to drive us out of business.”

“What would we do then?”

“Oh, honey, I’m sure we’d figure something out, but I don’t want to think about what that would do to your dad. That place saved him.” Ayida grabs Gran’s hands and helps her up. “C’mon, Mama. Let’s get you ready to go.” Her eyes narrow. “You look tired. What excitement have you two had today?”

My stomach clenches.

“Ryan played me a song on the piano.”

My mother’s eyes widen. “Did she, now? You finally wore her down, eh? Extraordinary.”

“It was that, yes,” Gran says with an ill-omened tone.

After a bit of fussing over what to bring to entertain Gran during my appointment, we head to one of the only psychiatrists in this small, impoverished desert town. Dr. Collier opens the door and asks my mother to speak privately.

“Are we here about me or you?” Gran asks the question so loud, it’s like she thinks the answer is stowed in my ear.

“Me,” I grumble while pretending to read a tabloid. I hope the specter doesn’t make an appearance during my appointment.

My turn comes, and I perch myself on the edge of his couch. His eyes take in my body language. He must notice that I look like I’m ready to spring.

“Make yourself comfortable, Ryan.”

I scoot my butt back, like, half an inch, unaware that I’m fiddling with one of the bandages on my arm until he looks down at it. He notices everything. “I know it’s protocol to go through this, but we’re all wasting our time. I’m not mentally ill. It was a stupid mistake. Stupidity isn’t an illness.” I clear my throat.

“I’d like to talk more about what happened the night you returned from the hospital. Your mother indicated that you had some kind of episode?”

Memory of my bedroom full of eyes bears down on me. My face flushes, making my cheek throb. This office is too hot. My mind squirms under his scrutiny. I feel like a bug that’s been pinned to a board while it’s still alive.

“I was tired.”

“I’m sure you were. You’d been through quite a lot.” He jots something down on a yellow legal pad. “You mentioned seeing eyes. Your parents said you wanted them to stop watching you?”

“I’d been sleeping. I had a bad dream, and I think I woke confused.”

“You were dreaming that eyes were watching you?”

I swallow loudly. “Yes.”

“You were standing and fighting with your eyes open,” he says in that question-but-not-a-question way. I don’t confirm or deny. He forges on. “And during your episode when you were on LSD, did you see eyes then, too?”

“Eyes . . .” I start to say yes, but that’s not the whole of it. I saw a girl in the mirror. She saw me. We fell into each other.

I’d never been in a fight before that.

“You fought the eyes?” the doctor asks, scribbling.

I hadn’t realized I’d spoken that out loud. “I was on drugs,” I stammer. “Seeing things. Isn’t that normal when you’re on LSD?”

Dr. Collier scratches his head with the tip of his pen and smirks. “It’s possible that what you experienced in your bedroom was what is known as a flashback. This can sometimes happen after taking psychedelic drugs. It’s very important to let someone know if it continues, Ryan. You have nothing to be ashamed or afraid of.”

You do. Yes, you do. Be afraid.

My head snaps up. Her threat echoes so loud, I wonder if he’s heard it too. I glance at the window. His gaze follows mine. There is no face in the glass, just the frozen arms of a cactus outside. My heart thrums in my ears.

Be afraid, she says again.

He has no idea about my fear.

“And how are your emotions? Would you say you’re feeling the normal range of emotions?”

“I’m not feeling much. My emotions are . . . deadened.”

You should be dead.

Inside my sneakers, my toes are curled so hard they hurt. My hands are shaking bad enough that I stuff them under my legs. The voice has cast a spell on me. The rest of our session is like a bad date. There are too many questions on his end, too many one-word answers on mine. I figure the less I say, the better. Ayida bookends my appointment with another five minutes alone with the doctor, and then we’re on our way home to make dinner. Gran has fallen asleep in the backseat. My mother is as rigid and silent as a tombstone.



Nolan is relaxing in front of the television, drink in hand, when my mom and I walk in, supporting Gran by her arms. She’s a little wobbly from waking up, tipping like she’s boozy. “Can we ride the motorbike again?” she asks through a yawn. I bite my lip, but my mom seems to take this as a dementia moment and answers, “Not just now, Mama. We need to make dinner.”