Wake to Dream(88)
“Was it all for nothing, Doc? Max is dead. Delilah is dead. I didn’t save anybody.” Her voice trailed off, her steps over the carpet feeble and uncoordinated.
Still holding her hand, Dr. Chance squeezed her fingers between his, a weak attempt at consolation.
“I can’t answer that question, but what I do know is that your sister is still very much lost. You need to call somebody, Alice. You need to tell them where your sister’s body can be found.”
He stopped them both in their tracks, turning to her so he could lightly grip her shoulders and stare down at the small woman who has been his most difficult patient.
“Wasn’t that what you wanted in the beginning? To save her?”
Nodding her head, Alice swallowed, not sure if she was ready to take those final steps. Finding the strength, Alice pulled away from the doctor and said, “I should go.”
Giving her a solemn smile, the doctor backed away. But before Alice could take another step, he reached out to touch her arm and draw her attention to him.
“Why me, Alice? Why did you come to me with all of this?”
She smiled, the expression sorrowful, yet serene. “You were the person I looked to when I was young and got scared, Doc. You were the only person who understood and cared to help me make sense of my nightmares. You always were the voice of reason inside my head.”
The doctor nodded in understanding and released her arm, taking a few more steps back so that she could walk away.
When Alice turned to enter the bathroom, the scene around her changed. No longer an office with gray walls, white doors, a dark wood desk, and a white and beige striped couch, the room where she now stood was the bedroom that she and Max had shared. The transition was instantaneous, but that’s usually how all dreams worked.
Beneath her feet was pristine white carpet, the space in front of the bathroom door a mucky grey with pink staining the edges.
Taking a deep breath, Alice stepped forward to open the door and saw herself sitting in the bath, the water that flooded the floor and tub both stained pink with blood. The faucet dripped with sorrowful drops, and Alice’s arms were positioned at the rim of the large basin with long angry gauges that split the skin from wrist to elbow.
*
One last gasp as her eyes flew open, one last chance to make things right. Alice struggled to reach for the cell phone that sat on the lid of the toilet, her fingers fumbling over the small device until she wrapped her fist around it.
Pulling the phone to her ear, she dialed nine-one-one. All she had left was the strength to say her name and address and to tell the authorities where her sister’s body could be found.
The phone dropped from her hand into the water before Alice took her final breath, her head slipping beneath the surface with her unseeing eyes opened wide.
Addendum to Report of Psychological Assessment
Confidential Material
Date of Addendum: July 29, 2016
Dates of Treatment: January 1998 through September 2007
Patient Name: Alice Marie Beaumont
Chronological Age: 26 years, 5 months
Parents: Lydia and Jack Beaumont
Siblings: Delilah Beaumont (1 year older); Jack Beaumont, Jr. (2 years younger)
History:
In brief history, Alice Beaumont was a patient treated in my office between January 1998 and September 2007. Her range of age during treatment was roughly eight years old through seventeen years old, at which time she was institutionalized and released from my active care.
Initially, Alice Beaumont’s mother, Lydia Beaumont, presented with her daughter with complaints of severe nightmares, sleepwalking, and other type sleep disorders. Lydia Beaumont mentioned the discovery of Jane Greely’s body – a missing persons turned murder case in the area that was prolific in the media – as a possible trigger for Alice’s first nightmares. Following the discovery of Ms. Greely’s body, Alice became obsessed with the ‘monsters’, as she called them, in the world.
Through counseling, and a regimen of medications, Alice improved over her course of treatment with me. Several key issues I noted during counseling included Alice’s father’s frustration with her ongoing disorders, and what he believed was a worsening in the severity of the disorders. I suspected abuse towards Alice on the part of the father, however, there were never any physical indications of abuse, and the family would not admit to any abuse occurring. Alice would only admit that her father became ‘frustrated’ and would lash out verbally.
Over the course of her teen years, Alice would often become non-compliant with her medications. As a result, her sleep disorders increased in severity, and Alice also developed waking delusions. When I questioned her regarding the new development, she’d claimed that although her body woke up in the morning, her waking mind was always dreaming. Due to her non-compliance with her medications, Alice eventually reached a point where admission into a treatment facility was required.
As a courtesy, the psychiatric facility that treated Ms. Beaumont following her release from my care provided me with intermittent case status updates. Review of those documents indicates that Ms. Beaumont suffered from several sleep disorders, which then led to delusional thoughts and erratic behavior. When first admitted into the facility, Ms. Beaumont made comments, and acted in a manner that led her physicians and caregivers to note that she believed she was a college student studying for a degree in neurology. At first, the staff allowed Ms. Beaumont to read texts on neurology while under their care, but they were quick to remove the books from her room when they realized the severity of the delusions Ms. Beaumont was suffering. Her caregivers assumed the medical environment where she was being treated for her particular disorders is also what contributed to the delusions.