A Flicker in the Dark(14)

“It’s perfect,” Daniel had said, his hand squeezing mine. “Chloe, isn’t it perfect?”

I nodded, smiling. It was perfect, but the vastness of the place reminded me of home. Of my father, covered in mud, emerging from the trees with a shovel slouched over one shoulder. Of the swamp that surrounded our land like a moat, keeping people out but also confining us in. I glanced over to the farmhouse, tried to imagine myself walking across the giant wraparound porch in my wedding gown before descending the stairs toward Daniel. A flutter of movement caught my eye and I did a double take; there was a girl on the porch, a teenager slouched in a rocking chair, her leg outstretched as brown leather riding boots pushed gently against the porch columns, moving the chair in a lazy rhythm. She perked up when she noticed me staring at her, pulled her dress down and crossed her legs.

“That’s my granddaughter,” the woman before us said. I peeled my eyes from the girl and looked in her direction. “This land has been in our family for generations. She likes to come here sometimes after school. Do her homework on the porch.”

“Beats the hell out of a library,” Daniel said, smiling. He lifted his arm and waved at the girl. She dipped her head slightly, embarrassed, before waving back. Daniel directed his attention back to the woman. “We’ll take it. What’s your availability?”

“Let’s see,” she said, glancing down at the iPad in her hands. She rotated it a few times until she could get the screen upright. “So far, for this year, we’re almost completely booked. You guys are behind schedule!”

“We just got engaged,” I said, twirling the fresh diamond around my finger, a new habit. The ring Daniel had given me was a family heirloom: a Victorian-era jewel handed down by his great-great-grandmother. It was visibly worn, but a true antique, old in a way that couldn’t be replicated. Years of familial stories scratched into the oval-cut center stone surrounded by a halo of rose-cut diamonds, the band a buttery yet slightly cloudy 14-karat yellow gold. “We don’t want to be one of those couples that waits around for years and just delays the inevitable.”

“Yeah, we’re old,” Daniel said. “Clock’s a-tickin’.”

He patted my stomach and the woman smirked, swiping her finger across the screen as if flipping pages. I tried not to blush.

“Like I said, for this year, all my weekends are booked. We can do 2020 if you’d like.”

Daniel shook his head.

“Every single weekend? I can’t believe that. What about Fridays?”

“Most of our Fridays are booked as well, for rehearsals,” she said. “But it looks like we do have one. July 26.”

Daniel glanced at me, raised his eyebrows.

“Think you can pencil it in?”

He was joking, I knew, but the mention of July sent my heart into a flurry.

“July in Louisiana,” I said, twisting my expression. “Think the guests can handle the heat? Especially outside.”

“We can bring in outdoor air-conditioning,” the woman said. “Tents, fans, you name it.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “It gets pretty buggy, too.”

“We spray the grounds every year,” she said. “I can guarantee you bugs will not be a problem. We have summer weddings all the time!”

I noticed Daniel staring at me then, quizzically, his eyes burrowing into the side of my head as if, if he stared at it hard enough, he could untangle the thoughts tumbling around inside. But I refused to turn, refused to face him. Refused to admit the completely irrational reason why the month of July morphed my anxiety into something debilitating, a progressive disease that worsened as summer stretched on. Refused to acknowledge the rising sense of nausea in my throat or the way the sour smell of manure in the distance seemed to mix with the sweet magnolias or the suddenly deafening sound of flies I could hear buzzing around somewhere, circling something dead.

“Okay,” I said, nodding. I glanced at the porch again but the girl was gone, her empty chair rocking slowly in the wind. “July it is.”





CHAPTER SEVEN




I watch Daniel’s car back out of the driveway, his headlights flashing a goodbye as he waves at me through the windshield. I wave back, my silk robe clutched tightly around my chest, a steaming mug of coffee warm in my hands.

I shut the door behind me and take in the empty house: There are still cups resting on various tabletops from last night, empty wine bottles filling up recycling bins in the kitchen, and flies that were apparently born overnight circling over their sticky openings. I start to tidy up, clearing dishes and placing them in the empty farmhouse sink, trying to ignore the drug-and-wine fueled headache nagging at my brain.

I think back to the prescription in my car; the Xanax I filled for Daniel that he doesn’t know about or need. I think about the drawer in my office housing the various painkillers that would almost certainly numb the throbbing in my skull. It’s tempting, knowing they’re there. Part of me wants to get in the car and drive to them, outstretch my fingers, and take my pick. Curl up in the recliner meant for patients and fall back asleep.

Instead, I drink my coffee.

Access to drugs is not why I got into this line of work—besides, Louisiana is one of only three states where psychologists can actually prescribe drugs to their patients. Other than here, Illinois, and New Mexico, we typically have to rely on a referring physician or psychiatrist to fill a script. But not here. Here, we can write them ourselves. Here, nobody else has to know. Whether that’s a happy coincidence or a stroke of dangerously bad luck, I haven’t quite decided. But again, that’s not why I do what I do. I didn’t become a psychologist to take advantage of this loophole, to sidestep the drug dealers downtown for the safety of the drive-through window, trading in a plastic baggy for a logoed paper bag, complete with a receipt and coupons for half-off toothpaste and a gallon of 2 percent milk. I became a psychologist to help people—again with the clichés, but it’s true. I became a psychologist because I understand trauma; I understand it in a way that no amount of schooling could ever teach. I understand the way the brain can fundamentally fuck with every other aspect of your body; the way your emotions can distort things—emotions you didn’t even know you had. The way those emotions can make it impossible to see clearly, think clearly, do anything clearly. The way they can make you hurt from your head down to your fingertips, a dull, throbbing, constant pain that never goes away.