Baby Love (Baby #2)(22)

"How long will your mother-in-law be staying on with you and Trey?"

"I'm not sure. Why?"

"No reason. I just think that perhaps we need to discuss possible reasons as to why her presence has made you feel safer, secure and well to be perfectly blunt, sane."

What was with psychologists I wondered? Did they always find it necessary to find some deep, dark hidden meaning to any inconsequential remark made? I was a new mother with no experience with babies. Why shouldn't I feel more secure and relaxed having Susan with her child-raising experience nearby? It wasn't as if my own mother had taught me anything maternal. Dear God - I hoped Karla didn't bring that subject up again.

"Have you given any more thought to your own mother, Tylar?"

(There it was!)

"Not really," I replied with a shrug.

"I mean I'm not sure what you expected me to think about. I've told you that most of my 'mom' memories are not all that pleasant."

"I understand that," she remarked.

"Trust me; I am not trying to dredge up memories that are painful to you. I just thought perhaps there might be some benefit in you and I discussing some of the issues you may have had with your mother that cause you to worry about your own potential as a mother to Preston. I recall some of your dreams dealt with your fear of harming your baby."

"One dream, Dr. Hunter. It was only the one dream."

I was quick to correct her and the fact that I had not used her first name did not go unnoticed by Karla. I saw an eyebrow arch upward infinitesimally at my response.

Dear God, I had probably set off some psychological "bell and whistle" with my defensive response to her seemingly benign statement. The truth was I did not want to dwell on my mother or the fact that I had dreamt that horrid nightmare. The pills had taken care of those bad dreams. What would be served in dredging it all back up again?

"Did you have any luck with trying to recall your first memory since our last appointment?"

(Shit - that again. She was starting to annoy me a tad.)

"As a matter of fact I did. My first memory was at the house where I was raised. The one and only house that I ever lived in with my mother in Radcliff, Kentucky." I replied.

Karla nodded for me to continue, her pen poised above the lined notebook she had been using to take notes during our sessions. Her reading glasses were perched low on her nose. She looked like she was pushing forty. Perhaps the idea of bifocals was disdainful to her. I could tell she wore contacts.

I continued with my memory as she requested.

"I was on the swing set in my backyard. I was swinging really high on one of the swings by myself. I felt the swing set start to tip over. A man came out of our house and ran over to me. He grabbed the swing as it was going back up. He stilled the swing and lifted me from it. He placed me down beside him and told me very nicely not to go on the swing any more until the swing set had been anchored down into the ground."

Karla was writing furiously in her notebook. I gave her time to catch up before going on, noticing that when she looked back up at me her contacts were colored. Her eyes were blue today, matching her two-piece blue suit. I recalled last week her eyes were a dark chocolate brown matching the dark brown blazer she had worn with her tan-colored slacks.

"I'm not sure who the man was that day," I remarked, answering the question I was sure she was ready to ask. "All I know was that he wasn't like a boyfriend to my mom or anything."

"Why are you certain of that?"

"He wasn't her type for one thing. He was in a suit and tie. And they didn't hold hands or kiss or anything like any of the boyfriends I had managed to glimpse after that over the years. Also, I could tell that she really didn't like him. No - that's wrong," I corrected myself. "She really hated him as far as I could tell."

"Why would you say that?" Karla asked, her brow furrowed in her attempt to understand how as a child of perhaps four years old could read those kinds of adult emotions.

"Because I also recalled seeing him a couple of times after that. I remembered an argument she had with him a year or so after that."

"Tell me about the argument, Tylar."

"I don't know when it happened exactly. It was definitely after the incident with the swing set. My mom had given the swing set away. She never did have it anchored into the ground."

I paused briefly to make the memory crisper.

"She had been pissed at me after that. I suppose she blamed me for swinging in it too high. Anyway, the next time that I saw that same man I was in school."

The memory became more detailed in my mind. It put a timeframe into perspective. I was in kindergarten; that's right, it was kindergarten.

"I was in kindergarten," I confirmed out loud. "I know that because the elementary school that I had gone to had a Halloween festival. It was the first time that I had gone to it. I would have been five years old at the time. They held it on a weekend evening, either Friday or Saturday. It must have been Saturday because it was my mom's 'date night.' She didn't want to take me."

"Date night?" Karla questioned.

(Here we go…)

"Yes. Over the years my mom had a date night on Saturday's. That is when she would entertain men. As I got older, she wanted me out of the house on that night."