Promises

I wondered who Mary was today.  I pulled the shade to the back window, and scanned the street.  She was already thirty minutes late.  It could mean anything, or it could mean nothing.

The afternoon sun filtered through the glass and warmed my skin as I watched, until I felt damp with perspiration, almost feverish.  Only the slow traffic of the off-season cruised our sleepy Saturday morning streets.  It wasn’t my habit to go to the office on weekends, and I can’t remember ever initiating a call to a patient.  But there were too many coincidences for me, and I needed to know what she knew, if anything.  I needed to know what she was responsible for.

My office sits at the edge of town; only an empty lot separates it from state property, earmarked for a park before the funds ran out.  A narrow road alongside the vacant land ends at the lake, and the locals like to drive down the lane and park their cars on their way to the beach in the summer or to ski the woods in the winter.  My own habit was to take my coffee and walk the trails through the woods from my house on the other side of the state land, especially on fine mornings.  It was what I’d seen out there in the woods this morning that had caused me to break routine. 

As if I’d had a routine at all since meeting Mary.  I spoke to her the first time simply by chance.  Twenty-five hours of public service were necessary if I wanted to keep my license, and the easiest way to get it was working the suicide hotline.  Two hours, once a month was the commitment.  I could fudge the last hour on follow up.  I fought for the Tuesday and Wednesday shifts, because I could usually catch up on my reading then. Suicide candidates tend to prefer the weekends.

The first call had come from a terrified teenager who called herself Robin.  With professional arrogance, I recognized the symptoms of classic paranoia, and began to initiate the appropriate response protocol.  Before the software we used to trace calls and send intervention could finish its routing, Elizabeth came on the line and explained that Robin was just a drama queen, in no danger.  The line went dead and all I had was the number.  Moments later, the caller I.D. confirmed that she was calling back.  I listened with fascination as Mary emerged, flustered, trying to excuse the other’s behavior. 

It was Mary I convinced that it was safe to talk to me and that counseling was the only way to keep the police from following up on the hotline call.  Robin would have to keep the appointment, or I had to file a report.  The rules made my job simple.

So I thought.  I thought it would be an easy way to finish up my community service hours.  A little family counseling, group session.  I could count each person attending as an hour, and I’d be set.

I thought I would be speaking to three different women.

Six months had passed, and I had met five distinct personalities.  I knew there were more.  One was an older man named Adam; one a crying infant the "others" refer to as Angel.  Mary lives most in the world.  Mary is a mother; she has a son, Stephen, in reality.  My reality, not hers.  But the rest all share the same body, and technically the same mind.

As I waited, I reviewed the thick file that had nearly consumed my practice.  A mind forced to survive the un-survivable travels many roads, but none are as complicated as when it recreates itself.  I hate to admit that Mary may never be completely unraveled.  My job is to determine if she is a threat to herself, or, more importantly, to her son.  Under every stone I turn is more psychosis.

Mary works in the Café on the south side of town, and the job there somehow triggers her panic attacks.  Every shift seemed to be leading up to something more important.  I’d stopped in the restaurant out of curiosity shortly after our first session, but Mary didn’t appear to recognize me.  The oath I took wouldn’t allow me to acknowledge her without her consent.  Even if she was “Mary” she just might not want anyone to know she was seeing a shrink.  Common enough occurrence.  I can’t say that the visit was enlightening though.  Just greasy eggs and soggy toast, and while it may have turned my stomach, nothing I saw accounted for a scrambled mind.

I peered through the slats of the blinds on the back window again, and continued to flip through my file.  I found the notes from an intense session with Adam.  I’d flagged that session with bright red tabs, because that was the day I knew I was in well over my head, and should have given up.  In that session, I was introduced to “them.”  They are everywhere: the police, the barbershop, the fruit stand.  The grocery store in the center of town is their headquarters.  Adam told me they require gifts, and that the only real giving is sacrificial giving.

The books I consult remind me that too often, psychosis is based in fact.  Until I can determine the depth of this delusion, I dare not trust anyone.  Especially any of the people living “inside” Mary.

This morning, in a clearing in the woods behind my office, a circle of stones surrounded smoldering ash.  A larger stone stood in the center of the ash, and a lamb, still dripping blood, was draped across the stone.  Adam had said that sometimes, a lamb or a rabbit is enough.  But the purity is what is important, and there is only one way to assure the purity of the soul.  And that is to create it themselves.

Flipping through the file, I come to another session.  Another day, Elizabeth came back.  My notes record that her voice was hollow, as though it came from a distant place while Mary rested on my couch.  “We deliver in the woods, among ourselves.”  Her sigh was so long suffering it appeared cliché, put on.  “So there are no birth records, nor death records.” 

I remember it was hot then too, and as she told her story the gooseflesh that rose on my bare arms had no plausible explanation.  “I became high priestess when I delivered a daughter, down near the river.”  She sighed, satisfied in her accomplishment.  “My sisters attended me, helped me.  In return, I gave them a taste of the placenta, and we each were anointed with the holy fluid of birth.”

“And then what?”  I asked.  It didn’t even occur to me that the question was unprofessional.

Mary returned then, with only one sentence.  “She turned innocence over to evil.”

I hadn’t been able to figure out the time frame, and had considered hospitalizing Mary to determine if her story could be real.  I know there are ways to determine the number of pregnancies a body has borne, but that was well beyond the boundaries of professional conduct, and I needed to remember that this wasn’t just a community service case.  Mary had come to me for help, and Stephen was to be my priority.  On that, Mary was adamant.

Stephen is ten.  Born before Mary swallowed the first taste of encapsulated nirvana that I presume started the delusion.  If I took Mary’s account at face value, the drugs gave the cult strength and ensured its addictive hold on its members. 

Stephen is too old for sacrifice, yet too young to trust.  Mary says they wanted her to give the drugs to him, but something inside all those voices in her head bound together to protect the boy.  The mother voice came through and cried for help. 

I am brought back from the fantastic world of the file by the grind of gravel spinning away from wheels stopped too fast in my driveway.  Mary gets out of the front seat, and opens the back door to retrieve a parcel.  She stands straight, clutching the bundle to her chest, and her eyes look toward mine behind the window.  I have the distinct feeling that she doesn’t see me, though I don’t drop my gaze.

The back door on the other side of the car springs open, and Stephen gets out, watching his mother as though he is afraid she will disintegrate.  I wonder how much he has seen of her transitions, and hope that Mary has been strong enough for his sake.  His agitation wins his own battle though and he runs to me as I open the office door for them.  "You have to help us Doc!  They're coming!"

Fear has a way of aging people, even ten year olds.  My agreement with Mary is that he will be kept safe at all cost.  As her doctor, I know I have an obligation first to her, but this is the pact I have made, to keep this boy from harm.  I think it might be time to find him a safe place, when Mary comes up to the door and I hear the mewling cry of a newborn.

"Hush, little one, hush."  Mary coos to the bundle in her arms.  "No one will hurt you, little Angel."  She doesn’t acknowledge that I am there.

I give another inspection to the quiet street.  The late afternoon sun has given way to an overcast early evening.  I see no one, hear nothing beyond the drama of these three.  I hold the door and we all go inside.  Turning the lock seems only appropriate.  "Stephen, what happened?"

Furtive glances between his mother, who is humming lullabies now and swaying to her own rhythm, the now blocked window, and me, pepper his story.  "I was hungry; there was nothing to eat in the house.  So we went to the store.  We just went for food.”

He is a slight child; it isn’t hard to believe he would be hungry.  His tone is confessional, as though it is his responsibility and he has failed.  I can see ahead to his future in that moment, and realize that families ensure full employment for my profession for a long time.  But for now, he is not my patient.  “What happened Stephen?”  I repeat.

“Mom saw some people she knew, or at least they seemed to know her.  She freaked.  She ran out of the store like ... like she was ... possessed or something, screaming “Not this time!  Not this time!”  It was like she didn’t know where she was… she never said a word to me… just left our cart right there by the meat department.”

"Stephen, where did the baby come from?"

His voice is low, yet the terror in it is not.  His eyes are pulled down by the gravity of what he has seen, and he stares at the floor.  “I tried following her…  I called to her but she just kept going, right out of the building.  When I got to the door, she was standing by this blue car.  It was weird, the engine was running, sitting there with no driver in the parking lot.”  He casts a fearful eye toward the window, and takes in the smile on his mother’s face as she cradles the infant.  “The doors must have been unlocked, and well…that’s where it was, all by itself, in the car, crying.” 

He paused, as though he were finished.  “Stephen?”  I tried to use a tone that made clear stopping was not an option.

“Mom just ... grabbed it, okay?  She just took someone's baby!"  His voice cracks, the ten-year-old child now returning, the ten-year-old man's job complete.  "She put it in the back seat of our car and told me to hang on.  I didn’t even think she saw me, but I got in and we just drove away.  She kept watching behind us in the mirror, and she drove all over town before we came here.  I think the police are coming!"

The lullaby has stopped and the deep voice I have come to know as Adam speaks then, standing straight and tall in contrast to the nurturing curve Mary had wrapped around the infant.  The baby’s head flops around and her feet dangle, as though she is inanimate, unfeeling, as Adam/Mary holds her by her armpits.  "What is this?  She's kidnapped a child!”  The baby begins to cry again.  “It has to go back!"  My patient and the infant start for the door.

"Adam, wait!  I need to speak with Mary!"  I command with authority.  One thing I have learned is that all the people inside Mary’s head are afraid of something, and the something usually is any authority at all.

"Oh that weakling!  She ran away again.  I have to go Doc.  We need this child ... her …family will be looking for her."  She looks straight through Stephen, not seeing her son.

"Mom, why are you talking that way?"  Tears have now joined the anguish on the frightened boy’s face.  Too much, I think.  This is too much.

I step to Mary and take her face into my hands, my palms suctioned against her cheeks and make her look into my eyes.  I know the risk.  But I have no choice; I have made promises.  "Mary, give me the baby." 

Her eyes truly focus on mine in recognition for the first time since we have been meeting.  “My baby,” she whispers.  “Not my baby.”

 “Give me the baby, Mary.”

     I sense Stephen’s fear, though I don’t dare break eye contact with Mary yet.  There is still a chance.  I say a silent, very unpsychiatric prayer for the child.

But Mary is weak.  She yields.  She closes her eyes and collapses, cushioning the infant as she falls and curls into fetal position.  Their cries blend eerily together.  I know I have lost her. 
Stephen is crying in earnest as well, repeating, “I’m your baby mom, I’m your baby.” and I catch the flashing light of the sheriff’s car between the slats of the blinds.  I peel Mary’s fingers from the shrieking infant and shoulder it, then comfort Stephen as best I can with a hand on his back.  He pulls away from my touch, and keeps crying “Mom, mom.”  He has never been more like his mother.

The sheriff worked quietly, calling the hospital for Mary, and agreed to take the baby himself while I waited with Stephen.  Since it was a pro bono case, there won’t be much paperwork for me to deal with at least.  I don’t know what will happen to Stephen, but I am a professional, and can’t get involved. 

When he is gone, I open the small vial the sheriff left on my desk, and breathe in the sweet scent of the membrane.  I’ll allow myself a taste as a reward, though I’ll save the anointment for the ceremony.  I fulfilled my promises after all, and it is time to celebrate.