Caskets & Conspiracies

by Nellie K Neves

  “No.”

  His eyes rested on me. “You know it is the safest form of—”

  “I don’t like to swim.” I tried to keep the emotion out of my voice, but the crisp edges of my words sliced the air despite my best efforts.

  His stool wheeled closer and his voice dropped slightly in volume. “Is this about your sister?”

  I set my jaw, but my sternum felt as though an elephant had sat on it. When I did not answer, Dr. McCallister asked, “You haven’t seen a psychologist yet? I recommended that three years ago.”

  I looked away. The tears would fall if I witnessed his pity one more second. The nightmares that had once been occasional had increased. Instead of one or two, lately I felt as though I might become caught in a riptide and drown in my own fears. My sleep had become unpredictable. There were too many memories, too much pain to sort through in my waking hours, and it had all flooded into my unconscious thoughts.

  The concern filtered into his speech. “I am guessing they will make you go through a psych evaluation. How are you going to pass if you won’t deal with your childhood trauma?”

  I straightened and put up every emotional wall I could find. “I will manage. Can you finish the exam, please?”

  Four creases appeared horizontally across his forehead and he frowned slightly. Disappointment. He sighed heavily, and we went through the motions of a routine visit. My reflexes were there, a little weak on the right side but responsive. My gait was fine, an improvement from the year before when my right leg dragged slightly. He turned off the lights and judged the responsiveness of my eyes then asked me to touch my nose in the dark. It was my least favorite exercise. I could always find it with my left hand, but my right hand usually stabbed me in the eyeball no matter how hard I tried to keep it steady.

  The light went back on, and he ran through the remainder of his questions. He ended by saying, “You look pretty good. I have an order for an MRI waiting for you downstairs. If that comes back clean, no new lesions, then you are good to go.”

  I said goodbye, thanked him, and took the elevator to the basement of the building. The magnetic resonance imaging center was on the lowest level, which made sense to me. You keep the monster detectors in the dungeon where they belong. Here I was not allowed my own clothing, and the open-back robe of embarrassment was my only option. Five years since my diagnosis and five MRIs. It was a good thing I was not claustrophobic.

  As the tech gave me earplugs and padded my head with extra linen, I tried to dive into the sea of my inner calm. I knew what was coming. At least thirty minutes of clanging, banging, and jarring sounds that rivaled any car alarm I had ever heard, especially since this car alarm felt as though it was inside my skull. The plastic cage slid over my face like a new age diving mask or football helmet. The tiny tube swallowed me whole, and for a second, I panicked. It was always this way. My chest caved inward, my breathing ceased, and my head began spinning with vertigo.

  “Please hold still,” the tech’s voice rang out around me as if it were the voice of some heavenly being calling down from the clouds.

  I knew the rules. Perfectly still. My eyes closed, and I focused on my breathing. I imagined the meadow behind my home, my punching bag, and the way it felt when a kick connected so hard that the bag shook for a moment. The banging began, nearly deafening even with the extra padding the tech had gifted me. I tried not to think about what the doctor might find. Would there be new lesions? Was there more damage? How long did I have left? It was a dance I knew well. Lesions, gaping holes in the brain where healthy tissue used to reside, were an MS patient’s worst nightmare. They could show up anywhere, do any kind of damage, and as far as I could tell, there was no predicting where or when they would strike.

  The whirring and vibrating stopped all my thoughts. It was as if someone dumped a tool chest in a bathtub and then did it again and again. The panic was always present, just on the edge of my psyche, tempting me to grab hold and let go, but I wouldn’t. It was not worth it. I would have to start the MRI over. Sure, I could ask for drugs, but I did my best to avoid anything that would dull my senses. My worst fear was that I would relapse, or take something, and I would lose what made me special, the gift I had for seeing things that were not entirely there. If I lost it, what would I do? What would be left? The image of the woman from the waiting room popped into my head, the metal giraffe. I could not be her. I was not strong enough.

  There was twenty more minutes of clanging, and I endured it by counting the rhythmic patterns and imagining a 2-year-old throwing his father’s tools against sheet metal. Sometimes applying insane logic to it all made it more tolerable. In the last five minutes, I ran out of distractions to keep me from remembering I was in a magnetic tube with no space on any side of me. I started to feel the claustrophobia and delirium happily take hold.

  A single thought broke through. Not even a thought, just an image. Ryder. He had an easy, calm, carefree way about him. The image released the panic from my chest as if he had pulled the fear goblin off on his own. Or maybe it just could not exist if he were near. The effortless smile, those dark eyes, and that smell. He was right. His cologne weakened every part of me. He reminded me of my life before my diagnosis. Ryder was just the type I would have happily dated. Just enough bad boy to suit me but not so much that I ended up in trouble. For a brief time, with his image clearly printed in my mind, the clanging drifted away.

  The tech’s voice fell over me. “All done. Sorry about that extra twenty minutes. The doctor had special orders, but it looked like you drifted off for a second or two.” I took a deep breath of unrestricted air as he slid me from the tube and released my mask. “Must have been some pretty good dreams if you were able to sleep through all that racket.”

  Ryder’s face had not yet been banished by my consciousness, and I let him linger another moment. “I guess you could say that.”

  There had not been a time, not in all my MRIs, that I had ever fallen asleep. So there again, in the basement of the neurology building, amid all the monster-detecting machines in the dungeon of dragons, Ryder had saved me once more.

  Chapter 8

  Because I believed in efficiency and the power of ripping off a Band-Aid in one decisive swipe, I had scheduled my appointment with the department shrink that same day. She was thankfully not in the department building but just across the street. I did not want the officers to know that I had a requirement of evaluation and possibly continuing care if Chief Saunders got his way. Rainey Rawlings had served on the force before she went back to school to become a psychologist. It had been a short stint, but the department loved her because she understood, at least in part, what it took to be in the field. My Uncle Shane spoke very highly of her and even admitted he had gone to see her once or twice, though he would never reveal the reason.

  The room was cool as I entered through the glass doors, the lobby stylish and comfortable. There was no receptionist, though there was a desk. A small sign directed me to write my name and list the time I had arrived. I had the eerie feeling I was being watched, like a mouse with a scientist hovering to see if I went left or right. I was rescued from my quandary as the door to her office popped open.

  “Lindy?”

  My smile was weak at best. I would take four more trips into the neurology dungeon to avoid something like this. Dr. Rawlings motioned for me to come into her office. “Come on in. Let’s have a little chat.”

  As I passed through the doorway, I had to admit my anxiety soared through the roof. It was ironic that after all the years I had studied psychology, psychologists were one of my worst fears. The phobia was illogical. There was no real reason for it, but they terrified me. Maybe understanding them only made it worse. I knew what I was capable of. Therefore, I knew what she was capable of, and I did not want her to pull my secrets from their hiding places.

  I took a seat on the leather couch, and Dr. Rawlings sat across from me in a matching wingback chair. “I received a note from the chief
that he would like me to interview you. Is that right?

  Of course it is, but you knew that, didn’t you? I thought.

  “Yes, that is correct,” is what I actually answered.

  “Can I get you anything? Water? A soda?”

  She could see my discomfort. I knew the trick—offer comfort and become an ally.

  “I’m fine.” My discomfort morphed under the pressure of her stare into a strength of mine—candor. “Look, Dr. Rawlings, I am sure you are really busy, and you have much more important people to cater to. Let’s get this over with so we can both get on with our days.” I could feel my strength returning with each word. “The sooner you sign off that I am not crazy, the sooner I am out of your hair.”

  She was not thrown by my direct nature, and it made my stomach tighten.

  “Lindy, the chief wants me to meet with you frequently. Yes, this is our initial meeting, but if you are going to serve as a consultant, this is his standard.” Her smile was warm and knowing. “But I don’t think that is news to you either.” She pulled a notebook from the small end table next to her. “He has a few concerns that he would like you to talk to me about.”

  I sighed. “The Section 10?”

  Her lips puckered slightly as she thought about it. “That is part of it, yes.”

  Part of it?

  In the fifth grade we learned about the locks and dams of the Mississippi River. A series of mechanisms were put in place to help boats navigate the expanse. When the upward-bound boat passed the lock, the lower doors would close, and the space filled with water. This helped the boat climb upstream, moving into a new lock, and thus repeating the process again and again until it finally reached its destination.

  My entire being was set with similar locks and dams. The most superficial information was on the outside and easily accessible, but the more sensitive information was behind my psychological walls, and I did not feel comfortable sharing any of it with her.

  “Tell me about the Section 10, Lindy.” She sat back in her chair as if we were going to talk about last night’s game or the pleasant weather. This was the first passage into my psyche, though it was public record if you knew where to search.

  “I was 18, and I fell in with the wrong crowd. On a dare, I hotwired my friend’s father’s Ferrari and went for a little drive.” That was the short version. I had left out that it was my boyfriend that had dared me to steal his father’s car and that I had only done it because he said I couldn’t. I left out that my own father had defended me as my lawyer, and I negated the part where he pled my joyriding charge down to a Section 10. This provision was enacted by the Crimes (sentencing procedure) Act 1999. It was most useful for first-time offenders, and it worked on the provision that the crime would not be recorded as long as there was no repeat offense. My Section 10 was conditional on a two-year good-behavior bond.

  I broke ties with the friends who had deserted me, and I kept my nose clean from then on. I was lucky. The judge knew my father and was willing to give the Section 10 when in most cases there was no chance of such leniency. I had not damaged the car, and I had returned it after driving only four blocks.

  She knew everything. I could see it. Who had she talked to? Did the chief know all this, or had Uncle Shane ratted me out? “The Section 10 no longer exists on your record. That is the perk of obtaining one. Yet it still seems to follow you.”

  She had passed through another set of locks. “I applied for the police force when I lived in California. The cop that interviewed me knew about the Section 10 because we grew up together. When I didn’t mention it in the interview, he pressed and pushed until I had to admit it, and then I looked like a liar. Lying in an interview like that has a way of following you around. At least in this world it does.” I sighed. “I tried interviewing for the department here in Washington, but somehow they found out about that interview in California, and I had already been branded.”

  “So you became a private investigator.” She glanced briefly at her notes. “You have a background in criminology and psychology. Very impressive, and your track record speaks for itself.” I would have beamed at the praise, but I sensed a trap door in the future. “But there are concerns for your team-playing abilities.”

  “I like to work alone, but I can work with others if needed.” It was my obviously well-rehearsed answer.

  “There are a few notes here about the way you speak down to the officers as if they were stupid.” Her words ended on a high note, almost like a question.

  I wanted to tell her that sometimes they were stupid, but that would not get me released any faster. “I don’t think they understand my humor.”

  “I think you’re jealous,” she replied. “I think you feel that it is unfair that they are doing the job you wanted. I believe you feel as though you could do it better than they can if you were given a chance. Are you punishing them for their success or sabotaging yourself for your failures?”

  Lock breached.

  I did not say a word, but I was sure my expression said it all. She moved on. “Do you think your disease will impact your work?”

  “No,” I replied quickly, and it was the truth. I never let the monster control my work. I could recover if needed, but I did not allow it that sort of power.

  “It is a serious disease.” I resisted the urge to scoff at her naive words. “Do you have a support system in place?”

  Dr. McAllister had given up on asking me such things. I was sure with enough time Dr. Rawlings would follow suit.

  “My aunt and uncle live nearby. If I needed them, they would help. And if it got really bad, my parents would step in and help as well.”

  “But no significant other in your life? You live alone?”

  Drive that stake in harder, I thought.

  “I live alone,” I confirmed.

  “Do you date?”

  I could not see the relevance to my interview, but I answered the question she was really asking.

  “I don’t plan on getting married. So, no, I don’t date. My brain has an expiration date, and near the end, it is going to get ugly. I don’t want to put anyone through the pain of watching me deteriorate for years. I would rather be put in a home than torture someone I love with the pain of my failing body.” Unbidden, the metal giraffe from that morning filtered into my thoughts, the eyes of her son, concerned, worried, and wondering how much longer she would hold on. I was glad the psychologist could not read my thoughts.

  Dr. Rawlings was satisfied with my answer for the time being. Instead she pressed at the next gate in my mind. “Tell me about your family.”

  I tensed noticeably. There was no way she could know. The records were hard to find, or at least I hoped they were.

  “All girls, correct? All with political names.”

  I gasped. Why had she said “all”? Why not “both”? Eleanor and Lindy. Her next words rang against me like a ship colliding with a closed dam.

  “Three sisters, right?”

  She was talented. Dr. Rawlings had traveled to the deepest part of my hidden spaces, but this was too far. No one got this close, not even my parents talked about Jackie, not anymore.

  The psychologist was right. My father, ever political, had named two of his girls after first ladies: Jackie after Jackie O, the first lady and wife of JFK, and Eleanor after Theodore Roosevelt’s wife.

  When Mom was pregnant with me, the middle child, the doctor told her I was a boy. Dad was ecstatic. With a last name of Johnson, it was his dream come true. He would name me after his favorite president, Lyndon B. Johnson. Mom fought him every step of the way, but when I was finally born, she fell in love with his compromise, Lindy.

  I pulled myself from my memories, aware that Dr. Rawlings observed me astutely, analyzing my every twitch. I had to admit I did not like having the tables turned on me.

  “I don’t feel comfortable talking about my family,” I finally said, hopeful that it would end the conversation.

  She considered it but ask
ed, “Would you be willing to talk about your fears then? It is relevant to our work. The other officers need to know if you could freeze up in a situation.”

  I exhaled forcefully. “I’m not fond of spiders or mice, but I don’t run and scream.” My father raised me like the son he had always wanted. Fear was not something I was allowed to feel in most cases.

  The look in Rawlings’ eyes made me nervous. She was not done yet. “Can we talk about your fear of water? Rather, can we talk about your fear of swimming?”

  Against my will, my foot began twitching. I could see the water, the lake where we had been swimming that day. It was hot out, but the water was cool. I had learned to swim earlier that summer, a great feat for a child of only 4. Jackie splashed in the distance, and I called for her to slow down, but she was 6 and was not about to slow down for her baby sister. I tried to swim after her, but my fear held me back. I had to stay close to the shore. I remembered calling for her one last time, and then she was gone. Snatched from the earth. Snatched from my life.

  Something wet hit my thumb where my hands lay cradled in my lap. Another teardrop splashed down and dribbled into my palm, the makings of a pool. “My sister Jackie drowned in front of me when I was a kid. I haven’t gone swimming ever since.”

  For the first time I could see a human behind Rawlings’ expression. This was where she had wanted to go from the beginning. She was not concerned about my Section 10 or my inability to follow social cues within a team. She was solely interested in the triggers that had been caused by my sister’s untimely death.

  “Can you talk about it at all?”

  I shook my head. “I barely remember the funeral. They never found her body. My parents don’t talk about her. There aren’t even pictures of her in their home.” The tears fell faster, and my words became almost unintelligible. “It’s as if she never existed. Two daughters, not three.”

  “And suddenly you’re the oldest.”

  I sighed. The oldest and the girl who was supposed to be a boy.