THE HOUSE INSIDE ME

by Camelia Wheatley

  The words made me shudder tip to toe, the blackness inside me flittering around like wings of blackbirds. I wasn’t sure how long I stared at the painting, felt its pain, and submerged myself within its energy. A door opened and closed. Noises filtered in and out of my ears. Yet, I could not turn. Move. I told myself. Blink. But yet, I remained fixated. Out of the corner of my eye an elegant female shadow appeared.

  “Engaging, isn’t it?” the shadow said in a calm, meditating voice. “I am inspired by the great work of broken, flawed people. Are you a fan of art?”

  “I’m sorry, what?” I tore myself from the canvas to face the shadow beside me. It took me a second to gather my wits.

  “I asked if you are a fan of art? These are reproductions of course, but aren’t they just breathless?”

  I nodded, unable to speak, glancing back at the painting.

  “Let me get your file and we’ll step inside my office.” The woman said motioning to the secretary who was still eyeing me cautiously. “You’ve met Pearl already I assume?”

  “Oh, sure. I met Pearl.” Even though we hadn’t been formerly introduced, I was positive she was out to get me, hence my standoffish attitude. By midnight the entire town would know I was seeing a psychiatrist, thanks to Pearl. It would end up in the Edna’s gossip column by next week.

  “By the way, I’m Dr. Telford.” The woman turned and presented her highly manicured hand. “And you must be Cassidy.”

  “Yes, I am…or I was,” I said, shaking her hand. “Now they just call me the town arsonist.” With baited sarcasm I glanced at Pearl. “You can read all about it in the local newspaper, ain’t that right, Pearl?”

  “In the Gazette?” Dr. Telford asked. “I thought people only read that to find out who got arrested or divorced?”

  I smirked and raised my hand. “I fit both categories,” I said, laughing.

  “Well, Cassidy. Let’s see if we can work on those categories. Follow me and we’ll get started.”

  “You can call me Cass, everybody does.”

  “Okay, Cass. This is my office. Make yourself at home.”

  Underneath my masked exterior I was anxious and trembling inside. I stopped short just inside the doorway. Her office was like a cloud made into a room, or an entryway into heaven. The stark whiteness of everything made me adjust my vision. The ceiling went up, up and up. From the lobby, you wouldn’t expect it to look this way. A miniature cathedral with white arches, large round columns and stained-glass windows. Sounds echoed and the walls swallowed them, as if they were holding thousands of secrets inside their bellies. I felt an eerie strangeness as if the room was as anxious as I was, anticipating my exposure, my secrets so it could eat for the day. I expected church bells to ring and saintly figures to come strolling out in robes and throw holy water on me. Everything was shades of white, except for a few flowers in vases, and some paintings on the wall, and scattered knickknacks. I felt like a huge sinful inkblot. I could barely move and hesitated to sit on the white couch with wooden arches and intricate carvings, adorned with white crème-striped pillows. Finally, I sat on the edge of the couch, uncomfortable and tense. My fingers tightened into clinched fists, an anxious tick behavior I’d had since I was a child. I rubbed my thighs until my skin was hot.

  My eyes scanned the perimeter of the room. Doc’s petite frame sat in an oversized plush white chair. Behind her were bookshelves lined with medical and prescription books, and great thinker books by Maslow, Freud and Jung and others. I’d read some of them in my youth when I worked in the library during high school. To my right was a wall of windows and French doors leading outside to a pristine jungle of plants, waterfalls, birdbaths and feeders. A low blend of soft classical music played from a hidden speaker. Two Vincent van Gogh paintings were bookended on both sides of the wall. One I recognized to be The Starry Night but the other one I hadn’t seen before. It depicted an old man sitting in a chair bent down with his hands on his face, hidden and appearing to be in anguish.

  “Nice color scheme. You really hate white, huh?” I said laughing to break the tension in the air.

  “Can’t stand it,” she said, smiling.

  “I reckon you hear some pretty dark shit up in here, so you gotta offset the mood, huh? Just whitewash the whole place to get rid of the bad mojo, right?” I said feeling like a huge ink blotch ready to spill out and stain everything in sight.

  “Well, yes, I hear many things, dark things included, it’s part of the job, but honestly, I just like the way the white color opens everything up, you know?”

  “Ohh…is that what you’re going to do with me? Open me up? Like a can opener…” I glared at her for a split second in protest, difiance, my eyes showing my unruly disposition.

  “However you like to think of it.” She said in a come back that was non-engaging. I wasn’t used to disengaging conflicts so it left me a little rattled.

  “Cass, let’s go over some things, shall we?”

  My body flinched. “Sure thing, Doc.” I sighed. “Oh. I’m sorry, I mean Doctor Telford. It just slipped…”

  “It’s fine. I’m not formal. You can call me Doc for short. It’s all the same.”

  I nodded and stared at the numerous degrees on the wall. I felt small. I had never let anyone inside my head before, much less talked about my problems. I unraveled in a quiet desperation but I hoped she wouldn’t notice.

  “Okay, I see you got a divorce last year, after a prior separation.”

  “Yep. Good goddamned riddance,” I blurted out. My sudden burst of emotion surprised me. In my mind I saw the erratic fish, darting back and forth. I hadn’t spoke about my ex in over six months in an attempt to erase him from my life. Talking about him puts me in a dark place.

  “You sound angry, Cass. Can you tell me about it? You stated before the separation, your husband had been having an affair with Cynthia Stubblefield. The fire you allegedly set was at Ms. Stubblefield’s house in her front lawn with Sam’s belongings, correct?”

  “Hmpt! Allegedly. That sounds like a guilty word. I have no memory of it. None. No fire. No match. Nothing. Hell, for that matter, the only memories I DO have are of him…” I felt as if I was slowly slipping away to a dark place. Just thinking about him made my tongue taste a bitter sweetness in my mouth that left me dizzy.

  “Are you married, Doc?” My voice went as sarcastic and dark as my mind felt.

  “This isn’t about me, Cass. It’s about you. Why does Sam anger you?”

  My breathing felt like fire. “Why? Why am I upset?” I spat. “He was having an affair. He was fucking other women. Long, long before the fire, which I allegedly set, and another thing Doc. Keep in mind, I’m here because I don’t remember. I’m not lying either. I DON’T remember. Because if I DID remember, I’d take a lot of pleasure in it.” I smiled one of those half-crazed histeria kind of satisfactory grins that always rises to the surface when someone mentions him. It didn’t seem to matter none. Doc didn’t budge. Flinch. React. She just jotted in her little notebook. So I kept on.

  “Okay. There you have it. Happy now? So…maybe I did do it. I don’t know. But Yes. You are fucking right about one thing. I’m still angry.” I was in the dark place again, lost in an effigy of shadows and slinks and trying to weave my way through it to a light source that I felt was slowly slipping away. If I was that crazed fish—I had sunken to the depths of the deepest black.

  “Just talking about him infuriates me. I don’t understand it. Why can’t I just let him go?” I bit my lip until the pain matched the pain of the past.

  “It’s fine, Cass. It’s normal to have feelings of anger when someone betrays you. I can feel your negative energy, so I want to clarify something. I’m not here to convict you. I’m not the judge or the jury. I’m here to help you. I am your advocate, not your enemy. Feel free to voice anything you want. But remember, I’m for you—not against you. Now that you know that, let’s continue, okay?”

  I nodded and tried to rein in my energy and cont
rol my mouth. This was harder than I ever imagined.

  “The police and paramedics said you were knotted in a ball and speaking gibberish when they found you the day after the fire. It’s apparent you had some sort of breakdown for whatever reason. I’m here to help you find that reason, and sort your way out of it, and move forward. Understand it, and help you function.”

  “Okay, Doc. You’re the professional. Whatever you say.” I shrugged. It was hard for me to believe anyone. I thought of Maw Sue and Castle Pines. Would I end up like her? In a place of horror and unknowns? It was strange that I could remember only bits and pieces of my childhood, my life, no details, just scraps, a few crumbs but most of all the stories of Maw Sue and the frightening aspect of being locked up.

  “Let’s talk about the bowl of collard greens. Why do you think you left them at the fire? It’s rather bizarre, don’t you think?”

  “Doc, I don’t know. I don’t remember that part. But…IF, and that’s a big IF. It’s because Sam pushed my buttons. When he wasn’t off screwing around, that is. So, yeah, I stayed pissed off at him. It’s like he wanted me to be angry so he could leave. Yeah, that anger could manifest into something, maybe? I figure I’m capable of just about anything. He cheated on me all the time. I DO remember that. If I was to make an educated guess, I left a bowl of collards as a statement. You know, to make sure those two lying cheating sumbitches…knew exactly who did it.

  ME. Cassidy Cleo Collard. Get it? Collard greens? I mean, if you look at it from that standpoint, it’s basically my signature without signing my name. Sounds pretty goddamned epic if you ask me. It’s like a Hallmark card of the South. Burn, you bastard. Signed, a silver bowl of collard greens.” I started laughing in an off-the-chain hackle that made me look guilty. I feared Doc would make assumptions, so I quickly recovered.

  “But then again, Doc…I don’t remember. I’m just guessing.”

  “That’s a pretty specific guess, Cass.”

  “Yeah, but with a last name like Collard in a small town you get bullied with garden jokes. And I’m not talking Better Homes & Garden stuff either. I’m seriously not kidding. Growing up I heard them all. Here comes collard green girl. Gimme some collards and cornbread. I wish I had me some collard greens, and they’d pinch my boobs or slap my butt. Every one of them were sexual innuendoes. Aren’t boys just romantic? Kids can be brutal. It is what it is. I guess as an adult, I wanted the last laugh and used it to my advantage. With a bowl of collard greens. My signature. Hey, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, right? But seriously, Doc. I don’t remember. I mean, IF I did set the fire, it was an act of mercy on my part. Want to know why? Because I own guns and in the state of Texas, crimes of passion are legit if you end up shooting someone caught in the act of adultery. So, IF I burned down the town, which is, by the way, a scathing exaggeration of Edna Rollins’ sensationalized journalism, then I think it’s an act of mercy for Sam, because right now, inside my heart, I still want to kill him. I feel that much hate for him. Anger for him. I even dreamt of killing him. I hate what he did to me, how he treated me. I despised him. So there. That’s my assumption, Doc. Maybe a merciful part of me took over, lit a match, instead of firing a bullet. Pretty much a closed case. But I’m guessing. Your turn Doc. So…what’s your assessment? Is the Gazette right? Am I cultish and the devil incarnate? Do we need to have an exorcism? Sprinkle some Holy water on me? Am I just collard green crazy? Give it to me straight. I can take it.”

  “No, Cass.” Doc smiled awkwardly as she jotted in my file. “You are actually unique.”

  “Unique?” I laughed under my breath. “That’s what people say when they actually think you’re crazy.”

  “Look at me, Cass,” Doc said in a serious tone. “You were in a psychotic delusion when they found you, crouched in the corner of your house, wearing the same disheveled clothes witnesses said you wore the night before, and reeking of smoke. Plus, your face was painted with your own blood, not to mention your palm was sliced open and you were talking gibberish. The paramedics said you wouldn’t let them touch you without screaming incoherently. Do you remember anything? Even the smallest thing may jog your memory and bring it back.”

  Hearing this made me tense and cautious. I was fearful for the gap of time gone and what lay hidden from view. I glanced down at my hand. The wound was healing now, but every time my heart beat, it pulsated under the flesh and I flinched. I glanced up at Doc, not wanting to set off alarms, but all I could think of was Castle Pines and the numerous times Maw Sue was locked up there. As a child, everyone in town knew exactly where Castle Pines was. It was the spookiest place in Pine Log. All sorts of rumors spun around it dating back to the early 1800s. It sat like a huge dark beast at the edge of town, right off the main highway, three stories tall, made from stone and surrounded by a large piked iron fence. To me, being young and fearful, it looked like a horrific open-mouthed gargoyle ready to swallow anyone that walked nearby. Even the older-than-time oak trees popping out of the earth around the building seemed off, as if they had been cast out from the forest, different, awkward, and put away to shade the secrets looming behind them, inside Castle Pines. Occasionally in passing, I would try my hardest to see if I could find Maw Sue in the landscape dotted with zombie-like patients walking on the lawn, some in circles, some lost, some just outright spaced out, but I never found her. Now that I think of it, it would have terrified me to see her in that condition.

  I had nightmares of that place too. I used to dream about her inside the walls of that terrible place, hear her footsteps down a long hallway, rattling keys, locking doors, moans and cries for help. The town, with the help of Edna Rollins, had already labeled several people as loons, one of them being Maw Sue. It was then, as a child, I learned that being different from others, outside the typical norm of society, often leads to being cast out and punishment, and often that punishment was Castle Pines. Knowing this early in life, and knowing that I too was different, I began to clam up. Hide myself from others. Be someone I wasn’t. But now, I wasn’t sure I succeeded as an adult. I was in a terrible pickle with the fire and the townsfolk chattering up a storm. I didn’t want history to repeat itself. I would not go to Castle Pines. I would not be locked up. Not today. Not tomorrow, not ever. I snapped back to myself to find Doc staring at me intently.

  “Is there anything you remember, Cass?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Doc. No, not really.” I was numb, aware of my surroundings, but lost inside myself. If she’d been paying attention, if she’d looked a little deeper into my placid, red-rimmed eyes, she’d have seen the truth. She would have found a child crying and a woman dying. If she’d been listening, if she’d been gifted in the ways of Seven like I was, she would have heard the screams inside me, but Doc was too busy studying the details of my dilemma. Maw Sue used to tell my sister Meg and me that the devil was in the details: facts, items, objects, or features. And that’s exactly where he is supposed to be. Trouble is, his demons are not. The devil may be in the details but his sidekicks, his magistrates of misery, his demons lie scurrying outside the lines. They are obscure, they live in the abstract, they skid amongst the edges, they hang on to threads, they slip in unnoticed, unrecognized, and unrevealed. I would never reveal this tidbit to Doc; not now, anyway. Besides, I’ve been trained well in the art of denial from the queen herself, my mother.

  “You don’t remember the smallest of details, anything, Cass?”

  Just hearing her speak words made me shudder and I knew they were here. Watching, slinking, lurking, as they’d always been.

  The devil is in the details; trouble is, his demons are not.

  “Nope,” I answered, biting my lips. “You must have an answer in one of your fancy books up there,” I said, pointing to the bookshelves. “For the umpteenth time, I don’t remember. Just like I told the police, the judge, my mother, strangers, the whole town! I wish I could remember because I wouldn’t have to be here. But I don’t.”

  “Okay.” Doc shuffled h
er papers. “We’ll move on.”

  She made use of her college degrees to pick apart my so-called destructive behaviors. Inside myself, I bid her good luck. I knew those demons didn’t answer to anyone but themselves.

  “So, tell me about the cut on your palm. You told police you didn’t remember cutting it, nor did you know how streaks of blood got painted on your face. Why did you cut your hand, Cass? Have you ever had feelings of wanting to hurt yourself?”

  “I do now,” I blurted. “Who wouldn’t? I feel interrogated and talked about all over town. Newspaper articles, name calling. Sure, Doc, you have a knife handy?”

  “I’m serious, Cass. Why do you feel the need to hide your feelings with sarcasm?”

  I squirmed in silence. A wrecked emotion, something dangerous and unnamed, kept filling my lungs till I could barely draw air. I felt dizzy and disturbed but tried not to show it. I grabbed my right hand and rubbed the small cut on my palm which had actually been as a scar most of my life, but supposedly sliced back open the night of the fire. It’s weird that I have no memory of cutting it. Why would I cut my own hand? I was as puzzled as Doc on this one. Did I try to kill myself? I pondered Doc’s questions while I rubbed the wound until it burned hot and a vision erupted in my eyes with little fires. The flames spoke a language I understood. A warning of pain. A fear overtook me and I clamped down on the once perfect seven-shaped scar on my right palm, now an ugly scab. I got it as a child playing with Coke bottles with Meg, who ironically has the same exact cut. I don’t remember playing with bottles, nor the cut, but I do vaguely remember Maw Sue having a similar scar which is strange now that I think about it. All three of us share a similar scar. How does that happen? My mind, the cells of madness, chaos and mayhem stormed, and it was hard for me to keep them contained and subdued without Doc noticing, so I just babbled something to distract her and move things along.