A Life Less Broken

by Margaret McHeyzer

  “Just listen to my voice. I need you to lie down right where you are. Lie down for me, I’m right here. I won’t leave you. Lie down, and close your eyes.” His voice has evened out and he’s talking to me in a low soothing relaxed tone. “Are you lying down?”

  “Y-y-y-y,” I stammer through labored breathing.

  “Good, now close your eyes.”

  I close them as I tightly hold onto the phone.

  “One, two, three, four, five.” With every number he counts, they get slightly longer and his tone becomes a little lower. “Six, seven. Now breathe in deeply through your nose and hold it for me.” I take a huge breath in and hold it deep inside my lungs.

  “Now let it out.” I exhale through my mouth. “Eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen. Take another breath in through your nose and hold it.” His voice is so serene. I can’t resist letting the baritone lull me into a calmer state. “Let it out.” I expel the breath. “Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. Tell me your name, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, now take a deep breath in through your nose.” The shaking has stopped and so have the tears. “As you let the breath out I want you to tell me your name.”

  “Allyn,” I say as I exhale.

  “Pleased to meet you, Allyn. My name’s Dominic. Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three. Breathe in, Allyn.”

  I’m calmer now. My panic is not so intense.

  “Th-thank you, Dominic.”

  “How can I help you today?”

  “I think I need you.”

  “I think you may be right.”

  “I can’t leave my house, though.”

  “You can’t or you won’t.”

  “I… I mean I…”

  “I understand, Allyn. How about tomorrow? I’m going to hand the phone back to Lauren, my receptionist, so she can get your details. I’m going to come to your house tomorrow. Is that okay with you?”

  “Um, yes. And thank you.”

  “It’s my pleasure. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He gives the phone back to Lauren and she takes down all my details. Dr. Shriver’s office is only fifteen minutes away from my house. Lauren tells me that he’ll be here at 10 a.m.

  When the call is finally finished, I slowly get up and sit back on the kitchen counter to look at the afternoon sky.

  The raining has almost stopped; just a light sprinkle falls from above. There are small rays of the sun poking through the dark clouds.

  I see something that I haven’t seen in many years, in the distance and so very faint, but still visible.

  The soft happy hues of a breathtaking rainbow.

  Chapter 4

  Tomorrow is here.

  Dr. Dominic Shriver will arrive at 10 a.m. to help me begin to mend my broken life.

  The accumulated pain of one thousand and twenty-one days may soon be an ache that no longer constricts my every breath.

  Standing in my kitchen, leaning against the counter with one leg bent and resting on my other knee, I do what I do every morning.

  And day.

  And night.

  I watch but I can’t see.

  I listen but I can’t hear.

  I breathe but my heart doesn’t beat.

  I live but I remain dead.

  Bringing the mug of coffee to my mouth, I sip on the scorching liquid, heedless of how it burns my tongue. I stare at the sky above.

  The monsters that pulled me toward my grave yesterday are at bay today. The gray clouds have been replaced by pillows of white, fluffy softness drifting aimlessly across a bright blue sky.

  My doorbell rings and I know that Dr. Shriver is standing mere feet away from me.

  I place my coffee cup on the counter and take the first significant steps I’ve taken in almost three years.

  When I get to the door I turn the alarm off, put one hand on the lock and the other hand on the doorknob.

  But…

  I look through the peep hole and the man I saw on TV is just on the other side of this thick, sturdy, steel-reinforced wooden door and the outer screen door I had installed with virtually impenetrable steel mesh.

  But…

  My heartbeat flutters with such intensity that a shiver vibrates up and down my spine to shake my body in an uncontrollable spasm.

  The doorbell sounds again.

  “Hello, Allyn,” he says from the other side.

  But…

  I can’t.

  I don’t know him; I can’t allow him into my head or my home.

  What was I thinking? I’ll never be normal. I’ll never function as a human again.

  “You must be terrified, Allyn.”

  My entire body is covered in goose bumps and my mouth instantly dries up. I lean my back up against the door and my head falls back as I roll my eyes shut. I can feel him on the other side of the door.

  He thinks I’m crazy.

  I am.

  “I’m going to sit right here and talk to you. I’m not going away, and I won’t leave you.”

  They all leave.

  “You know my name is Dominic Shriver. I started studying medicine because I wanted to help the sick, but I quickly found out I was very squeamish when it came to blood and other bodily fluids,” he says then follows with a deep chuckle.

  A smile teases my lips.

  “Then, I decided I’d like to go into mental health, seeing as my stomach couldn’t really cope with regular medicine.”

  I turn to look out the peep hole again. I can’t see him.

  “My parents weren’t too impressed; they kept calling me a quack. They wanted me to either practice regular medicine or go into law. My brother went into law three years after I started at medical school. So they were happy at least one son went on to become a success, as they saw it.” He chuckles again.

  I stand on my tiptoes to see Dr. Shriver, but he’s not visible through the peep hole.

  “I’ve been a practicing, fully certified psychiatrist for almost nine years now. I started out helping people that had addictions, but soon progressed to patients who have experienced life-altering traumas.”

  “Why?” I ask him as I unlock the top deadbolt.

  “Because it’s what I’m good at and what I enjoy. You know there’s a standard line we psychiatrists hear from people all the time. Want to hear what it is?”

  “Yes please,” I say as I turn the doorknob and slightly open the heavy wooden door.

  “If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard it, well let’s just say I’d have a gold-plated car.” He snickers at his own words. “We always get asked ‘You won’t analyze me, will you?’ I have to say, Allyn, I must hear that at least once a day.”

  “People think you’d be able to turn that off whenever you wanted?”

  “Ha! I see you understand. Of course I analyze everyone I meet, even when I’m away from my practice. I don’t do it because I want to, but because that’s who I am.”

  I swing the wooden door open. Dr. Shriver’s sitting on the porch with his back against the screen door. He doesn’t try to turn around or even move. He sits still with his long legs outstretched in front of him, crossed at the ankles, and the back of his head up against the screen. He’s wearing a beautiful-looking dark suit.

  “So how do you turn it off then?” I sit on the floor and cross my legs, facing Dr. Shriver’s back on the other side of the door.

  “I don’t. I used to try, but it kept me awake with worry, so now I’ve learned to let it go. If I need to speak up about something, I do. If I can offer my advice, then I do that, too. I can come across as a pompous ass, but hey, I also get to help people.”

  “Who helps you then? I mean, you must absorb a lot of other people’s ghosts, and you can’t keep doing that, can you?”

  “Allyn, you bring up a very interesting question, and one I don’t get asked often. But, I’m okay. Now tell me, what made you call me?”

  “I really don’t know. I saw you on TV yesterday. I saw those three women and how strong they are. And I thought that maybe
you can help me get my strength back.”

  “When was it taken from you?”

  I lower my gaze to the floor and begin to twist my hands together.

  “Almost three years ago, Dr. Shriver.”

  “Oh, please! ‘Dr. Shriver’ makes me sound like that pompous ass I described earlier. Dominic is perfectly fine.”

  “Okay,” I say in a small voice.

  “Three years ago your freedom was taken. Have you been outside since?”

  “Only from the car to the house when I came home from the hospital.”

  “How do you do your shopping?” he asks, not turning around.

  “My parents do it for me.”

  “How many people come into your house?”

  “My parents and the doctor that I was seeing.”

  “And tell me what happens if an appliance dies and you need a new one.”

  “That hasn’t happened yet. But when it does I’ll have to figure out how to get a new one into my home.”

  “Tell me something; have you smiled in the last three years?”

  Have I smiled? Why would he ask that?

  “The first and last time I smiled was about fifteen minutes ago when you were describing your feelings toward certain bodily fluids,” I answer earnestly.

  “Can you tell me the happiest memory you have? It can be from any time of your life, but I love details. The more you tell me, the happier my brain gets.”

  I stare out past Dominic to the opposite side of the street. A happy memory. I haven’t thought of anything joyful in three years.

  “Are you still with me, Allyn?” he asks, bending one leg at the knee and keeping the other stretched out.

  “I’m here. I’m trying to think of something.”

  I close my eyes and everything fades away. I don’t see or hear anything except for the memory of the day that my parents and I went horseback riding.

  “It was my tenth birthday,” I start the story. I remember standing beside the big, beautiful, brown horse. “I was supposed to have a birthday party but it was cancelled because I got chicken pox.”

  The magnificent horse neighed as I reached up to pat his long nose.

  “Go on.”

  “It was three weeks later before I was well enough to have a party, but by that time it was too late. I loved horses, and I really wanted to go riding.”

  In my memory, his tail flicks me as I pat his coarse, short hair on his stomach. I giggle because I remember how funny it felt.

  “What’s amusing?”

  “Mr. Boss, that was the horse’s name. I remembered that he flicked me with his tail and it tickled. I had to stand on a step stool to pull myself up into the saddle. I argued with Mom, telling her I could do it. Mom kept telling me I was too short. I can still hear her saying, ‘Allyn, you’re not as tall as the other kids. You can’t do these things on your own.’ But it didn’t matter to me; I wanted to try. Of course, I couldn’t get up on Mr. Boss from the ground, so I used the stool.”

  “And what was it like once you were up there?”

  “I felt like I was seeing things I’d never seen before. I felt in control and so powerful.”

  I inhale deeply as I close my eyes and can smell that very distinct scent of hay wafting from Mr. Boss.

  “When Mr. Boss started walking around, I wanted more. By the end of the day I had him galloping fast, and I was addicted.”

  “Why did you want more?”

  “Being on Mr. Boss I felt so safe, he understood me. And I felt so free.”

  “And now?”

  Those two words catapult me back into the present. I blink my closed eyes open and even through my blurry vision, I see that Dominic has turned and is now sitting facing me. I didn’t hear him shift positions, and a tiny wave of fear courses through me at that realization.

  “Now I’m chained by fear. I feel helpless and I’m hopelessly devoted to a life of black.”

  “Allyn, we’ve been talking for a while now and it’s time for me to go. But I’m going to come back tomorrow at 10 a.m. Tomorrow though, you’re going to open the wooden door straight away when I knock.”

  “I am?” I ask.

  “You are, because you want to let some color back into your life.”

  “I do?”

  “You called me because you don’t want that life of blackness anymore, Allyn.”

  “I don’t,” I whisper realizing he’s right. I don’t. I want that rainbow I saw yesterday shining in my world.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he says as he stands and picks up his knapsack.

  I watch as he gets in his car and drives away from my house.

  I stand from the cold floor and I’m suddenly shocked at the revelation.

  I opened the door.

  Chapter 5

  Dominic

  Driving away from Allyn’s home and back toward my office, I’m confident that I’ll be able to work with her to give her the help she needs.

  She didn’t even know it, but she had the palm of her hand pressing tightly at the screen door. She’s so desperate to find salvation that her mind doesn’t even see it anymore.

  Allyn is beyond broken. She’s so far removed from her own self and from life outside her skin that she struggled with just opening the door to me. When I heard her light footsteps come to the door and then her hesitation in opening it, I knew that I’ll be spending many a future day sitting on her porch.

  That’s okay, though. When she did finally open the door I knew that one of her biggest obstacles had been overcome.

  I’m sure she didn’t realize it at the time, and it may take her a few hours to accept that she took back a tiny bit of freedom by opening the door and talking to me.

  It took every ounce of my willpower not to turn around to see what the woman behind that beautiful, soft, tortured voice looked like.

  When I asked her about her happiest memory and she began giggling about being flicked by a horse’s tail when she was ten years old, I could feel she was lost in her memory of a happier time. Allyn wants to be happy. She just needs the courage and strength to reach for it.

  She was transcending her misery by retreating into a world of love and happiness, back to a time that made her smile. I hope I can help her reach those moments of purity more often so she can begin to overcome her pain.

  When I turned around to face her, my eyes instantly focused on her soft, petite features. Her strawberry blonde hair cascaded down her shoulders that hung limply around her breasts.

  Her lips were full, tinged a perfect pink. Her alabaster skin was clearly deficient in vitamin D, and her pallor highlighted every scar on her face.

  Her gray eyes are her most intriguing feature. The deep, black smudges under them tell me that she fights for her sanity every moment of the day, losing sleep to nightmares. Her left eye is slightly droopy and a little off center compared to her right eye.

  I wonder exactly what those sad, stormy eyes have seen.

  Lost in my impressions of Allyn, I realize I’ve missed the driveway of my office. I turn my BMW around, park in my reserved spot, and exit the car.

  The entire time, I’ve been thinking about Allyn. It’s her laughter that fascinates me most. The way she described Mr. Boss and her sense of independence as she was riding him. I hope one day soon, I can get her back to a place where her mind isn’t captured and tortured by images of horror.

  “Hi Lauren. Can you do a Google search on Allyn Sommers and get her medical records too, please,” I ask my receptionist.

  Lauren’s been working for me for the last six years and is in her fifties.

  “Sure thing, Dom.” She’s the only person in the world I let call me Dom, beside my parents because truthfully, I see her like my own mother.

  Walking into my office, I flick the light on and take my seat behind the large grand oak desk.

  I didn’t take any notes while I was at Allyn’s house. I committed it all to memory so that she wouldn’t feel intimidated by an obvio
us examination. She already felt reservations about me being there. That was evident based of the length of time it took her to open that damn door.

  “Here’s the Google search,” Lauren says as she comes through the open door.

  “Thank you.”

  “I’m just about to request the hospital records too. But I have to say, I remember this one. She was missing for days before she was found. It was around the time a bunch of other girls went missing, were raped and ended up dead. Two girls, Allyn and one another, survived. But the other girl ended up committing suicide shortly after she was found.”

  “So Allyn is one of those girls,” I muse, not expecting Lauren to answer.

  “Yeah,” she sighs. “And she was such a beautiful young girl when she was taken.”

  “Thank you, Lauren,” I say as I begin flipping through the pages she’s printed.

  I immerse myself in all information Lauren’s found on Allyn Sommers. She was twenty when she went missing, found three days later at a local pond. A young couple found her, barely breathing, bound, and completely naked, with horrific injuries.

  The couple was interviewed by the local paper. After they found her, and called 911, the woman ran back to their car and got a picnic blanket to cover Allyn while they waited for paramedics and police to arrive. The man stayed with Allyn, talking to her and comforting her while she drifted in and out of consciousness.

  The news clippings speculated about what other harm was done to her, but I’ll wait for the hospital report to see how deep her scars may go.

  The perpetrators were never caught, and that partially explains why Allyn lives in a constant state of suffocating fear.

  A little bit of digging by Lauren also found that Allyn’s an only child. When her grandparents on her mother’s side passed away in a car accident, they left Allyn enough money to buy a home and survive on a tight budget for the rest of her life.

  I put the pages down and lean my elbows on the desk top, weaving my fingers together for my chin to rest upon.

  Allyn took the courageous first step of calling me to help her. Locked inside her home, she’s barely living and only just surviving.

  Her hold on life is tenuous, and she’s being pushed closer and closer to the edge of a toxic oblivion.