Welcome to My World

by Curtis Bunn

  “I was also thinking about how your life is going to change,” Brenda said. “We can talk about it with Dr. Taylor in three days, but I wanted to know if something really big or exciting happens to you, if the medication will prevent an episode from occurring.”

  “Big and exciting like what?”

  “I don’t know. I’m just looking at all the possibilities. I don’t want anything to derail this train. And this is a train now, Rodney. It’s moving in the right direction.”

  “You’re more excited than me. I’m still kind of just trying to figure it all out, figure what I’m going to do and how I’m going to do it.”

  “Do you believe in miracles? Do you believe in things that seem impossible?”

  “What are you talking about? Do I believe in angels and unicorns and leprechauns? Are you talking mythical stuff? Or do you mean a miracle like falling like ten floors and surviving?”

  “I mean all that.”

  “Do you?”

  “I didn’t necessarily believe in miracles, but I do now,” she said.

  “Why now?”

  “Every day I learn to open my mind a little bit more, because what we believe are boundaries really are just paper curtains that can be torn down at any moment. And we can keep going beyond that line we thought was the limit.”

  “You’re not the one who has to take the steps,” I told Brenda. “It’s easy to say what should be done. It’s easy to talk about boundaries can be torn down. To keep going sounds great. But when you’re in it, when you’re scared and not sure of yourself, the boundaries are safe and comfortable. ‘Keep going’ rings hollow.”

  Her silence made me feel like she didn’t get it. Then she, like always, turned things.

  “Remember one thing: Everything you want is just one step outside your comfort zone,” she said. “But I apologize—see, an apology can have meaning. I got carried away. I want this so badly for you. I need to slow down and let this take its natural course. I just want you to have the life you want, the ultimate life you want and deserve.”

  I looked at her with a wry smile. She was not sure what it meant. I could see the guessing game going on in her head through her facial expressions.

  “You are right about one thing. There’s not only nothing wrong with saying you’re sorry, but there is power in it. But don’t take this the wrong way: I’m sorry that I was mean to you when we first met, when I said—”

  “Trust me, I know what you said. You don’t have to repeat it.”

  “OK. Good. At the same time, while I’m really sorry, I can’t be completely sorry because if I hadn’t said the mean things to you, you wouldn’t have gotten offended and confronted me and you wouldn’t be the center of my world now. See what I’m saying?”

  “You’ll say anything and pull something out of your ass to make yourself sound right,” she said.

  I burst into laughter like she had not heard.

  “Pull something out of my ass? Really? Now that’s funny. But, really, I was just trying to make an important point.”

  “Trust me, I understand. We have no idea how things will turn out. I never would have expected this connection between us. So, I guess I’m actually glad you were mean to me.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: MOVING PIECES AROUND

  BRENDA

  I had so much to do. Rodney’s world was about to change, but I had no idea how to make it happen. So I called Dr. Taylor’s office and asked for an emergency one-on-one session.

  She moved some things around and accommodated me. On my way to her office, I called Rick.

  “So, you didn’t tell me completely about your past, huh?” I had no interest in playing coy.

  “You mean prison? You must have talked to Rodney?”

  “I told you: We talk almost every day. Why did you leave that pretty big part out? We did a lot of talking that night.”

  “I’m not comfortable sharing that part of my life with just anyone. We met, I like you, but I don’t know you. So what’s the point of telling someone I wasn’t sure I would ever see again.”

  “OK, I understand. It’s none of my business. We can get back to that later. We have some serious business to figure out with Rodney.”

  “Yes, we need to do it fast, too,” Rick said. “I spoke to Darlene earlier today. Of course, I didn’t tell her Rodney is alive. But I sure wanted to.”

  “I’m sure you did. I want to be there to see her face when she learns about this. But I’m headed to the therapist we have been seeing to have her help me figure the best way to handle this. I will let you know what she says.”

  “OK, please do.”

  “Rick, one more thing: Did you reach out to me because you knew that was Rodney in the picture or because you were interested in me?”

  “Both, actually. You popped up as a ‘Suggested Friend’ and I liked your profile photo. And I saw you were in Atlanta. So I scanned your photos and posts. And there he was. I was pretty sure it was Rodney, but I had to be sure. He looked slightly different with the beard and he has more hair, thicker hair, and skinnier.

  “I stared at that photo for at least ten minutes. What convinced me was that expression on his face. We can disguise ourselves—not saying he was trying to do that—but the essence who we are shows in our mannerisms. He always had that same sort of smirk when he took pictures.”

  Sounded like it was more about Rodney, but I got it. “Would you have emailed me if you didn’t think you saw your cousin?”

  “I have to be honest and say I’m not sure. I don’t troll Facebook to meet women. But the picture with Rodney gave me the opening I needed to message you. And if that was not Rodney in the photo, I still would have been glad to have met you.”

  I thought to myself: Good friggin’ answer.

  But I said to him: “Things have a funny way of working, someone once said.”

  “They do, right? Please call me after you talk to the doctor.”

  I was more anxious than Rick to see Dr. Taylor. When she came out to greet me and lead me into her office, she could see the emotion on my face. But she could not determine if it represented something good or bad.

  “How’s Rodney?” she said. “How are you?”

  “Dr. Taylor, we have a situation,” I said. It was the best I could do at that moment. She remained calm. Did not say a word.

  “There’s only one way to say it: Rodney’s family is not dead.”

  “Go on,” she said. I was waiting for her to say, Girl, what? Are you kidding me? What the hell?

  “OK, I’m gonna front-load the story. A guy emailed me on Facebook. We eventually met. Had a nice time talking and getting to know each other. Then, late in the date, he asks me about a photo of me and Rodney I had posted. I tell him and he tells me Rodney is his cousin.

  “Tells me he has been missing for two years. Left home for the airport one morning and they never heard from him again. Found his car crashed near the airport.”

  “This is pretty astonishing,” Dr. Taylor said, finally. “Have you told Rodney?”

  “No. That’s why I’m here. I need you to guide me through how to do this. I’m thinking he may have a heart attack or something. Or an episode.”

  “Thank you for being so thoughtful about this, Brenda. It is a delicate thing. I see in Rodney that he’s a passionate person, and that means he’s emotional. Before we look ahead, let’s look back.

  “Something happened that morning that caused him to disappear. With the crash, he could have been trying to kill himself. But something happened, likely at home, to trigger that episode.

  “And during the accident, he may have been injured, but he definitely had a dream or illusion that they were killed or more likely, a visual hallucination, which is one type of sensory misperception. Although visual hallucinations are not pathognomonic of a primary psychiatric illness, they are symptomatic in patients with bipolar disorder.”

  I had a simple response to that.

  “What?”

 
Dr. Taylor broke it down: “Rodney had what’s called a visual hallucination, which simply means he saw something that was not there. It does not fit the clinical definition of insane. It’s not a psychiatric illness. It’s what can happen with bipolar patients.

  “With visual hallucinations, there is a disturbance of brain structure, which is psychophysiological. There also is a disturbance of neurotransmitters, which is psychobiochemical. And there is an emergence of the unconscious into consciousness, which is psychodynamic. Given the interplay with all three processes, visual hallucinations occur.”

  My mind was blown. “Dr. Taylor, first, let me say this: You know your stuff. You make me proud to be a black woman. Secondly, can the medication you prescribed prevent this from happening again?”

  “Yes and no,” she answered. “Rodney, as I stressed, has to stay on the medication. He cannot miss a day or a dosage, no matter how good he feels. The prescription is an antipsychotic and antidepressant. The two together should keep him balanced. So, whatever happened that morning that precipitated the episode would not trigger the same reaction if he takes his medication. And so, it would, in effect, prevent a visual hallucination.”

  “OK, I get it. Bottom line: He must stay on point with his meds. Next big thing: How do we tell him he hallucinated his family dying in a car crash? How do we tell his family that he’s alive? They thought he was dead when he was living right here, not twenty miles from his home, on the streets.”

  “Because of his bipolar disorder, he was perfectly fine immersing himself in a new world, even on the streets because he had nowhere else to go. Or that’s what he believed. But he was certain he could not go back home. I would guess that he has not talked about a gravesite to visit.

  “He might have, through a dream or in his own head, seen or attended their funerals. His brain took over to confirm with him things he was convinced had happened because he saw it in the hallucination.”

  “This is too much. I feel like I’m in school.”

  “Just wait until you talk to his family.”

  We spent the next forty minutes outlining a plan, which was for me to talk to his family and then, bring Rodney into our session. His family was to arrive fifteen minutes after our session started. We would break the news to Rodney if Dr. Taylor believed he was up to receiving it. Then we would bring in his family.

  I shared the plan with Rick, who arranged for me to come to Rodney’s old home to meet his wife, Darlene, and two daughters, Joy and Diana, who were home from college.

  That next day, I made the drive to Southwest Atlanta. Rick greeted me at the door. Immediately, I could tell he positioned me as someone he was dating.

  Rodney’s family was beautiful. I had already seen them based on his spot-on description.

  “Darlene, can we sit in the family room?”

  “Sure,” she said. “What’s going on?”

  I observed the photos on the fireplace mantel. There was Rodney—with that same smirk that Rick noticed in my Facebook picture. It made me smile.

  “Mom,” Joy said, “we’re about to go to meet some friends at Medu Bookstore at Greenbriar Mall.”

  “Trust me,” Rick said, “this is important.”

  I went to my gallery on my phone and found the photo of me and Rodney.

  Rick went on: “I met Brenda on Facebook. I wasn’t stalking her or anything—I see how you girls are looking at me. But I noticed her photo and clicked on her profile. Then I looked at other photos and one of them stopped me. Brenda, you can take it from there.”

  “OK, well, thank you for welcoming me into your lovely home,” I began. “As Rick said, we met on Facebook and eventually met in person over dinner. During our talk, he asked about one particular photo he had seen on my page.

  “He asked me the name of the man in the photo with me. I told him his name was . . . Rodney.”

  The mood of the room instantly changed.

  “Daddy?” Diana asked. “You knew my father?”

  This was the moment that had kept me up all the previous night.

  “I know your father,” I said.

  “What do you mean, know?” Darlene asked.

  “Rick told me everyone assumed he was dead after his car was found, that he was carjacked and kidnapped and murdered. That was the only thing that made sense because, otherwise, where was he?

  “Well, the photo Rick saw had been taken a few weeks ago.”

  Darlene put her hand up to her mouth. Joy stood up.

  “Are you saying Daddy is alive?” Diana asked.

  “Yes. Rodney Bridges is alive.”

  Without hearing details, Darlene wept. His daughters hugged and cried. I looked up at Rick, through my tears, and he wiped his eyes.

  After several seconds, Darlene wanted details. “Well, here’s the thing: He’s fine. Of course, his bipolar condition has really impacted him because he hasn’t been on medication.”

  “Where has he been for almost two years?” Joy asked.

  “On the streets. He’s been living as a homeless man on the streets of downtown Atlanta.”

  “Oh, my God,” Darlene said. Rick went over and comforted her.

  I continued to hopefully end their dismay and pain as quickly as possible.

  “But he’s OK. I met him in May. We ended up forming a friendship. I was in bad shape. My husband had left me. My sister was sick and eventually died. I was overweight. I had no self-esteem. Through walking and talking to your husband, your father, I lost weight and found myself. And I also found a new friend.”

  “So why didn’t you try to find us when you met him?” Joy asked.

  “I assumed what he told me was real,” I said. “I had no reason not to. The therapist said he had a visual hallucination about the accident. It was one hundred percent real to him. So, he told me he had to punish himself because he was driving the car and felt guilty. He said he’d wish he had died and not you all. He’s been deeply depressed thinking he had killed his family. He didn’t believe he deserved to live comfortably. So he punished himself.”

  I gave Darlene my phone with the photo and passed it around to her daughters. “I can’t believe this. Daddy is alive,” Diana said. “So where is he? We need to go see him and bring him home.”

  “This is the plan that I set up with Dr. Taylor, his therapist.”

  “He has a therapist?” Darlene asked.

  “Yes. I set it up. When I started getting myself together, I wanted him to seek help. He was reluctant, but we have been to several sessions. There has been a breakthrough in that he wants to finally try to move on. But the pain is still there. Seeing you will remove it all.

  “But, the doctor said we have to go about it delicately because it’s going to be a huge shock to him to see you. He’s on medication, and he’s promised to not get off of it again. So, the plan is to go to her office this afternoon. I will give you the address in Midtown.

  “We have a four o’clock appointment. You all should get there at four-fifteen, so Rodney does not see you. Dr. Taylor will talk to him and assess where his head is and give him the news. He will be excited like you all are, and Dr. Taylor will come to the waiting area and bring you in for the reunion.”

  “This is a miracle. I’m so stunned,” Darlene said. “It’s been two years of . . . I don’t know how to describe it.”

  “Hell,” Joy said. “Pure hell. But I’m not surprised. I accepted what the police said. But I never believed my daddy was dead. I didn’t.”

  “Me, either,” Diana said.

  “I didn’t either,” Darlene added. “I know I told you we had to accept that he was gone because nothing else made sense. But in my heart, I felt he was still with us.”

  “It’s like the girl who had been kidnapped by people who lived right in their neighborhood. Kidnapped for years,” Joy said. “And no one noticed her.”

  “We could have driven right by Dad and not even noticed him because I know I don’t make any eye contact with the homeless,” Diana s
aid.

  “I’m going to leave you all, so you can have your private time to discuss all this,” I told them. “My heart is so full right now, knowing your family will be put back together in a few hours. I’m so happy for you and I’m so happy for Rodney. That man loves you all very much.”

  The daughters, Rick and Darlene hugged me. “I’ll walk you to the door,” Darlene said.

  When we got there, I asked her to step outside.

  “I hate to ask this; the doctor was pretty sure something really traumatic happened the morning Rodney had the accident while heading to the airport. Do you know what it was? You remember anything? And Rodney definitely doesn’t remember.”

  Darlene reached back and closed the front door. The joy on her face turned to anguish. She could not look me in the eyes. I knew what that meant.

  “You don’t have to say,” I told her. “It’s OK. He doesn’t remember. But are you still with that man? Are you in a relationship?”

  “It’s over. That morning, Rodney—and I’m only telling you this because I haven’t told a soul, and it’s been eating at me for two years—was excited about a work trip to Chicago. It was a Thursday and the girls had already headed to school.

  “I was working from home that day. Around nine-thirty, the doorbell rang. Rodney answered. It was a package for me. He opened it. He opened it because the person had drawn hearts on the box. In it was a bottle of perfume and a note that basically said, ‘Wear this the next time we’re together.’ It was from our accountant. He thought Rod would be gone early as usual. But he had a late-morning flight.

  “When he confronted me with it, I was stunned. I had no idea the package was coming. I told him we should talk. He was hurt. I could see it on his face. He knocked over a table. He threw a glass at me. Finally, he got in his car and sped off. I called and called him on his cell phone. He wouldn’t answer. The next day, I learned about the car crash.

  “I have prayed and prayed for a chance to hug Rod and apologize to him. But I never got that chance.”