by Dasha Kelly
They sat in high-backed leather chairs with their knees pointing at one another. Three empty chairs lined the wall behind CeCe and four framed photographs of forests lined the wall behind Dr. Harper. CeCe had been on this side of his office door only two other times, once when Dr. Harper had invited her to choose a piece of candy from his credenza and once when she had had to sit in on one of her mother’s sessions. Witnessing how her mother’s silence had followed them into these expensive leather chairs all the way from their apartment, aboard two buses and up a long, narrow flight of stairs, had confounded CeCe. If her mother had scant words for Dr. Harper as well, how was she supposed to get fixed?
“Her brain is fine, CeCe,” Dr. Harper said, unaffected by her abruptness. “It’s the chemicals that regulate her moods we needed to adjust.”
“Well, what’s wrong with her ‘chemicals,’ then?”
“Your mother has a dysthemia, which means she has a form of depression that will always be present and always need to be managed,” he said. “The problem is that she went undiagnosed and untreated for so many years, her mind and body have been stuck in what’s called a major episode. The trauma of seeing your father after mourning him all these years pushed her over the edge. Treating her will be trickier now. Possible, but trickier.”
Dr. Harper’s desk was positioned in front of the far wall. This room was larger than the waiting area, as though the front-room seating had been an afterthought. Soft light from the floor lamp that sat between their tall chairs and the desk made Dr. Harper’s bald top gleam. Between their chairs was a low, narrow table holding a box of tissues and the bowl of hard candy. Dr. Harper reached in to the bowl for a piece. CeCe declined.
CeCe listened to the crackle of cellophane instead of Dr. Harper’s descriptions of her mother’s treatment and prescriptions and long-term therapy goals. She watched as he worked his long words around the pebble of candy.
“When is she going to be regular?” CeCe interrupted again.
Dr. Harper paused for a beat, seeming to weigh his response. “I think she’ll be better than ever,” he said.
Dr. Harper offered a robust smile, intended to convey his confidence and reassure her, she knew, but CeCe didn’t like his smile. Or his bald spot. Or the way he leaned forward in his chair to talk to her. CeCe wanted him to admit the real reason he’d wanted to talk to her.
“I need the medicine, too?” CeCe asked, challenging him with her eyes. “I have it too, right? Her chemical thing?”
Dr. Harper relaxed the tension in his jaw, understanding settling across his face. CeCe thought he looked real for the first time. All of his plastic smiling and forced cheer melted away. He crossed one leg over the other and leaned back. CeCe rested her hands on the armrests, like him, and braced for his reply.
“CeCe, mental illness doesn’t work the same way as other inherited traits, like eye color or height.” Dr. Harper said. “Yes, it’s true family history plays a part, but it’s not a guarantee. It gives us something to watch for.”
CeCe considered his words. She felt his eyes warm on her while she thought.
“So, I have to wait to catch it?” she asked.
“It’s not something you catch, CeCe,” Dr. Harper said. “It’s like a wrinkle in a paper map. You and your mother may have the same map, but that doesn’t mean your map has the same wrinkle.”
“But I might,” CeCe said, tilting her head. “The same way her mother had a wrinkle, right?”
“It’s possible we all do, CeCe,” Dr. Harper said, reaching for a second piece of candy. “We just can’t screen for mental illness. We can only treat it if it happens.”
CeCe stared at him as he popped the candy into his mouth. It rolled around and in between his advice about managing stress and opening up and watching for signs and asking for help. CeCe crossed her arms, trying to pin herself still against the chair. Her head throbbed.
“You seem upset,” Dr. Harper was saying. “Can you tell me what you’re thinking right now?”
“I’m thinking,” CeCe said, wedging her words through her clenching teeth, “you’re telling me to be honest about my feelings, but you’re lying to me.”
Dr. Harper did not flinch from her flung words. He stilled the candy that had been dancing in his mouth, giving a single nod for her to continue, instead.
“Why don’t you just say it: she got the crazy gene from her mother and I’ll get the crazy gene from her,” CeCe said. She sat straight up. The pulsing behind her skull was relentless.
“CeCe, I know you—”
“You don’t know anything!” CeCe screamed, leaping from the tall chair to her feet. Her hands were knotted into small, brown fists and she leaned over the candy bowl at him. “You don’t even know how to fix her!”
“CeCe—”
“Shut up!”
CeCe lifted the candy dish and threw it across the room. Candy gems rained across the beige carpet in muted thuds and the glass bowl exploded against the front wall. CeCe heaved, and Dr. Harper gazed coolly at the empty space on the table where the candy had been sitting.
There was a knock at the door, and he stood.
“Everything OK?” Ms. Petrie called through the door.
“Yes, everything’s fine, Jeannette. Thank you.”
Dr. Harper didn’t look at CeCe or betray his impassive expression. He walked around his chair. He scratched at his silver beard before clasping his hands together and leaning his forearms over the back of his seat. He kept his eyes on his hands and CeCe kept her eyes on him. Still breathing heavily, she did not try to filter the rage gurgling through her veins.
She immersed herself in the feeling for the first time since Camp Onondaga. CeCe was furious all the time now, like she’d been the previous summer at camp. The events of this summer had awakened her darkest, densest rage. When she was mandated to return to her mother after starting school with her cousins in Decatur, CeCe strained to keep this bigger and heavier anger pinned in place. She was relieved to let it growl at Dr. Harper, to hurl dishes and watch them smash against the wall.
In the extended quiet, CeCe’s fingers loosened and she was aware of the sting where her nails had bitten into her palms. Dr. Harper stood casually, as if waiting for her to tie her shoes. He still did not look up from his hands. CeCe watched his hands, too, and then her eyes moved to the wall and down to the shrapnel of glass and wrapped candy. CeCe’s heartbeat quickened as the pulsing in her head subsided.
“Better?” she heard Dr. Harper ask.
CeCe looked at Dr. Harper, who met her eyes now. She was nervous to respond, but Dr. Harper stepped around his chair to sit again. CeCe followed suit.
“CeCe, you had to carry a tremendous amount of responsibility when most kids were learning to ride bicycles, playing kickball, and having sleepovers with their friends,” Dr. Harper said. He crossed his legs and returned his folded hands to his lap. “I imagine that might make you angry.”
Dr. Harper looked to the trail of candy and back to CeCe with a small smile. “Really angry.”
CeCe flushed and a small grin winked from the corners of her mouth.
“You’re also scared,” Dr. Harper said. “You don’t know what’s going to happen next to you or your mother. And you feel like you’re all alone.”
CeCe listened as Dr. Harper plucked her thoughts from the air and strung them together like a beaded necklace. He fit words around her every dark emotion. Her head filled with light and air for the first time. She wanted to spring from her tall chair and tie her arms around Dr. Harper’s shoulders and cry. Her body stayed pressed to the chair. Tears fell anyway.
“How do you know all that?” she asked.
“I don’t know anything, like you said,” Dr. Harper said, leaning forward in his chair. His face was soft and amused. “I understand how your situation can affect the way you feel. My job is to help you figure out how to keep the way they feel from disrupting the way you want to live your life. Does that make sense, CeCe?”
CeCe nodded. Dr. Harper sat with her for a short while longer, saying anger was an important emotion and CeCe would have to work at facing her feelings instead of trying not to feel them.
“I’ll bet you have painful headaches,” Dr. Harper said.
CeCe’s eyes went wide. Dr. Harper grinned.
“I bet you want a piece of my candy now, too.”
CeCe grinned back at him.
TWENTY-TWO
GUT
“HI, BRIAN, THIS IS CECE Weathers. I got your message and wanted to let you know I talked with the agency that writes my renter’s insurance. They’ll be able to write the house policy, too. Thanks for the other number, though. I’ll send a copy of the certificate once I get it.”
CeCe placed the cell phone on top of the spreadsheets on her desk. She hadn’t gotten much work done after Kester popped into her office earlier and made her cry. Her office door was closed now and the hallway blinds drawn, both rare gestures in their office and universally respected as Do Not Disturb Unless You’re Kester.
CeCe picked up her tea and cupped the mug with both hands. She rested the rim against her chin, letting the steam scale her face. CeCe loved the ritual of tea, selecting new flavors, steeping the water, breathing in the exotic aromas. Her old roommate, Terri, had converted her from coffee to tea.
Terri.
CeCe scanned her phone directory for Terri’s number. They’d traded random texts from time to time, but hadn’t had a long, leisurely conversation since Terri’s birthday party earlier in the year. Terri had been busy with her new job as an art therapy instructor as well as planning for her own exhibit later in the year. Terri would always be CeCe’s unofficial big sister, something she desperately needed right now.
She answered right away with her usual cheer. CeCe could hear the wind flicking at Terri’s earphones. She had caught Terri on her daily walk.
“Call me back when you’re done?” CeCe asked.
“No, sis, this is good. I thought about you the other day,” Terri said, her voice strained but steady. “What are you up to?”
“Having a cup of tea,” CeCe said, looking down into her mug. She listened to the rhythm in Terri’s breathing.
“Really?” Terri said, her voice full of humor. “I just knew you would go back to coffee.”
“Nope. I’m hardcore, now,” CeCe said. “I even buy the expensive stuff.”
Terri laughed. “Your body thanks you.”
“And I thank you,” CeCe said.
“Again,” Terri said, a large truck rumbling by in the background, “what are you up to?”
“I’m moving out,” CeCe said.
“I thought you loved that place,” Terri said.
She was right. When CeCe had first moved into their apartment, Terri had been entertained to watch CeCe bask in a newfound independence. CeCe had been twenty-three, restless and dumbfounded by the reality of freedom.
“I did love the apartment. I mean, I do,” CeCe said. “I got a house this week.”
“A house? You bought a house?”
“No,” CeCe said, “Doris—remember Doris from the mall? She gave me her house in a kind of pre-bequeathing.”
“Get out of here!” Terri exclaimed, then CeCe heard her mumble an apologetic disclaimer to a passerby. “I guess that’s great news and terrible news all at once. What’s wrong with her?”
“Cancer,” CeCe said. She thought of Doris standing in front of the naked window then, filled with pride and illness. “Said she’s done with treatments. Gonna spend the remaining year or two traveling.”
Terri was quiet. CeCe closed her eyes, knowing her friend was sending up a quick prayer.
Terri spoke again, “You feel guilty about the house? About Doris being sick?”
“Yes, I feel guilty about the house, but not so much because of Doris. She’s working on one helluva bucket list. I’m grateful I was on it.”
“So . . . what’s—” Terri caught herself. “Oh. Is this about your mother?”
“Yes.” CeCe’s throat tightened again.
“She doesn’t want to move . . . ?” Terri asked.
The sob snagged against CeCe’s voice. “She doesn’t know about the move yet.”
Terri was quiet while CeCe gurgled and gabbed. Finally, she said, “Let’s do logistics, then we’ll get to the real stuff, OK?”
CeCe consented and sniffled.
“Can she afford the rent on her own?”
“Yes,” CeCe said. “The trust will sunset in about three years, but she’s also been getting SSI payments and back military pay of my father’s. Of course, I’ll continue to help her.”
“OK. What about living on her own?” Terri asked. “Is it safe for her to be by herself?”
CeCe thought of her mother in their living room, sitting in the recliner. This evolved version of her mother consumed news, spoke a fistful of sentences every day, and ventured out by city transit to the Stringer Center each week to attend her activity group. CeCe hadn’t allowed herself to marvel at this reincarnation in quite some time.
“She’s safe,” CeCe said.
Terri asked CeCe to hold on. CeCe listened to bursts of hard breath as Terri sprinted the last block of her workout.
“OK,” Terri said, heaving her words now, “so you’re not worried about leaving your mother in the apartment; you feel guilty. Is that right?”
CeCe turned her chair away from her office door and window, as if the fresh stream of tears might be detectable through the blinds. “I know I’m not wrong, but I feel wrong,” CeCe said into the cell phone. “I want a regular life for myself, and I feel like the worst human alive for it.”
“And, if she moves with you?” Terri prompted.
“It would be more of the same, with more space,” CeCe said. “It wouldn’t be awful. I mean, at this point, it’s all we know.”
Terri’s breathing fell easy now. CeCe could tell she was still outdoors, maybe on the front steps of her new high-rise apartment building. Or maybe Terri had already made it up to her apartment and was standing out on the balcony. CeCe had sat near its sliding doors the night of Terri’s birthday party. “Is this what you want,” Terri said, “or what you think you’re supposed to want?”
CeCe thought for a moment. “Both.”
“When you visualize yourself in the house, do you imagine yourself alone or with your mother there?”
“Alone, but—,” CeCe said, hesitating, “I kinda know Mama is there, somehow. Like she’s always in another room.”
Terri was quiet a moment before she spoke. “Sis, I don’t think guilt is what has you stuck. I think it’s fear. Pure, intense, and unadulterated fear.”
CeCe stopped flipping the paperclip on her desk. She looked at it, pinned between her fingers, as if it were as foreign as the suggestion Terri had made. CeCe couldn’t list many things she’d ever been afraid of. Uneasy? Uncomfortable? Uncertain? Absolutely. All the time. But fear? She’d never had the luxury of being afraid. CeCe’d had to be brave and make complicated decisions for both of them her whole life. The threat of being ferreted away by social workers had made her afraid until she figured out how to answer their questions. CeCe hadn’t been afraid of much since.
“Think about it,” Terri continued. “Your mother isn’t the only one who’s been shaped by this life you’ve shared. When you first moved in, with all your lists and notes and routines, you lived like someone who’d just gotten out of military school. And you were so awkward, bless your heart.”
CeCe laughed with Terri, remembering their apartment’s steady stream of artists, activists, entrepreneurs, and grad students whose personalities spanned the spectrum of “eccentric.” After hiding in her room during the first few months, not wanting to infect Terri’s frequent gatherings with her inexperience, CeCe realized no one was interested in her broken pieces. They all had their own. All of them. CeCe had been grateful to test her social wings with Terri’s circle of brilliant misfits.
“Awkward doe
sn’t make me scared,” CeCe said.
“Girl, ain’t nothing wrong with being scared,” Terri said. “You’re talking about untangling a lifelong codependency. With your mother. Not a small feat.”
CeCe was quiet. She wasn’t crying anymore. The imagery of their lives in a tangle resonated with her. Codependency? Until now, CeCe had seen herself as the straight rod with her mother’s frailties winding themselves around her. It hadn’t occurred to her that they could entangle each other. Codependency. The term felt vast in her head, full of echoes. How could she be dependent when she had always been the same? Their address changed, the severity of her mother’s depression changed, the presence of family changed, but CeCe had remained the same. Methodical, reliable, resourceful, and furious. Their life had kept CeCe consistently the same.
CeCe couldn’t imagine herself any differently. Trudging through life had prepared her to build the humble life before her. Her logistical mindset had made her invaluable to Kester’s firm, had siphoned a modest pot of “rainy day” funds from their trust. Her rigid reasoning had also kept her distant from new people, second-guessing their friendliness or affections. Mostly, CeCe’s thoughts were always on cooking the next meal, scheduling the next appointment, researching the next pharmaceutical trial, or cushioning them for the next time her mother might implode.
As a kid, CeCe had always been told being a grown-up meant she could do whatever she wanted, all the time. Not really, she discovered. Grown-ups had more options, but couldn’t choose most of them. It was only as an adult that CeCe could smooth the edges of her resentment. Most of her mother’s life options had been chosen for her by death, war, and injustice. Even her mother’s mental illness had been a life defense chosen by genetics, CeCe knew.
How could her own life be different, CeCe wondered again. She hadn’t known anything else. Maybe she wasn’t meant to be anything else. She laid the paper clip on the desk. What if she wasn’t meant to be free?
“You still with me?” Terri said. Her voice wasn’t surrounded by the sounds of outside anymore.