We Are Not Ourselves

by Matthew Thomas

  The second girl got to work on time, but Eileen came home early once and found Ed in the armchair in the living room, where he never sat, picking at his hands like a chimpanzee while the girl stretched out on the couch in the den watching a soap opera and talking on the cordless phone. Eileen told her that part of her job was to sit with Ed and make him feel like a human being. She came home early again the following week and ran into the girl on the phone again, this time on the patio. She paid her for the full week, even though four days remained in it, and told her not to come back.

  It would have been easier if she’d been able to stay home and watch Ed herself. Even thirty years into her career—twenty-five in management—she was still better than all of these kids. When she was coming up through the ranks, the care of the patient had been the paramount concern. Now they had other things on their minds.

  She had a bad feeling about the third one during the trial hour, when she saw how difficult it was for her to calm Ed’s flailing long enough to feed him, and how she could barely lift him from the toilet, but it was hard to find great help when she couldn’t pay a tremendous amount, so she hired her anyway. Then she got a call at work saying Ed had fallen and she couldn’t pick him up.

  A nurse was supposed to be capable of outsized feats of strength, like a lifeguard or an ant. The girl had looked hale enough, but there lurked in certain people a softness you couldn’t see.

  She’d gone through three nurses in four months. She didn’t have the patience to try another. Instead of replacing the third girl, she gave Ed strict instructions not to answer the door for anyone he didn’t know. She told him not to leave the house. She prayed he’d listen, at least until she could figure something out.

  She gave in and got the MedicAlert bracelet. If people wanted to look at him as an invalid, she didn’t have the energy to stop them anymore.

  70

  Somehow Eileen’s old friend Bethany had heard what was happening with Ed, tracked down her new number, and called to offer her support.

  Bethany had been a fellow nurse at her first go-round at Einstein. Shortly after Eileen met her, Bethany married a corporate executive and quit working, but for a few years they’d stayed in touch, aided by the fact that Bethany’s daughter Teresa was Connell’s age. Every summer, Eileen, Ed, and Connell went out to Bethany’s beach house in Quogue for a handful of days. In the mideighties, though, when Walt took a position at Pepsi, they moved to Purchase, sold the summer house, and dropped off the map.

  Bethany told Eileen she was living nearby, in Pelham, and that she and Walt had gotten divorced. Teresa had dropped out of high school in her junior year and moved to Los Angeles with her boyfriend, an actor.

  “Walt is heartbroken,” she said. “I tell her I only want her happiness. I’ve been trying to convince her to let me come out and visit. Maybe I’ll just show up.”

  Bethany called every day that week to check in. Eileen welcomed the attention, as many of her friends had receded. She had always gotten along with Bethany, who had a frank, Jamaican sense of humor and could take the stuffing out of anyone. Eileen needed a little more frankness in her life. The friends who had stayed close tiptoed around conversations about Ed.

  She invited Bethany over for tea. Bethany told her she’d become a spiritual guru in the years since her divorce. “I guess I began before the divorce,” she said, laughing. “It might have had something to do with our getting divorced. Walt wasn’t exactly clamoring for me to get enlightened.” She took out a photo of Walt, a gesture Eileen found strange. She couldn’t understand why Bethany was still carrying it around. Walt looked like he hadn’t aged a bit, as though the Jamaican food Bethany had fed him kept him young. Bethany also showed her a photo of Teresa, taken before she’d left. She was just a kid; she still wore braces.

  She’d gotten involved with faith healing, she said. Her healer channeled a spirit named Vywamus. “You should come with me sometime. You might like it.”

  “I’m not interested in any voodoo religion,” Eileen said.

  “It’s not voodoo,” Bethany said. “And it’s not religion.” She laughed. “I’ll let you off easy this time. But I’m very persistent when I want to be.” She laughed again. “I’ll pursue you to the ends of the earth.”

  Eileen laughed too, though she couldn’t help feeling a little unnerved. She poured another cup of tea to cut the tension.

  • • •

  Bethany made friendship easy by always driving over to see her. One Tuesday evening, just as Eileen was about to fix a quick dinner, Bethany appeared at the back door and told her she wanted to take her somewhere.

  “I have Ed,” Eileen said. “I can’t leave.”

  “He’ll be fine. Come.”

  She called up to Ed, who was in bed with the television on, and then followed Bethany down the back steps.

  “Where are we going?”

  “It’s a surprise.”

  She was happy to get out, and touched by the thoughtfulness of a friend who knew she needed a break. She imagined a packed restaurant, a coffeehouse buzzing with conversation.

  Bethany looked happy. She wore a poppy-colored blouse and light rouge on her brown cheeks to match, as well as lipstick. She put her hand on the back of Eileen’s headrest and backed out of the driveway.

  “Where is it, though?” Eileen said, as mildly as she could. “Now you have me curious.”

  “I want you to keep an open mind,” Bethany said.

  As they pulled onto Midland Avenue, it occurred to Eileen that Bethany was not taking her for a gourmet meal or on a shopping spree. They were driving to her cult. “Oh no,” Eileen said. “No, no.”

  Bethany grinned. “I know,” she said, and let out a hearty laugh. “But it’s not like that. It’s going to be relaxing and fun. You’ll like these women, I just know it.”

  “I told you I’m not interested in that,” Eileen said, but Bethany kept driving, and they passed through towns, and soon they were parking the car in Pelham.

  “There’s nothing to be afraid of.” Bethany put her hand on Eileen’s. “You don’t know what you think about it yet.”

  She took a long look at Bethany’s narrow face and close-set brown eyes, her skin that hadn’t aged in the ten years since they’d lost touch. She felt sorry for her for needing all this hocus-pocus. She decided she would go in, just this once, as a favor to her friend and an exercise in openness, like sitting through the character breakfast at Disney World when Connell was four, because it was the right thing to do.

  Inside, a circle of women rose to greet her. She sat and joined them, and a woman walked in from another room, evidently the psychic channeler. She was small, no taller than five two, and her hair had a sort of deliberate unkempt quality, as if in demonstration of her ascetic bona fides. She sat without ceremony and looked serenely around at the group until her eyes fell on Eileen. She held Eileen’s gaze awhile, smiling in a way that forced Eileen to smile back uncomfortably.

  The woman called them to order with a breathing exercise. Eileen took part in it, stifling her laughter.

  “I’d like to welcome Eileen Leary to our midst tonight,” the woman said. “Bethany has brought her to us. Thank you, Bethany. Eileen has been going through some difficulty with her husband. We’re here to help her.”

  Eileen felt herself blushing. She hadn’t expected the group’s attention to be directed at her so soon or so completely. “Please don’t worry about me,” she said. “I’m just here to watch.”

  “Eileen’s husband has Alzheimer’s disease,” the woman said as if Eileen hadn’t spoken, and clucks and knowing looks passed through the room. “But as we have seen so often, not everything is as it seems. We are going to discover today what is happening in her husband’s soul. Bethany tells me his name is Edmund? Edmund Leary?”

  Eileen had an impulse to shield Ed’s name from them, as if by incanting it they might affix to it one of those exotic, long-distance curses that could cause a man to drop dead in the
street.

  “That’s correct,” she said.

  “My name is Rachelle. In a minute I am going to call on Vywamus to visit us. He will talk to you about your husband. I will be channeling him. It may appear that I am talking, but I will only be a conduit. There is nothing to be afraid of. We will link hands, so you will only have to squeeze the hand of the person to either side of you for reassurance. My spirit will not be in the room during this time. I will not be able to answer any questions once Vywamus has entered my body. You must direct any questions to Vywamus. But it is advisable to simply let him speak. You may notice a slight change in my voice. That’s a result of Vywamus using my body as his vessel.”

  Rachelle started to breath rhythmically and to move her hands in circles. She made guttural chanting sounds, random syllables, like a flautist playing scales to warm up. Then she began speaking. Her voice became almost comically low in pitch.

  “I am Vywamus,” she said. “I am here to speak to you, Eileen Leary. I am here to tell you that your husband is one of the most repressed souls in the universe. For many lives, he has been fighting a battle with his spirit. He has been an Atlantean for centuries.”

  Eileen knew that Bethany had never really gelled with Ed. Bethany had had a bit of this New Age streak even when they used to spend time together, and Ed had had little patience for it. She wondered how much Bethany had told this lady.

  “This time through,” Rachelle said in a painful-sounding husky baritone, “he is fighting for his soul. The battle in his body mirrors the battle in his soul. It is not this disease that is making him obsessed with control. It is the other way around. His obsession with control has culminated in this disease. He needs to learn to open up in this life to save his soul from the battle it has been fighting for centuries.”

  She had to hand it to her: once Rachelle started channeling Vywamus, she didn’t break character. Still, Eileen was having a hard time taking it seriously. She had to bite her cheeks to keep from making editorial grunts. It was all meant for someone else, someone weaker of will or less educated. Whatever kind of cult this Rachelle was running, she was mistaken if she thought she had a potential convert in the room. Eileen may have been through some difficult times, but that didn’t mean her brain had gone soft.

  71

  There had been times she’d wanted to kill Ed; now that he was declining so quickly, she just wanted him home until Christmas. It shocked her that her goals had dwindled to one, but that was all she could focus on, even now, eight months away from the holiday. Once Ed left, she knew, he was never coming back.

  There used to be so many goals. They’d made a list at one point. Learn some Gaelic together. Visit the wineries in Napa Valley. She couldn’t remember what else was on the list. They hadn’t accomplished any of them.

  They hadn’t finished the house. Much of the first floor looked new and appealing, but a good deal of the second floor was dilapidated and run-down.

  She hadn’t gone back for a doctorate. She hadn’t learned to play better tennis. They’d never take another trip to Europe. They might never take another trip anywhere.

  They didn’t need to go anywhere anymore, though. If she could get him to Christmas, she would take without complaint whatever was coming. A proper send-off was all she asked, surrounded by the regular crowd on Christmas Eve, the kitchen—the beating heart of the house—full to bursting. By midnight, no one would have left. Smiling Ed in his suit on the couch would be incident-free. Then Mass in the morning; then a short drive to someone else’s house, some coffee cake and a modest second round of gifts. Then let it come down. She didn’t need the whole day. Let him have a fit at four o’clock. Let him be raving and dangerous and inconsolable. She’d drive him over to the home herself. She’d always hated Christmas night anyway. It was the loneliest night of the year.

  72

  Eileen agreed to let Bethany take her back to her faith-healing, channeling psychic, whatever-she-called-herself friend Rachelle. She decided to experience it as a cultural phenomenon, like the be-ins and happenings she’d missed out on while she was in graduate school. She didn’t have to keep up a wall of suspicion if she went in knowing these people were doing something entirely weird and that she was going to study them anthropologically.

  She joined the others in the circle and waited for “Vywamus” to come out. The woman, Rachelle, walked in barefoot, on the balls of her feet like a cat, gathered her robe under her and sat, Indian-style. Eileen couldn’t have gotten into that position if she’d been drugged and stretched into it by a team of men.

  Rachelle/Vywamus started speaking to another member of the circle, the focus of the beginning of the session. When Eileen thought about the actual message Vywamus was delivering, and not the spooky way it was being delivered, she grew almost intrigued at how familiar and unthreatening the ideas in it were. The whole thing was a charade, but there was something quaint about the idea of conveying sturdy old wisdom through the medium of performance art. She imagined many of these suburban wives might be impressed enough by a brush with the avant-garde to actually hear a message they’d have dismissed if delivered by a priest, rabbi, or shrink.

  After a while Rachelle/Vywamus turned her/his attention to Eileen. Rachelle had homed in on something essential about Ed right away. Eileen wouldn’t have put it the way Vywamus had, and Rachelle might have had help from Bethany, but she also appeared to be a master psychologist. Under the absurd pretense of this character, she was saying something borderline sensible.

  At the end of the session, after Vywamus addressed a few of the other women and Rachelle made a big display of being physically drained, everyone stood in a circle talking and eating snacks. Rachelle returned in a different outfit, having shed the robe she was wearing, and mingled.

  When Bethany drove her home, she said that she had covered Eileen for the first couple of visits, but next time there would be a one-hundred-dollar fee, and if she wanted to do private sessions it would cost one fifty.

  • • •

  For days, Eileen fretted over how to tell Bethany she wasn’t going back to Rachelle, but on Tuesday morning, as she dressed for work, she realized she was actually looking forward to Bethany’s visit that night. Bethany was the only one of her old friends who had gotten more involved in her life, rather than less, with the news of Ed’s condition. Eileen dug through her closet and found a pair of slacks she could still squeeze into, and a loose jacket that would hide the bulge forming at her waist. She hadn’t been indoctrinated into Bethany’s cult, and she wouldn’t ever be, but as she ironed her clothes and thought about which lipstick would work best with her green jacket, she knew she needed to be out in the world.

  Ed was already in bed when Bethany rang the bell at twenty to seven. Eileen applied a last spritz of hairspray, shut the powder room light and yelled “Entrez!” toward the kitchen door. Bethany came dressed smartly again, in a turquoise blouse and white jacket. As they got into the car, she pulled down the visor and dabbed lipstick on her top lip and rubbed her lips together to smear it in. Bethany handed her a tissue to blot.

  It was satisfying to be in the company of strong women, most of them semiretired professionals. Maybe she was exactly the sort of woman in a vulnerable state of mind that Rachelle sought to target, but these women didn’t seem that way. If they were, she didn’t care. She wasn’t planning to get to know them. She trusted herself not to be bamboozled by Rachelle’s charisma. There was a spiritual vacuum she needed to fill. She’d never imagined she’d find herself in the living room of a cult leader, or sitting unperturbed as she listened to the rates for future sessions.

  She wondered what the others were getting out of it. The world, as Vywamus presented it, didn’t seem to matter very much; our real existence was taking place somewhere else as we lived out a shadow existence. She didn’t need to be signing on to a whole new program in her fifties. She was going for the hour it got her out of the house.

  At the end of the session, she didn
’t even feel awkward writing the check. Bethany took it with a smile and presented it to Rachelle. Eileen knew she was being played, but she was content to let it happen. It was good to have someone thinking of her, and she liked that Vywamus did so much of the talking. It was better than therapy. Eileen couldn’t stand the silence in Dr. Brill’s office, the fact that she was expected to open her mouth and let all the words she’d apparently kept stopped up come pouring out.

  73

  If you’d told her at her wedding that one day, years on, she’d be picking her husband up at the police station on a balmy evening in late May, she would have laughed and said, “You don’t know Ed,” but she’d gotten a page, and then she was nestling into a spot between a pair of squad cars in the quiet lot at dusk. She shut the engine off and sat considering the possibility that fate had finally caught up to her.

  She headed toward the sign-in desk and saw Ed sitting in the waiting area with an officer, his shirt untucked, his hair a mess. He wore no anguish on his face, only an aspect of resignation. In his rigid posture he looked surprisingly regal, like a statue of an ancient Egyptian king.

  She introduced herself. The officer’s name was Sergeant Garger.

  “I’m so sorry about this,” she said.

  Seeing her, Ed emitted a low moan that suggested he’d been caught with a prostitute or committed some other unspeakable indiscretion.

  “Officer Cerullo will sit with your husband,” Sergeant Garger said. “I’d like you to come to my desk to sign some papers.”

  She wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. She didn’t want them to conclude that the situation was completely out of hand, because there was no telling what they might do then. She could endure any embarrassment, as long as they didn’t take him away.