by Jes Battis
“Tess?”
Dr. Hinzelmann is staring at me good-naturedly. I want to lunge over his desk and grab the green file, which contains all of my nightmares, everything that’s ever made me ashamed, and probably a few sexual peccadilloes. Instead, I put both hands in my pockets and smile.
“Sorry. I spaced.”
“Where were you?”
Don’t mention Lucian or the text message. Don’t mention that you feel gross and unattractive. Don’t mention the time you saw him buying pants in the junior department at Sears. Goblins have to shop somewhere, right? And those Nevada cargos were pretty sharp. Almost kicky.
“I don’t know.” I lean back. “Sometimes I never know.”
“The goal of these sessions—one of the goals, at any rate—is to determine whether this break that you’ve requested should be temporary, or permanent. Do you feel like you’ve made any headway in answering this question for yourself?”
“Not really.”
“Why do you think you needed time off?”
“Well, a Kentauros demon tried to kill me. I mean, not just me. He tried to kill a bunch of people, but I was pretty high on his list. Then I met my biological sister, who, as it turns out, is an enraged waterspout who killed Ru’s brother. It was by accident, but still—it freaked me out. My family is messed up.”
“All families are psychotic, Tess.”
“Oh, really? Is your sister a demonic intelligence who sends you nightmares because she has a daddy complex?”
“No. But we’re not talking about my sister. Tell me about Arcadia.”
“First tell me something about your family.”
“That’s not how it works, Tess.”
I cross my arms. “Fine. I promise to lay out all my tangled emotions for you, like some kind of soiled, neurotic duvet. Just tell me one thing about this sister of yours.”
He hesitates. His expression changes. I can tell that, like me, he’s actually troubled by his own flesh and blood. Then he sighs. His felid pupils float sadly in their liquor of gold. His mouth hardens.
“My sister is an angry person,” he says. “When we were children, she used to find animals and torture them. She liked it when they screamed. She never killed anything, but I could tell that she wanted to. I was always frightened that she’d have children, but she never did. Now she works in an office. We see each other on holidays. We’re friends on Facebook. But whenever I hear her laugh, all I can think of is how happy it used to make her to pull the whiskers off cats.”
I stare at him. Dr. Hinzelmann has never said anything even remotely like this before. Somehow, I imagined his family to be normal, or at least as normal as a goblin family could be. Maybe he’s lying just to get a rise out of me. I don’t think so, though. Animal cruelty doesn’t seem like the type of casual lie you’d use to assuage your patient that she isn’t the only one in the world with problems.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
He shrugs. “Family. There’s nothing you can do about them.”
“I guess not.”
“So tell me about Arcadia.”
“I don’t really know anything about her, except that she’s one of the Ferid, and she could take me apart just by looking at me.”
“But she didn’t.”
“No. She restrained herself.”
He glances at his notes. “She told you something about your father. What was that, exactly?”
“She told me that he was a bastard, which I already knew.”
“That’s not what you said earlier.”
It’s not fair that he gets to consult notes every time we talk. Maybe I should start taking notes. I tried to use the journal function on my phone once, but I only ended up writing bad poetry.
“She told me”—I sigh—“that my mother was hiding something. She’s always maintained that my father assaulted her. But Arcadia said that isn’t what happened at all. I’m more inclined to believe my mother than a crazy demon I only just met.”
“But you suspect that she may be right.”
“I didn’t say that.”
He looks at me flatly. “No. You didn’t. But your comportment suggests that you didn’t completely discount what Arcadia had to say.”
“My comportment? What is this, an eighteenth-century masquerade?”
“Tess.”
“Fine. She could be right. My mother’s lied about all kinds of things before. But it just seems—I don’t know—why would she lie about that?”
“When did she first tell you that she had been assaulted?”
“Years ago. I was fifteen. No. Sixteen.”
“Tell me about that conversation.”
“I’d really rather not.”
“Okay. Just give me a few details. Where did it happen?”
I feel myself grow slightly cold. “In the car.”
“Where were you driving?”
“She was going to work. We were arguing about something. She pulled over to the side of the road. I could tell that she was upset, but I was being a bitch. I didn’t want to apologize. I just wanted to get my own way.”
“Do you remember what you were arguing about?”
“A guy that I liked. Terry. He was an asshole, and my mom was trying to warn me, but I wouldn’t listen.”
“How did she warn you?”
The cold spreads from my stomach to my arms, then to my fingers. I can’t look at her. I stare out the window as rain gathers on the glass. Her fingers are pale on the steering wheel. She sighs.
He’s not good for you, she says. He has a look. I’ve seen it before.
“What do you think she meant by that?”
You think you know everything, I tell her. But we’re not the same. Just because you slept with some stranger and had me doesn’t mean I’m going to do the same thing. I’m not that stupid. I know what I’m doing.
Back then, she says, I thought I knew everything, too.
“I asked her who he was. I asked her how it happened.”
“And what did she say?”
I look into his golden eyes. “She said he grabbed her on the street. Nobody else was there. She fought back, but he was too strong. He left her in a parking lot. That’s where Kevin found her, bleeding, semiconscious. He took her to the hospital. Nine months later, I was born.”
“She told you that exactly?”
“She told me everything but which parking lot it was. I’ve always wanted to know. It’s perverse, but still—I can’t help being curious.”
“Why do you think your mother would construct such an elaborate lie about something so terrible?”
“I don’t think she would. That’s why I’m confused.”
“So Arcadia must be lying.”
“She said she was giving me nightmares so that I’d hate my father as much as she did. But the nightmares didn’t start until after my mother told me. So I already hated him. It seems like overkill.”
“Have you and your mother talked about this recently?”
“It’s not exactly her favorite topic.”
“Did you ever talk about it after that initial conversation?”
“Once or twice, maybe. But there isn’t much to analyze. She always said I was the miracle that came out of it. She’d rather focus on the good.”
“Tess—” His voice changes. He glances down at my file. “There’s something I have to tell you. I don’t know if it’s necessarily the right thing to do, but I feel like you deserve to know this.”
“Is my medical insurance about to run out? Derrick’s is pretty good, but it won’t cover everything. If Mia needs braces—”
“It’s not that.”
“What is it, then?”
He hesitates again. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Dr. Hinzelmann hesitate over anything before today, and now he’s done it twice in as many minutes. The cold spreads to all of my extremities. I want to close my eyes, but I don’t. I look at him.
“The CORE has access to your medical records, as well a
s your mother’s,” he says. “I’m sure you know that already. I can’t tell you what’s in your mother’s file, but I can tell you what’s not in it. There is no police report and no hospital report that she underwent any kind of examination. No sexual assault kit was performed. If she really did visit a hospital after this happened, there would be a record.”
I’m not sure how to absorb this. For a few seconds, I try to speak, but nothing comes out. Finally, I swallow and summon my voice.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because—”
“Right, because you think I deserve to know. Fine, that’s noble of you. But why are you telling me this now, after we’ve been talking for two years? Why are you telling me this today?”
Dr. Hinzelmann lowers his chair and walks over to me. Standing, he barely comes up to my knees. His look is professional, but beneath it, there’s a faint trace of what might actually be remorse.
“I’m telling you this,” he says, “because it’s something you could have easily discovered on your own, years ago. But I don’t think you ever wanted to. I’m telling you because, until you resolve your family issues, you’ll never be able to commit yourself fully to this job. You can never truly know yourself until you know where you’ve come from, and someone is lying to you about that. You need to find the truth.”
I stand up. “You’re wrong. Unless I’d had access to my mother’s file, I never would have learned this.”
“You could have used any number of forensic databases to see if your mother had ever filed an assault report. Maybe it wouldn’t have been the kindest or most ethical thing to do, but it’s always been within your power. Yet you didn’t.”
I feel like I might be sick. Bile rises in my throat.
“I have to go,” I say.
“I’m sorry, Tess. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“Fuck you, Lori.”
I walk out of his office, straight to the elevator. I’m alone. When the doors close, I slam my hand against the steel walls. I strike them again and again, until my knuckles start to bleed. Then, shaking, I press the ground-floor button. I stare at myself in the stainless steel panel. I’m a strange daguerreotype about to come undone. The elevator is halfway to the ground floor when I realize that talking to anyone in my family about this would be a mistake. They’re what are blocking me, deflecting all of my shots like the goalie whose crease remains sacrosanct. Going through them isn’t going to work anymore. I can only go around them.
I reach out and press the button for the subbasement. There’s a tiny shock as the biometrics scan me. I figure that Selena doesn’t have the time or the inclination to limit my security in the elevator’s firmware. I’m right. The elevator descends. I’m sure there are levels even deeper than this one. The CORE building is like a desert phreatophyte with roots that go on for miles below. My clearance stops at the subbasement, but Selena has access to deeper floors. I don’t think I want to visit them.
The doors open. I walk down the corridor that leads to the office of our data keeper, Esther. She looks up from her oval desk when I walk in. A scattering of pictures leaps across the surface of her black lenses. For a second, I think I see Derrick’s face. But it’s gone as quickly as it appeared. Behind Esther, the wall is a hive of data keys, each one a blinking or solid light. I’m not sure what the distinction is, but I know that every one of us is up there, kept and held.
“Tess. How can I help you?”
I opt for the truth. “I need to see if my mother checked into a CORE clinic a year before I was born.”
The dim light and the size of her glasses make it nearly impossible to judge her expression. I can’t even imagine what she’s thinking. She’s silent for a beat; then I hear the sounds of her fingers tapping beneath the desk.
“I’m searching LOOM for a record. Our clinics keep detailed files on every type of examination, no matter how minor.” She looks down for a moment. “There’s something here from 1984.”
“What was she examined for?”
Esther looks up. I see my mother’s face in her eyes. Then the image is replaced by screen void of characters, save for a blinking ASCII character.
“Why do you need to know this?”
It’s a good question. How do I know that Dr. Hinzelmann isn’t just messing with me so that he can log in therapy hours? What do I think this single document is going to tell me about my mother, about myself?
“Because it’s haunting me,” I say.
Esther considers this for a second. Then she says: “Your mother checked into clinic twenty-one B with broken ribs and a concussion. The cause of the injuries was listed as a vehicular accident.”
My eyes widen. “That’s not possible.”
“The examination was carried out by a nurse. Evelyn Stark. I believe she’s head nurse now, but at the time, she was still in training.”
“A car crash,” I say.
“That’s what the examination record indicates.”
“Was it a hit-and-run?”
“It just says vehicular accident. If you like, I can search the RCMP database to see if an accident was reported that night.”
I exhale. “Sure. How long will that take?”
“Twelve seconds.”
We’re silent as we wait. I look at the blinking data keys. What if I just pulled mine out and ran? What would they do to me? The truth is that I don’t know. Most of the time, I feel like the CORE is simply playing with me. I wonder what it would be like to be Esther, holding all of the data.
“There’s nothing,” she says. “If she was involved in a car accident, nobody reported it. Not even after the fact.”
“This isn’t right. Why would she falsify a report?”
“How do you know the report is false?”
“Because—” I shake my head. “I guess I don’t. But she told me that she went to a hospital. She told my stepdad, Kevin, that she was assaulted.”
“Assaulted by whom?”
“I don’t know anymore. I have to go. Sorry to be so cryptic, Esther. Thanks for your help.”
“You’re welcome.” Her lenses blink. I see myself. My face is so pale, I can’t tell if I’m dead or alive. Then the glasses go dark again. The cursor reappears.
I walk out of her office and take the elevator to the ground floor. I could go to the clinic tonight, but I don’t know if Evelyn is working. I don’t even know what I’m going to ask her. I don’t know if my mother lied to the nurse who examined her, or if her injuries really were consistent with vehicular trauma. Right now, I don’t have the energy to take a bus to Kitsilano, where clinic 21B is located. After the travesty of my therapy session, and now this, all I want to do is hurl myself into a Gilmore Girls coma.
I take the SkyTrain home to Commercial Drive. When I walk in, I smell chicken curry. I put down my purse and walk into the kitchen. To my surprise, it’s not Derrick cooking, but Mia. She’s even wearing an apron.
“Hey. That smells incredible.”
“Thanks. It’s my first venture into curries, so please, lower your standards. Derrick and Miles should be here in half an hour.”
“Patrick?”
“Out somewhere. Which is annoying, because he was supposed to buy raisins, but instead he bailed and I had to walk down to Norman’s Fruit Salad to get some.”
“How can I help?”
“Don’t worry. I’ve got this.”
“Yeah.” I smile. “I can see that.”
“How was non-work?”
“It was—weird.”
“How’s Lucian?”
“Why are you saying his name that way?”
“Because you obviously stayed at his place last night.”
“He’s fine. We’re fine.”
She turns to look at me. She’s holding a plastic spoon. Her hair is tied back, and it looks like she could conquer the world. My kid. Only, she’s not my kid anymore, if she ever was. In a few months she’ll be in college. I don’t want her to recede. I wan
t her to stay just like this, funny, angelic, armed.
“You guys are amazing,” she says.
“Are we?”
“You’re such a power couple. I love you both.”
“We love you back.”
“Sit down, Tess. Relax. Prepare yourself for a taste experience. It may end in ordering pizza, but at this point, it’s still promising.”
“That’s my favorite time,” I murmur, taking a seat.
4
When I was a little girl, I had a stuffed pig that I used to pretend was my sister. I named her Judy. Once, my mother asked me what Judy’s voice sounded like, and I replied with confidence: “Medium-high.” To this day, I don’t know what I meant, but I do know that I took Judy everywhere. She and I would have long conversations about whatever I held dear at the moment. As an only child, I had no idea of what siblings actually discussed in the intimacy of their shared bedrooms. Whenever I was invited to a sleepover, I would ask my friends questions about their brothers and sisters. What did they look like? What games did they play? What was the pitch of their voices? I must have been annoying, but at the time, I felt like a journalist. If I had a real sister, would she be just like me, or would she be my antipode?
As it turns out, I do have a sister, but I hope that we’re nothing alike.
I hear keys in the front door. A moment later, Derrick and Miles enter the kitchen, with Lucian in tow. He sees me and smiles sheepishly.
“We ran into each other at the grocery store,” he says.
Derrick is already cramming things into the fridge. “He was about to buy frozen Thai food. I couldn’t just leave him like that.”
“Makes sense,” I say. “Friends don’t let friends eat frozen entrées.”
He sits down next to me. “I’m stoked about curry.”
“I’ll tell you what I just told Tess,” Mia says. “Don’t get your stokes up. This could suck.”