Instead of being shocked, as Sierra expected, Dr. Cayden looked thoughtful. “How much do you know about sleepwalking?”
“I’ve looked up some stuff online,” Sierra said. “I have some sense of what it entails.”
“It’s possible that you hurt yourself while sleepwalking and had no memory of running into something or falling when you woke up.”
“But that’s not really me. I mean, I remember everything.”
“That’s true, you remember your dreams. I’m saying possibly you’re injuring yourself on walls and floors in your home and have no memory of getting out of your bed or off your couch. I don’t want to rule it out.”
Sierra thought about it. She was not entirely convinced, but it seemed like a possible explanation. “Maybe you’re right.”
“Next time you come, we’re going to move away from your dreams and talk about your life,” Dr. Cayden said. “I want you to be prepared to really be open and share.”
Sierra agreed that she would. But after leaving the office and thinking about it some more, she thought she might have just lied to the doctor. She wasn’t really sure how much more of her life, past or present, she was ready or willing to share.
Chapter 18
The weekend passed with no new dreams or drama. Sierra spent her Saturday doing chores and painting. Sunday morning, she got up and attended church service with her mother and then went over to her mother’s house for dinner. Both Irene and Ron were there, along with Irene’s husband and her kids. Normally, that would have made for a stressful situation for Sierra, but surprisingly, everyone got along. She didn’t feel as threatened as she usu-ally did. Irene and her mom did ask her about her date with Dale, but took in the story and its details as Sierra told it, without fishing for any other pieces of information. Even Ron seemed to be in good spirits. Sierra left quickly after dinner, not wanting the peace to be broken.
It was soon the next Friday and time for another appointment with Dr. Cayden. She was running a little late that day— the week had been a little hectic, as she was in the middle of three closings, including Steve’s—but she managed to get to her appointment only a few minutes late; the doctor was still able to see her.
As soon as Sierra took her seat, Dr. Cayden started in. “So, how have you been?”
This time, she wore a dark blue pantsuit with the same black heels, Sierra noticed. Her shirt was mint-green cotton. She still looked absolutely pulled together and calm. Apparently Sierra had been wrong: she didn’t have a uniform, except maybe for her hair, which was in the same severe bun again.
“I’ve been okay,” she answered.
“Have you had any more problems oversleeping?”
“Not as of late, no.”
“Good. I really want to set the focus this visit on your life and not so much on your dreams.”
“Okay,” Sierra reluctantly conceded. She had tried to mentally prepare herself for this new agenda, but still felt resistant.
“I want to talk about your job first. Tell me a little bit about what you do.”
Sierra breathed a sigh of relief. She had no problem talking about her job. She was good at it, and it afforded her a decent living. She was able to be her own boss and even had an employee. Her income allowed her to live in a condo downtown and drive the car she had always wanted. And this was exactly what she told the doctor.
“So you enjoy your work?” Dr. Cayden asked.
“I’m good at it,” Sierra said, bobbing her head.
“I know that you’re good at it,” Dr. Cayden said, “but I want to know if you like it.”
Sierra shrugged. “I think it’s like anything else—some days are harder than others, but I think I like it enough.”
“Enough for what?”
“Enough that the pros outweigh the cons.”
Dr. Cayden made a note on her pad. “When you were a child, what did you dream of being?”
Sierra thought about the question for moment. “I don’t think I dreamed of becoming anything, career-wise. However, I always liked to draw. I would draw anywhere on anything. I would doodle on the back of my school notebooks, on the wall behind my bed where no one but me could see, and even on my clothes and shoes when I could get away with it.”
“And what happened to that desire when you got older?”
“Well, I did take some art classes in college and I really enjoyed them,” Sierra remembered fondly. “But I had to be practical. That’s why I took the business and management classes—and now, as you can see, I’ve built a successful career, so obviously I made the right choice.”
“Why do you think that art would have been the wrong choice or that somehow you would have been less successful if you had pursued that path?”
“It’s rare, I think, that an artist is able to be financially successful and appreciated in her own lifetime. At least that’s what history teaches us. I didn’t want to wait for another lifetime. I needed to be able to take care of myself—because no one else was going to.”
“I see. You say that you’re happy doing the real estate work and you also admit to having a passion for drawing and art. Which one do you think makes you the happiest?”
Sierra was caught off guard by this question. Thus far, she had been able to answer the questions presented to her with a sense of confidence, but now she wasn’t so sure how to respond. What was the right answer? What was the doctor expecting her to say?
Her reaction must have showed on her face a little, because Dr. Cayden added, “There’s no right or wrong answer to this question.”
Sierra wanted to believe her but she couldn’t. She knew that her answer would reveal something about herself that she had already been struggling with for a while. Something she still wasn’t entirely sure she was ready to admit to.
She decided to just lay her cards out on the table to the doctor—and to herself. “I like real estate and I like running my own business. I like that I’m the boss. I really like what real estate has afforded for me. But . . . when I paint I feel like myself. I feel no pretense. My painting feels organic, and because of that, it makes me feel my best version of normal— makes me feel truly happy. So the answer is, maybe painting does make me happier . . . but I don’t think that I’m ready to live the life of a struggling artist. I’ve become accustomed to my lifestyle, and I like it.”
Dr. Cayden continued to make notes without comment.
The lack of feedback made Sierra feel defensive. “I know that probably says something awful about my character, but at least I’m being honest.”
Dr. Cayden looked up at that. “Sierra, I’m not making any judgments here. That’s not my job. My job is to listen and encourage and allow you to work through things yourself. As I stated before, there are no right or wrong answers.”
Sierra’s face cleared the frown that had been firmly planted on her face, and she relaxed again.
The doctor carried on. “Tell me about your family.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Whatever you want to tell me.”
So Sierra gave her the spiel about her dad and mom and then Irene and Ron. She told the doctor about what they did for a living and shared that Irene was married with kids. She gave the order of birth of her siblings, and that was it.
“And do you guys get along?”
“I think we get along just as much as most siblings. I mean, yeah, we fight, but I don’t think it’s anything out of the ordinary.”
“Would you say that you’re friends with your siblings?”
Sierra smiled. “I don’t know. We’re family and we always love each other, but sometimes we’re definitely not friends.”
“Do you have any people in your life you would call friends?”
“Of course I do. I’m not a weirdo. I made friends in school and in life. I have people I hang out with from time to time.” Even as she said it, Sierra was having a hard time remembering the last time she’d hung out with anyone.
�
�What I want to know, Sierra, is if you had a secret, a really personal secret, who would you share it with?”
Once again, Sierra didn’t have an answer. She looked at Dr. Cayden’s feet, noting that the right one was currently over the left, and then looked at the painting of the orchid on the wall, hoping for that comforting feeling again. Then, finally, she looked at the clock. The hour was almost up; she was being saved by the proverbial bell.
“Wow, where does the time go? I guess we’re done for the day,” she said, already gathering her things and preparing to leave.
“We still have a few more minutes left,” Dr. Cayden said, stilling Sierra’s whirlwind of movement. “There’s no hurry.”
Sierra slowly placed her handbag by her side and took her seat again. She realized that Dr. Cayden’s question had unnerved her, and she wasn’t at all clear as to why. She just knew that she wanted to get out of this office and away from the therapist’s knowing look.
“Do you have anything else that you’d like to talk about? Anything that’s happened since you started coming to these sessions?”
Sierra mulled that question over. No, she absolutely didn’t want to talk about the panic attack she’d had in her car after that first visit and what prompted it; nor did she care to talk about her confused feelings about Dale and Steve. Yet these were the main thoughts that had permeated her mind for the last couple of weeks. Sierra decided that she would talk about neither and just tell the good doctor that she felt fine. She would merely grab her things and say her good-byes.
In light of her plan, she was shocked to the core when she found herself instead saying, “I had a small panic attack outside of your office after my first visit. I had a little flashback to something that happened to me when I was a kid.”
“Please go on,” Dr. Cayden said.
Sierra covered her mouth after her surprise confession, as if to prevent other words from spilling out. Then she noticed that in spite of having shared such private thoughts with the doctor, her world hadn’t ended. In fact, she felt a little relieved. She wasn’t sure what was going on, but she went with it.
She started by relating what had happened after the last visit when she got in her car. Then she relayed the story of her time in the attic. She refused to allow herself any emotion; she didn’t want to betray herself in front of another person. So when she pictured it this time, she imagined that the child wasn’t really her but some other little girl, just as she had done so many other times before. She spoke in the kind of detached voice she might use to tell a story she’d read about, not an event in her own life.
When Sierra was finished, Dr. Cayden asked her how long had it been since she had thought about that experience prior to their first visit.
“Years,” Sierra said. “I used to have nightmares about it, but those stopped a while ago.”
“Did this happen more than once?”
Sierra’s head lowered. “Yes,” she said quietly.
“And did you ever get any help? Was the person prosecuted? Did you see a therapist at the time?”
“No,” Sierra said without lifting her head. “I never told anyone, and because of that he was never prosecuted and I never went to see a therapist. My parents didn’t have any idea.”
“If you never told anyone, then how did it end?”
Sierra was still looking down. She couldn’t bring herself to make eye contact with the doctor. She said nothing.
“Sierra,” Dr. Cayden said after a couple of minutes, but Sierra barely registered that she was speaking.
Then she felt a hand on her shoulder, and she almost jumped out of her seat. She looked up and saw Dr. Cayden staring down at her. She felt as if she was waking from a dream.
“Sierra, are you okay?”
She began to adjust her clothes and hair, attempting to fix her appearance into neatness and order. Then she stopped, realizing how absurd she was being. Her appearance hadn’t somehow changed in the past few minutes. It was her insides that were full of confusion and turmoil.
“Sierra,” Dr. Cayden prompted her.
“Yeah, I mean, yes . . . I’m okay.”
“Well, this is good. I think we’re making very good progress.”
“We are?” Sierra wasn’t really convinced.
“Yes, Sierra, I really think we are. I also think that we’ve done enough work for today.”
Sierra felt quite relieved. She was ready to bolt from the office. She knew that she had made a mistake in bringing up those old memories. It was one thing to admit to being molested. It was quite another to dredge up specific memories and let them play in her mind like a horror movie. She had thought talking about Steve would be harder; her feelings for him were in the present and totally alien to her. Now she knew that she had been fooling herself. Refusing to think about something was not the same as being over it.
“I want you to tell me next time if you have any more memories of the molestation, and I also want an update on any dreams that you might have,” Dr. Cayden said. “Have you been writing in your diary?” Her voice sounded steady and normal, as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.
Sierra nodded.
“Okay, then continue to do that as well, and next time I want you to share some of those thoughts with me, if you feel comfortable.”
Sierra was no longer sure that she could answer with anything but nonverbal responses, so that was what she did.
“And, Sierra, we’ll have to come back to this subject.”
Sierra nodded again. The very thought of it filled her with a complete sense of dread, but she had expected nothing less. She picked up her purse and prepared to leave.
Dr. Cayden smiled at her, put a hand on her shoulder, and squeezed it. Sierra received the comfort without looking at the doctor or even stopping her stride toward the door, because she was on the verge of tears. If she saw any compassion in Dr. Cayden’s eyes, she knew she would cry. And she didn’t want to cry. Not in front of this woman, not in front of anyone. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d done that, and she wasn’t about to start now. Tears were a sign of weakness, and she’d vowed a long time ago to always cry in private. She wouldn’t break her vow now.
She had already made it to the elevator when she heard Gail, the friendly receptionist, calling to her and asking her about scheduling her next appointment. As the elevator doors opened, Sierra gave a weak nod and wave of her hand indicating her agreement to the time of the next appointment. She breathed a sigh of relief once she was inside the elevator, grateful to be away from Dr. Cayden and her probing questions. But she knew this relief wouldn’t last long; what she wanted a reprieve from wasn’t her therapist but the memories that she carried with her.
Right now, though, she didn’t care to concede that point, so she didn’t.
Chapter 19
Sierra got up from her chair by the window and stretched slow and leisurely, giving her back the rest it needed after the arduous two and a half hours of sitting she’d just subjected it to.
Although her mind and body were tired, she felt the best that she could ever remember feeling in a long while. She looked out of her window again and breathed a sigh of contentment. She had a lovely view of the Milwaukee River and the backdrop of Milwaukee’s downtown area, but never since she’d moved in had she taken the time to enjoy it. The river held its own beauty in its steady continuity. The river had purpose; it knew what it must do. The canvas in front of her, reflecting the scene outside of the window, stood witness to the appreciation she was finally showing for the world around her.
A little over two weeks had gone by since her date with Dale and her semi-date with Steve. During that time, Dale had called twice to chat and to schedule another date, but Sierra had come up with a number of excuses not to see him again immediately. She needed time to think and understand what she even wanted.
Steve had called as well. He’d left messages on her phone and with Stefani. Sierra couldn’t possibly avoid him much longer
, as she was still working on closing on the house he was buying. She’d had Stefani draw up the paperwork and set a time for the meeting to take place. She was excited about the sale—and, if she was being honest with herself, she was excited about the prospect of seeing Steve again. Well, excited and terrified, she amended. It was a feeling that she was starting to get used to.
The meeting was set for tomorrow, and she was as prepared as she could be. She had closed many times before and usually the process energized her—but this time she just wanted to get it over with so that she could get back to her creations.
She shut out of her mind the fact that she had canceled her appointment with Dr. Cayden for this week and had rescheduled for next week, citing work responsibilities—which was sort of true. But it wasn’t the only reason she’d canceled. A lot had been revealed on that last visit, and Sierra was trying really hard not to think about some of those things. She didn’t feel ready, not yet. Even though she was the one who’d blurted out the information, she still didn’t understand why.
She had, however, felt more than ready to start painting again. In fact, ever since she’d bought the supplies and began to paint again, she simply couldn’t stop. As soon as she dipped her paintbrush into the oil and pressed it against the canvas, she felt as if the brush and her heart were connected, and the paintings flowed. She’d started with simple things, like painting a vase filled with daisies sitting on the living room table, and had now transitioned into creating paintings of her family, places she’d visited, and even images stuck in her mind from her dreams. She simply couldn’t stop—and she didn’t want to. She felt free and that feeling was so pleasant and peaceful that she felt as though she would do anything to keep it.
She yawned and stretched again, then went to the kitchen to make coffee. She’d been so busy painting that she’d barely slept. She didn’t want to. Her present was so rewarding that she wasn’t even worried about her future and had stopped thinking about her past.
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