“I promise you, at least I will come up there and spend a week with you next March.”
“If Christine can get some weeks off, I’ll bring her. Deal?”
“Deal.”
I thought that was the perfect place to end the conversation.
“I’m going to sign off now, Mona. I’m at the beach with Christine, and I want to go back to my beach chair and be there when she wakes from her nap. And speaking about bedrooms, we’ve got empty ones here too. You’re more than welcome to come here if it gets too cold for you up there.”
“Thank you, Robert. I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Thank you, Mona. You shared something with me that I needed to know. I wish you the best of life and I promise to keep in touch. Good-bye, Mona.”
“Good-bye, Robert. Take good care of yourself.”
She was gone. And I had my answer. The Two-Knock Ghost had told me the truth—in a dream no less. I was ecstatic. I couldn’t wait for Christine to wake so I could tell her the news. As I returned to my comfortable beach chair, I reflected on my conversation with Mona. I realized I had invited her to come for a visit as if I were still living with Christine. Having done that, I thought it must have been because I believed deeply within myself that I would be back in my home by winter. I certainly hope so.
I sat next to Christine for forty-three minutes before she drifted from her sleep of an hour and a half. As I expressed in this story before, I felt like an excited child as I explained to Christine my conversation with Mona.
“My ghosts are real!” I told Christine. “No wonder I was drawn to the bedroom. Deep down, in places I didn’t even know existed, I was always waiting for my little sister to come home. That phone call explains why I always felt loneliness when I first went into that room. That absolutely explains it. There’s no other explanation. That has to be the reason because otherwise my life was almost perfect. And the fact that I chose the name Lena—where did that come from?”
“I can’t answer that,” Christine said, showing some fascination with my story. “But it seems as if the Two-Knock Ghost is a bit of a different kind of miracle that has happened to you in your dreams.”
“First Sister Timothy and the devil then Lena dying when I was three. I guess the alcohol was anesthetizing me for more than just the death of my parents and grandparents.
Christine said, “I think you’re right, Robert.” Then she reached for my left hand with her right as we both laid on our beach chairs contemplating our own personal thoughts until we left for dinner about two hours later.
My head was filled with two things that night. First I was spending my second consecutive loving weekend with Christine, who like fine wine was becoming better with the passage of time. Second, I couldn’t wait to talk with Dr. Banderas Wednesday night. I would tell him every detail of my magnificent dream about my parents. I would ask his opinion and enjoy his unique insights and I would thank him for encouraging me to invite the Two-Knock Ghost into my dreams. The way I set up how I told him about the Two-Knock Ghost, how could he have possibly concluded that the Two-Knock Ghost might be friendly?
But tonight it was time to focus my attention on Christine. I made points with her when I recommended she try the locally famous corn chowder soup, and she loved it. Then throughout dinner I shared jokes with her that I’d memorized off the internet, talked about our children, asked her in great detail about every aspect of her job. I wanted her to talk abundantly, about everything she did. She told me her own funny stories about the people she worked with, elaborating while giggling a great deal, about a few doctors who couldn’t even tie their own shoelaces without the help of nurses. Oh God, how I simply loved to watch Christine talk. Her eyes were always glistening, especially when she told me stories about people whose lives she had a direct hand in saving.
As our sharing continued through Saturday’s later day hours, I could see us returning to a relaxed normalcy that neither of us had experienced in years. The flow of our conversations, our quiet times, the transitions we made from being at the beach to leaving, to showering together outside, going into separate bathrooms and changing from our bathing suits to our evening wear, sprucing up, meeting up again, then driving to the Back Fin Blue and having a wonderful dinner; it was all smooth and fun. We talked and giggled, took a swim out past the buoys and even beyond a couple of sailboats that were moored about two hundred feet south of the buoys. We were enjoying each other’s company as answers and lifestyle changes were happening to me, which impacted Christine just as much, but in a different way than me. I believed she felt she was being more loved by me, that I was being more attentive to her as a complete person, more interested in genuinely asking her about every aspect of her life. I could admit to myself now how the alcohol dimmed all of my senses and turned me into the opposite of a loud mouthed drunk. I was a quiet introverted drunk—and even that fact made me think that I was exempt from any responsibility for hurting my kids and my wife. One of the things I thought about when Christine asked me to leave the house, was, “How could she ask me to leave? I never even raised my voice to her or the kids.” How could I? I was drunk and half asleep or sound asleep by the time Christine came to bed. How many of those nights did I not even kiss Christine good night. And there I was, when I had first been cast out by Christine, thinking about how great of a husband I had been. And how great of a father I had been. But I realized I hadn’t been either. I was, almost every night, simply a sad, shy drunk, who isolated himself from the people he loved most.
But things were changing now. I was spending my second weekend in a row with Christine. We had not made love, but we were loving each other continuously, sharing genuine affection each moment of every day we were together. We did not yet speak of my returning home, but it was now understood, but unspoken between us, that it was only a matter of time.
* * * * *
Wednesday night at 7:30 couldn’t come soon enough, but it did. Finally, it was my time to share my dream with Dr. Banderas and moreover, see what he felt about it. Loyal Dianne was working late as usual when the Doctor had patients at night.
“Dr. McKenzie, how are you doing tonight?” She greeted me as if I was the first person she had seen in weeks.
“I’m well, thank you, and happy and excited to see Dr. Banderas. How are you?”
“I’m wonderful thank you, and Dr. Banderas is excited to see you too tonight. He told me that this afternoon. Let me buzz him and see if he is ready for you.” I respected her friendliness and her professionalism.
“Dr. Banderas, Dr. McKenzie is here. Are you ready for him?”
“I’ve been ready for him all day, Dianne. Thank you, and send him right in.”
“Yes, Doctor.”
She walked the few feet to the door to Dr. Banderas’s office, opened the door, held it for me, and closed it as I passed her into the jungle.
“Hello, Dr. McKenzie,” he said before I could say my hello first.
“Hello, Dr. Banderas. How are you?”
“I’m just a touch tired near the end of a long day, but before I ask you the same question, I want to tell you that I have had a strange, almost psychic feeling since Friday night, that you have wanted to share something extremely important with me.”
“You are correct, sir,” I said emphatically, but playfully.
I noticed dark circles under his interested eyes.
“Well, sit down, get comfortable, and tell me what you experienced.”
I sat in one of his comfortable leather client chairs and felt complete comfort immediately. I waited for him to become comfortable in his much more expensive leather chair before I began.
“I had the most incredible dream I have ever had in my entire life a few nights ago, and I have been utterly anxious to tell you ever since.”
“You’ve got me on the edge of my seat with anticipation. Let’s hear it.” He cla
sped his hands in a gentle closure on the middle of his lap.
“You remember how I told you the Two-Knock Ghost revealed itself to be my parents?”
He nodded.
“They came back. This time they brought me a complete picnic from Respite while I was relaxing in a dream under the live oak.” Slowly, I described my dream to him in every detail. I shared with him every word my parents spoke to me. I was sure that I didn’t miss any, marveling at how a human being could memorize so many words from a dream after hearing them only once. I thought for a moment when I considered that, how different it was when I heard notes. They would repeat themselves countless times, as if they were asking me, “Are you getting this? Do you like this sequence?”
When I finished the retelling of my dream, he asked me very simply: “How did you feel afterward?”
“I felt fantastic. I felt the tremendous love of my parents. I felt great joy, wonder, and relief at the things they told me, but most of all I was overwhelmed with curiosity whether Sister Timothy and especially Lena, were real.”
“Did you satisfy that curiosity?”
“Indeed I did, Dr. Banderas. The very next day I found the box with all my old report cards in it and BAM, there it was. The fourth card I looked at was second grade and Sister Timothy. The Two-Knock Ghost remembered what I had long ago forgotten.”
“And what about Lena?”
“For that I looked through an old phone book to find an older relative who I was close to, who might recall her. I remembered Mona Silveri and when I asked her, she confirmed that my parents had Lena and that I’d had a little sister.”
I explained to him that the reason my parents did not want to talk about Lena ever again after she died, was they sincerely believed they could spare me a great deal of pain by hiding the truth from me. Apparently, they were wrong and were told so by the Gate Keeper.
“Do you mind if we look at the dream as a cup, Robert?” he asked, his hands still folded in his lap.
“No, sir,” I said, knowing that his take on my experience would be interesting. “I must begin by saying that in no way will my comments attempt to denigrate the depth of importance and meaning that your dream has had for you. There is no doubt that this was the quintessential dream of your life to this point. It has impacted you more than even most of the experiences of your waking life. But I’d like to suggest that we look at the dream from a different point of view. I believe that when you were a little boy you were deeply wounded by the death of your little sister. When your grief wasn’t worked through by your parents not talking about it until you were healed from the pain Lena’s death caused, you unconsciously pushed your pain deep within your subconscious mind. Over the years that pain was compacted by all the other pains that you experienced in life, most notably the death of your parents and grandparents. We both know now that the longing for your sister to return is the reason why you felt loneliness every time you went into your bedroom to work for your clients. We now both know that your longing for Lena to return is the reason you would spend so much time in your bedroom. You continued to repeat the pattern long after you had consciously forgotten that Lena had ever existed. When you were sent away by Christine, that triggered the guilt you had for failing her and that in turn triggered the devil dreams, as inspired by Sister Timothy. She had frightened you so much that you blocked conscious thoughts of her for decades. But the fears that she bestowed upon you lived deep within you all those decades as well.”
“But now I would like to suggest that something may be happening in your dreams that goes far deeper than you have ever imagined.”
His face had become extremely serious—the most intense he had ever shown me.
“There is a theory, as you may already know, that states that every character in your dreams is you. If we hold up the cup of your dreams and look at it that way then your parents and the devil are all really you trying to reveal something to yourself. In the case of your parents revealing the things they did, it is absolutely clear what you were trying to reveal to yourself because the Two-Knock Ghost—your parents—you, were very specific. In the case of the devil, things became more complicated. In its simplest form, it could be that you formed a horrendous way to beat up on yourself for hurting Christine. Your choice of the devil came from deep within your subconscious where all the admonitions from Sister Timothy were stored. The death of Toby, your unhoped-for binge a couple of weeks ago, your admission that you were an alcoholic, the telling to you by your children that they missed you when you spent so much time in your bedroom, all these profoundly emotional occurrences stirred up the part of you where your subconscious agonies lived. The appearance of the Two-Knock Ghost even preceded most of your recent awareness. Why it appeared when it did, is anybody’s guess, but the fact that it appeared indicates that somewhere deep within yourself, you were desperate to resolve the issues that were plaguing you in your subconscious. It may have been that your parents were truly the Two-Knock Ghost which came from Respite to help you. It may have been that unknown to your conscious being, your subconscious mind created the Two-Knock Ghost to be the purveyor of the facts of your childhood that you have imparted to me. You may have molded it to reveal these hidden facts to yourself by your parents because you loved and trusted them. But the facts that were revealed to you by the Two-Knock Ghost were facts you already knew but were submerged deeply within the mire of your subconscious.”
What he was saying made a great deal of sense. But I didn’t want to believe it. To me, the Two-Knock Ghost was just who it said it was—my mom and dad. I did wonder why they limited themselves to my dreams. I thought if they had appeared in my waking hours that would have been more ghostly behavior. I was feeling a bit bewildered, and it was beginning to show on my face.
“There is no absolute truth in what I am saying, Dr. McKenzie. They are merely some of my conjectures about your friendly ghost and your unfriendly devil. The bottom line is that you will always have the right to believe whatever you wish to believe about your dreams. The final interpretation will always belong to you. I am merely purporting an alternate theory.”
“I understand, Doctor. I will definitely think about what you have said. I can tell you right now that you have shaken up my conscious mind today as much as you said all of those life experiences have shaken my subconscious mind.”
“You are an extremely creative person, Dr. McKenzie. Your dreams show that. You have spent so many hours attempting to create profoundly helpful strategies to suggest to your clients who are mired in their own ruts. But now, as you face conquering alcohol, you must take the time to research your own mind for the truths that will free you to be successful in the ensuing phases of your life.”
“I will, Doctor. And we can talk about the conclusions I come to next week when we meet again.”
He relaxed his furrowed face.
“I will look forward to that with joyful anticipation. Then he smiled. It was then that I noticed again his overall look of tiredness and I told him so in the middle of our conversation. I said, ‘Dr. Banderas, you look tired,’ as I wondered if the man ever got enough sleep.
“I am.” That was all he said, as he smiled, closed his eyes for a moment and nodded his head a single time.
The remaining part of the hour I spent telling him about the second wonderful weekend in a row I shared with Christine. Time after time he told me how happy he was that I was rekindling my love with Christine. Each time I looked deep into his eyes and they were filled with genuine happiness.
After we had exhausted conversation about Christine, Dr. Banderas segued smoothly into his next question.
“Dr. McKenzie, how are you doing in your efforts to conquer alcohol?”
“Okay. I honestly believe I think about drinking a few times every day, but I don’t give into it. The busier I am, the less I think about it.”
“Have you discovered any triggers
that cause you to crave alcohol?”
“Yes, sir, I have.” I paused for a moment feeling a little ashamed at having to share such a vulnerable aspect of myself. “I crave it most when I’m hurting terribly emotionally or when life slows down to a crawl and it’s evening and for a moment I feel I have nothing to do, but mostly it happens when my emotions are at a low ebb.”
“May I speak freely about that with you, Doctor?” he asked politely.
“Yes,” I said. “Please.”
“Each of us is our most vulnerable when our emotions are ebbing lowly and we are alone with nothing to do. Christianity says that an idol mind is the devil’s workshop. But if you take Christianity and the devil out of that equation, it can still be said that when we are quiet and hurting deeply emotionally, that is the time when the most negative of thoughts can flow into your mind and cause you to feel hopelessness. That is the perfect time for a drink, to calm your nerves, to divert your brain from its pain.”
“I will put forth now, that love and creativity will carry you through those moments to a life of being alcohol free.”
“How Dr. Banderas? How could those two things keep alcohol from me?”
“In reality, Dr. McKenzie, it will be the choices you make that will keep you alcohol free. But love and creativity are, in my opinion, the two most powerful emotions on the planet and in times of crisis they can be your greatest allies.”
“I’ve never heard of creativity referred to as an emotion,” I said, somewhat strained.
“In the far greater majority of the corners of the earth it is not considered an emotion. It is merely a personal conclusion I came to during one of my many sleep-deprived nights.”
“How did it come about?”
“I was contemplating God and the concept that many people believe He is love. I could wrap my head around that rather easily because as human beings we seem to receive the most joy when we are sharing love on any level. It is somewhat Mr. Spock—like logical, that we would associate God absolutely with the finest emotion. As I continued to contemplate, I wondered what qualities he might have that made God unlike any other entity in the universe. The conclusion I arrived at was that God was a compulsive creator. Okay, maybe not compulsive but driven, prolific, layered. And I don’t mean simplistically like the God of the Bible who only created for six days—even though each of those days may have taken millions of years—then hung up His creative paint brush. I came to believe that God had created before He created our universe and that since He created our universe. He has created many more universes, a multitude of realms and dimensions that would be unfathomable to us. I came to believe that one of God’s greatest gifts to us was to give each of us an infinite river of creativity that we can access at anytime. This flow of endless creativity is flashed before us every night in our dreams in our waking days, each time we create something beautiful rather than to destroy something, we are coming the closest we can to true love, to God if you will.”
The Two-Knock Ghost Page 28