“But you still go. Even when you realize you’re having a nightmare and what’s waiting for you down there, you still go. Why?” she asks.
“Because I have to. That’s the only way I can explain it. I have to go. I’m walking through that house, and I know exactly where I am. Even more than I did when I was actually there. He told me so much when we were up in that bedroom, and it all comes back. I can see him growing up there. I can see what his parents put him through. I don’t know if that makes me want to go further because I understand the progression, or because I want to get away from all the images. Either way, I just have to keep going.”
“So, you blame others for what happened?” she asks.
The question takes me aback, and I blink at her a few times. I’m not lying down on a couch the way I thought I would be when Creagan told me I had to go see the therapist. Not that the concept of talking to a counselor is totally foreign to me. You don’t see the things I’ve seen in the field without having your mind combed through a few times. But before now, my experiences have been visits in my office or group talks with other members of the team. This is the first time I’ve been involved in structured therapy just for me, and I went into it with the Hollywood vision. I saw myself stretched out on a couch staring at the ceiling while the therapist sat with a pad and paper behind my head. I’d stare up at the ceiling and contemplate inkblots while I let my brain catch back up to reality.
It isn’t that way. The office is brightly lit and devoid of any heavy wood and dark leather. The couch where I sit is dusty pink with navy throw pillows that I sometimes hold in my lap just because they’re there. Maybe that’s why she put them there. Not really to add any visual appeal, but as a clandestine hugging mechanism. I’m clutching one hard now as I wrap my head around what she just asked.
“What?” I ask. “Why would you say that? Who would I blame?”
“You said you understand.”
“What?”
“You said you understand,” she repeats.
“I understand the process. I understand what brought him to where he got. That doesn’t mean I understand what he did or let him off the hook for it. He is to blame. But he’s not the only one.”
“Who?”
My head cocks to the side as I search her eyes, trying to get on the same page as her. I feel like I’m missing something.
“What?” I ask again.
“Who do you blame?”
I narrow my eyes at her. I feel like she’s playing games with me, and I don’t like it.
“I just said, I blame him. His parents and his siblings contributed to the mindset that brought him to that point, but he is to blame for what he did. Especially the first murders,” I tell her.
“Do you realize you haven’t said his name at all? This is our sixth session, and you’ve avoided saying his name every single time.”
“His name is Jake,” I say slowly.
The name tastes bitter coming out of my mouth. I remember all the other times it tumbled across my tongue and the feelings it once stirred. Everything stings more when I say it.
“And when you walk through Jake’s house and go down into the basement, what do you find?” she asks.
“My mother.”
“Alright.”
She says it in that elongated, leading way that tells me she wants all the details, even the ones I don’t want to share. That’s why I’m here, though. So she can crack me open and strain what’s inside.
“She’s with the other bodies. The sub-basement looks just like it did when I was really there. All the bodies are in their positions, arranged into the different scenes. Christmas, a board game, dinner. It’s all just like it was when I found it. But when I get closer, I realize there’s an extra scene, and my mother’s body is in it.”
“What’s she doing?”
“Reading. She’s stretched out on a chaise lounge, reading a book. Her feet are bare, and I’m worried they’re cold. I want to cover them up for her. But I get closer and see the skin is discolored. When I look at her face, her eye sockets are empty. I didn’t notice the eyes of any of the bodies when I was there. I guess I should have.”
“Why?”
“I always notice eyes. It’s just something about people I always look at. You can tell a lot about a person and what they’re thinking just by looking into their eyes.”
“You certainly can,” she nods. I immediately wonder what she sees in mine. “In the dream, how do you feel when you see your mother?”
“Horrified. Is there any other way I should feel? She’s been dead for so many years. She always wanted to be cremated, so the last time I saw her was in an urn. Then I’m standing there looking at her corpse, and all I can think about is what was done to her to get her there. She didn’t just die. That would have been horrible enough. But she was murdered, just like the rest of the people in that room. She was ripped away from me, taken by someone who had no right to do it. Only it’s different. For all those other people, their justice is coming. We know who killed them and he’s going to answer for it. My mother doesn’t have that. And we don’t have it for her,” I say.
“Does it bother you that she was cremated?”
“That she was cremated?” I ask.
“Some people have a hard time with the decision of a loved one that wants to be cremated. They don’t like the thought of the physical body being destroyed and the loss of the opportunity to see it after death. Is that something you’ve struggled with since the death of your mother?”
She’s walking alongside me into my dream now, standing beside me as I look at my mother. But she doesn’t see her the way I do. She’s not looking at her. She’s deconstructing that I see her, dismantling the nightmare that haunts me like seeing the structure will take away the power. The magic trick isn’t magic when you know the magician’s secrets.
It won’t work that way. She could pick apart every image and compartmentalize the seconds, giving each one a neat explanation, and it wouldn’t matter. I don’t care why I see her. Only that I do. Only that I always will.
“She always wanted to be cremated. It wasn’t a surprise. Her parents were cremated when they died, and she brought their ashes to the U.S. when she left Russia. Their urns were always on the mantle or a table in the living room. She always used to say they never got the chance to get to America when they were alive, so she wanted them to be able to watch her live their dream. It’s not like I was shocked when that’s what she put down in her final wishes,” I shrug.
“Your mother recorded her final wishes? She was very young to do something like that, wasn’t she?” she asks.
It’s a stark reminder of how distant this woman is from me. She was given only the most basic of briefings when Creagan funneled me into her office and everything else she’s having to construct from what I give her. I’m building the mountains she wants me to climb over.
“With my father’s line of work and our lifestyle when I was younger, it didn’t seem that strange. They both made out living wills the same day they got their marriage license.”
“About your father… do you ever see him in your dream?” she asks.
I shake my head. “Never.”
“And Greg?”
“No. They are both missing. Not dead.”
She nods and looks down at the tablet in her lap. The stylus poised between her fingers takes the place of the pen I envisioned her holding. She occasionally sweeps it across the screen when I say something she finds is notable.
“You told me before your father wasn’t around much when you were younger,” she leads.
“No, I told you he frequently had to leave home for work. It wasn’t uncommon for him to be gone for a few days or weeks, sometimes even a couple of months at a time. I never knew where he went or why. He needed to go, so I accepted it.”