I felt my throat tighten with the effort to pronounce someone else's name.
Lawrence's eyes widened as I brought my hands to my neck and shook my head.
"Is something wrong? Are you all right? Laura?" Impulsively, I threw myself into his arms and buried my face against his shoulder as I sobbed, cried for reasons I couldn't explain. All I wanted to do was cry and keep crying until my well of tears went dry.
At first, Lawrence just stood there with his arms at his sides, not knowing what to do. Then he embraced me slowly and held me closely, kissed my hair, my temples, stroked my back and kept repeating my name.
"Laura. . Laura..?'
Finally, my sobbing ended and I pulled back slowly. He looked happy, but very concerned.
"Are you all right now?"
I nodded and he wiped the tears from my cheeks with his handkerchief.
"I better get you back before they come looking for us," he said.
He turned me around and reached for my hand. We started along the path again. This time, I didn't look back at the ocean, not even for a second. I was happy when it disappeared behind us, but I knew that soon, very soon, I would have to return, perhaps by myself, and stare at the water until the truth and my memory broke free of the chains I had thrown around it.
Only then would I get those chains off myself.
13
Close Call
.
I had three sessions with Doctor Southerby the
following week. He was happy to see I was following his advice and filling my journal with thoughts and feelings. He spent the first ten minutes reading them and then asking me questions about the things I had written, never insisting I try to answer if I showed any reluctance. I performed my sign language so spontaneously and gracefully, he joked about my having once been deaf. Then he grew serious and returned to the idea that I talked to someone who was deaf on a daily basis.
"That seems logical, doesn't it, Laura?" he asked.
I nodded, even though I felt I'd rather not answer. He had a way of holding his kind eyes on me firmly, but not with intimidation. I felt so captured by that gaze, a gaze filled with sincerity and compassion, that I could barely turn away. His eyes were mesmerizing. In fact, during our third session, he decided he would try hypnosis. I had no idea if he learned anything. One moment, I was staring ahead and the next, I was blinking and wondering how long I had been in his office. Did he get me to speak under hypnosis? If he did, he didn't mention it afterward.
"It's very good that you feel less and less anxious, Laura, especially about being here," he explained after I had agreed to be hypnotized. "Trust is essential if we are to make any progress with your problems."
I smiled and nodded. I did trust him more and more, and I even looked forward to our sessions. Some of the others, especially Megan, thought that was strange.
"It's like enjoying someone putting his fingers through your skull and feeling around in your brain," she said after she had asked me a little about our sessions and saw I was happy talking and listening to Doctor Southerby.
When she heard I had permitted him to hypnotize me, she went bookers.
"Are you really crazy? When you're out of it like that, you have no idea what he's doing to you. Maybe he took your clothes off," she suggested. I started to laugh and her face crumbled not with anger, but with sadness.
I tried to sign an explanation, tried to tell her how good Doctor Southerby was and how he would never do something like that, but the tears were filling her eyes quickly.
"I thought you were different. I thought you believed me and understood. Everyone else laughs at me."
I shook my head.
"I'm not laughing at you," I signed.
However, the tears were already streaming down her cheeks. She had her hands clenched into tiny fists and for a moment, I was afraid she might hit me.
"You mark my words," she flared. "You'll be sorry you didn't listen to me someday. You will," she concluded, her voice strong and hateful, as if she were pronouncing my death. Then she marched away, her body straight, her arms extended and stiffly swinging like a toy soldier's. Lately, she was doing more and more of that, leaving us all and going off by herself, closing her door in her room or wandering about outside, avoiding people.
My own periods of depression, my feelings of nervousness, had diminished, but not the inner voices and the flashbacks. Doctor Southerby made me think as much as I could about those I had described in my journal. He probed my mind, his suggestions and questions resembling a scalpel in the hands of a skilled and graceful surgeon, knowing just when to push forward, when to pull back. If something became too sensitive, my lips would begin to tremble. In fact, my whole body would start to shake and my heart would pound so hard and fast, I had trouble breathing.