We walk together past the hanging rugs and the suit of armor, up the red stairs that seem to stretch forever.
I whisper, “Are you all right?”
His voice is low, muffled. “I’m okay. She only slapped me. Her fingernail caught me on the cheek, that’s all …”
I nod empathetically.
He continues, “And considering she’s still got a pretty good backhand in tennis, she could have walloped me pretty hard.”
I ask, softly, “What happened?”
He replies in a semi-monotone, “I don’t know, Emerald. I was drifting off to sleep when I felt a shadow over me. I thought it might be Penelope. We don’t …”
I nod, urging him on. I don’t really want to know the details of his marriage. Or non-marriage.
He sighs. “But when I opened my eyes, it was my mother. She was standing above me, staring. I called out, and she started slapping my face. I grabbed her arms and pried her off me. I got out of bed. Then she started screaming about the cliff. And sobbing. My dad woke up and came running. He got her back into bed.”
I quietly ask, “Is she taking any other medication besides the Xanax?”
He whispers, “I don’t think so.”
We’re on the second-floor landing, walking down the white-walled hall to the closed white door. Anthony knocks softly.
Mr. Pryce opens the door.
Just like yesterday.
Was it really only yesterday?
Mrs. Pryce is back in bed, also just like yesterday, her tan face a stark contrast against the white silk pillow, her white nightgown slipping down off her tan shoulder.
She’s asleep, I think.
But when I get closer and carefully pull her nightgown back up over her shoulder, she begins to shriek, as loud as a red-tailed hawk’s prey in the night. I almost reach out to hold her but restrain myself—something I’ve learned how to do after years of hearing the cries of wild animals at night in the canyons near my home. I’ve learned that, sometimes, it’s better not to disrupt the balance of ecology, no matter how much my therapist’s heart longs to comfort and save. As cruel as it may seem, predator and prey were made to grotesquely challenge each other in order to survive. I also find that within the ecology, or the ecopsychology, of the human being, sometimes the best thing for discordant, unhappy individuals is to allow them, in metaphor, to hunt their own psyches, to eat, or be eaten, by their own conflicting emotions. These individuals might then have a better chance of survival because finally they can discover what they were pursuing: a hunger within themselves that they didn’t know they had. Or they might become aware they’ve been victims, or victimized, maybe by their own fear, all their lives.
So, for a moment, I let Mrs. Pryce scream.
Obviously, there’s a need that has gone unfulfilled, and it could be born of grief, or it could be signaling a deeper issue because attempting to harm one’s own son, even if he’s a grown man and it was by slapping, could signify something more serious.
Even dangerous.
On the other hand, I’m also the woman who puts water out for coyotes.
In the end, it’s all about adapting.
One moment, one method works.
The next, you’re sliding down a hill.
I may not hold her, but my eyes remain steady on Mrs. Pryce.
Her screaming ebbs, thinly, and she gives a tiny hiccup.
“I feel better,” she says.
“Good,” I say softly, and take her hand.
Mr. Pryce moves one of the twin white chairs from the sitting room over to the bed, and I sit.
He and Anthony stand at the foot of the bed.
Mrs. Pryce tightens her grip on my hand.
Anthony murmurs, “Would you like some time alone with Esmeralda, Mom?”
She nods, her eyes fluttering away from me in his direction, and before he can turn away, she sees the bandage on his face and asks, seemingly mortified, “What has happened to you, Anthony?”
She turns her face back to me.
Now there’s no fear there, only anger.
“Look at me, Esmeralda,” she demands. “What have my children done to me? What did Charlene do? What has Abigail done? And now Anthony? Their suffering will kill me. I am dying. Look at me. Do you see? Do you? I can’t take it anymore. I am dying. Don’t they understand?”
I watch, listen.
There are a few things running through my mind.
A stream of consciousness, which is often the way I connect with my patients, in a kind of sensing of their … inner nature.
Some remind me of water: swift, placid, shallow, or deep.
Some are trees.
Some are but a dandelion wisp.
Some are a solid acre of fecund earth.
I feel Mrs. Pryce as I’ve never felt her before. At one time, I thought I knew her well, or as well as a kid can know her best friend’s mom. She always felt like a breeze, lyrical and pleasant, cooling on a hot day.
Now, she feels close to fire, burning down.
I keep hold of her hand.
She repeats, “Look at me. I am dying. They will kill me. They have killed me.”
She’s glaring at me.
I turn, but Mr. Pryce and Anthony have left the room.
Her tan face is scrunched into a prune-like visage of … hatred.
I hold her eyes, but I’m unnerved.
I’m wondering, analyzing: What could cause such a sharp, extreme shift?
I wonder and wait.
Finally, she grimaces and nearly spits out, “They took my baby, Esmeralda. And it’s killing me.”
I don’t want to upset her, but I know that verbalizing her emotions can help. So I nudge her along. “You’re talking about Abigail?”
She gives me a sharp look. “No, I’m talking about Charlene, of course.”
I lay my hand on her forehead.
She seems on fire, but there’s no fever.
Still, she isn’t making sense, getting Charlie and Abigail confused. She may be suffering with dissociative amnesia. She’s certainly experienced trauma, and an unconscious longing to forget the terrible things that have happened to her daughter and granddaughter would be congruent with her behavior.
I remind her as gently as I can. “Charlie committed suicide.”
“No, no, no.” She struggles to sit up. “They killed her, and now they’re killing me!”
She doesn’t have the strength to stay upright and falls back against the pillows. “Take care of me, Esmeralda. Take care of me.”
I whisper, “You must get some rest.”
And with that, her eyes shut, and she begins to breathe heavily.
Asleep.
An older, bereaved woman.
But has she become dangerous in her grief?
She doesn’t seem to remember hitting Anthony.
Or does she?
Is she upset with Anthony? Why?
And what did she mean when she referred to Charlie’s death as a killing?
She said: “They killed her.”
They … who?