Two days later I arrived at Dr. Alexander’s thirty-first-floor office with fifteen recipe cards tucked into the side pocket of my purse. I had written every important event that had happened to me since Kevin died. I didn’t think I would end up using the cards, but I felt better knowing I had them with me. Their presence calmed me. This was a different experience from the counselor’s appointments I had before. This was serious. This was mental illness.
I had gone to counseling by my own choice. A woman looking for answers, poking around her own mind. But now I was being shoved toward a medical doctor. A part of me felt like a schoolgirl being called to the principal’s office. I could protest, but I was told in calm, certain terms that it was in my best interest to comply.
Dr. Alexander’s waiting room was painted tranquilizer taupe. Classical music played softly from the ceiling. A secretary asked for my insurance details and medical history in calm tones. No other patients were waiting. I sat in a low chair and hugged my purse, waiting to be called.
After what seemed only seconds, the secretary stood and called me. She walked me to an enormous oak door, our footsteps swallowed by the thick carpeting. She pushed opened the door and led me into a large, wood-paneled room. My first impression was something like “zowie.”
It was an expansive space, more like a living room than an office—that is, if the living room was six hundred square feet of opulent luxury on the thirty-first floor of a downtown high-rise. Straight across from me a bank of windows covering the entire wall looked out on an impressive view of the cityscape, including a part of the river. In front of the windows, a massive wooden desk, larger than some people’s apartments, glistened in the sunshine.
To my right I noticed a couch and chair placed in a formation that suggested their therapeutic purpose—sofa against the wall, chair positioned just above the arm of the sofa. Tastefully framed art covered the walls. Plush, neutral carpet hugged my feet. The entire room seemed to say, “Shhh. There, there.”
The secretary offered me a choice of bottled water, herbal tea, or decaffeinated coffee. A gentle variety of drinks to soothe bruised psyches. I asked for water. She left the room only to reappear almost instantaneously holding a chilly, clear bottle. Magic, I thought as I accepted it.
She smiled and silently closed the door behind her. I blinked at the opulence of the office and sat down on the couch. It seemed to embrace me and I sank into its folds. I put my water down on an ornate wooden side table and stretched out on the sofa. This place seemed specially designed for people to spill the contents of soul and psyche onto the soft pile carpet. I let my thoughts drift and bump gently up against the caramel-colored walls.
I heard a door open.
Dr. Alexander contrasted with the comfort of the room, exuding a lofty confidence. I could picture him striding the halls of hospitals insisting everyone get better. He was tall, but from my position, seated on the couch, he seemed gigantic. He walked over to where I was and towered over me.
He offered a huge, meaty hand. “I’m Dr. Alexander,” he said and sat down on the leather chair. I sat ramrod straight on the edge of the couch. His presence unsettled me and I felt unable to look directly at him. I silently wished for a few more minutes alone in the room.
I threw him a quick glance. “Hello.” I looked down at my shoes.
I glanced at him again. Something was definitely strange. Something about his head.
I raised my eyes and met his gaze. I thought he was cocking his head slightly to the right. I peered harder. No, his chin and forehead were a line running straight up and down. It wasn’t his head that was tilted.
It was his hair.
He was wearing a rug. It was sitting atop his head, slightly off center, causing the illusion.
Dr. Alexander said, “We are going to spend the next forty-five minutes together.” He reached up and scratched his temple briefly. As he did, the toupee wiggled, and then settled back to its original, offside position.
I was transfixed. “Okay,” I said to the toupee. I reached into my purse and pulled out my recipe cards.
“What does the voice tell you?” Dr. Alexander asked.
The voice? I told him it was Kevin’s voice. Not an anonymous voice. Kevin’s. Dr. Alexander and I had been talking for twenty minutes. I had self-consciously read the contents of the first two recipe cards aloud. He had made no comment as I moved from card one to card two. It wasn’t until the end of card two, the part about hearing the voice of my dead husband, that Dr. Alexander seemed to get interested in what I was saying.
I sat slumped on the couch, too self-conscious to lie down. “He doesn’t really tell me anything. I mean, we are not having conversations about the hereafter. He doesn’t tell me what heaven looks like, or how my Great-Aunt Clara is doing.” I picked at the corner of the recipe card. “I mean, he doesn’t tell me stuff. He just talks, comments … on … things.”
“What sorts of things?”
I threw a look at Dr. Alexander. He sat motionless, eyes glued to the notebook in his hands. I glanced at the top of his head. It was still there, still perched askew.
“Uh, day-to-day things,” I answered. “I burn the toast, that kind of thing.” I felt like a broken record. How many doctors would I tell about this? Maybe he didn’t have my records from the hospital yet.
“Why toast?” he asked, his pen poised above his pad of paper. Probably about to write “whacko” in medium blue ink.
I stared at the carpet. “What do you mean?”
Dr. Alexander made an ahem sound. “Why would he say something about toast, in particular?”
“Because it’s toast, in particular, that I burn,” I said. I couldn’t think of a better explanation. If I knew why Kevin said the things he said, I probably wouldn’t be here.
Dr. Alexander lowered his notepad to his knee and reached up to scratch his forehead with his pen. I couldn’t bear to watch. “I see,” he murmured, then fell silent.
I pushed the toe of my shoe into the carpet and clutched the edge of the couch.
Dr. Alexander flipped back a page of his notebook and seemed to be enthralled by what was written there. “And this last time he spoke to you, just before you were admitted for observation, what was he talking about then?”
I swallowed hard.
“Can you talk about it?” he said to the notepad.
I pulled an invisible thread from the couch. Could I? Up until that moment, it hadn’t occurred to me that I could choose to talk or not to talk to this man. I suppose I felt that I had to tell him everything. That was the reason I was sent here, wasn’t it? I rolled the choice around in my mind. I looked at the brown toupee, still perched crookedly on the top of his head. “I’d rather not.”
Dr. Alexander gave me a long, steady look. “I’m going to prescribe something.”
“Prescribe? Like a drug?” I said stupidly.
He pulled a prescription pad from his jacket pocket. “An antihallucinogen.”
A shock pulsed through my body. “Hallucinating? Doesn’t that mean seeing things?”
He handed me the prescription. “Not necessarily. These will help with the delusions.”
I stared at Dr. Alexander’s toupee. I may be hearing the voice of my dead husband, but it was clear to me which one of us was delusional.