Kevin O'Brien - One Last Scream

Karen shifted a bit in her chair. “Why is that?”

Amelia shrugged. “They were all dorks.”

“Dorks,” Karen repeated.

Amelia nodded. “For example, my Aunt Ina recommended this Dr. Racine, absolutely raved about her. And she turned out to be awful. The whole time I was talking to her, she sat there and stroked this ugly cat in her lap. I don’t think she was even listening. Every once in a while, she just said something like, ‘You own that,’ or ‘That’s valid.’ I mean, spare me.”

“Okay, so that’s one crummy therapist,” Karen said. “What about the others?”

Amelia rolled her eyes. “Well, there was this hippie, who seemed very promising until the end of our first session, when he gave me a homework assignment. He wanted me to go home, get some magazines, and clip out pictures and words that made me feel happy-and pictures and words that made me sad. And then I was supposed to make two posters: a happy collage and a sad collage. So I went home, got some magazines, and found this picture of a little girl waving at someone from a car window. I think it was an auto insurance ad or something. I clipped that out, and cut out the word Good-bye. Then I made a little poster of that and mailed it to him.”

Karen nodded. She was trying to figure out this young woman, who had come across as so vulnerable and sweet when they’d met just ten minutes ago. But she had a smartass streak, too. Karen wondered just how much of what Amelia said was true.

“Then there was this Arab guy-not that it makes any difference. I just couldn’t understand him half the time because his English was terrible. He tried to hypnotize me, and kept screaming at me in his thick accent that I was reseesting . And I wasn’t, I swear. Honest to God, I was trying to be a good subject.”

“Why was he hypnotizing you?”

Amelia sipped her water. She brushed a piece of lint off the sofa arm. Her focus seemed intent on that. “He was trying to get me to remember stuff about my childhood, before the Faradays adopted me. Didn’t Student Health Services tell you that I was adopted when I was four?”

Karen shook her head. She made a quick note: Adopted @ 4 yrs old. “Do you know what happened to your biological parents?” she asked.

“Nope. One of my first therapists was all hot on finding out about them. So my dad tried to get in touch with the adoption agency in Spokane. Turned out the place burned down after the Faradays adopted me. All their records went up in smoke. My folks thought about hiring a private detective to look into it further. I’m sure it couldn’t be too tough tracking down state or county records. I mean, the information’s there, somewhere. Am I right?”

“I suppose,” Karen allowed. “So did they hire a private detective?”

“Nope. They dropped the idea when I dropped the therapist.” She cocked her head to one side and squinted at Karen. “I have a feeling my folks would rather I not know about my biological parents.”

“If that’s true, it’s certainly understandable,” Karen said. “How do you feel? Do you want to know more about your birth parents?”

Amelia started to fiddle with her hair, and wrapped a strand around her finger. “I guess I’m curious.”

Karen stared at her, and remembered Haley. She felt a little pang in her heart. “Well, that’s normal enough,” she said, smiling. “So, Amelia, what do you hope to get out of these sessions with me?”

“Well, I’d like to have more control in my life. I’m tired of being so screwed up.”

“In what way do you feel screwed up?”

“I drink. I have blackouts. I don’t remember doing certain things.”

“What kind of things?” Karen asked.

“For example, I started seeing this really sweet guy, Shane, about two months ago. Well, one afternoon last week, he saw me at a stoplight in the University District in a beat-up Cadillac with some goony-looking urban-grunge type. He said I was all over this guy.” Amelia shook her head. “I swear to God, I didn’t remember any of it. But after Shane described the guy and his car to me, I had this vague impression that it really happened. I can’t help thinking I might have had sex with this other guy. I went and got tested just to make sure I didn’t pick up any STDs from this-this stranger .”

“So how did the tests turn out?” Karen asked with concern.

“Negative-all around. I begged Shane to forgive me, and he did, thank God. He knows I didn’t do it consciously .” She gave a pitiful shrug. “Anyway, see what I mean about being screwed-up and not having any control?”

With a sigh, Karen leaned back in her chair. “Well, you know, Amelia, I don’t mean to preach at you. But blackouts, memory loss, and erratic behavior generally come with the territory when people drink excessively.”

“I wasn’t drinking that afternoon. I was napping all day at a friend’s house-at least I thought I was napping.”

“Were you sick?”

“No. Hungover,” she murmured. Her eyes wrestled with Karen’s for a moment. “Listen, I was having blackouts when I was in Booze Busters and totally off the sauce. So it’s not just connected to the drinking. I’ve always had this problem with-with lost time, ever since I was a kid. I was pretty screwed up back then, too, having nightmares all the time, along with these pains. My mom used to call them phantom pains. But they were real to me, they hurt like hell. I remember one in particular when I was six. I was playing in the backyard, by our dock, and out of nowhere, I suddenly got this terrible burning sensation on the back of my wrist. I let out such a shriek. I swear to God, it felt like someone was putting out a lit cigar on me. Mom thought a wasp might have stung me or something. But there was no sign of anything wrong. Still, it hurt like hell for days afterward.

“That’s why I started drinking on the sly in early high school. It numbed these weird pains. And after a few drinks, I’d drag myself to bed and pass out. And I didn’t have to lie there for an eternity with my usual tossing, turning, and worrying about the nightmares. Hell, for a long time, drinking was my salvation .”

“So-do you think you’re better off with an alcohol dependency?” Karen asked.

Amelia shook her head. “I’m not defending my drinking. I’m just saying that I was having these problems a long time before I tipped back my first shot of Jack Daniel’s.”

“Do you still get these pains?” Karen asked.

“No, thank God. They stopped around the time I was sixteen.” Amelia sighed. “Anyway, that’s why some of the other therapists wanted to explore my early childhood. I mean, something must have happened to me early on to make me this screwed up, right?”

Karen smiled. “Do us both a favor and stop referring to yourself as screwed up, okay?”

Amelia smiled back at her. “Okay.”

“Can you remember anything from that time before the Faradays adopted you?”

She started to peel at the label on the water bottle. “Just fragments. I remember one night, sitting alone in a car, in the front seat. I was cold-and tired. The car was parked by this forest. It was dark all around me, and I could hear screams. I remember thinking, ‘When the screaming stops, then we can go home.’”

Karen stared at her. She didn’t write anything down. “Do you know who was screaming? By any chance, did you recognize the voice?”

Amelia shrugged. “Some woman, I don’t know.”

“Were you frightened?”

“No, I just remember wanting to go home. That’s it. There’s nothing else to it. Like I said, it’s just fragments of memory.”

“Do you recall who took you home?” Karen asked.