Lisa Unger: Black Out

He doesn’t take notes; he has never taped our sessions. I’ve been adamant about this. I don’t want a record of my thoughts anywhere. He’s okay with that, said we’d do whatever made me comfortable. But I’ve always wondered if he scribbles down his thoughts right after I leave. He always seems to have perfect recall of the things we’ve discussed.

As much as I’ve revealed to him, I have kept a lot of secrets. I have been coming to him on and off for over a year, ever since Vivian first recommended him. ( He’s Martha’s friend, she said. Martha? Oh, you remember Martha. The fund-raiser last August? Never mind. I hear he’s wonderful.) During our sessions I reveal the truth of my feelings but have altered the names of the players in my tale. There is much about me he can never know.

“Annie,” he says now, “why are we back here?”

I rub my eyes, hard, as though I can wipe all the tension away. “Because I feel him.”

I look up at him and he has kind, warm eyes on me. I like how he looks, even without the brown sweater, an older man with white-gray hair and a face so tan and wrinkled it looks like an old catcher’s mitt…but not in a bad way. He wears chinos and a chambray shirt, canvas sandals. Not very shrinklike, more like your favorite uncle or a nice neighbor you enjoy chatting with at the mailbox.

“You don’t feel him, Annie,” he says softly but firmly. “You think you do, but you don’t. You have to be careful of the language you use with yourself. Call this what it is. An episode, a panic attack, whatever. Don’t imagine you have some psychic feeling that a dead man has returned for you.”

I nod my head. I know he’s right.

“Why is it so hard?” I say. “It feels so real. So much worse than ever before.”

“What’s the date today?” he asks. I think about it and tell him. I realize then what he’s getting at, and I shake my head.

“That’s not it.”

“Are you sure?”

I don’t say anything then, because of course I’m not sure of that or really anything. Maybe he’s right. “But I don’t remember.”

“Part of you remembers. Though your conscious mind refuses to recall certain events, the memory lives in you. It wants to be recognized, embraced, and released. It will use any opportunity to surface. When you’re strong enough to face them, I think all the memories will return. You’re stronger than you’ve been since I’ve known you, Annie. Maybe it’s time to face down some of these demons. Maybe that’s why these feelings are so intense this time.”

Looking at him, I almost believe I can do it, peer into those murky spaces within myself, face and defeat whatever lives there.

“He’s dead, Annie. But as long as you haven’t dealt with the memories of the things he has done to you, he’ll live on. We’ll always have to face these times when you think he’s returned for you. You’ll never be free.”

It is a vague echo of my father’s words, and Gray’s words. And intellectually I know they’re all right. But my heart and my blood know something different, like the gazelle on the Serengeti, the mouse on the forest floor. I am the prey. I know my place in the food chain and must be ever vigilant to scent and shadow.

I am crouched in my cabin; I will be hidden in the corner by the door when it swings open. My breathing has slowed, and my legs are starting to ache from the position I’ve been holding for I don’t know how long. I can hear the thrum of the engine and nothing else. I start to wonder if maybe everything is all right. It’s conceivable that there might not even be another boat out there, I tell myself. Could just be a trick of the night, my own paranoid imagination, or some combination of those things. As I start to accept this possibility, there’s a knock at the door. Scares me so badly that my head jerks and I hit it on the wall behind me.

“Annie.” A muffled male voice. “Are you in there?”

I recognize the Australian accent; it’s the voice of one of the men who have been hired to help me. I open the door for him. His eyes fall immediately to the gun at my waist. He gives a quick nod of approval.

“There’s a boat trailing us,” he tells me. He has sharp, bright eyes and is thick with muscle. I search my memory for his name. They all have these hard, tight names that sound like punches to the jaw. Dax, I think he told me. That’s right, Dax. “Might be a fishing vessel, poachers-or even pirates. We hailed them, and they didn’t respond.”

His eyes scan the room. He walks over and checks the lock on the porthole, seems to satisfy himself that the room is as secure as it can be. He’s like that. They all are, these men, always checking the perimeter, scanning for vulnerability. I like that about them.

“Just turn out the lights in here and lock the door. I’ll come get you when I know it’s safe.”

“Okay,” I say, trying to sound as solid and in control as he seems.

He leaves, casting a sympathetic look behind him as he goes, and I lock the door after him. It seems as flimsy as cardboard. I turn off the lights and resume my crouch.

The day after I see my shrink, I’m feeling better. It might just be the residual effects of the pill Gray encouraged me to take last night so that I could sleep. Either way, as I sit with him in the sun-washed kitchen drinking coffee, the sense of foreboding is gone.

“It helped you to see Dr. Brown?” Gray asks. It’s oddly off-putting to hear Gray use his name. I try so hard to keep these parts of myself separate. Here I’m Annie, Gray’s wife and Victory’s mom. There I’m a mental patient haunted by my traumatic past. I don’t want those two selves to touch.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I say with a dismissive, oh-it’s-nothing wave. “It’s just that time of year, he thinks.”

Gray puts a hand on my shoulder. He is headed out of town for a few days. I don’t know where he is going or when he will be back. This is part of our life together.

“Vivian can come stay with you. Or you guys could go there?” he says. He is careful to keep concern out of his voice and worry out of his eyes.

“No, no,” I say lightly. “Really. It’s not necessary. I’ll call her if I need her.”

I love Vivian, Gray’s stepmother. But I hate the way she looks at me sometimes, as if I’m a precious bauble in the grasp of a toddler, always just headed for the floor, always promising to shatter into a thousand pieces. I wonder if she thinks I’m a bad mother, if she worries for Victory. I know better than to ask questions for which I don’t want the answers.

Gray and I chat awhile about a few mundane things, how the gardener is really awful and the lawn looks terrible but he’s too nice to fire, how the pipes are making a funny sound when the hot water runs and should I call a plumber, how Victory’s new preschool teacher seems kind. Then Gray gets up to leave. He takes me in his arms and holds me tight. I squeeze him hard and kiss his mouth. I don’t say, Be careful. I don’t say, Call when you can. I just say, “I love you. See you soon.” And then he’s gone.

“I really don’t need to go to school today, Mommy,” says Victory from her car seat behind me. We’re driving along the road that edges the water. Her school is just ten minutes from the house. An old plantation home converted into a progressive preschool where lucky little girls and boys paint and sing and sculpt with clay, learn the alphabet and the numbers.

“Oh, no?” I say.

“No,” she says simply. She gives me a look in the rearview mirror; it’s her innocent, helpful look. “You might need me today.”

My heart sinks a bit. I am a bad mother. My four-year-old daughter has sensed my agitation and is worried about whether she can leave me or not.