Torey Hayden - Overheard in a Dream

“I was rattling the door and saying ‘What the hell is wrong with you, leaving a six-year-old alone in the park?’ and this girl’s mother looked at me like I was a madman. She says, ‘Caitlin isn’t having a birthday party today. Her birthday’s in August.’”

Alan’s shoulders dropped in a defeated way. “Anyhow, so then the story came out.” He looked over at James. “Turns out Morgana had made the whole thing up. She was desperate to be able to play in the park on her own, because that’s what the town kids did. She’d wanted to wear that new outfit to school but Laura had told her she couldn’t, that it was for special occasions like birthday parties. And the damned set of marking pens we’d bought for this girl’s birthday present was something Morgana had been wanting for herself. So she cooked up this whole birthday scenario and carried it off . This is a goddamned first-grader we’re talking about.

“Something inside me just snapped when Morgana told me that. I thought, here she is, at six, doing just what her mother does. Showing that same devil-may-care attitude towards the truth. Acting like you can just make it up as you go along and it’s the same as if it were real. I thought, hell, this is the fucking future. Morgana is going to become another Laura. So since Conor was already in the car with me, I just took off. I thought, I’m not going to let this happen. I’m not going to let Laura fuck both these kids up. So, I didn’t go home. I took the kids and went to my mother’s house in Gillette.”

Alan drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “The problem is, it was just a gesture. I can’t leave the ranch. Not really. It’s my ranch. I’ve got too many responsibilities there to be able to just walk out altogether. Besides, walking out would hurt the kids too much. Laura and I have to sort this out like adults. But it was a gesture that needed to be made, because it finally got the point across to her that I’m fucking serious. Things have got to change or else I will take Conor and Morgana away from her.”

Clad in jeans and running shoes, her hands sunk deep into the pockets of an oversized grey sweatshirt jacket, Laura looked to have just come from the gym the day she arrived for the first session.

“Won’t you come in?” James said, pleased that she’d kept her promise to show up.

As before, Laura eschewed the carefully laid-out conversation centre in preference to the chair beside his desk. Sitting down in it, she kept her hands in the pockets of the open sweatshirt jacket, crossing them over in front of her to closely wrap it around to her as if the room were chilly. Such a contrast, James thought, to the confident woman he’d met at the deli.

“How are your kids?” she asked. “Did Mikey get better in time to enjoy some of his visit?”

“Yes, they’re both fine, thank you. It was just a twenty-four-hour thing. He was his normal tornado self the next day,” James said and smiled.

“Did they get back to New York okay? That’s a long way for little ones to travel?”

“They’re a couple of little adventurers. They enjoy the excitement of going on their own and all the fuss the airlines staff make of them.”

Laura wrapped the sweatshirt jacket even more tightly around herself. “I’m feeling very nervous,” she said at last and smiled apologetically.

“Why is that?” he asked gently.

She shrugged slightly. “I dunno. I guess because I know Alan’s already been in. You’ve already heard his version of everything. I worry I’m disadvantaged.”

“I’m not here to take sides,” James replied. “Remember the other week at my place? When I was saying that what this is all about is simply getting things working again? That’s the truth. I’m not here to judge either of you. That wouldn’t be helpful. I’m only here so you and Alan and Conor can untangle things.”

“Yeah,” she said, sounding unconvinced.

A moment passed in silence. Laura glanced around the room. Finally she gave him a brief moment of eye contact. “What do you want me to talk about then? Conor? Alan?”

“In here you decide. You’re in control of the session.”

“If I were actually in control, I’d control it by not being here,” she said and grinned.

“You have that choice as well. If you need to leave, you can. In here you do decide. That’s what it’s all about.”

James could tell from her expression that it had not occurred to her that she actually did have the freedom to get up and walk out. Now she seemed even more unnerved.

“You really are feeling uncomfortable,” he said to give her a way into talking to him.

“Yes.”

A couple of moments of silence passed.

“I wish it were more natural, this. Like the night at your place. I mean, I can talk.” She laughed self-consciously. “It’s just when I get in a situation like this, I lose it.”

“That’s okay,” he said gently. “Don’t worry about it.”

The room grew quiet. She was looking down at her hands as they rested one on top of the other on her lower abdomen. They were still inside the pockets of the sweatshirt jacket, so she stared at the grey material.

“What’s making this hard …” she started tentatively, “… is … that before we discuss Conor or Alan, I want to tell you about something else. Because it’s informed my whole life … you need to know, if you’re going to understand what’s happening. But I don’t know how to start telling you.”

“That’s all right,” James said. “Take your time. The pace is yours. There’s no hurry.”

“It’s just, well, more that I’ve never really told anybody about it.” She frowned. “No, that’s wrong. I have. I’ve told quite a lot of people, actually. But never in a context like this. Never in a way that acknowledges its legitimate place in my life. Never truthfully, from beginning to end.” She shrugged apologetically. “That’s what’s actually kept me so long from coming in. I just can’t figure out how to start this without making everything sound crazy. Yet, at the same time I know I’ve got to. Because what if I really did lose Alan? Or Morgana? Or Conor? That can’t happen. So I’ve got to start with telling you about this one thing, because otherwise, nothing else will make sense.”

James nodded.

There was total silence, so complete that the subtle noises of the outer office and waiting room flowed into the room like an incoming tide.

Laura finally took a very deep breath and let it out with measured slowness. “It starts the summer I was seven. In my home town, which is west of here in the Black Hills. In June. Early evening, maybe about 7 pm. I was walking alone along this little dirt path that ran from the end of our street, which is called Kenally Street, through an empty lot that bordered the lake and then out to meet the next street over, which is Arnott Street. It was just a kids’ path through a vacant lot that belonged to an old man named Mr Adler. You know the kind. We used the path as a shortcut to school and as a quick way to get down to the pier at the end of Arnott Street.