Matthew Thomas - We Are Not Ourselves

It would have been easier if she’d been able to stay home and watch Ed herself. Even thirty years into her career — twenty-five in management — she was still better than all of these kids. When she was coming up through the ranks, the care of the patient had been the paramount concern. Now they had other things on their minds.

She had a bad feeling about the third one during the trial hour, when she saw how difficult it was for her to calm Ed’s flailing long enough to feed him, and how she could barely lift him from the toilet, but it was hard to find great help when she couldn’t pay a tremendous amount, so she hired her anyway. Then she got a call at work saying Ed had fallen and she couldn’t pick him up.

A nurse was supposed to be capable of outsized feats of strength, like a lifeguard or an ant. The girl had looked hale enough, but there lurked in certain people a softness you couldn’t see.

She’d gone through three nurses in four months. She didn’t have the patience to try another. Instead of replacing the third girl, she gave Ed strict instructions not to answer the door for anyone he didn’t know. She told him not to leave the house. She prayed he’d listen, at least until she could figure something out.

She gave in and got the MedicAlert bracelet. If people wanted to look at him as an invalid, she didn’t have the energy to stop them anymore.

Somehow Eileen’s old friend Bethany had heard what was happening with Ed, tracked down her new number, and called to offer her support.

Bethany had been a fellow nurse at her first go-round at Einstein. Shortly after Eileen met her, Bethany married a corporate executive and quit working, but for a few years they’d stayed in touch, aided by the fact that Bethany’s daughter Teresa was Connell’s age. Every summer, Eileen, Ed, and Connell went out to Bethany’s beach house in Quogue for a handful of days. In the mideighties, though, when Walt took a position at Pepsi, they moved to Purchase, sold the summer house, and dropped off the map.

Bethany told Eileen she was living nearby, in Pelham, and that she and Walt had gotten divorced. Teresa had dropped out of high school in her junior year and moved to Los Angeles with her boyfriend, an actor.

“Walt is heartbroken,” she said. “I tell her I only want her happiness. I’ve been trying to convince her to let me come out and visit. Maybe I’ll just show up.”

Bethany called every day that week to check in. Eileen welcomed the attention, as many of her friends had receded. She had always gotten along with Bethany, who had a frank, Jamaican sense of humor and could take the stuffing out of anyone. Eileen needed a little more frankness in her life. The friends who had stayed close tiptoed around conversations about Ed.

She invited Bethany over for tea. Bethany told her she’d become a spiritual guru in the years since her divorce. “I guess I began before the divorce,” she said, laughing. “It might have had something to do with our getting divorced. Walt wasn’t exactly clamoring for me to get enlightened.” She took out a photo of Walt, a gesture Eileen found strange. She couldn’t understand why Bethany was still carrying it around. Walt looked like he hadn’t aged a bit, as though the Jamaican food Bethany had fed him kept him young. Bethany also showed her a photo of Teresa, taken before she’d left. She was just a kid; she still wore braces.

She’d gotten involved with faith healing, she said. Her healer channeled a spirit named Vywamus. “You should come with me sometime. You might like it.”

“I’m not interested in any voodoo religion,” Eileen said.

“It’s not voodoo,” Bethany said. “And it’s not religion.” She laughed. “I’ll let you off easy this time. But I’m very persistent when I want to be.” She laughed again. “I’ll pursue you to the ends of the earth.”

Eileen laughed too, though she couldn’t help feeling a little unnerved. She poured another cup of tea to cut the tension.

• • •

Bethany made friendship easy by always driving over to see her. One Tuesday evening, just as Eileen was about to fix a quick dinner, Bethany appeared at the back door and told her she wanted to take her somewhere.

“I have Ed,” Eileen said. “I can’t leave.”

“He’ll be fine. Come.”

She called up to Ed, who was in bed with the television on, and then followed Bethany down the back steps.

“Where are we going?”

“It’s a surprise.”

She was happy to get out, and touched by the thoughtfulness of a friend who knew she needed a break. She imagined a packed restaurant, a coffeehouse buzzing with conversation.

Bethany looked happy. She wore a poppy-colored blouse and light rouge on her brown cheeks to match, as well as lipstick. She put her hand on the back of Eileen’s headrest and backed out of the driveway.

“Where is it, though?” Eileen said, as mildly as she could. “Now you have me curious.”

“I want you to keep an open mind,” Bethany said.

As they pulled onto Midland Avenue, it occurred to Eileen that Bethany was not taking her for a gourmet meal or on a shopping spree. They were driving to her cult. “Oh no,” Eileen said. “No, no.”

Bethany grinned. “I know,” she said, and let out a hearty laugh. “But it’s not like that. It’s going to be relaxing and fun. You’ll like these women, I just know it.”

“I told you I’m not interested in that,” Eileen said, but Bethany kept driving, and they passed through towns, and soon they were parking the car in Pelham.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of.” Bethany put her hand on Eileen’s. “You don’t know what you think about it yet.”

She took a long look at Bethany’s narrow face and close-set brown eyes, her skin that hadn’t aged in the ten years since they’d lost touch. She felt sorry for her for needing all this hocus-pocus. She decided she would go in, just this once, as a favor to her friend and an exercise in openness, like sitting through the character breakfast at Disney World when Connell was four, because it was the right thing to do.

Inside, a circle of women rose to greet her. She sat and joined them, and a woman walked in from another room, evidently the psychic channeler. She was small, no taller than five two, and her hair had a sort of deliberate unkempt quality, as if in demonstration of her ascetic bona fides. She sat without ceremony and looked serenely around at the group until her eyes fell on Eileen. She held Eileen’s gaze awhile, smiling in a way that forced Eileen to smile back uncomfortably.

The woman called them to order with a breathing exercise. Eileen took part in it, stifling her laughter.

“I’d like to welcome Eileen Leary to our midst tonight,” the woman said. “Bethany has brought her to us. Thank you, Bethany. Eileen has been going through some difficulty with her husband. We’re here to help her.”

Eileen felt herself blushing. She hadn’t expected the group’s attention to be directed at her so soon or so completely. “Please don’t worry about me,” she said. “I’m just here to watch.”

“Eileen’s husband has Alzheimer’s disease,” the woman said as if Eileen hadn’t spoken, and clucks and knowing looks passed through the room. “But as we have seen so often, not everything is as it seems. We are going to discover today what is happening in her husband’s soul. Bethany tells me his name is Edmund? Edmund Leary?”

Eileen had an impulse to shield Ed’s name from them, as if by incanting it they might affix to it one of those exotic, long-distance curses that could cause a man to drop dead in the street.

“That’s correct,” she said.

“My name is Rachelle. In a minute I am going to call on Vywamus to visit us. He will talk to you about your husband. I will be channeling him. It may appear that I am talking, but I will only be a conduit. There is nothing to be afraid of. We will link hands, so you will only have to squeeze the hand of the person to either side of you for reassurance. My spirit will not be in the room during this time. I will not be able to answer any questions once Vywamus has entered my body. You must direct any questions to Vywamus. But it is advisable to simply let him speak. You may notice a slight change in my voice. That’s a result of Vywamus using my body as his vessel.”