Open Mind: Chapter Seventeen

“That is incredible progress, Skylar. I hope that you are aware of that.”

I could hear the droning of Dr. Lau’s clinical praise buzzing through the fog of my mind. In the days since Adrianna’s near-death experience, nothing was in focus. Every sight, sound, and sensation felt dulled and distant, as if some part of my body and mind were experiencing some portion of them in the next room.

“Something isn’t right…” I muttered. It was so strenuous to form the words, but I did my best to mask the struggle.

“I know it might feel strange. Sometimes it can take a day or two for your senses to readjust -- especially when you make such a sudden transition. But this is wonderful!”

“You aren’t listening to me,” I growled. “This doesn’t feel right. It hurts.”

“Annie said the same thing the first time, didn’t you dear?”

I didn’t even realize that Annie had been sitting in the room the entire time. I turned my upper half around to find Annie on the floor of the office, laying on her back with her phone hovering precariously over her face in her hands.

“Don’t drag my experience into this,” Annie muttered.

Dr. Lau sighed and shuffled a stack of papers on her desk absentmindedly. “Leave it to a couple of teenage girls to not appreciate the gifts they’ve been given. Youth, good looks, brilliant minds, and an extraordinary connection to the realm beyond -- what more is there?”

“I dunno … a day off?” Annie moaned. “Just once I’d like to have a day where I’m not at school, or studying, or exploring the literal embodiment of existential dread.”

“Your expeditions have been unusually unfruitful. Maybe a day off would help.” The doctor’s attention returned to me and a grin spread across her face. “Actually, this is perfect.”

“I don’t like the way you said that,” I murmured.

“Yeah, perfect for you is almost never good for us.”

“Why don’t we invite Skylar over for a sleepover? The team has been discussing granting Skylar an overnight pass away from the facility, and what safer environment is there than ours?”

“I can think of a few,” I snapped. I held up my fingers as I counted: “The Middle East, a prison yard, a tiger’s cage, Jeffrey Dahmer’s grandma’s basement--”

“Oh please,” Dr. Lau cried out in frustration, “this is not as bad as any of that. Don’t you want to get out of this place for a night?”

I turned back to look at Annie, whose sly smile contravened the noncommittal shrug of her slender shoulders. I turned back to the doctor.

“No Open Mind?”

“No Open Mind,” she confirmed, “although I must admit I don’t know what might happen with two of you in the same place for that amount of time.”

The conversation was interrupted with a knock on the door. The doctor invited them in, and an anxious new staff member opened the door. She immediately reminded me of the half-dozen interchangeable college freshman that the facility hired during my time there. Too many tattoos to work with kids in any other capacity, not enough experience to work a job that paid better, and a schedule flexible enough to work the crazy overnight shifts. They never lasted long, but boy it was fun to watch them get put through the ringer while they were here.

“D-do you have Skylar Miller,” she asked.

“I do,” Dr. Lau responded impatiently. “We still have another five minutes of our session.”

“She has a visitor. Her mother asked if we could cut the session short because they are on limited time.”

Dr. Lau looked to me, and I gave her the same noncommittal shrug that Annie had just given me. The doctor’s stare returned to the new staff member. “You can have her then.”

I jumped to my feet -- a choice I immediately regretted from the vertigo I experienced -- and I walked unsteadily to the door. The doctor cleared her throat as I started to walk out the door. I turned to see her looking down her glasses at me.

“Be sure to ask your mother about the overnight pass. I’ll follow up with her tomorrow.”

I followed behind the new staff member, but after a few steps, she stopped.

“Can you please walk ahead of me?”

“Why?”

“It’s policy.”

“Since when?”

“Since … always, I think,” she said, unsure of herself.

“Fine,” I grunted.

“I’m sorry. Just want to get started on the right foot.”

“Then don’t apologize,” I said shortly. “Apologizing undermines your authority around here. Makes you appear weak, like you can be exploited if they push hard enough. Only apologize if you are trying to build trust with a kid and it is your last resort.”

“That’s not how we are trained.”

“Trained by who? Mrs. Sharon? I’ve seen that bitch maybe two times since I’ve been here. She doesn’t know anything about what really goes on out here.”

“Don’t use that word to talk about anyone, especially not a staff member.”

“Fine, I’ve seen that b-word maybe twice.”

We walked for a bit in silence, before she offered up her name out of nowhere.

“I’m Miss Tiffany, by the way. I don’t think I said so earlier.”

“That checks out,” I murmured. We took a left turn at the end of the hall.

“What does that mean?”

“What do you go to school for?”

“You shouldn’t answer a question with a question.” She paused for a beat. “But I’m a psychology major.”

“That also checks out.”

“Seriously, what is that supposed to mean?”

“We get more psychology majors with names like Tiffany around here than you might think.”

“Ah,” she said, thoughtfully. She seemingly had no retort, and we walked in odd silence for the remainder of the minute or so that it took to reach the visitor’s room. When we reached the door, I saw my mother with a young man that I didn’t recognize. I could immediately sense the tension between the two, and for a brief moment, I swore I caught a glimpse of men surrounding this young man.

“Oh Skylar…” my mother cooed. She ran over to me and embraced me. She squeezed tighter than she’d ever done before.

“Hi Mom,” I said in a diminutive voice. It was all I could muster with my pressed lungs.

She pulled herself away from me and looked me over at arm’s length from her. “You look absolutely terrible, mi hija.”

“Mom,” the man snapped. “that’s the shit I was talking about.”

I pushed away from my mother and approached the pale, spectre-like man seated at the table.

“Colt?” I asked, unable to juxtapose the chubby, angry boy I remembered with the man in front of me.

“It’s me, Sky,” he admitted, as if his existence were some great shame.

In all honesty, I didn’t remember much of Colt, and neither of my parents really spoke about him. I knew he was not my true brother -- he was a cousin that my father had taken in when his father, my third uncle Thomas, left him. He had lived with my grandmother for a short time, but as her health got worse, my father had no choice but to look after him. Colt and I were twelve years apart, and by the time I was old enough to remember him, he had left and joined the military.

“What are you doing here?” I asked. It came out from my mouth with far more hateful delivery than I had intended. “I mean, I’m happy to see you. But of all the places to go?”

“Truth be told, I’ve seen everyone else I’ve wanted to see.”

“Saved the best for last, I see.”

He turned to my mother. “Can I have a few minutes with her alone?”

My mother looked offended at first, but then she nodded in acceptance. Once she had left the room, Colt offered the seat across from him to me with an outstretched arm. I sat obediently in the seat, overcome with the shock of it all.

“I imagine you have some questions.”

“A few,” I admitted. “And I’m sure you do too.”

“Not really. Deb kind of filled me in on a lot of it.”

“Ah,” I grunted. I ran my fingers through my hair anxiously. I could only imagine what my mother’s versions of events sounded like.

“Don’t worry. I know how she can be,” he laughed weakly. “I’m sure she deserved what happened to her.”

“Not really,” I admitted. “Or at least, not most of it. I really messed it up.”

“Well, you didn’t take it out on her by joining the goddamn Army, so I guess it could have been worse.”

“What happened to you?”

“A loaded question, for sure,” he laughed before devolving into a coughing fit. He composed himself as quickly as he could with a sip of his Sprite before continuing. “And not all that interesting an answer, truth be told. Your dad and I… we fought a lot. Sometimes your mom would get in on it, and sometimes she wouldn’t, but every time she did, it became a free-for-all.”

“I can’t hardly imagine Dad picking a fight with anyone,” I said.

“You got to grow up with ‘gentle old bear’ Dad, to hear your mom tell it. I had to deal with peak ‘grizzly bear’ Dad. And if he was drinking, it was worse. Which also sounds like someone I know,” he said, his glare fixed squarely on me.

“Forgive me if your teenage angst version of Dad isn’t exactly moving me,” I snapped in response to his pointed accusation. “You just come back to shit on me and my family one final time before you retire to the job at the crypt or what?”

“Well, you’re right on two counts. I am headed to the crypt pretty damn soon. The doctors don’t know for sure, but my ALS is pretty aggressive. They give me a year or two -- three if I’m lucky.”

We sat in uncomfortable silence for a moment. I think he was waiting for an apology from me, but I was usually not the type to apologize -- even when I was genuinely sorry for something.

“The reason I’m here…” he said slowly, with all the fearful trepidation of a tight-rope walker, “is to say that I’m sorry.”

“You don’t even know me-”

“Please, just let me say what I need to say,” he interjected. “I don’t know what all your dad said to you about me before he passed. Maybe it was a lot, maybe it was nothing at all. But I just want to set the record straight.” He took a deep, strained breath. “I was angry. He was an old soul in a lot of ways, set on a path from generations of our family. He managed to break out of that when he married Deb, with her being Mexican and our family being… very much not, but he couldn’t extend that same grace to me.”

“I never knew you had a girlfriend. At 12 years old?”

“No, I didn’t. But there was a boy that I liked. It was harmless. A simple paper note that I sent to a boy named Lamar in the 6th grade, asking him to go to the movies with me. His mother found it and gave it to Shepard. She got him all riled up, believing I was some nasty demon, trying to taint her precious Lamar with my gay delusions. Turns out your father was a lot more religious than he let on, at least when it came to this issue in particular.

Anyways, this continued on for a few years -- when you were still in diapers. Every boy I was ever friends with, there was this air of ‘will they won’t they’ that he forced onto our friendships that sometimes undermined them. I couldn’t explain to my friends why Shepard would refuse to let me join any sports teams or hang out with any of them alone. I learned pretty quickly that your dad wasn’t alone in his feelings about who I was, so I kept that part of myself locked away until I couldn’t hide anymore.”

“So you left.”

“I did. I didn’t have anywhere to go, so I hitched a ride back to Grandma Helen’s. I stayed there for a few days, and then I met the enlistment officer at the high school. I thought he was cute, so I would stop by his booth every day during the week that he was in the cafeteria. By the end of the week, I had Grandma’s signature on an enlistment form … and the rest is history.”

“What does all of that have to do with me?”

“I can’t help but think that things would have been different if I’d stayed. I don’t know what my leaving did to him, but maybe Shepard would still be here if I hadn’t--”

“Stop,” interrupted my mother from the doorway. She walked slowly into the room, her face sunken and her eyes red.

“Of course you were listening in,” Colt snapped. “Why wouldn’t you be?”

“You cannot beat yourself up about Shep. His demons were his demons. They were not your responsibility.”

“You don’t understand-”

“Like hell I don’t!” My mother slammed her fist on the table and pointed one slender finger in Colt’s face. “You know what my last words to him were? You want to know what I said to the love of my life on his final day on this Earth, cabron? I told him to choose me, or the bar! We had no money, and I was so jealous that he poured what money we did have into the bar instead of us, and so I had enough. I gave him the choice, and that selfish ass chose neither.” My mother laughed, but not in the joyous way one might laugh, but in the deranged way someone might laugh after confessing to a grisly murder. “He’d rather die than make that choice.”

“That’s not funny,” I growled.

“Of course not!” she snapped. “But in all these years since, I’ve beat myself up over what could have been, when the truth of the matter is that it doesn’t matter at all. Shep was a pick-up truck careening towards the cliff his entire life, and he was always one drink too many away from death. I only regret that I let him take you that night. If I’d known…”

“You couldn’t have known,” I said flatly. “He picked me up from Grandma’s that night, when I was supposed to be spending the night with her. But when Dad said we were going, I was so excited…”

“So that’s why she’s here then,” Colt interjected. “You’re afraid she will turn out just like him… just like me…”

I turned to face my mother, who hid her face from me. I didn’t need an answer from her -- her whole body told me what I needed to know. But I was still going to demand that she say it.

“Is that true?”

“I saw him, mi hija. That night, in the apartment. I saw all of his rage and his frustration in yours. And in the night when you fell from the balcony, I saw his despair and his sadness in your eyes. I couldn’t help your father when he was alive, and I…I can’t help you now.” My mother devolved into gasping between sobs, unable to compose herself. “I didn’t know what else to do...”

Colt shot me a piercing glance and nodded his head threateningly in my mother’s direction, as if to say hug her you idiot. I slowly wrapped my arms around her, my torso several inches from her chest, but she desperately pulled me tighter into her embrace. Her fingers dug into my back, and I could feel all of the desperation in her. She’d been crying out for this for so long and I never knew. Her strength was surprising, and the force of her hug threatened to crush my lungs.

Then, without warning, all of my walls collapsed. I’d never even known that the walls had been there until they crumbled all around me, but I felt a wave of sadness and throbbing longing that I hadn’t felt in years.

“I miss him,” I cried out. It’s all I could manage to say -- the only words that I could think of as they crashed over me like an ocean wave. Wave after wave of tears with nothing but the crushing realization that, for the first time in years, I didn’t feel angry.

“I miss him, too,” Mom spat out between sobs. We held each other for what felt like an hour, just breathing and shuddering, with neither of us willing to let go. I’d never felt close to my mother since the morning 16 years ago that I was jettisoned from her womb, and I couldn’t even say that I felt all that close to her specifically in this particular moment, but our shared grief and loneliness bonded us in a way that we’d never experienced before. Maybe it was the start of something new, or maybe it would prove to be a sentimental blip in the grand scheme of our mother-daughter relationship, but all I knew in that moment was that it was what I needed in that moment.

Mom finally pulled away from me, slowly, and wiped her nose against her sweatshirt sleeve. She returned her attention back to Colt. “Thank you for being here,” my mother said to him. “I think it would have meant a lot to Shep for us to all be together again like this.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” Colt said, smiling softly. With great difficulty, he rose to his feet and walked over to me. He pulled me close into my second hug of the day -- surely some sort of record. He brought his lips to my ear and whispered, “don’t lose yourself in here. Focus on what matters and get out.”

“I will,” I whispered in response. “I promise.”

“Is Mrs. Sherril working today, Sky? I wanted to talk to her about your discharge date, or at the very least bringing you home for a weekend. We really should visit your poor grandmother…”

The new staff member appeared in the door way in an instant, as if she were waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike. “Mrs. Sherill no longer works here, I’m afraid. But I can assist you with that.”

“¿Que mierda?” my mother blurted out.

“This is a new staff person, Tiffany,” I explained. “I just met her today.”

My mother looked Tiffany up and down, then snorted. “I don’t like her. I’ll talk to your therapist tomorrow instead.”

“She actually did mention something about recommending a visit overnight to help with my treatment. But … at her house.”

“Oh…” my mother said, clearly unhappy with the development.

“Might be a good transition,” Tiffany offered. “Ease her back into the home environment-”

“I did not ask you, niñita.” My mother turned to me. I could tell that she was torn, but through gritted teeth she said, “but if you want to go, you may. Whatever helps you get home to me faster.”

“Thank you, Mom.”