4. Denise
Chapter four
Denise
"I had hoped to discuss the recurring dream you mentioned at the end of our last session, Denise, but…you seem agitated. Care to share what's bothering you?"
Dr. Jamison's dark brown eyes, magnified by thick glasses, look at me keenly. As always, she doesn't miss a thing.
But I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to be here today. Each week, we pick at my scabs, opening up wounds and releasing pent-up emotions that had begun to fester before I sought help two years ago. It's uncomfortable and it's hard, and that's when I'm not already pissed off.
Today, I'm pissed the fuck off.
When I'm pissed off, I'd much rather bury myself in work, grin and bear it, or self-medicate with a quick trip to the dispensary than face things head on. Sure, they're just Band-Aids on the gaping torpedo hole in my chest that threatens to consume me with each passing day, but they're so much easier. Unfortunately, Doc informed me years ago that my coping mechanisms "aren't healthy or productive".
Pshh. What does she know? I pout inwardly. It's childish and I would never say it out loud, but the grumbling helps…A little.
After years going it alone with limited success, I finally opened my browser and looked for psychiatrists covered by my insurance. I thought—and secretly hoped—that Dr. Jamison would prescribe a pill so I could be done with it, but she dared me to continue, to see if talk therapy could actually help before going the medical route. She played to my stubborn side, and I signed up for six weeks of therapy that very day. Escitalopram still helps keep me even (unless I foolishly mix it with alcohol), but Dr. Jamison became my life preserver, then my swim coach, helping me keep my head above water.
"I lost the necklace," I whisper, eyes tearing up at the admission. Cory still hadn't called to say he'd found it, and the venue hadn't found anything either, though I didn't really think they would.
"The one Andre gave you?" she guesses. My throat is too thick with emotion, so I just nod. The necklace was the last gift he'd given me, a butterfly meant to represent rebirth after his last attempt to leave the world behind, to leave us behind.
The quetiapine is working , he'd beamed, before taking out the small gold box. I already feel lighter, more in control .
He was two weeks home from in-patient care and I hoped hard enough to hurt that he was right, that this really was the answer to the soaring highs that led to manic calls from Atlantic City, and the devastating lows that kept him in bed in the dark for twenty hours of the day, missing most of his classes. I needed to believe him, to believe that an end to the constant worry about my brother's mental health was in sight.
A month later, he was gone.
"It's not just that I lost it," I continue, tears running down my face now, "it's how I lost it. I was celebrating my best friend's wedding. It was supposed to be a joyous event. I had a few too many drinks, slept with someone I shouldn't have, and lost the last thing I had to remember my brother."
Dr. Jamison raises an eyebrow and I wince.
"I know, I know. I shouldn't have been drinking at all. But it was my girl's wedding!"
"That look wasn't about the drinking," she starts, in a comforting voice my mother never mastered, "although I don't recommend it with your medication. What interests me is how you've centered memories of your brother in a physical object."
"So I'm not allowed to be upset I lost a treasured gift? I'm supposed to be so healed it doesn't matter that a token of my brother's love, of his hope for the future, might be lost forever?"
I spit the words angrily at her, knowing they're not fair. I hold back my emotions so much of the time, worried they'll overwhelm me or scare someone else, that I lean into them in my sessions more than I should. Dr. Jamison doesn't waver, though. This truly is a safe space, as nauseating as I find that term.
"It is totally reasonable to be upset about losing a keepsake from your brother. I only hope you don't use that as a reason to retreat back inside. Your memories of him, and his love for you, exist far beyond that necklace."
I absentmindedly reach for where the necklace usually rests against my chest and she follows the movement. I quickly drop my hand to my lap.
"How 'bout that recurring dream?" I deflect, trying for a lighthearted laugh that sounds forced. She smiles knowingly.
"OK. Tell me about the dream."
"It's the same as always," I begin, settling back into her plush leather couch. "Andre and I are driving in what seems like a loop. We're laughing together, smiling, but I feel anxious. We seem to be getting faster and faster each time around. The last time, as we cross a bridge, there's a gap straight ahead, but we're going too fast to stop. We hit the water hard and the car sinks. I'm able to swim back to the surface, only Andre's not there. I'm alone, and there's nothing around for miles. Then I wake up."
Just the memory of the dream is enough to make me clench my fist, bracing against an unknown threat. I release it and look over to see Dr. Jamison writing. I hate it when she writes.
"I'm not an expert in dream analysis, but I think there are some themes worth exploring. Your feelings of being out of control. How the bottom literally dropped out from under you. The fact that you survived when Andre didn't. Your isolation. Often, dreams are our unconscious mind's way of dealing with concepts we don't want to or can't deal with while awake."
"Well, the isolation has to be because of my parents, especially my mom," I insist. "Once Andre died, they shut down. It's like they didn't care that they still had a kid left. Andre took up all the worry and, when he was gone, they were just too exhausted to continue."
"It sounds like, in addition to your ongoing grief from losing your brother, you also have some anger at your parents and feelings of abandonment."
"Well, yeah!" I almost shout, then take a breath to calm myself, counting in and out like she taught me. "I needed them and they just checked out. It's been years and we still barely talk."
"Your anger is completely understandable and, from the way you've described what happened with your family, warranted. I don't want you to think your emotions aren't valid, but in the next few sessions, we should work on how to confront these feelings when they arise so you can process them fully and then move past them. Not for your parents' sake, but for your own wellbeing."
I drop my keys onto the entry table and flop face-first into my couch. The smell of my post-therapy chocolate chip cookie wafts to my nose and makes my stomach grumble. It's probably another "unhealthy" coping mechanism, but I'll quit my job, move to the country, and become a zucchini farmer before I give up my chocolate chip cookies. And I hate zucchini almost as much as I hate the outdoors.
Madame Clawdette Purrington—Clawdette for short—saunters over from her spot on the windowsill to execute bun mode in the middle of my back. I can't help but chuckle. My fur baby is a sassy bitch, as usual.
I extricate myself from beneath the cuddly Persian despite her protests and head to the kitchen for her treats. If I'm even a minute late feeding her, there will be hell to pay. I was against cats for the longest time, having never had pets as a kid, but coming home to an empty apartment became unbearable, especially during those dark years.
I had to give up Khan, my last cat, when I first moved into this apartment. Thankfully, Maya took him in. After a while, though, I realized the landlord was never around to catch any pets in the building. Maya had already bonded with Khan, so I adopted Clawdette, who snuggles better than any of my late night partners.
My phone rings and I rush to my purse, frantically digging through my Birkin before the call goes to voicemail.
"Hello?" I answer without checking to see who it is.
"Hey girl, did you just run up a flight of stairs or something? Or did I catch you in flagrante ?"
I can practically hear Tiffany waggling her eyebrows.
"Tiff, if I were getting it on, do you really think I'd stop to pick up the phone?"
"Maybe if he wasn't hittin' it right, you would," she snickers, and I giggle.
Tiffany and I met through Maya. They were friends since way back, but Tiff only just moved from DC to start an outreach program at a community center in Harlem. Maya brought her along to a “Binge & Bitch” session—where we binge shows, drink wine, and bitch about guys, and the occasional girl—and our duo became a trio just like that.
"If he was that wack," I laugh, "I would've kicked him out long before I could take a call."
"Point taken," she agrees. "Speaking of 'evening extracurriculars', I didn't see you after the streamer exit. Did you make any new friends ?"
"Why?" I ask, on edge. "Did you see me leave with anyone?"
I can hear her smirk even without FaceTime.
"Noooo," she draws out the word. How much does she know? Did she see Cory and me together? "But it sounds to me like you were with someone you shouldn't have been."
I muffle my sigh with my hand. She's fishing. She doesn't know anything. So far, I'm still in the clear.
"I don't know what you're talking about," I say, feigning ignorance. Tiff sucks her teeth.
"Whatever, ho," she mutters playfully. "You can keep your little sneaky link. I, on the other hand, will gladly tell anyone who asks about my night with Monica. I'll blow one of those Ricola horns and shout it from the hilltops, if you want."
"Wow!" I laugh. "It's like that?"
"Yeah. It's like that ."
"OK! I'm glad to see you finally got back on that horse. Or, maybe…strap on?"
Tiffany laughs and dives into the details of her night with Monica. She came as a plus one with one of Adam's brother's work friends, but ditched him when he threw up down his suit after a few too many J?gerbombs. Who still does J?gerbombs after college?
Tiffany gushes about the leggy brunette with the Rockabilly fashion sense and the razor sharp wit, and I smile warmly into the phone.
She'd been having a bad streak in the relationship department, losing her last girlfriend in the move to NYC and buying a used Mercedes with her most recent ex, only for him to drive it all day, racking up multiple tickets when she was at work. Martin was such a dick that one of his other girlfriends—apparently he had one in each borough —reached out to Tiffany to help her find and tow the car while he was at a friend's place. Thank God it was in her name.
"Was it just a one-time thing, or are you going to see her again?"
Despite everything, Tiff remains hopeful. I wish I could hold on to my own optimism like that. There's a beat of silence.
"Well," she begins hesitantly. "I…I really like her, D," she admits. "We're supposed to meet up at Jackie Robinson Park this weekend for an outdoor yoga class." She sighs meaningfully. "I just really don't want to fuck it up."
"You won't," I insist, trying to push my confidence across the phone line to her. "You are awesome, and smart, and a catch. She should be worried about fucking things up with you ."
She laughs lightly and we swap wild stories from the wedding, trying to top each other's. One of Adam's aunts was seen leaving with not one, but two of his college friends. Maya's dad dusted off his breakdancing skills in an epic Soul Train line. Instead of cigars, the groomsmen smoked celebratory weed off the balcony, earning a few glares from the building staff.
I stroke Clawdette's coat absently. It's too bad I can't tell my crazy wedding story. It might top them all.