Her Own Rules/Dangerous to Know (18 page)

After a light supper she had gone to bed early.

She had a number of important appointments the next morning, and she also wanted to clear her desk before her afternoon session with Hilary Benson.

Almost immediately she fell into a sound sleep, and it was a dreamless sleep for most of the night. Then just as dawn was breaking she awakened with a start and sat bolt upright in bed. Her face, neck, and chest were covered with beads of sweat, and she was filled with apprehension.

Snapping on the light, she glanced around the room, and then she lay back against the pillows. After a moment, she reached for a tissue on the bedside table, wiped her neck and face, and then crumpled the damp tissue in a ball in her hand.

She had just had that awful dream again, and as always, it alarmed her. She focused on it, remembering.

 

She was alone in the vast, parched landscape. She was looking for the little girl and boy. But she could not find them. They had disappeared, had fallen through a giant crack in the earth's surface. She had seen them dropping away, and she was afraid for them. Now she must find them again. They knew. They knew the answer to the secret.

She walked and walked, her eyes scanning the landscape. Just as she gave up hope of ever finding them again, they appeared at the edge of the dried mudflats. She was so happy she had found them. The boy took off his school cap and waved it in the air. Suddenly they were all together, the three of them holding hands, walking across the vast and arid landscape toward the far horizon. Now she was dressed like the little girl. She wore a dark coat, a long, striped scarf around her neck and a beret on her head. They all had giant labels on their coats. Luggage labels. She peered at the little girl's label. The writing was smudged from the rain. She could not read the name. Or the name of the boy. She looked down at her own luggage label. This, too, was indistinct. What was her name? She did not know.

Ahead of them was the great ship. It was so huge it loomed up high on the docks. The little girl was afraid. She did not want to go on the ship. She began to cry. The boy cried and so did she. None of them wanted to go on board. Tears rolled down their cheeks. It was so cold the tears froze on their skin. It began to snow.

The sea was like black oil. They were afraid, terrified. They clung to each other, weeping. They were led off the ship. They had reached their destination. It was the gray cracked landscape where nothing grew. The sky was very blue; the sun blistering. They walked and walked. There were many, many children, all walking until they came to the black sea once more. And they all walked into the sea. She pulled back; she would not move. She tried to stop the little girl from walking into the sea, walking to her doom. But she could not. The girl moved away from her, and so did the boy. Together the two of them walked into the sea. She tried to shout at them to stop. But no words came out of her mouth. She was alone again on the mudflats. And she was afraid. They knew the answer to the secret. She did not. Now they had gone. Forever. And so she would never know.

 

This time the dream had been different, Meredith realized that as she examined every detail of it. She wondered what it meant; she had no idea. But she now resolved to tell Hilary Benson about it. Perhaps the psychiatrist would have an explanation for her.

 

“There's something I haven't told you,” Meredith said to Dr. Benson later that afternoon.

Hilary looked at her alertly. “Oh, and what is that, Meredith?”

“It's something to do with my attacks. At least, I think that's so. Certainly it started again after my second attack.”

“What started again?”

“The dream. It's a nightmare, in fact, and I've had it on and off for years.”

“How many years?” Hilary asked, leaning forward over the desk, scrutinizing her patient intently.

“For as long as I can remember. Since I was about twelve, thirteen, perhaps even a few years younger. The dream stopped when I first came to Connecticut. In fact, I had it only once in the early years there, when I first started working for Jack and Amelia at the inn. Then it occurred a couple of times in my twenties, again in my thirties. But I hadn't had it since then until January of this year.”

“And the dream occurred after you had an attack of fatigue?”

“Yes. I was in the Loire Valley, staying with a friend. I suddenly felt ill that afternoon and I went upstairs to rest in my room. I fell asleep, I was so tired. And I had the dream. When I awakened I was startled that it had come back after so many years, and also that I felt the same way.”

“How did you feel?”

“Frightened, alarmed.”

“Try to recount the dream for me, please, Meredith.”

Meredith nodded and did as the psychiatrist asked. Then she explained that the dream had differed slightly each time she had had it in the past few months.

“So last night in the dream you were finally reunited with the boy and the girl in the arid landscape,” Hilary said. “Was there anything else? Anything different? “

“Yes. There was the ship in the dream . . .” Meredith left her sentence unfinished, snapped her eyes shut.

“Are you all right?” Hilary asked.

“Yes, I'm fine,” she answered, instantly opening her eyes. “Dr. Benson?”

“Yes?”

“What do dreams mean?”

“I think they are usually manifestations of impressions we store in our subconscious. Then again, sometimes what truly frightens a person can come to the fore in sleep, when the unconscious rises. I personally think that we dream our memories, and also dream our terrors, Meredith.”

“So what do you think my recurring nightmare means?”

“I'm not certain. Only by talking, exploring a little more, can we eventually come to some interpretation of it.”

Meredith took a deep breath. Unexpectedly and inexplicably she felt as if she were choking. Agitation took hold of her. She had to get out of there; she needed air. She stood up, then sat down again with sudden abruptness. She thought she was going to open her mouth and start screaming. She compressed her lips, striving for control.

Hilary Benson frowned, stared at her. Then she realized that Meredith, who had always appeared the calmest of women, was suffering from acute agitation. She was twisting her hands together anxiously, and her eyes had opened wide.

“You're suddenly extremely upset. What is it, Meredith?”

Meredith said nothing; she began to shake visibly, and she wrapped her arms around her body, hugged herself.

Hilary Benson jumped up, went to her, put a hand on her shoulder comfortingly.

Meredith gaped at Hilary. Her eyes filled with tears. “I've not told you the truth . . . not told anyone . . . not ever . . .”

Hilary hurried to her desk, picked up the phone, and spoke to her secretary. “I can't see any other patients at the moment, Janice. Please reschedule them for another day. I have an emergency with Mrs. Stratton.”

Walking back to Meredith, who was bent double in the chair, rocking back and forth, the psychiatrist took hold of her arm, forced her upright.

“Come to the sofa, Meredith, sit with me. You're going to tell me everything. Slowly, in your own time. There's no hurry.” She had spoken softly, sympathetically, and Meredith allowed herself to be led to the sofa.

The two women sat down.

There was a long silence.

Finally, Meredith began to speak in a low voice. “I don't know who I am. Or where I come from. I don't know who my parents were. Or my real name. I have no identity. I invented myself. I made my own rules and I lived by them. I had no one to teach me. No one to love me. I was completely alone. Until I met the Silvers. For seventeen years I was a lost soul. I'm still a lost soul in some ways. Help me . . . Oh God.
Who am I?
Where do I come from? Who gave birth to me?”

Meredith was weeping, the tears gushing out of her eyes and falling down onto her hands. She was in an agony of despair, and she started to rock back and forth again.

Hilary Benson let Meredith weep. She said nothing, did nothing, and presently the tears stopped. She handed Meredith a box of tissues in silence. Then she walked over to the console, poured a glass of water, and brought it to her patient.

Meredith took it from her, sipped the water, and said after a moment, “I'm sorry for my outburst.”

“I'm not, and you shouldn't be either. You should be glad. It's done you good, I'm sure of that. And it is the first step toward your recovery. Whenever you are ready to start talking again, I am here to listen. Don't rush . . . the rest of the day is for you. The evening too, if that is necessary, Meredith.”

“Thank you. Yes . . . yes . . . I must tell you . . .” Meredith now took a deep breath and began:

“I grew up in an orphanage in Sydney. I was eight years old when Gerald and Merle Stratton adopted me. She didn't like my name, so she called me Meredith. They weren't very nice. Cold, hardhearted people. They treated me like a maid. I did all the housework early in the morning and after school at night. I was only eight. They didn't really mistreat me, but he thought nothing of hitting me. She was mean, too, and stingy—with food especially I grew to hate them. I wanted to go back to the orphanage. Then they were killed in a car crash when I was ten. His sister Mercedes didn't want me. She sent me back to the orphanage. I was there until I was fifteen. I saw Mercedes only once again, when she helped me get my passport. She was glad I was leaving with the Paulsons.”

Meredith stopped, leaned against the sofa cushions, and closed her eyes. She took several deep breaths to steady herself. After a short time she opened her eyes and looked directly at Hilary. She began to tremble.

The psychiatrist took hold of her hand, asked softly in a gentle voice, “Was there any sexual abuse when you were living with the Strattons? Did either of them abuse you?”

“No, there was never anything like that. They didn't sexually molest me. There was just this awful coldness and indifference, as if I weren't there. I was there only to be their maid, that's what I thought then. I still think it. I was relieved when they were killed. They never showed me one iota of affection. I had always thought that when I got adopted, somebody was going to love me at last. But no one did.”

A bleak look crossed her face, hurt shadowed her eyes, and when she spoke, pain echoed in her voice. “I can never begin to explain to you the horror of being in an orphanage. Nobody cares a thing about you . . . never to be touched, or held, or shown any love. I never knew why I was there. I worried a lot about that. I thought I'd been put there by my parents because I'd been bad. I didn't understand. All I wanted was to find out who my parents were. I never did. Nobody told me anything, they never answered my questions. . . .”

“What is your earliest memory, Meredith? Close your eyes, relax, try to go back in time, try to focus on your youngest years. What do you see? What do you remember?”

After a while Meredith spoke. She said in a quiet voice, “I see a river. But that's all.” She opened her eyes. “Perhaps that's why I like living near water.”

“How old were you when you went to the orphanage?”

“I don't know, Dr. Benson, I was always there.”

“From being a baby?”

“Yes. No. No, I don't think so. In my nightmare last night there was the ship. When I was a very little girl I used to remember being on a ship.”

“Do you mean a ship or a boat? There's a difference.”

Meredith closed her eyes again, pushing her memory back to her childhood. She saw herself in her mind's eye; she saw boys and girls going up a gangplank. She was one of them. She saw sailors, seamen, docks. She saw a flagpole. The Union Jack flying atop it.

Meredith sat up straighter, opened her eyes, and looked at Hilary intently. “I do mean a ship and not a boat. And an oceangoing ship, too. A British ship, flying a British flag. I
must
have been on a ship, perhaps with other children. Maybe that explains the children who are always in the dream.”

“It's possible. Please try and think harder, think back. Could you have been born in England and taken to Australia when very young?”

“Maybe I was. But why don't I remember anything about it? Why don't I remember those years?”

“It's called repressed memory, Meredith. I believe something terrible happened to you when you were a small child, causing deep trauma that resulted in repressed memory. In fact, I'm pretty positive that's what you're suffering from, and I believe it's the reason for your attacks of fatigue.
Psychogenic fatigue.”

“But why now? Why haven't I had the attacks in the past? Why not years ago?”

“Because the memory stayed deeply buried. That was the way you wanted it. So that you could function. Now something has triggered it. The repressed memory is trying to surface.”

“What do you think triggered it?”

“I can't be absolutely certain, but I believe it was your visit to Fountains Abbey.”

“You
do
think I was there before?”

“Possibly. Most probably. It would certainly explain a great deal.”

“Is there any other way you can trigger my repressed memory, Dr. Benson?”

“Only you can do it really, by endeavoring to go back in time to your earliest childhood years. You're going to England next week. Something else might give your memory a good jolt while you are there. In the meantime, let us talk a little longer about your years in the orphanage.”

Meredith shivered violently and threw Hilary a look of horror. “No child should ever have to live like that,” she exclaimed, anger surfacing. “But I'll tell you more about it if you want me to.”

“I do. I realize how painful it is for you, but it may well give me more clues, something else to go on, Meredith.”