WILLODEAN (THE CUPITOR CHRONICLES Book 1) (55 page)

Branson wallpaper slams his fist into his palm, pops open a beer, drinks it, burps, then curses me, and calls me names, and puts me in my place until I make the bed, live the lie.

“Willodean.” Doc says bringing my attention back to her. “Look at me. Look at me…not him.”
I couldn’t do anything but scream.  I
wailed
something deep and disturbing, something that felt and sounded like dying. 

“You. It’s about
you.” Doc says enunciating the words. 
In my head I saw Willodean climb out her bedroom window and up the wondering tree. 
The day I chose to be me—fully me—all of me—if only for a brief moment. The day I entertained the neighbors. The day the little girl with the childlike heart simply took over and lived, despite all. It was her. I was her—the simple girl I’ve always wanted to keep, to be, to cherish and hang onto. The girl who lived only from the heart.
 
The one who believed in grit and courage, moons and stars, faith and hope, crumbs, and seven.

“Willodean…” Doc said in a softer tone. “Do you realize you haven‘t mentioned yourself during this entire conversation or any of the other sessions?” Her voice was nectar dripping in droves.
Southern sap, the willow tree enduring though it was in pain. 

“You are divorced. You are no longer attached to this man but emotionally he might as well be attached to your hip because he is still controlling you. 
Look around.
 You are nowhere in his world…
do you see that?
 This is the room you created of him, because you don’t exist in his world, never did. Can’t you see that? That is why 
He
 is all you talk about. This session is for 
you
 to get better, not him. Who cares about him now? It's time for you to care about you.”

My body shook in little ticks forward and back. Wallpaper Branson spun, slurred and laughed.

“Yes. He treated you wrong, horribly wrong. He’s a jerk but this isn’t about HIM. You can‘t change him. You can’t change anyone for that matter.” She sat her pen and folder down and walked over to me.

“Look at me.” She nudged my face towards hers with her motherly hands. “You can’t change your past or what happened to you. It was horrible, yes, but 
you can
 change yourself. Your life—right now. 
Yours
. Not his. 
Yours.
 So let’s do that. Okay. Just one step. That’s all. One step, then the next. You don’t have to make the bed or live the lie anymore. It wasn’t your fault Willodean. None of it. So, answer me this. How do YOU feel? What about you?”

I was caught off guard. Her words were like hornets
attacking. 
I didn’t know how to answer. 
Me? How I feel? I feel only pain. Tipping over…on the verge of going over….
pain, crushing pain. 
Oh God this is too much.
I wait for a crumb to drop from heaven and save me. I wait for the gardenia king to drizzle succulent petal kisses so I can survive another day, 
another day
. I wait for Maw Sue’s voice to rush in like the sound of crushed leaves and remind me of the old stories, the legends, the gifts, the curses, teaching me, guiding me. I wait for the little girl to appear with a crayon and draw me a window of escape. I wait to run. I wait for a girl of grit and courage, moons and stars, faith and hope to come strumming in like a mandolin of music, blaring out her eccentric charms and living life vicariously through me.

I wait…

Hope deferred.
 Instead, the shadows swept in and told me what I knew to be true. 
Three lines. Twelve words.
 
God doesn’t speak. Maw Sue is dead. No one can save you Willodean. Not a crackle, not a feather, not a rock. Nothing can save you. The little girl is not real. You are
just crazy, always been crazy.  T
he family secret, the tragic pink elephant. You are a nameless namesake. You are failure. You are nothing and you will never be enough.

I am crying now. Frantically screaming. Doc is back in the chair writing like a speed demon. Wallpaper Branson is laughing, louder, harder. In my vision, in the eyes of wallpaper Branson, I see my fate strewn across Maw Sue’s bedroom, amidst blood, desperation, peppermint bombs, and petal people.
Forward!
 George’s voice of fortitude calls me, leads me, pushes me—but I can’t move. I am stuck between the little girl and the adult, the realm between us, the void between the fingertips. I hate her…but I love her too. Inside the house, the internal tick-tock continues. 
My thoughts turn to Maw Sue. 
God-didn’t-save-her
. 
He won’t save me either
. 
She wasn’t rescued from the horrible shadows, the Amodgian darkness that consumed her nights and days, endless aches and pains, and mind torments. There is no hope for
me. 
Let go. Just end it now. Give in. Give up. Die!

The voice of the enemy pierces my ears. 
The Amodgian shadows are thick around me,
fully engulfing Doc that I barely make out her form. 

“No. No. Don’t
listen to the enemy. 
Listen to Doc. What do
you
 fe
el Willodean? What do you feel?”  I hear
the words
in my ears but Doc’s lips aren’t moving.  She isn’t the one speaking. 

“Who is that?” I said looking around. “Answer me. Show yourself.”

“I am showing myself.”
The voice said. I spun around trying to fight the shadows, their whispers, their cruel intents, all inside a wallpapered room of Branson.  It was too much. 

“No, no you’re not…I don’t see you.”

A worried look appeared on Doc’s face. “Willodean.” She said. “Who are you talking to? Do you see someone else?”

“Show yourself.” I screamed
and jumped up.  I
marched around the room, slapping the wallpaper that was Branson’s face, repeatedly over and over,
and kicked him for good measure.  Then I stomped o
n the floor as I made my way around the room. 
I tell myself I am a fighter. I am a fighter.
I am a pugnator.  I am a Cupitor. 

“I still don’t see you.” I said stopping behind Doc’s chair.
I was determined to face my enemy.  Doc
lifted her chin in a half spiral as if she was scared to look behind her.

“Willo…”

“No…shuuushh.” I said cutting her off. The room fell crisp…silent.

“I am you Willodean.” The voice said softly bre
aking my heart. 

“What do you mean?” My voice was angry, confused.

“You are me. Don’t you get it?”
The voice said squishing my heart to mush. 

“Don’t play games with me.” I shouted. “No. No. I’m not.” I say nodding my head, in unbelief and twisting my hands together. “Stop it. That doesn’t make sense…” I could not, would not accept her words. “I can’t be you."

Suddenly I felt a film, more like an invasion shrouding me. It wasn’t the Shadows, and it wasn’t Branson. I fell to my knees, right on top of Branson's body parts, all leery and crude. I couldn’t stand the thought of him touching me anymore, so I ripped at the floor, shredding
each piece of wallpaper in slices, until there was nothing but bare wood to lay on.  And then I fell apart with the realization of what I knew to be true.  “Oh. God.”
Everything sunk in, meanings, stories, words, everything. The adult Willodean broke into a million busted stars and moons. Broken kite. Blood and tears. No Wind. The child inside the house, the little girl did too, of me, in me, for me, all of me. Grit and courage, moon and stars, faith and hope. Simultaneously—we were together. 
Broken, but one. 

I heard Doc’s voice drift inside our gifted, cursed ears. “What do 
you
 feel Willodean? Tell me what you feel.”
What do I feel? What do I feel?
 My mind screams the questions but I don’t know if I can answer.

“But that’s just it.” I
screamed. 
“I don’t want to feel. It’s too painful to feel. Don’t you get it? I’ve always felt—felt—felt.”
Click, click, click.
The crazy pen is clicking. We are no longer inside the wallpaper Branson room. We are back in Doc's office. I'm
on the couch holding my pillow just like I was when it began.  Yet, in the same eye, m
y vision sees two alternate realities. I see my vision and the little girl’s vision and both our visions run together. Childhood images flash in, I feel over the top, extreme panicky fear of dang near everything; fear of falling asleep and never waking up, fear of being alone, abandoned, a fear of crowds, fear of light and the lesser light, fear of people, fear of love, fear of God, fear of the devil, fear of the dark, fear of rejection, fear of closeness. 
She makes me see parts of her that I kept hidden—she kept hidden. 

Elementary, junior high and high school was the worse. I hated eating in the cafeteria because it was a crowd of people, or waiting in line, talking out loud, anything with eyes on me. I feared the known and unknown. I feared the shadows and what they told me, about myself, my family, almost every situation, bringing life to my doubts, my fears, my worst nightmares. I hated their control of me and why God allowed it, why I was born with this awful, terrible curse, this house inside me, a harbinger of oppression for my soul. I feared I was terribly damaged, broken and that no one would ever want me. I'd be a discarded toy.

In the midst of remembering all my fears, a peek of salvation enters in. The stories, the legends, the great and marvelou
s mirror bin of hope, of dreams, of pugnators and Cupitors. 
I really believed that seven was the sum of the whole person, the good, the bad, the ugly, a mirror bin unto ourselves, our genetic makeup of all that we were created to be, one not functional without the other, child and adult. God created a special design, a purpose to be fulfilled
for my life and if I didn’t do it, no one else could.  My purpose is as unique as a fingerprint and
I loved the way my grandmother weaved the stories together to make my life seem important. I thought of the poem, 
Seven
and the words and what they meant
. 
I want it to be
real.  True.  I want
to enter into the realm of seven, touch the fingers of God and be
made whole, forever. 
What happened to that girl?
Where did she go? 
 A sadness emerges inside me. Somehow, long ago, I stopped functioning in this realm of belief. I left all the old tales be
hind, the little girl behind.  I exchanged faith for fear but I
can’t tell you how
it happened. 
Sure, I could easily tell you how others felt. I fed off 
their
emotions, feelings and attitude, all of it. Especially Branson. 
And here I go again.
 Talking about him. He is attached to my hip like some cancerous lump just like Doc says. 
Why can’t I just stop?
I don’t know how to stop. 
The shadow of fear and numbness settles on me like an old friend, a safe harbor shielding me from things I never wanted to confront. Somehow I have lived with this feeling bottled up inside me since childhood, a shell shock methodology of some sorts, a survivor tactic that automatically came out. I was scared to move forward…scared to go back, scared to accept, scared to make a decision, so I just remain stuck. 
A ship not leaving harbor.  A bird not seeking flight.  A queen without a crown.  A star not twinkling.  A moon not shining.  A kite not shown the blue sky.  A little girl not finding her centerpiece.  No one makes lovely their losses. 
I stared beyond Doc's figure in her
throne chair.  My
vision slipped into another realm. I got up and walked, circled the room and paced like a scared panicked horse. I held my heart as if it would literally fall out of my chest. It pained me, grieved for things unknown, recollections
of no memories.   

“I am soooo MAD!” I
screamed loudly and sudden. 
A voice that wasn’t familiar took over. I was captured, overruled, dominated. “I could kill somebody! I could literally scream for hours!” Doc looked concerned and followed me with her eyes. I grabbed the pillow off the couch and pressed it to my face and screamed. A strange, dark bellowing howl leaked from me, intolerable, beastly and awful.
Something that died long ago, resurrected itself and it was angry. 
“Whyyyyy?” I howled. I sat on the couch, threw the pillow across the room, hit my legs with a fury then got back up, panicky and trotting, unable to sit still. “Why do I feel so damn responsible for everyone?” My desperate glaze fell across docs face. She replied in her calmer-than-calm tone.