Reception Read online

  Poor Leon. He just stood there sagging on the top step, the weight of Mom’s barrage of questions and concerns keeping him from conscientiously answering. Every time he tried to interject, she was quick to come up with something else, some other line of inquiry about my treatment. She hadn’t liked him much when she first met him during check-in, and she certainly didn’t care much for him right in that moment. Her disapproving gaze honed in on his wild hair and his usual uniform consisting of Atari logo tee, faded jeans, and sneakers. At least he hadn’t been wearing that hideous jacket of his that time around, the one with the patched elbows. That was about as “professional” as Leon was willing to get.

  I caught a snippet of what he finally was able to say to Mom, only because he’d raised his voice, and that itself was startling. Gone was the cool, easy façade he’d perfected. This version was a Leon I’d never seen or heard before.

  “Mrs. Boone, she’ll need as much support from you as she receives here. She needs empathy on your end. Walk in her shoes. Try to understand her. The handbook I gave you earlier details her tapering plan, but that’s just part of it. Both her body and mind have gone through significant trauma because of the damage to her central nervous system.”

  Mom seemed as if she was about to say something else, but she stopped herself. It looked as if she was thinking over his words carefully before she shook his hand and then pulled him in towards her. Or maybe it was the other way around. I just remember how close they were, head-to-head, conspiring, sharing secrets about me, the family shame, the walking embarrassment. They glanced over at me, smiling broadly, but their gaze read much more than that. I caught the glint in Mom’s eyes, that apprehension and doubt.

  Yeah, it was already off to a rocky start.

  #

  Leon’s strange, distant stare and his last words to me before we left him standing there on the steps played on repeat, an extended loop. Around and around, like a recording that’s dissolving into white noise.

  Remember what I said the other day.

  (I do. It’s important to remember those sorts of things.)

  When you’re feeling like everything is sucking all the air from you, you find something solid. Look at it. Hold it. Use its solidity. It will remind you what is here. What is now. It will bring you back to where you need to be.

  You will be released from the lie that’s keeping you bound.

  It feels as though every day is a lie “keeping me bound.” I can’t discern quiet from noise and noise from quiet. And everyone is keeping things from me. I try to not let it affect me, but it’s difficult whenever I walk into a room, and everyone’s there, and then suddenly the silence is shouting at me to take notice of what isn’t being said.

  "Feet off the dashboard please." Mom said, startling me out of my thoughts. She wrinkled her nose in my direction, clucking her disapproval, and then squinted out at the millipede of traffic ahead of us slowly inching its way out of the city limits.

  "Did you forget to bring your specs?"

  "Spectacles, Ansley. Don't abbreviate," she answered as she shoved at my bare feet with a free hand. "And, no, I did not. They're back at the hotel, so you’re going to have to let me know when we’re closer to the turnoff." She reached awkwardly around and wriggled a hand into her bag. She then pulled out a thermos and handed it to me. "Hydrate. You need to drink plenty of water. Leon said it will ease some of your symptoms."

  I made a face at her. Even still, she had a point. I just loathed the reminders again and again. The water felt good going down, frosting over the burning in my chest.

  I slid my feet closer towards the steering wheel, grinning at Mom as I did, egging her on. She hated it so much. Anything to relieve the tension, the thrumming heatwave that was roiling in my head, the constant swishing of my heartbeat in my ears. The headaches and tinnitus had grown worse over the past few weeks. Leon told me to expect that along with plenty of other withdrawal symptoms. Lovely symptoms like nausea (check), rapid heart palpitations out of nowhere (check), high blood pressure (check and medicated), air hunger (check and try-not-to-call-for-an-ambulance-again-dumbass), tremors (check), and so on…and my real hell was only just getting started.

  Frankly, at first, Leon didn’t look as if he’d taken to Mom, and the feeling appeared mutual. Again, it was her evident embarrassment, the pressing questions, the idea of anyone in her family needing such therapy. It was Dad’s prodding behind Mom’s initial doubts. No matter how much Leon tried to convince them both it had been the right thing for me to choose rehabilitation over prison time, Dad didn’t shy away from sharing his disapproval. He’d always scoffed at anything involving psychiatric care and rehabilitation.

  Leon’s one of those people you can’t help but like when you first meet him. He greets everyone with a broad smile and a hug, and he never forgets a name, ever. With my folks though, and even when it was just Mom there, he took two steps back and kept it there. His smile, half-cocked, up until those last words on the steps.

  I wish I’d heard what he and Mom had said about me.

  At the very least, he was considerate enough to give Mom a copy of the Ashton Manual with the tapering schedule as he'd promised her, even though she could’ve easily downloaded the thing online like regular people do in the modern age. Mom despises the Internet though. She hates it so much that it’s practically prohibited when everyone’s gathered for the holidays at home. Cell phones are often a no-no, too, unless anyone there is working and needs to keep in contact with colleagues. Only good old fashioned, uncomfortable chitchat permitted. Shay and I often spent our holiday gatherings ducking into the bathroom, feigning stomachaches, to text friends and lovers or search for something online. Anything to keep us relatively sane in a household on motherly lockdown.

  And, perfect timing, my phone then buzzed in my bag, vibrating a reminder that I was never really lonely against my knee.

  Mom loudly cleared her throat in my direction as I fumbled around in my bag for the thing. “Ansley, really now. Can it wait?”

  I grasped my cell from its tangled confines in the bag. Glanced at it, muttering a halfhearted apology at Mom. It was Leon, on schedule. He’d promised he’d be texting periodically while I was away. A part of the therapy that I liked, a part that was probably mandatory for me. At any rate, none of us at the center would ever have to deal with our suffering alone. The support was always there.

  REMINDER: When you get there, make sure you take breaks, little sister. Practice your breathing. Eat when you’re hungry. Drink water on the hour. Don’t give in to what isn’t there. And don’t let anyone have you do anything you’re not ready to do.

  “How much longer?” I asked Mom as I sent back a quick reply. Done, done and DONE. Mom’s hating this right now.

  Having met your mom, I can pretty much guarantee she’ll make sure you’ll do exactly as we agreed. She seems to like taking care of business.

  Mom sucked in her breath, exhaled a long whoosh of air. Her exasperated sigh, full of dramatics. “Not too much longer now.” She reached over and shook my bag strap. “Answer quickly and put it back in your purse. There won’t be time for any of that this weekend. I know he’s requiring a check-in with you, but you’ll have to keep that thing in your room during the ceremony and reception at least. It signals one as anti-social.”

  I ground my teeth together as I sent Leon a final message.

  You have no idea. Don’t know if I’m gonna make it this long.

  “You’re going to be fine, Ansley. It will be fine,” said Mom, answering for Leon as well, almost as if she’d known. “Well, your father’s none too happy about any of this, what you’re going through, but he’ll eventually understand. It could’ve been worse. He knows that. We just have to wait. He can read that Alton Manual and get a better idea of what you’re going through. You know he likes to research.”

  “Ashton Manual. Ashton, not Alton. She was an expert. Google her.”

  “I don’t play Google. You know that pe
rfectly well.”

  “You don’t ‘play’ Google, Mom. It’s a search engine. Kind of like a virtual card catalogue but better because it’s so much faster with no annoying call numbers to jot down. You should try it. Get yourself out of the late 20th century like the rest of us decades ago.”

  “Don’t have time for it. I’ll leave that sort of thing to your father, if and when he wishes to walk that avenue.”

  Dad. Yeah. About that guy. He’d always been a presence there in the darkest spaces of my thoughts. He was convinced that what I was going through was my own undoing, and he reminded me of it, not through his words but through his actions. Maybe “actions” isn’t the right word though. More like “inaction” through passive-aggression. I mean, he’d leave the room whenever mention of the court dates, and then the medication issue, popped up. Get away to the gun range to practice, practice, practice or to the bookstore where he could sit for hours, poring over as many libertarian biographies or manifestos as they had on hand (his mantra was that anything terrible that ever happened was always the end result of one’s choices). If he couldn’t get away, he’d change the subject to something politically charged so he could vent until he was purple and clenched.

  To Dad, my problem, the withdrawals, was, of course, due to my own poor choices in how I handled my crippling anxiety, the panic attacks, the blackouts, the flare-ups. The irony of the matter is that he and Mom and their dour temperaments have most certainly been one cause of my problems. It didn’t take crappy, drug-reliant therapy to make me see that. I knew that; I’ve known that all along.

  Shay was lucky, but she’s always been lucky. Luck and shine just suited her. She was a princess at home and in school, holding court whenever and wherever she felt up to it. She’s had Dad wrapped around her baby finger for thirty-four years now. Mom, on the other hand, refused to kowtow to Shay’s princess act. Well, unless Shay brought up something she knew they both had in common. Quite often, it was clothes shopping and cream tea at one of the many downtown tearooms that have suddenly popped up everywhere, having grown nostalgically trendy over the past decade. Once the shopping-and-scones excursion was over though, the two of them would head off in opposite directions, Shay back to her glamorous life as an upscale department store chain buyer and Mom back to her life of whatever her interest-du-jour is (one day it may be book clubs, another day it may be tapestry circles, I never know anymore). They’d avoid getting in touch with each other until another purse or jewelry sale popped up nearby, preferably in-between where the two of them could meet without complaint.

  “Speaking of Dad, is he and what’s-his-name still getting on, acting out their libertarian gun-fetishes?” I knew what Shay’s to-be-father-in-law’s name was, but the headache was getting worse, causing my mind and memory to go all mushy, and I wasn’t in reach of my suitcase where I’d stupidly stashed an extra large bottle of Ibuprofen (last minute addition courtesy of a last minute emergency trip to the drugstore much to Mom’s dismay).

  “Your father has agreed to behave for Shay’s sake, even if that means I have to tolerate him with that man for a few more days.”

  “Man, I’m starving. I’m never this hungry,” I muttered, forcing the subject to die a sudden death. “There’d better be enough vending machines there to ease the evening munchies.”

  “The kitchen might still be serving dinner by the time we get there,” said Mom, “but if not, I’ve some granola bars in my purse.”

  “Granola bars? Are they burger or hot dog flavored?”

  “Don’t be silly, Ansley. They’re just granola bars. I often bring some whenever your father and I have to fly somewhere. Airline companies have been cutting costs down, and it’s ridiculous. There’s never any food, even cross-country. It’s all pretzels and peanut butter crackers,” she said. “Anyway, if the kitchen is closed and if you’re really that hungry, I’m sure Rex has enough clout to get the kitchen staff to stay late, if need be. He can be irritatingly persuasive, that man.”

  I fidgeted with my cell in my lap, scrolling through all the old texts, the searing reminders of the breakup that started all of this, the cautious lies, the halfassed apologies, the name of the very pregnant other woman I hadn’t even seen coming around the bend, the craziness that refused to settle. I chose my words carefully as I scanned those angry words, all of those angry words. “Yeah, he’s kind of a tool, that man.”

  Mom snatched my phone from my lap and shoved it into my bag, sniffing as she did when she was supremely annoyed. “I’m sure Rex has all the best intentions for his family and for Shay, even if his own sense of respectability and civility shows otherwise.”

  “See? You can’t stand him either, Mom. Turns Dad into a buddy-buddy, macho jackass.”

  “Don’t talk about your father that way.”

  “Sorry, but I needn’t remind you that you can’t stand Rex either.”

  She sniffed again, wriggling her nostrils at the rugged landscape ahead of us. We were on a winding country road that wove us deeper into the crusty dips and valleys of Hill Country. “I don’t care for him, no. I don’t care for any of them,” she said. “However, if he’s what makes your father agreeable during social events, so be it. Still, I don’t know how his own child can stand his absolutely boorish behavior. And his wife…Delia…”

  I could sense she wanted to say more, but Delia, the matriarch of the Card family…She was a hard one to put into words, the right words. She seemed all satin and grace. She’d greet you with a sparkle, a laugh, a chitter-chat, a soft squeeze of the arm, but her eyes whispered something else to you, something secretive and knowing, like nothing could ever get by her.

  And the way she treated Shay. You’d think they’d been the best of mother-daughter-girly-friends for years. I knew that was even worse for Mom.

  “Doesn’t hold a candle, Mom,” I said softly. “She’s not you. You know that, right?”

  Mom sniffled and waggled a hand in my direction, as if she was fanning the air of the implication alone. Then she wiped her lower lash lines with a careful, delicate swipe of a finger. She tended to get teary when she was infuriated and jealous about something significant. “Delia has been wonderful to Shay. Just wonderful. And I want Shay to be happy. She’s never been as happy as she is when she’s with friends.”

  “Hey now,” I said, squeezing her free hand. “I’m here, Mom. I’m your friend, you know.”

  “You’re never around much though, are you? We hardly know what’s happening with you anymore, Ansley. When your father got the call that you’d had that breakdown at your work, that you’d been arrested, and all of this, what you’re going through now—”

  Jesus H. Christ, that. It was always going to be about that. That itchy scar etched on my workplace, on my social life, on my family’s reputation and so on forever and ever. It had been broiling there, bubbling in the wings as the thought of him with her, their happy family, their cozy-cuddly life together threatened to scald me from the inside out. All it had taken was one more reminder, and it was so stupid. Just a simple, little ping on my phone signaling a text message saying, You need to leave me alone. It was the proverbial last straw for me then and there. Of course, it just had to have been at the call center of all places. Right when I was in the middle of dealing with another long-winded customer complaint, of all times.

  Apparently, my outburst frightened the hell out of everyone there, including the boss’ kids who’d come in with him after my boss had picked them up from school. I wouldn’t know though. I’d forgotten most of what happened. It was almost like it all had been erased from my memory altogether, a protective barrier shielding me from the truth about my behavior and everything I did in that moment.

  Lots of things were like that though, those missing fragments.

  The police report indicated I’d hurled my desk phone at my boss, striking him hard above the eye. There wasn’t any permanent damage, thank God, but the written reminder and court documents and legal fees will always be th
ere, my permanent scar. He pressed charges, of course. I was in county for a couple of days before Dad reluctantly posted bail. In the end, courtesy of a sympathetic judge and a thorough (read: expensive) lawyer, I was sentenced to a month’s stay in a rehabilitation center of “our” choosing coupled with mandated therapy and a year’s worth of community service. That said, it was much better than the alternative.

  Still, it’s yet another scar, another reminder, I was unfit to work, to interact normally, have a life and such.

  I was unfit to exist around normal people.

  I waved at Mom, signaling her to stop before my heart burned a hot hole deep within me. By that point, my head hurt so much my eyes were watering.

  “I know,” I said. “I’m sorry I haven’t…I didn’t mean to keep things from you. I don’t mean to do that. It’s just you’re so difficult to talk to about—Well, like when Simon broke up with me, it wasn’t just a passing issue, Mom. It wasn’t just some little thing that could’ve been shrugged off like you always say we should do. He just stopped speaking to me, and the next time I hear anything about him, he’s married with a little girl on the way. That’s not normal. That’s not right. And I couldn’t take it. Between that and the prescriptions and the anxiety over every little thing I did, it all made me sick. I mean it, physically ill. And getting off the stuff is even worse.”

  “You could have called then, Ansley. You should have called. We could’ve helped somehow. We didn’t know anything.”

  “I know, Mom. I’m sorry. You’re right. I should have. I keep saying that though. I feel like I can’t apologize enough for it. You know how it is.”