Belt Buckles & Pajamas Read online

  The walk helped. I see two paths before me, to match the halves of my heart. That is more than I saw before, when all that existed was a mirror showing me the past that controlled my life. A mirror that reflected the multiple facets of my self-image. Those facets have merged, I am whole now, and though I will always miss them they will always be part of me.

  I walk confidently into the afternoon session, eager to share with Andie my internal reasoning. To show her how she has assisted in my journey from the past to the present. To ask her to continue on that journey on into the future.

  Gordon is there already, as is Pet Shop, Andie and regrettably Doctor Martin. Kareem is also standing by, keeping a watchful eye on me. I give him a thumbs-up, letting him know I am not going to attack anyone’s lips.

  “Daphne,” Doctor Martin begins, and I have a slight panic attack as I discover he is not only here to observe this time, “I’m glad you felt up to joining us this afternoon. Did you find your rest relaxing?”

  Andie told him about the kiss. I can tell, the way he looks at me, checking my reaction, seeing if it is really me pulling the strings. Hunting for Violet, I suppose.

  “It was fine,” I say, not giving in to the desire to launch myself across the room and knock him off of his chair. Not wanting to give him the satisfaction of thinking he can affect me.

  “Good. Doctor MacPherson and I have been discussing your situation. She believes that you have been improving lately. That you are controlling your actions more consistently. More responsibly. More…” He pauses. “…appropriately.”

  She didn’t tell him after all, I realize. Kareem gives me a wink. He and Andie must have decided to keep Doctor Martin in the dark about this morning. She must have believed me when I said I was sorry, that I knew it was wrong. Everything I figured out at the cemetery this morning, she must have already known.

  “I agree with Doctor MacPherson. You are responding very well to her treatment. What we would like to do is take the next step. This weekend, we are going to have you stay in another facility. A house in town, fully staffed but with more exposure to regular activities. To more people. Just for the weekend, to see how you like it.”

  The outside world. The real world. I don’t know what to think of what he is telling me. Away from here? Away from Gordon and Andie? I look at Andie, seeking reassurance, verification that this is her plan too, and not simply an avenue of Doctor Martin’s to separate me from those I love.

  “Daphne,” Andie says, clasping my hands in hers. “This is a good thing. Trust Doctor Martin and me. If we didn’t think you were ready to try this we wouldn’t be doing this. There will be people there to help you if you get scared or confused. It will almost be like living here, you will just meet some new people. You’ll have a little more freedom in your schedule, to do the things you feel like doing. To try some new things, like helping cook dinner or washing your clothes.”

  “Will you be there?” I ask.

  “No, I have to stay here. This is where I’m needed most.”

  “What about Gordon? Can he come, too?”

  Doctor Martin answers, “Gordon isn’t able to leave these facilities. His history is not… conducive to outside living.”

  “Homicidal maniac terrorizes post office,” explains the cow.

  Gordon looks at Pet Shop, and the cow shuts up. Doctor Martin notices how quickly Gordon reacted.

  “Doctor MacPherson, has Gordon been more responsive lately?”

  “Perhaps a little. Daphne has been spending a lot of time with him, I believe their friendship has opened him up a little.”

  Doctor Martin frowns. “I hope that’s all. We don’t want him opening up too much. We should go over his charts later, just to make sure.”

  Gordon has his fists clenched. He is sweating again. I lean over a little and nudge him, just enough to remind him that I am here. That I care about him. He slowly unclenches his hands.

  “Andie, do I have to go? I don’t want to be there with a bunch of people I don’t know. With nobody who likes me.”

  “It’s only for a couple days, Daphne. And I am sure once they meet you that they will like you. It will be good for you. I know you are strong enough to handle it. Please, do this. For me.”

  And she has me. Soft, brown eyes full of confidence, full of pride for me, believing in what I could do. Showing trust and concern and love.

  I nod, give a quiet “okay” and am rewarded with a big smile and warm squeeze of my hand and that is going to have to be enough to strengthen me for a couple days among strangers.

  Fifty-Nine: Final Spin

  Gordon and I are sitting on the couch, holding hands. I pull the blanket on top of us, not sure how friendly he wants to get, not sure how friendly I want him to get. But if something happens I would rather have it occur under the covers than out in the open.

  Pet Shop is staring as the wheel spins round and round. I am not sure if he even knows what the wheel is for, I think he just likes watching it spin.

  I turn to Gordon. “I’m scared of going away. I wish you could come with me.”

  He gives my hand a squeeze, acknowledging my anxiety. He caresses my cheek with the other hand, brushing back my hair, fingers lingering on the nape of my neck. He is much more Shy Boy turned into Gordon than Scary Gordon clenching fists. Maybe it is just Doctor Martin that makes him like that. I give him my warmest smile, trying to pull him in to kiss me, wanting him to lean down and seal this moment together.

  He does lean down, but when I part my lips he angles away from the direct contact. His mouth aims for my ear, and he gives a gentle kiss to it. He holds the position, and I am not certain if this is the most tender way I have ever been kissed or just the silliest.

  I hear him breathing against my ear as he holds me. The warm air exhaling, the intake pulling the air back in. It’s like a seashell containing all the roar of the ocean, so enormous is the sound of his breathing. And the TV is silent, the hedgehog cannot be heard – all is tuned out save for the rush of his breath across my ear.

  The breath slowly, softly, quietly changes. From the toneless in and out variance begins. Bass and treble. White noise turning into coherent sounds. Slowly forming words.

  “I love you,” Gordon whispers into my ear.

  The words echo through the caverns of my mind, increasing in volume until they threaten to shatter my eardrums. It is not Gordon who shouts but my own reaction to them that is making it seem so. His voice, soft so I alone could hear, nevertheless sounds so loud in my mind it drowns all the background noise out.

  I pull back, looking fiercely into his eyes. “Gordon, did you…” I leave the question unfinished. The shine in his eyes, the tears falling down his cheek, tell me the answer, let me know it was not my imagination. I hug him tightly, whispering my own love into his ear.

  “Lights out,” Kareem tells us.

  Gordon and I walk to our rooms, hand in hand. I kiss him goodnight, not even caring that we aren’t under any covers, that others might see us. He doesn’t say anything else, but that’s okay. If all he ever says is “I love you,” even if he never says it again, I can accept that. I heard it once; I will remember it forever.

  Sixty: Midnight Mayhem

  I am in a house with a picket fence and a deck in the backyard and a washing machine. I am doing the laundry. I hear the door open and it is Andie, home from work. She looks tired but glad to see me and I give her a kiss and it isn’t like an obligation, she isn’t kissing me because I keep the house clean, she kisses me because she loves me and I am special to her.

  The door opens again and Gordon walks in, home from work. He looks tired but glad to see me and I give him a kiss and it is just like Andie’s kiss. I smile at both of them I am so lucky to have the two people I love with me in my nice picket fence house with a kitchen and a stove that I know how to cook on.

  Andie and Gordon look at each other and ask each other how work was and they both say fine and they laugh because they asked the same
question and answered it the same way. They laugh and then they accidentally bump into each other and then they start kissing.

  They tear each other’s clothes off and kiss and grab and they don’t even see me anymore. They attack each other with a savage passion and soon they are stark naked and stroking each other all over. They fall onto the floor and they start to make love and they are screaming words of ecstasy and telling each other they love one another and I am fading away as they explode in mutual orgasm.

  I sit up, sweating, heart racing. A nightmare, I realize, it was just a nightmare. But a new one. This wasn’t my past haunting me, it was my own fear of the future. Afraid that the perfect family life isn’t an option for me. Frightened that neither Gordon nor Andie will ever be a part of that life with me. Because they can’t, or they won’t? Because of them, or me?

  Minutes become hours as I struggle to fall asleep. It is no use, my mind is racing and my heart is still beating rapidly and I am soaked in sweat. I get up, strip off the sopping clothes. I pull on dry replacements, return to the bed. I freeze when I hear the door open.

  His figure looms in the doorframe, silhouetted by the hallway light. At first I fear Sam has come to reattempt his ravage, but then he approaches and I can barely make out Gordon’s features in the pale light from the hallway.

  He is breathing as hard as I was after the nightmare, his hair is all mussed and his hands are wet when they touch my face. He places a hand on either side of my face and leans in. The kiss is hungry, passionate, animalistic. It is far more demanding than any I have received from him in the past. I sense the need in him, the need to be held, comforted, loved. The need for compassion. The need for union. The need for sex.

  Hands still holding my head in place, our kiss continues as he lowers himself onto the bed beside me. I slide my hands under his shirt, they roam his chest, kneading his breasts, fingernails digging into his flesh.

  Our lips separate, and even in the near darkness I see his eyes shining. “Daphne,” he says softly. I see him struggle to find the words.

  “It’s okay, Gordon. I know what you want. What you feel. I feel it to. I want to… finish this time.”

  His eyes are overflowing. His passion, his love, so evident that I can’t help crying at the same time I smile with joy.

  “Make love to me,” I tell him.

  He smiles, releasing the hands that had held my head in place during the entire time we had kissed. I lift my own up to latch on to them, to pull them down to my breasts. I bring the interlaced pairs lower in between us and as they are illuminated by the light from the hall I see they are covered in blood and I can’t keep myself from screaming at the sight.

  “Oh my God, Gordon, what did you do?” I shout, shoving him off of me.

  He falls onto the floor, stunned from both my outburst and the sudden change from intimacy to attack. I turn on my room light and am shocked at the sight of him. His hands, arms, clothes – there is blood everywhere. I see the tracks he left on the floor. I look at my own hands and clothes and see the trail of red marks he left.

  He rocks on the floor, his arms around his knees, crying. I don’t know whether to hold him or run and hide. I look at him, helpless, alone, afraid. As I have been so many times.

  I go to him. I reach out, and he clutches me, clinging to my chest, sobbing as a child. I hold him and I rock him until the crying subsides. I lift his head to mine and give him a kiss on the forehead.

  “He knew,” Gordon says between sobs. “He knew and he was going to make me go away and I wouldn’t even know you anymore. Wouldn’t love you anymore.” His voice gives out, and he just cries in my arms.

  “It will be okay, Gordon. Andie will help you. I will help you. We’ll all get better together,” I promise him. I lie to him. I know what the blood means. I know I will never see Gordon again. I know as soon as they find him it will be Shy Boy forever. Drooling, silent, doorstop Shy Boy. With no light in his eyes, no passion in his soul, no love in his heart.

  I pull Gordon up off of the floor. “Let’s get you cleaned up,” I tell him. I grab some clean sweats and shirts and lead him to the girl’s bathroom. I strip the blood-covered clothes off of him and place him under the showerhead. After a second’s debate I think what the hell and remove my own, also stained red from our embraces.

  I rub the soap all over, cleaning off the red, trying to clean the stain of his deed as well but knowing that is beyond my reach. Even when I wash his genitals, there is no reaction from him. It is a boy not a man who shakes under the hot water. A lost child. I feel ashamed at the way it makes me feel, being there in the shower, naked and wet and covered with suds. I want to reach down and force him hard, to complete the act we began on the bed. But I know that is not what he needs now. That this is about helping Gordon.

  I rinse us both off. We step out of the shower. I grab a towel and try to dry him off. It is difficult because he keeps clinging to me. He panics a little whenever he isn’t touching me or I am not touching him. I finally get him dry enough to slip a pair of sweats onto him and a t-shirt. He’ll have to go commando, I didn’t bring any panties and I’m not sure I would want them to find him wearing those anyway.

  I hear people running in the hallway. I quickly dress myself. I give him a hug. One last hug. I look him in the eyes. “I love you, Gordon. I’ll always love you,” I tell him. He says nothing, just looks back at me, as if to burn one last memory in before it is all taken away from him.

  Sam comes bursting in. He tackles Gordon, pulling his arm around brutally, shoving a needle into him. I stand silently, tears falling down my cheeks, as the light fades from Gordon’s eyes.

  Sixty-One: Aftermath

  Andie is here. We sit, side by side, on my bed. The bloodstained sheets are tossed off to the corner of the room. After Sam took Gordon away, I remained in the bathroom until Andie came and brought me back to my room.

  “Daphne, I have to ask you some questions.”

  I nod, understanding she sometimes has to do her job, even when all I want is to hold her and cling to her as Gordon did with me. To have her rock me until my crying subsides. To have her scrub me clean of blood and sin.

  “Did you know Gordon was going to attack Doctor Martin?”

  I shake my head. “No. I knew he didn’t like him. None of us do. He isn’t like you, Andie. He is mean and spiteful and doesn’t care about any of us.”

  “Doctor Martin may not be as open as I am,” Andie concedes. “But that doesn’t make him a bad man. That doesn’t justify Gordon’s actions.”

  “I know. Andie, I swear I had no idea that Gordon was going to hurt him. I would have told you.”

  “I believe you,” she says. I wash him clean and she still believes me. I don’t deserve this angel, I truly don’t.

  “I’m more upset at myself, to be honest,” Andie says. “I saw the change in Gordon, I knew he was responding more to external situations. I was too optimistic, assuming it was all because he was interacting with people more.”

  “You mean with me. Did I make him do this?”

  “Oh God, Daphne, no!” Andie says, looking shocked at my question. “Don’t think that, not even for a minute. It wasn’t you. If anybody is to blame, lay it at my feet. I should have checked his charts sooner – I should have realized he wasn’t taking his medications.”

  “You can’t be faulted for caring about us, Andie. For treating us as humans. For making us want to become better. If not for you, I never would have left the past. Without your concern, without your guidance, I would still be lost. Surrounded by myself yet still alone. Without you, I never would have found love. Love with Gordon.” I hold her hand tighter. “Love with you.”

  She embraces me. I brush her hair gently with one hand, the other curled around the small of her delicate back. I sit there on the bed, comforting the angel of mercy who has brought me back from the dead. Again I feel my shame as I long to turn the comfort to need, to change the gentle brushes against her hair to aggressi
ve strokes against her body. I push those feelings back, and welcome the compassion, the care, the love that washes over me, engulfing us both as we comfort each other over what we have lost.

  Sixty-Two: Reunion

  It has been several years since I last visited this cemetery. I kneel beside the weathered tombstone bearing that number I will never forget. Number three seven dash four three three will forever be burned in my mind. But with that number will be the names on this plaque. Norman Jameson, Meredith Booker, Samantha, Zachariah. So many names, remembered by so few. But at least they are known. Known by people like me, who know what lives they lived on this campus.

  I trace the many plates on the plaque. My eyes mist when I see the two finely detailed plates that Gordon carved so long ago. I smile when I see Pet Shop’s zoo scenes with the dozens of animals. My own drawings look simple, but I think they tell their story well. Even now, I look at them and I feel the connection to the deceased inhabitants of this graveyard. The simple lines etched on metal plates still cry out their message to me. A message of recognition, of personal value, of common bond with humanity. Of love.

  My fingers rest on the final plate. My mind travels back, calling forth the memory of its creation.

  “Daphne, we’ve had this conversation a million times. You have to do this. It’s an important step in reclaiming your independence.”

  I look at Andie, pleading, praying, but her resolve does not waver. “But I don’t want to be independent. I don’t want to be away from here. From you.”

  Andie sighs. “You don’t belong here, Daphne. You have healed. It is time to move on. You need more space, more opportunity to grow. You don’t need me anymore.”

  The words crash down. She says I don’t need her but I hear that she doesn’t need me. That unless I am broken and bleeding there isn’t anything for her to nurse. That she doesn’t need me to hold her and to be held by her and to love her and that she will always love me but never be in love with me. Never ever want me the way I want her. Never see a curl of my hair and turn to mush inside like I do when I see that little wisp above her ear.