be wiser to try to get to the source.”
“Have you ever been physically attacked or assaulted?”
He’d had a few tussles in high school and college but nothing to produce recollections like this. “Not that I remember.”
“Have you ever been in a severe accident?”
“No.”
“Were you in the military or in any disaster—fire, earthquake, anything like that?”
“No.”
“What about traumatic childhood experiences? Any frightening events?”
Jack heard a slight hum in the back of his mind but shook it away. His uncle Kirk had died of cancer when Jack was twelve, his aunt Nancy when he was a sophomore in college. Their deaths were sad, of course, but not traumatizing. “No.”
“Well, it sounds to me as if you’re having intrusive recollections or some kind of dissociative episodes that leave you with a sense of having relived some disturbing experience, yet you say you can’t recall any such event.”
Jack wanted to leave.
“Let me just ask if any of these episodes are associated with your drinking alcohol.”
“No.”
“Are you drinking much?”
“A beer once in a while.” He checked his watch. The hum had begun to buzz through his limbs. He wanted to be out of there.
“Do you find yourself avoiding particular thoughts or feelings, people, or places?”
“Uh-uh.” God, he wished she’d end the session.
“What about feelings of detachment or estrangement from other people?”
“Sometimes.”
“I mean in the extreme?”
“No.”
“Any sense of foreboding?”
He shook his head. His leg was bouncing.
“Well, can you think of anything that might specifically set off these flashbacks or illusions—internal or external cues that might symbolize or resemble some aspects of the events?”
“Do you have suicidal thoughts?”
“Suicidal thoughts? Yeah, sometimes. But it’s more that I just want to escape, not kill myself, if that makes sense.”
“Tell me the difference.”
Jack thought for a moment. “I don’t feel masochistic, like I want to punish myself. It’s just that I feel like Humpty Dumpty with too many pieces to put back—and a few missing.”
“I see.”
“But it’s not all the time, just when I’m feeling sorry for myself. But I’m not braiding a noose.”
Dr. Heller smiled, then blanked her face as she studied him, looking as she were trying to read a ticker tape across his skull.
“So what can you give me?”
She handed him the slip with the name of the neuropsychologist. “Call him. You’re clearly blocking something, and if you still choose not to”—and on her prescription pad she wrote something down—“take this to your pharmacy.” She handed him the second slip. “It’s called Zyprexa—it has sedative effects and has been shown to reduce nightmares associated with PTSD.”
“PTSD?”
“Post-traumatic stress disorder. But I think you really should see an expert if you want to do something about these episodes. Because what concerns me is that you appear to be blocking something.”
65
DR. HELLER WAS RIGHT: HE WAS BLOCKING something, all right.
And he was avoiding places—the cellar, for instance.
She was also right that maybe in addition to his new PTSD pills he needed a good shrink to get behind all the memory flashes, bad dream scraps, and little pockets of horror his mind would pass through, because they had gotten worse since he’d been out of Greendale. Maybe he should call that name on the script sheet and talk all the vomit from his soul until he got to the bottom.
That large stuffed mouse with its head bashed in.
BECAUSE THE ARCHIVES OF LOCAL NEWSPAPERS from thirty years ago could not be accessed online, Jack rented a car and drove to the Boston Public Library the next day. There, in the basement, he located microfilm for the
The New Bedford paper gave more details of the search-and-rescue attempts for the next several days. There were several different articles covering various aspects of the storm, including one that reported on the damage to coastal homes and boats.
One mentioned the disappearance of Rose Najarian.
COAST GUARD SEARCHES FOR MISSING MASS. BOATERA Massachusetts boater has been missing since Friday, when her sailboat was apparently capsized by high winds and choppy seas in the waters off Homer’s Island in the Elizabeth Island chain off the coast of Massachusetts.Coast Guard vessels went into action at daybreak, when a call went out from Falmouth police after island residents discovered the washed-up and damaged remains of an Oday 17 belonging to Rose Najarian of Watertown.
Seeing his mother’s name listed was like putting his finger in a wall socket. For as long as he could remember, she was simply the biological circumstance of his existence and a label to someone in old photographs. But seeing her name in print had the effect of connecting that existence to a life he knew almost nothing about. What he did know—and it came back to him like a heat-seeking missile—was that she had handmade that stuffed mouse.
He continued reading:
According to officials, Mrs. Najarian was apparently attempting to batten down her vessel in anticipation of yesterday’s nor‘easter, characterized by northeast winds of 30 to 40 mph. Police reported that her two-year-old child was found inside a beachfront cottage over a mile from where her boat washed up.It is not known if life a
