The Girls He Adored

70

After growing up in sunny San Jose, Irene Cogan found she rather enjoyed fog-if you didn't, you didn't settle in Pacific Grove. There were few things she and Frank liked better than having coffee and cinnamon rolls in bed on a foggy Sunday morning. Two newspapers, the Monterey Herald and the San Jose Mercury News, spread out across the comforter, a silent football or basketball game on the bedroom TV for Frank, the radio tuned to classical music for Irene, and through the second-story window, the silver fog drifting lazily through the boughs of the great live oak in the front yard.

The fog on Scorned Ridge, however, was a different creature, oppressive, damp and cold and heavy. When Irene opened her eyes shortly after dawn on Tuesday morning, it seemed to her to be pressing up against the bedroom window, as if seeking a crack through which it could gain entry. She pulled the blankets over her head and tried to go back to sleep.

Some time later, she couldn't say how long, Irene found herself sitting on the toilet with her nightgown hiked up and no memory of having entered the bathroom in the first place. She tried to tell herself that it was funny, or at least ironic, that under stress the DID specialist should find herself displaying symptoms of a dissociative disorder, but it wasn't-it wasn't funny at all.

What it was, was a wake-up call. She spent the next hour sitting at the writing table going through her notebook, looking for some weakness, some crack in Maxwell's system, that she could exploit in the guise of therapy. According to her notes, little Lyssy seemed to be the only alter with whom Max and the others did not share memory.

But Max had already informed her that Lyssy was unavailable. Even if Max were lying, Lyssy could only be accessed through hypnosis, which would require Max's cooperation. And if she did access Lyssy, she would still be dealing with a weak, infantile personality who couldn't do her much good, unless he knew how to shut off the power to the electric fence, which seemed unlikely.

Mose, though-Mose would know how to shut off the power. He'd tell her, too. But unlike Lyssy, Max and the MTP did share memory-they might even have some sort of co-consciousness or copresence setup, in which case Max would know the moment Mose told her.

Alicea was a possibility, if Irene could establish some sort of sisterhood connection. But even if Alicea agreed to help Irene, Max could easily seize consciousness from her.

Christopher, though-what was it Christopher said yesterday? When he was in love, his personality was strong enough to threaten Max's control. That was why Max hadn't warned him about Miss Miller.

When he was in love. In love. In love…

Irene found herself in the bathroom again. Not sitting on the toilet this time, but standing in front of the sink, staring alternately at the box of Strawberry Blonds Forever on the stainless steel shelf, and her reflection in the mirror behind it.

For the first time in years, Christopher had been in control as Maxwell fell asleep, and stayed in control long enough to enter REM sleep. In the beginning of his dream he was down at the swimming hole with Mary. Below the dark green surface of the water, she had slipped the top of her bathing suit down for him; her nipples were puckered and hard from the cold.

By the time the dream ended, though, she wasn't Mary anymore- she had somehow turned into Irene. Which was fine with Christopher. He slipped from REM back into stage-two sleep with a peaceful smile on his face and an erection substantial enough to prevent him from turning onto his stomach for several more minutes.

But it was Max who awakened in the body the next morning. As always, he recalled, indirectly, as if he'd seen it in a movie, everything that had happened while Christopher and Useless and the others had been in control. He understood immediately what was going on. Not only was Christopher gaining power and influence from the therapy, but the other alters seemed strengthened as well. Exactly the opposite of the results he'd hoped for-he vowed to put a stop to it.

“Not… guh… happen,” he muttered aloud. “Wouldn't be prudent.” A pedestrian George Bush impression, not up to his usual standards.

By ten o'clock, when the knock came at Irene's door, the fog had burned away-it was another gorgeous day in the southern Cascades.

“Just a minute.” Irene checked her reflection in the mirror, primped up her slightly damp strawberry blond hair, and opened the door. She couldn't tell at first which alter she was dealing with, but whichever one it was, he was momentarily struck dumb. She prompted him: “Well, what do you think?”

He whistled softly-he couldn't take his eyes off her. “I think my dreams just came true.”

It's Christopher, she decided. Thank you, Jesus. “It's a little dark, but it'll probably lighten up as it dries.”

“It's perfect.”

“Thank you. By the way, I wanted to apologize for last night, for not letting you in to say good night. The truth is, I had the impression you might be going through some transference, and well, the real truth is, I was going through some countertransference myself.”

“Now my dreams really are coming true.”

“We can't act on it-surely you understand we can't act on it.”

“Of course not.”

She could see the hurt in his eyes. “At least not yet,” she added hastily. “We still have a lot more work to do.”

“I understand,” he said sweetly. But although the voice was Christopher's, for just a moment there, Irene could have sworn she saw a flicker of Max's sardonic expression gazing back at her from behind those gold-flecked brown eyes.

“Is there anything that's happened since our last session that you need to discuss?”

It was slightly chillier in the forest this morning than it had been the two previous days. Maxwell wore a bulky brown-and-white Oaxacan sweater over his hula shirt and shorts. Irene wore a cranberry-colored cardigan from the closet over a short-sleeved blouse and a pair of white ducks.

“Other than falling in love with my therapist?” He glanced over his shoulder, gave her that Christopher grin.

Irene forced herself to smile back. “We can start there if you'd like-but I'd have to give you my standard speech on transference.”

“Something that happened while I was in town, then.”

“Yes?”

“We must have had a spontaneous alter switch-I don't think anybody noticed. I found myself in the Old Umpqua Feed Barn.”

“Where you originally met Mary.”

“Right. But what I wanted to tell you-as far as I can remember, it was the first time I was back there since, I guess since she died, that I didn't feel an overwhelming sense of guilt.”

“What did you feel?”

“Sadness. But a peaceful sadness-like I'm finally starting to put all that behind me.”

“Sounds like progress. Anything else?”

“Not off the top of my head.”

“All right then, let's move on. Yesterday, before you started telling me about Mary, you said something I need to ask you about.”

“What's that?”

“You said something about Mary being the first one.”

“No, I didn't.”

“I distinctly remember-”

“Max said that.”

“I see. What do you think he meant by it?”

“I'll tell you later. First I have a present for you.” From the deep pocket of his sweater he removed a small packet: gilt wrapping paper folded into a rectangle and secured with transparent tape. “Happy anniversary.”

“Excuse me?”

“Don't tell me you don't remember?” Genuine disappointment, even a hint of anger.

Desperately, Irene searched her memory. Finally it came to her. “It's our one-week anniversary. We met one week ago today.”

“I knew you couldn't have forgotten.” He handed it to her. “Go ahead, open it. Just a little something I picked up in town.”

She tore open the paper; a pair of emerald drop earrings spilled out onto her palm. They were exquisite-and if Irene knew her jewelry, frightfully expensive. She realized immediately that he hadn't bought them yesterday, or they'd have been in a plush box. She tried to think how to react.

In the normal course of therapy, Irene would have had to: 1) inform him that an expensive gift was inappropriate at this point in their relationship and that she couldn't accept it; 2) gently call him on his lie about having just bought it, and try to find out why he'd felt it was necessary to lie; and 3) point out that he'd changed the subject from Max's comment about Mary being the first one.

But this wasn't about therapy-it was about surviving. So she thanked him as effusively as she could, then worked the questionmarkshaped gold wires into her own earlobes, her own flesh, despite a suspicion so strong it bordered on telepathy that Maxwell had stripped them from the previous owner's body after raping, then murdering her.