There’s No Place Like Here

37

Jack slept in Bobby’s box bedroom that night, surrounded by posters of sports cars and half-naked blondes. On the ceiling were miniature stars and spaceships that once illuminated brightly in the dark but, like Bobby’s presence, now merely emitted a faint glow. Stickers that had been stuck to the door and the discolored wallpaper had been torn off, leaving He-Man without his sword, Bobby Duke without his cowboy hat, and Darth Vader without his helmet. The earth’s solar system was displayed on the navy blue duvet cover, every planet and place to be seen but the one Bobby was in.

A writing desk was piled high with CDs, a CD player, speaker phones and magazines containing yet more cars and women. Few school books were piled up in the corner, their place of importance low on the scale. Above the desk, shelves burst with more CDs, DVDs, magazines, and football medals and trophies. Jack doubted anything had been altered since the day Bobby had left this room and never come back. Jack placed his hands on as few items as possible and tiptoed on the carpet, not wanting to leave his imprint behind. Everything in this room was precious and existed only as a museum.

Peeking out from between the posters of cars and naked glamour models was Thomas the Tank Engine wallpaper. Just beneath the surface lay childhood with only a thin layer to separate it from adolescence. It was the room of someone no longer a boy but not yet a man; of someone in a place between innocence and realization, on the path of discovery.

Jack once again felt as he had earlier while in the house. He felt trapped in a time that wasn’t allowed to move on. The door plate reading BOBBY’S ROOM: KEEP OUT! had been heeded and the door had been firmly shut, leaving everything inside, all the treasured items locked away as though the bedroom were a safe. Jack wondered whether Bobby was elsewhere now, living his life, whether he had moved on from the image Mary was fighting to hold on to or whether his journey had ended. Was he forever to exist in time as no longer a boy and not yet a man, in an in-between place as an in-between person with nothing fully whole, nothing fully realized?

He thought of his own refusal to let go of Donal and what Dr. Burton had said to him about replacing one search, which had reached a dead end, with another. He supposed in theory he was refusing to let go, but he was adamant that it wasn’t due to an unwillingness and inability to move on. He shook away the thought that he was in any way similar to Mary, hanging on to memories and being stuck eternally in a moment that had long since passed. He pulled the duvet over his head and hid from the stars on the ceiling and galaxy above him. Realistically, his search for Sandy wouldn’t find Donal, but something in his heart, in his mind was driving him forward.

Tomorrow would be Friday, and Sandy, if she didn’t wander back into her life, would have been missing for six days. He needed to make the decision now whether it was the moment to pull back, to open the door of his life and allow the trapped time and memories to escape, to move on and catch up on all it had missed. Or he could go full steam ahead with this search, peculiar and out of the ordinary though it might be. He thought about Gloria at home, the nothingness he felt toward her, his life, and their future, and he decided that he, like the Bobby that still inhabited the room he lay in, was embarking on a journey of discovery. He heard Mary switching off the television and unplugging appliances in the kitchen. A gap in the curtains welcomed a sudden light to seep through into the bedroom, shining a ruler of yellow light onto a poster of a red Ferrari. Realizing it was the porch light, Jack was engulfed by a strange sort of calm and he watched the light on the wall until his eyes became heavy.

He awoke at eight forty-five the following morning to the sound of his phone ringing.

“Hello?” he croaked, eyes looking around and momentarily thinking he’d traveled back in time to his teenage years and was waking up at home in his mother’s house. His mother…he felt a pang of loneliness for her.

“What the hell are you doing?” his sister Judith asked angrily. In the background he heard babies crying and dogs barking.

He groaned. “Waking up.”

“Yeah?” she said sarcastically. “Beside whom?”

Jack turned to his right and looked at the blonde wearing not much more than a cowboy hat and boots. “Candy from Houston, Texas. She likes horseback riding, homemade lemonade, and taking her dog Charlie for walks.”

“What?” she shrieked, and a baby cried louder.

Jack started laughing. “Relax, Jude. I’m in the bedroom of a sixteen-year-old boy. There’s no need to worry.”

“You’re what?”

Could he hear gunshots?

“JAMES, TURN THAT TV DOWN!”

“Ouch.” Jack moved his head away from the phone.

“I’m sorry, did that noise from hundreds of miles away disturb you?” she said in a huff.

“Judith, why are you so tetchy today?”

She sighed. “I thought you were only going to Dublin to meet with the doctor.”

“I was but I thought I’d ask around a bit more before I head home.”

“This is still about the missing-persons woman?”

“Sandy Shortt, yes.”

“What are you doing, Jack?” she asked softly.

He rested his head back against Babs from Down Under’s nether regions. “I’m putting my life back together.”

“By tearing it apart first?”

“Remember when we used to do the Humpty Dumpty jigsaw together every Christmas?”

“Oh dear, he’s lost his mind,” she sang.

“Humor me. Do you remember?”

“How can I forget? The first year it took us till March to finish it and all because Mum cleared it off the good room’s dining table in a panic when Father Keogh paid one of his surprise visits.”

They both laughed.

“After Father Keogh had left, Dad came in to help us start again, remember? He taught us to separate all the pieces, turn them all face up first and then get to work putting them together.”

“And they said ‘All the king’s horses and all the king’s men.’” She sighed. “So you’re gathering all your pieces.”

“Exactly.”

“My philosophical baby brother. What happened to trips to the pub and fart jokes?”

He laughed. “That’s still inside me somewhere.”

She turned serious. “I understand what you’re going through and I understand what you’re doing, but do you have to do it all on your own without telling anybody anything? Can’t you at least make it back home for the festival this weekend? I’m going tonight with Willie and the kids, there’s an outdoor band playing and some games for the kids with the usual fireworks display on Sunday night. You’ve never missed one before.”

“I’ll try to get there,” Jack lied.

“I don’t know where Gloria gets her patience from. She seemed so cool about you staying on, but you’re certainly testing her. Are you deliberately trying to push her away?”

Jack was about to launch into another defense of himself but stopped and thought about it for a change. “I don’t know,” he said, sighing. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

“Good morning,” Mary sang, knocking on the door.

“Come in,” Jack called out, wrapping the bedclothes around him.

There was a rattle and a few clinks as the handle lowered and Mary pushed open the door with a tray filled with breakfast.

“Wow,” Jack said, eyeing the food hungrily.

Mary laid the tray down on the writing desk. She didn’t move any magazines or CDs, preferring to allow the tray to rest dangerously on the edge of the desk. Nothing was to be touched. Jack was surprised she had allowed him to sleep in the bed at all.

“Thanks, Mary, everything looks great.”

“You’re very welcome. I used to love treating Bobby occasionally to breakfast in bed.” She looked around the room, wringing her hands together. “Did you sleep well?”

“Yes, thanks,” he replied politely.

“Liar,” Mary said, moving toward the door. “I haven’t slept through one single night ever since Bobby disappeared. I bet you’re the same.”

Jack just smiled, grateful to hear he wasn’t the only one.

“I have to go open the shop now, but take your time. I’ve left a towel in the bathroom for you.” She smiled, took one more haunted look around the room, and was gone.

Jack was glad he’d made a note of all of Sandy’s future appointments before handing her diary over to Dr. Burton. For today she had written “YMCA Aungier Street. 12 Noon-Room 4.” There was no mention at all of what the occasion was, but he noted that she had attended it, or at least made a note of it, once every month. He decided it was best not to call ahead but to go straight there.

He entered the building ten minutes after twelve, thanks to Dublin’s dire traffic he had yet to account for in his travel time. There was no one behind the counter at reception, so he leaned over the desk looking left and right and called out, but to no avail. He was faced with many doors and notice boards advertising fitness classes, child care, computer classes, counseling services, and youth work programs. What was behind door number four? he wondered. He seriously doubted it was another counseling service but whatever it was he hoped it wasn’t a fitness class. Computers, he hoped for; he could do with learning about computers. He rapped lightly on the door, looking for signs of what was inside and hoping, hoping it was Sandy.

The door opened and a lady with a kind face answered.

“Hello,” she said with a smile, her voice almost a whisper.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Jack whispered. Whatever was going on behind the door, it was certainly being done quietly. Yoga-he hoped it wasn’t yoga.

“Don’t worry, people are welcome regardless of the time. Do you want to join us?”

“Em, yes…I was actually looking for Sandy Shortt.”

“Oh, I see, did she recommend this to you?”

“Yes,” he replied, nodding emphatically.

She opened the door wider and a circle of people turned to stare. No mats, he thought with relief, no yoga. His heart beat wildly as he looked for Sandy, wondering if she could see him before he’d spotted her. And if she was looking at him now, would she recognize him? Would she be angry he had found her, hiding in her burrow, or would she be thankful, relieved someone had noticed her absence?

“Welcome. Come and take a seat.” The woman held her arm out toward the circle while somebody unstacked a chair from the side of the small room and brought it to the circle. Jack walked toward them searching from face to face for a sign of Sandy. The circle grew larger as he neared, the movement like an umbrella being opened slowly. He sat down with trepidation. Sandy wasn’t there.

“As you can see, Sandy unfortunately isn’t with us today.”

“Yes, I see that.” He ground his back teeth together and the familiar pain began to throb at the back of his mouth.

“I’m Tracey,” the woman said.

“Hello.” Jack cleared his throat nervously as heads turned to stare at him, assess him, study him, analyze his every awkward move. “I’m Jack.”

“Hello, Jack,” they all responded in unison and he paused, his eyes widening in surprise at the hypnotic tone of their voices. There was a long silence as he shifted uncomfortably in his seat, not at all sure what it was he was supposed to be here for.

“Jack, would you prefer it if the others spoke first this week and maybe next week you can tell us your story?”

His story? He looked at everybody else; some had notepads and pens in their laps. To one side of the room was a white board with the words WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT circled at the top. From that circle stemmed the words FEELINGS, THOUGHTS, CONCERNS, IDEAS, LANGUAGE, EXPRESSION, TONES, among so many others he couldn’t take them all in, and finally he came to the conclusion that it was more than likely he was in a creative-writing class.

“Sure,” he replied with relief, “I’d like to listen to everyone else first.”

“OK, Richard can you start off for us by letting us know how you got on this month.”

“Here, I find that this helps,” a woman beside Jack whispered and handed him a pamphlet.

“Thank you.” He left it on his lap and decided to wait until Richard had finished his story before reading through it. Richard’s story was a rather absurd tale about an instantly unlikable man and his constant fear of acting on violent impulses. He droned on, painfully and miserably reciting the tale of how an equally painfully miserable man constantly felt overly responsible for the safety of others, to the point that he was afraid to drive out of fear he would run over someone with his car. At times, Jack shook his head and laughed out loud thinking it an obvious, however slightly dark, comedy, but he quickly stopped after receiving numerous odd looks from the group.

Minutes-which felt like hours-later, the room was still echoing the incessant droning of Richard’s story, each word sounding twice in Jack’s ears, which were already bored from hearing them the first time. As the story moved toward being just plain depressing, with the main character’s behavior the cause of the loss of his wife and child, Jack finally tuned out and began to read the pamphlet scrunched beneath his clammy hands.

His relaxed body stiffened as he finally concentrated on the cover of the thin glossy booklet. Hot waves of color spread from his neck all the way to the top of his strawberry-blond head within seconds as he read WELCOME TO OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE ANONYMOUS.

Jack sat quietly through the remainder of the meeting, feeling embarrassed to be there and generally ashamed by his earlier behavior during Richard’s story. Keeping his head down when the hour was up, he filed out of the room, hiding among the rest of the members.

“Jack!” Tracey called out and he froze. He stopped walking and allowed everyone to file past him, watching their faces as they prepared to leave their safety net and battle the world and all its demons, alone. He also saw Dr. Burton, who was waiting outside the room, arms folded and a face like thunder. Jack took a few steps back into the room toward Tracey.

Tracey caught up to him and held out her hand to shake his. “Thank you for coming today,” she said with a smile. “You know your coming here was the first step in helping to heal yourself. It’s a rocky journey; it will be difficult, but please know that we are all here to help you through it.” Jack heard Dr. Burton laugh mirthlessly. “The twelve steps that we mentioned earlier, as originated by Alcoholics Anonymous, and adapted for OCA, can bring relief. I’ve seen that they can reduce and even eliminate our obsessions and compulsions, so do come again next month.” Tracey patted his arm encouragingly.

“Thanks.” He cleared his throat awkwardly, feeling like an impostor.

“Do you know Sandy well?” she asked.

He winced, disliking being asked the question in Dr. Burton’s company. “Kind of,” he said uncomfortably, clearing his voice.

“If you see her, tell her to come back to us. It’s unusual for her to miss a meeting.”

Jack nodded again and felt glad now that Dr. Burton was within earshot. “I’ll do my best.”

“Hear that?” he said to Dr. Burton as soon as Tracey was out of earshot. “She says it’s unusual for Sandy not to be here. I wonder where she is.”