After she returned home the last time, she said she would never go back to the hospital.
“They are afraid of me, Mama. They say they want to help me, but they’re afraid of me. And I’m tired of all the tests. So are the others. They told me so. They won’t go back, either.”
I felt my heart sink at that. Nothing the doctors had done had made the slightest difference. She still believed in those figments of her mind, still thought that they were with her, supporting her, a part of her. What could I do?
There was one thing that had always puzzled me. Finally, I asked her.
“Jamie,” I said one day, not long after we had been to the lake. She had looked up from the game she was playing and smiled in that way she had, all filled with light. “Why don’t they come out to meet me?” I was making coffee and asked the question as casually as I could, but my hands shook a little.
“Oh, Mama, how could I let that happen?” she said, happily. “I would miss you too much. They understand. I always want to be here when I’m with you.”
How easily I accepted that. I trusted her. I knew that if that was what she believed, then it was true for her, and so the others would stay beneath the surface, or deep inside, wherever they lived within her mind. For a moment, I almost felt as if she were protecting me, for what would I do if I saw them, anyway? How would I be able to manage that?
There had been signs so early. The doctors were so eager, as if they had found a species of fish in the dark water miles and miles down in the sea. I remember now as vividly as then what they asked me, and the look they gave her when they examined her, when they asked her so many questions. And I remember the history they took from me, before I understood what they were about, what they really wanted.
“When did you first notice her behavior changing?” the head of the group asked me, a Dr. Moss. From the day she was born, I wanted to say, but I didn’t.