Gwen, in Green

George went in for a shower. She looked into space. Why had she said that, about where they came from? For a moment, at the time she had been speaking, she had known. Now it was not clear. It rather frightened her, for she had been, in that instant, a different person. In retrospect, the feeling made her even more uneasy, for once before she’d been someone else. “Come here.” She could hear the words in her mind and see the doubtful, hopeful look on the meter reader’s face.

“Is it normal,” she asked Dr. King during her next session, “to feel, at times, as if you’re someone else?”

“Why do you ask?”

She shrugged. She’d had the dream again, for the first time in weeks. It had been an especially painful dream involving dismemberment. She felt as if she’d betrayed both George and herself.

“I don’t know, really,” she said. “The other day I said something, that’s all. Something which I wouldn’t ordinarily say.”

“Tell me about it.”

“I was watching the Venus-­flytraps,” she began. “I said,” she paused. She tried to form the words. Suddenly her mind went blank. She shook her head as if dazed.

“Yes?” said the doctor patiently.

“It doesn’t seem important anymore,” she said.

“You’ve discovered some Venus-­flytraps, then?”

“Yes. Aren’t they fascinating plants?”

The doctor seemed to be lost in musings. Actually, his old mind was cranking over slowly. Something had been touched. He couldn’t quite place it. “Keeping busy, are you?”

“For a head shrinker,” Gwen laughed, “you ask a lot of questions. I thought you were just supposed to listen.”

“When you’re as old as I am, you get impatient,” he said. “Especially when your patients won’t talk unless primed.”

“I’ve never been accused of not talking enough,” she laughed.

“But about what?” He lit a long cigarette and took it to his mouth, shortened it with a long, deep drag. “Not about shotguns in the living room.”

“You do get to the heart of things,” she said, suddenly uncomfortable. “Would you believe that I was going to clean it for George?”

“No.”

She’d been mostly successful at blocking out the entire afternoon. Satan, under observation in the animal hospital, was only days away from freedom and she just days away from what she knew to be a false delivery from a rabies scare. The cat had been inoculated against the disease. Moreover, she knew why he’d attacked her. He had been protecting her. It was grossly unfair to put him in prison for fourteen days for having saved her life. Yet, without telling the entire story she could not get him out. She’d make it up to him. Half and half instead of milk. Fresh hamburger. Poor Satan.

King was looking at her thoughtfully. She shifted in her seat and composed herself. It seemed, now, that she had had a moment of temporary insanity. It was past. She’d had only one nightmare since the event. She was not so weak that she needed to soothe her conscience by confession. Wonderful as George was, he was human, and male. He could not possibly understand that her strange behavior had hurt her far worse than it could ever hurt him. So, she decided, let the hurt be confined.

“It’s silly,” she said. “I heard something. You know, we’re a long way from anyone. I heard what I thought was someone walking on the deck. I got George’s gun, then peeked out the door. There was no one, of course.”

“Why didn’t you say that at first?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I suppose I was so upset by poor Satan’s insanity—when they possessed him—” She paused, shook her head. “Now why did I say that?”

“Why, do you suppose?”

“I have no idea, but that’s what I mean about sounding like someone else.”

“Who are they?”

“Dr. King, I have no idea why I said that. I’m not superstitious. I’m not being secretly bewitched by some black magic cult or anything. There’s nothing mysterious about me. I just say things out of context, not even realizing I’m saying them.” She smiled disarmingly. “I’m just losing a few marbles, not the whole bag.”

“Don’t try to beat me out of my job, not after thirty-­five years,” King said, smiling. “I’ll make the opinions, if you don’t mind, and now my opinion is that it’s time for my nap.”

When Gwen was gone, he sat heavily on the corner of his office assistant’s desk. “You’ve read the notes on this case?”

“I don’t read them, I just type them,” she said. Ruth Henley had been Dr. King’s assistant for thirty-­five years. Once, long ago, before the fires were banked in both of them, she’d shared his bed.

“There’s something about it,” King said. “I can’t put my finger on it. Something which should be right here.” He banged on his forehead with his palm.

“I’m having Cornish game hen tonight,” Ruth said. “I can fix two as easily as one.”

“Nice of you,” King said absently. He thunked his thumb nail against his dentures. “Ruthie, when you’re not busy—” she snorted “—could you dig back a few years? Something to do with talking to plants, I’d think.”

“Any suggestions where to start?” she asked, rising, tucking in her blouse over her old, lax stomach muscles.