My Therapist Says
By Jennifer McMahon
Winner of the 2022 Bray Literary Festival Flash Fiction Competition.
The old house looks like it was torn down by a tornado long ago, then clattered back together with rusty nails to make a jagged jumble, with slanting walls and a porch that leans towards the cherry trees in the garden, and here we meet for the first time, my cousin Billy and I, after my mother deposits me into the distracted care of Aunt Zeta, a leathery beanpole of a widow in a baggy beige pullover to match her skin, a modern witch with a wicked grin, and she tells us to go and play, and mind your cousin, Billy, see no harm comes to her or we’ll never hear the end of it, then she sits on the sun-chair on the porch, lights a cigarette and pours another glass of whiskey, and tells us that this is what she has to do, most of all, to sit and think and figure things out, because life’s one big mystery, but if she can sit for long enough and bend her mind in just the right way, she might catch a glimpse of the truth.
It’s all about the journey, my therapist says, and I nod and yawn, pretending to listen, remembering Zeta and Billy, she blooming clouds as the wind blooms cherry, he with his orange-slice smile and runabout feet, the rumble of bees and the rustle of small birds rattling around us while floors creak and windows shake, the whole of it rolling in the wind like a ship under sail, and it’s an easy house to hide in, among its musty closets and dusty halls, with spaces just made for a girl who’s short for her age, and when I find a wardrobe stuffed with ancient frocks, their lilac fragrance fills me with twilight summers as I push myself deep behind them, let their skirts embrace my shape with darkness, and I wonder who wore them, long ago, who lived in this house and set their feet upon these boards, while Billy’s voice resonates through the wood, counting down from twenty, ready or not, here he comes.
Hide and seek is a solitary game, my therapist says, and every secret longs to be told, but all I can hear is Billy getting closer as the blood draws from my face, and my therapist says it’s just one more step, that’s all I need to take, this is my chance to solve my own mystery, of why I must always light a cigarette and pour myself another whiskey, bending my mind in just the right way while I sit on the porch and try to figure it out, why my mother never came back for me, why the beanpole woman never wore those dresses again, why the creaking of the wood and the shaking of the windows and the wind-cast petals throwing shapes in the garden all added up to the sum of me, a girl who’s short for her age and stayed that way her whole life, always growing down instead of up, then light startles me as Billy opens the door wide with a loud gotcha, and my therapist smiles because I’m there.