What Shall Surely Come to Pass

My mother stood facing the kitchen sink with her back to me.

Her eyes were red and swollen and she was scrubbing at some small bit of burnt detritus sticking to the bottom of the saucepan. The sponge had been abandoned and she was attempting to use her fingernail, squinting as the late afternoon sun hit her face through the western-facing kitchen window. An errant strand of hair hung in her eyes and she tried to shake it clear. She wore thin white linen pants and her feet were bare.

I remembered sitting between those feet as a small child. She usually tried to occupy me with a pot and wooden spoon, but I would invariably use her legs as play equipment instead, winding myself through them like a snake. Or, I would lie on my back and try to slide myself across the smooth linoleum, staring at the lights on the ceiling and throwing my mother into fits of panic as she tried to remove heavy casserole dishes from the oven.

In the fading light I stood evenly on both feet, breathing slowly and pressing my fingertips together. Beholding my mother. I walked toward the stove and carefully removed my favorite old German-made chef’s knife from the mounted magnetic strip. The knife had a perfect, straight edge a mere molecule wide and was blurred from constant sharpening. I had always believed that the most dangerous tool in a kitchen was a dull knife. The handle was comfortable, and I gripped it firmly, feeling the muscles in my forearm clench.

My mother turned at the feeling of my nearness, face soft, eyes questioning. Her arms were loose at her sides. With complete clarity of purpose, with no hesitation at all, I drew the knife and plunged it toward her chest.

And then, heart racing, I woke.

----

"That sounds like a very disturbing dream," Dr. Delfi remarked, leaning back and folding his arms behind his head. I winced. The gesture seemed offensively casual. It was a relatively new therapeutic relationship necessitated by the fact that I had fallen deeply and unrequitedly in love with my previous psychiatrist. I wasn't sure yet if it was a good fit. Reviews had been mixed.

"It was." Dr. Delfi let the silence stretch. "I mean, I love my mother. I'm so grateful for her. Why would I have this dream? I have nightmares sometimes, but usually I'm being chased. I've never been the violent one in my dreams. And it was so intense. So real."

"Do you think that the dream has some deeper connotation?" I felt a twinge of annoyance and didn't answer. What an uninspired question. 

Noting my glower, he changed tact. "We've spent some time discussing your daughter of course, but I don't think I know much about your mother. Jocelyn, right? She lives with you, doesn't she?"

Slightly better, Dr. Delfi, I thought. Still veering Freudian, but better. "Yes, she’s lived with us for a while. My parents were married for 37 years and my father divorced her to marry his yoga teacher. She was very depressed. Financially she was fine, but she just didn't do very well living alone. But now, I feel like she's much better. She's started gardening--she will talk to you all day about chemicals and the evils of factory farming. And she has helped so much with Lydia, of course. Since Cyrus travels so often for work."

Dr. Delfi nodded seriously. "How did you two get along when you were growing up?"

I probably should have been expecting that question. Keep it light and mild, I thought. "Actually, when I was a teenager, we fought. She's just--sort of fussy. She picks at things. She worries a lot. It was exhausting to be the object of her scrutiny. But she's much better now, I think she's mellowed out. Isn't that a thing? People unwinding as they age? I'm certainly looking forward to that!" I gave a self deprecating chuckle.

He ignored the joke, staring to the right of my head and rubbing his hands together slowly. He blinked and re-focused on me. "Well, I think you are entirely right to be concerned about this dream."

"Really?" It felt as if my stomach had been plunged in ice water. I had told Dr. Delfi about the dream so that he could tell me that it was nothing. A burst of neural randomness, a bit of undigested tikka masala. My animal brain agreed with him due to the uncanny vividness of the dream, the textures, the air of inevitability. But I knew logically that dreams are not subconscious missives.

"Yes. In fact, I believe that what you dreamed will come to pass," he said matter of factly, fingers laced, leaning forward.

"Is this some kind of, like, therapeutic technique--"

"No, no, I'm being entirely sincere," said Dr. Delfi with an even smile. "I've done quite a bit of research on the subject of prophetic dreaming. The Judeo-Christian tradition has examples obviously, the Greeks talked about it--you ever hear of poor King Croesus, his son killed by a spear? No?" His voice lowered conspiratorially. "My theory is that everyone has these dreams, but forgets them. Do you know why?"

"Why?"

"Because they make a mockery of free will!" he said laughing, face turned up in glee. "The prophecy will come to pass and cannot be changed. We cannot escape from the machinations of fate, and the mind abhors it. Going somewhere, dear?"

Without realizing it, I had gathered my bag and coat and was clutching them. My limbs were made of stone and my mind was a perfect blank, but I managed to stand. "You are insane," I said flatly, and walked out the door.

His laughter rang into the hallway. "Ah, well, all the best to you, Odelia! May all your dreams come true!"

----

I went through the rest of my workday in a daze. I considered reporting Dr. Delfi to the medical licensing board, but did not have the wherewithal. My entire body felt wretched--I had to shuffle my feet to remind myself I was touching the floor, to clench my hands to remind myself I had fingers. I knew that I had done something irrevocable by telling Dr. Delfi my dream. Before, when it had only existed in my mind, it was amorphous, unwritten. But now that I had uttered it, the wheels were set in motion.

My mother had to leave. I had depended on her for far too long.

When I arrived home, purposefully late, a single perfectly portioned plate of rice noodles with pesto waited on the table and my mother was putting Lydia to sleep. The house was encouragingly quiet. For the past few weeks the night time routine had been going well, which was a welcome respite from the prior 6 months. My mother attributed the improvement to the new gluten-free diet, I thought it had more to do with the picture board we started to use to help Lydia through difficult transitions. In the past it would have taken both of us to get her to sleep. 

I poured two large glasses of chilled white wine. I stared at the congealing pesto, willing myself to eat it, but couldn’t. I dumped the dish into the yard waste bin, covered the evidence with used coffee filters, and gulped down a glass of wine. I washed the pot that was left in the sink. Briefly I considered removing the knives from the kitchen, but decided that I didn’t have the capacity to come up with a reasonable explanation. 

There was a lullaby now, trailing down the stairs, which meant that I had another 5 minutes or so. Drinking wine and debriefing about the day had become something of a ritual. I was getting a large head start, though. My mind was becoming simpler, buzzier. 

Was the table safe, I wondered. Yes. Just not the kitchen. The sink was empty. It was night.

“You’re home late,” my mother said, appearing across the table from me like an apparition. Her eyes flicked up and down in assessment. “You look tired.”

I let it wash over me. “How is Lydia?”

She sighed, crossed her legs, and started on the wine. “She did well at school. Ada said that she was very calm. They are going to start her on an iPad app, I guess, for communication. Since she isn’t talking. I got her to eat some broccoli--I blended it into the pesto.”

“We should use the iPad at home too,” I said. “For consistency.”

“We?” she snapped. “You mean, you want me to figure out how to use the iPad. And to be her speech therapist. And a behavior analyst. While you get to do whatever the hell you are doing at work all day.” Her mouth twisted and she looked at her lap.

This was a gift. “You know what?” I asked. “There is a lot of truth to what you are saying. I ask you to do too much.” She looked up in surprise. “I think you should be enjoying your retirement. Traveling in Europe. Planting gardens.”

“What about Lydia?”

I swallowed. “I’ll quit,” I said, “or maybe I’ll work part-time from home.”

She shook her head. “It wouldn’t work,” she said. “You don’t--care enough. I’m sorry to say it, but it’s true.”

It was night. We were not standing in the kitchen. The dishes were done. “There is a difference between not caring and accepting that her autism cannot be cured.”

“You won’t even try,” she hissed. “You are so apathetic, it makes me sick. How many times have I begged you to let me take her to my naturopath? Autism didn’t even exist when you were a child. It’s the toxins! If we could just remove the toxins--.”

“Don’t take her to the naturopath,” I said tiredly. It was night, but I didn’t trust myself. I stood up and splayed my fingers so they couldn’t grip a knife. “I’m going to bed. I’m going to start taking care of Lydia. Plan a trip or something.”

I could feel her staring at me as I walked up the stairs.

----

The process of changing my position at work from full-time to part-time and remote was far more difficult than I expected it to be, and much of the friction was needless and the result of no small amount of pettiness. It was after one of those long and frustrating meetings that I received an urgent call that Lydia had a seizure and had been transported to the hospital.

Lydia had never had a seizure before. I felt like I was being sucked into the center of the earth.

It was a Tuesday morning and I assumed that the incident had taken place at school. However, the nurse corrected me and said that the seizure had occurred at the office of Dr. Spears, ND following an injection of disodium edetate that had resulted in hypocalcemia. It was called chelation therapy, apparently, and was typically used for the treatment of heavy metal toxicity. Chelation was sometimes used by quacks as an experimental treatment for children with autism. Something about extracting toxins. They were concerned about possible kidney damage.

Lydia had been accompanied by her grandmother. 

Cyrus had flown back into town the night before and arrived at the hospital before I did. “They are going to transfer her out of the ICU in a few minutes,” he said. “They think she’s OK, but they want to keep her admitted so they can monitor her for a while, maybe a night or two. She’s not in a coma, but she’s exhausted from the seizure.”

“Did you get to see her?” I asked.

He nodded, reached out and took my hand. “She’s completely out.” I focused for a minute on the feeling of his thumb moving in circles on the back of my hand.

I had to know, though, where she was. “Was Jocelyn here when you got here?”

Cyrus took a deep breath, as if steeling himself before a plunge. “Yes. I told her to leave. She can’t be around Lydia anymore. You agree, right?”

I nodded numbly. It was almost like I was floating, like I was a spirit only lightly tethered to my body.

“And, you didn’t know--about this whole chelation thing, right? It was all her?”

“Right,” I whispered. I couldn’t bear to tell him that she had asked me about the naturopath, that I was given some warning.

“I’m sorry. I should have talked to you first, before telling her to leave, but I know we can make it work without her. Hire a nanny.” I didn’t reply. I never told him anything.

The day consisted of us sitting in various pairs of chairs, me staring at the wall, Cyrus looking at his phone. We met with her doctors twice. Her vital signs and lab results were reassuring, they said, and her prognosis was good. They were hopeful that there would be no permanent damage, but it was far too early to make any promises.

Lydia looked so small and delicate in her large hospital bed surrounded by blinking machinery, her wavy hair spread over the pillow. Her face was as sweet as it always was when she was sleeping. When she was awake she was a hurricane, a force of nature, but asleep she was the picture of peace.

There was a fold-out bed in Lydia’s room and the hospital offered to provide an additional cot so we both could spend the night. “I can go home and get some clothes for us,” Cyrus offered.

For the first time in my life my mind was in perfect order. “No, I’ll do it,” I said. 

I had allowed this evil to infiltrate my house and to poison my child. I had allowed this scourge to flourish, this unrelenting eye that captured whatever was imperfect and systematically picked it apart. She was right, I realized--my apathy was unforgivable. Now we would both be punished. 

----

As I entered the house, I noticed my mother’s suitcases and bags in a large pile next to the front door. The air was a cacophony of aromas--curry and garlic and cinnamon and rosemary and mustard and broccoli and onion. She was probably leaving us some meals. As if we could eat her food. As if every bite wouldn’t turn to ash in our mouths and lead in our stomachs.

My mother stood at the kitchen sink with her back to me, washing a pot in the late afternoon. Her eyes were red and swollen.

I relaxed. There is a beauty in certainty, a sweet inevitability in being the train that has only to follow the tracks. Thank you for showing me what to do, I thought, unsure of who I was thanking. The colors of the room were unnaturally vivid, and the world seemed to vibrate and hum like a struck tuning fork. That hum compelled me, filled my body like an animating force. Would we be here now, if I didn’t know the way? And I drew the knife and plunged it toward my mother’s chest.