they ceased altogether around Emily’s fifteenth birthday. The damage was done. Sleep had cast its odd, subtle shadow over her life.
Two years of therapy had gone nowhere, or, actually,
everywhere
. Deceased mother this, deceased mother that, and then, of course, the doozy that nobody ever even knew her father. He might be anywhere, anyone, or just as deceased as her deceased mother. Every man was potentially her father. Emily was told that this was how she perceived the world. And those bad dreams that Emily politely insisted weren’t dreams?
They were dreams
. She’d have to accept that. She’d have to accept that whenever she saw a man, shethought: Daddy. Better she realized this now, before she entered into more destructive sexual relationships in the future, right? Her bad dreams were probably PTSD-like attempts by her subconscious to attract the attention of a father, who might be anyone, anywhere, et cetera. Or they were sexual in nature, which is why she couldn’t properly describe or account for them, or was too embarrassed to. “Tell me again about being
upside down in your own body
, Emily. Where does that mean your head is? Can you point to where your head is on your body when you’re upside down in your own body?” Yuck. Gross. Emily walked out on two of her four therapists because they developed a crush on the idea that Peppy was sexually abusing her in the middle of the night while she was sleeping. “But that’s not happening,” Emily told them. “That’s not what I’m here for.”
“If I may, isn’t it likely that you yourself don’t know what you’re here for?”
“Like here on earth?”
“Well, you’ve got a delightful sense of humor. That’s established. I appreciate that. For the sake of argument, Emily, let’s say that if something like that is happening then you don’t know that it is happening. It’s not your fault. Only your subconscious knows.”
“My subconscious told you to tell me?”
“Couldn’t it be that your so-called night terrors are telling everyone?”
Then there was Route 29’s near-total isolation. They never got around to having poor Mr. Jeffries nocturnally raping her, but that, Emily assumed, was only because they’d never seen his face.
“Why do you think this Mr. Jeffries keeps his deceased mother in the attic, Emily? Can you tell me a little about his mother?”
“God, I’m just joking!”
“OK, let me ask you a question. Isn’t taking nothing seriously the same thing as taking everything seriously?”
Then there was her grandfather’s alleged misanthropy: Did Emilyfeel beholden to it? Enslaved or manipulated or cowed by it? Did she have to feel the same way about the world in order to meet his approval? He was, after all, all she had. Did she think that was normal? Did that frighten her? His age? His mortality? Isolation? Irony? His masculinity? Did his occasional lady friends disturb her? Then, finally, there was her love of plants—now here was a metaphorically fertile subject! Tell us about gardening. How does it make you feel? Tomatoes. Soil. Cucumbers. How do tomatoes make you feel, Emily? How does holding a cucumber make you feel? Because, hm, perhaps gardening was nothing less than Emily’s own way of mothering herself and the world around her, a gigantic splurge of overcompensating
nurture
of nature to account for a lack of female role models? She was trying to grow a mother, wasn’t she? Or maybe, Emily, you’re only trying to grow yourself anew?
Right.
No. Her sleep was not co-opted by dead relatives. Peppy wasn’t a deviant. Gardening was a
hobby
. She liked being outdoors: the pebbly sound of the Kayaderosseras, the tall pines and squishy grass beneath her toes. Being curious and terribly sad about not knowing who her father was was different from being emotionally crippled or systematically destroyed, night after night, by an unaccountably rapey lack of father. Or mother. Or anything else she didn’t actually need,
Two years of therapy had gone nowhere, or, actually,
everywhere
. Deceased mother this, deceased mother that, and then, of course, the doozy that nobody ever even knew her father. He might be anywhere, anyone, or just as deceased as her deceased mother. Every man was potentially her father. Emily was told that this was how she perceived the world. And those bad dreams that Emily politely insisted weren’t dreams?
They were dreams
. She’d have to accept that. She’d have to accept that whenever she saw a man, shethought: Daddy. Better she realized this now, before she entered into more destructive sexual relationships in the future, right? Her bad dreams were probably PTSD-like attempts by her subconscious to attract the attention of a father, who might be anyone, anywhere, et cetera. Or they were sexual in nature, which is why she couldn’t properly describe or account for them, or was too embarrassed to. “Tell me again about being
upside down in your own body
, Emily. Where does that mean your head is? Can you point to where your head is on your body when you’re upside down in your own body?” Yuck. Gross. Emily walked out on two of her four therapists because they developed a crush on the idea that Peppy was sexually abusing her in the middle of the night while she was sleeping. “But that’s not happening,” Emily told them. “That’s not what I’m here for.”
“If I may, isn’t it likely that you yourself don’t know what you’re here for?”
“Like here on earth?”
“Well, you’ve got a delightful sense of humor. That’s established. I appreciate that. For the sake of argument, Emily, let’s say that if something like that is happening then you don’t know that it is happening. It’s not your fault. Only your subconscious knows.”
“My subconscious told you to tell me?”
“Couldn’t it be that your so-called night terrors are telling everyone?”
Then there was Route 29’s near-total isolation. They never got around to having poor Mr. Jeffries nocturnally raping her, but that, Emily assumed, was only because they’d never seen his face.
“Why do you think this Mr. Jeffries keeps his deceased mother in the attic, Emily? Can you tell me a little about his mother?”
“God, I’m just joking!”
“OK, let me ask you a question. Isn’t taking nothing seriously the same thing as taking everything seriously?”
Then there was her grandfather’s alleged misanthropy: Did Emilyfeel beholden to it? Enslaved or manipulated or cowed by it? Did she have to feel the same way about the world in order to meet his approval? He was, after all, all she had. Did she think that was normal? Did that frighten her? His age? His mortality? Isolation? Irony? His masculinity? Did his occasional lady friends disturb her? Then, finally, there was her love of plants—now here was a metaphorically fertile subject! Tell us about gardening. How does it make you feel? Tomatoes. Soil. Cucumbers. How do tomatoes make you feel, Emily? How does holding a cucumber make you feel? Because, hm, perhaps gardening was nothing less than Emily’s own way of mothering herself and the world around her, a gigantic splurge of overcompensating
nurture
of nature to account for a lack of female role models? She was trying to grow a mother, wasn’t she? Or maybe, Emily, you’re only trying to grow yourself anew?
Right.
No. Her sleep was not co-opted by dead relatives. Peppy wasn’t a deviant. Gardening was a
hobby
. She liked being outdoors: the pebbly sound of the Kayaderosseras, the tall pines and squishy grass beneath her toes. Being curious and terribly sad about not knowing who her father was was different from being emotionally crippled or systematically destroyed, night after night, by an unaccountably rapey lack of father. Or mother. Or anything else she didn’t actually need,
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