Pacifique by Sarah L. Taggart

Author:Sarah L. Taggart
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Coach House Books

Chapter 18

Night after night, for the first time in years, Tia awakens with her body in knots. A nurse or Moira, her roommate, stands over the bed. Sometimes they pin her down. She tries to scream, can’t. Screams and can’t stop. The hands feel like the tentacles of a thousand furious octopuses. In the moment between sleep and consciousness, familiar images: the steel-trap mouth of teeth, row upon row of knife-blade incisors, ready to gobble her up. The terror breaks into wakefulness and the images scatter. She is left only with dread and anxiety spilling out of her.

At her regular meetings with the Irish shrink, they discuss the dreams, which started the night after Rachael left.

‘Sorry, doc, I can’t really remember the dreams.’ She feels off, badly slept. Talking about the terrors is like talking about someone else’s memories.

‘This is normal, from what I’ve read,’ O’Shea says.

He tells her that night terrors don’t have a clear medical explanation, that they come and go. He admits it’s unusual for her to have them again after so long. He admits he doesn’t have a fucking clue. Something in Tia gloats, this part of her the expert cannot explain.

After several bad mornings, it occurs to Tia there is someone who can help her. She asks O’Shea if she can consult with someone outside the hospital.

‘Outside?’

‘Yeah. Another doctor. Well, sort of.’ Ira. ‘Not a medical doctor. I think he has a PhD in psychology.’

‘Why do you want to see this person?’

A psychologist can’t even prescribe meds, O’Shea’s probably thinking. What good is that?

‘I did therapy with him when I was a kid. He knew a lot about dreams. Sleep stuff.’ He’s a regular fucking Freud, Dr. O’Shea, she wants to say.

‘You received psychotherapy as a child?’ O’Shea opens her chart. He writes less in it every time. He has her all figured out. He no longer needs to take notes. This, however, is new.

She has had many opportunities to provide this information, but each time she chose not to. Incomplete medical history. Things they didn’t need to know. ‘I had night terrors. My parents sent me to this child psychologist, this sleep specialist.’

‘Oh, well, if he’s a child psychologist, he may not be willing to see you. That was years ago. Is he still practising?’

‘I have no idea. Can you, like, do a consult or something?’

‘You’ve been watching too much TV, Tia,’ O’Shea says with a laugh.

Asshole.

‘You would need a referral. It would take a couple of weeks. He’ll likely have a wait-list. It could be quite a while.’

Because I’m in a rush?

O’Shea waits. Tia stares. Finally, he says, ‘I can’t bring him in to see you, no. It doesn’t work that way.’

‘Fine. Forget it.’

‘Tia.’

‘No, really. Forget it. I’m sure it’ll pass. Like it did the first time.’

‘You’re probably right.’ Just like that, O’Shea’s calm and composed robotic self is back.

Tia started seeing Ira the child psychologist in Grade 1. By January of Grade 3, they had a regular appointment. Always a weekday, mid-morning, so Tia got to leave school.

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