Georgia
Regan and I had stayed up well past midnight making a mix of cookies, cupcakes, and muffins for him to bring to Blue Seed Studios with him the next day. While he’d seemed excited at the prospect of helping me, we completed the project in near silence. It wasn’t heavy, by any means. It was more meditative. We didn’t ask questions of one another; rather, we just seemed to enjoy the company and the silence.
I’d received a text message from my mother, reminding me to pick her up at ten in the morning to take her to her first ECT treatment. Regan asked what was wrong when he saw me check my phone, but I brushed it off as nothing. Just work, I’d told him, making sure I was okay. It was a small lie, but we’d had so much heavy crammed into one day, I wanted to spare us both from the “mom getting her brain electrocuted” conversation.
Once the goods were done, cooled, and wrapped, I sent Regan back to his apartment with bags filled to the top and I sank myself into a restless sleep.
The truth is I’d spent several days trolling the Internet for information on the effectiveness of Electroconvulsive Therapy. As I sifted through the horror stories and testimonies of support, I learned that the treatment had come a long way since the days of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and the reality was—my mother was the perfect candidate.
Years of successful pharmaceutical and talk therapies carried her this far, and there was literally nothing left to try on those two fronts. With the ECT she even had a chance of lessening the medication she was on. She also had a chance of forgetting large chunks of her life. Typically, the risk of memory loss surrounded the days and weeks preceding the treatment, but risks of darker holes in memory remained.
Frankly, I wouldn’t blame my mother if she welcomed some of that memory erasing power. There were some hard years that dotted the score of her life like bullet holes. As I drove my mother to her appointment, I felt myself hanging onto every word she said as if I were the one at risk of forgetting everything. I couldn’t figure out why I wanted to hang on to any of it, though.
“Georgia,” my mom cooed from the passenger seat. She always had a therapist voice. Sing-songy and soft. Like a blanket.
“Sorry, I was just daydreaming.”
“About that boy?”
“What boy?” I asked out of procedure more than necessity.
“The one with the penny-colored hair.”
“Copper.”
She rolled her eyes. “Same thing.”
“Well, he’s not six, so let’s use a grown up word,” I teased. “Penny-colored sounds like something said to or about a little kid.”
“For goodness sake. Fine. The copper-haired breezy boy. What’s his name again?”
“Regan. Not like the president. Like there should be two E’s there, but there’s not.”
“I don’t want to discuss the formation of his name, dear.” She grinned and tucked her hair behind her ears.
I took the exit for the hospital, my heart starting to race. “What do you want to know?”
“How he manages to make you smile like you used to when you were a little girl.”
“He doesn’t.” I couldn’t have sounded more offended if I tried. I drew my eyebrows together and bit the inside of my cheek to combat the Regan-esque sensation overcoming my lips.
“You act like smiling’s a bad thing.”
“It’s a lying thing,” I mumbled.
“Pull over.” My mom’s voice was sharp.
I looked at her and she wasn’t joking. Her eyes were on me and her finger was pressed against the window as if I didn’t know where over was. Without a fight, I pulled over along the wide shoulder and put the car in park.
“What?” I looked around, trying to find the source of her sudden panic.
“Don’t do this, Georgia.”
I opened my mouth to accompany my sudden need for more oxygen. “Do what? Take you? We can go—”
“No.” She put up her hand. “Don’t throw away whatever is happening with Regan.”
“You made me pull over for this?”
“You need to stop and listen to me. And to yourself. I know what you’re doing.”
“I’m not doing anything, Mom.”
I sighed and put the car in drive, merging back into the thickening traffic. Everyone in the area worked at the hospital and the road swelled like grease-fed arteries during the day. I was annoyed at having left my spot in the line of cars to listen to her chastising.
“I just think—”
“Stop!” I cut her off, the stress of her impending appointment boiling over into my speech. I took a deep breath. “Sorry. I’m just trying to focus on you right now, okay?”
My mom sat back and crossed her arms in front of her. “For such a tough little shit, you sure let fear drive your decisions an awful lot.”
My throat tightened. I tried to swallow it open, but it didn’t work. I knew my mom was probably as nervous about her appointment as I was, and I’d just yelled at her so I couldn’t very well do it again.
Even if she was right.