Under the Looking Glass

Chapter 1

Maura awoke, submerged in water, lungs aching, choking on the water she had inhaled. She raised her head above the surface of the water and hacked water from her lungs. Her loud coughing reverberated off the bathroom tile. No one was there to hear her. She had fallen asleep in the bath again.

One of these days, I’m going to kill myself, she thought, and who is going to explain that? She could not. Chronic insomnia had left her this way, falling asleep when she should not. The fact that she had not yet fallen asleep while behind the wheel of her car during the commute to or from work was a stroke of good luck.

She lowered herself back into the bath. With her face half in the water, she surveyed the bathroom around her. Her view was dominated by the white subway tiles on the wall. Her eyes slowly wandered along the vintage octagonal tiles on the floor, a stainless steel counter and sink with tiny spindle legs, a tiled window seat covered with pillows, plants hanging from overhead, and the best thing of all—the bathtub, an enormous cast iron, clawfoot tub, coated in porcelain. She had spent years finding the perfect tub, searching every architectural salvage yard she could find until she found it.

The tub was her favorite place in the house, where she felt safe, meditated for clarity, and washed off the stink of the day, but of late, it had become a dangerous place that might kill her. That is, unless she found a way to get a decent night’s sleep. Normal sleep eluded her and had done so for a very long time.

The bubbles had long dissipated, and Maura took a long look down at her body. Ribs showed through her torso. Her legs had become so thin that when she put her feet together, her thighs did not touch. How much weight have I lost? She looked ill. She had no muscle tone, and her skin hung slack. Thirty? Maybe forty pounds? A lot. She had not started smoking again, so she could not blame it on that.

Acute insomnia, accompanied by an overall lack of desire for anything else that could be considered a normal function of the living, had diminished her in mind and body. Sleeping, eating, going outside into the sun and walking, let alone any other form of exercise, were anathema to her. She pulled her fingers through her wet hair, and a handful came loose from her head and into her hand. She rubbed her pruned hands together until the lost hair was rolled into a little ball. Then she tossed it into the stainless steel wastebasket near the tub. She made a mental note to throw the hair in the composter later, which reminded her that she had not turned the composter in quite a while, and in the spots where the yard wasn’t overgrown from neglect, it was dying. Maura shut her eyes for what appeared to her to be a moment.

When they find your body, you’ll be nothing but Maura soup. Her grandmother, eyes twinkling, was seated on the edge of the tub. Her red-lacquered nails drummed on the side of the tub as she talked to Maura just as she had in life. They’ll have to collect you with a ladle.

Maura sputtered awake. Maura knew it was a trick of the fatigue and that Gran was not there. She had drifted off again.

She wished Gran were here. She wished a lot of things. Another voice whispered in her ear, When we’re done with her, they’ll have to collect her with a ladle. The voice was female, but Maura shook it off as another part of her semi-dream state.

This is ridiculous, Maura thought. Do something. She pulled the plug on the bathtub drain, hoisted her emaciated frame out of the tub, and sat on the side for a moment to orient herself. She had not thought about Gran for a while. She examined her fingers, swollen and wrinkled from the long time in the bath, and smiled. Maura soup, she said. After toweling off, she went into the room where she kept her clothes. She had moved them out of the master bedroom when she stopped sleeping in there, when she stopped sleeping. She grabbed an outfit, dressed herself impatiently, then headed for the backyard. She detoured back to the bathroom and grabbed the ball of hair from the waste basket, then went outside, stopping to throw the hair in the compost bin on her way to the gardening shed.

After an exhausting hour of running the lawn mower over the overgrown lawn, taking clippers to the shrubs, and running the weed eater over the edges, she raked the cuttings into a pile and loaded them into the green bin. The muscles in her arms and legs shook from the exertion. She eyed the gate that would have to be opened, exposing her to the neighborhood street outside. She sighed. The green bin required placement on the curb on the other side of the fence. She would have to go outside the gate.

Who’s out and about today? She opened the sliding gate that exposed her to the world. She was halfway down the driveway when she saw Mr. Schultz from three houses down and across the street, standing in his driveway with his arms crossed, wearing his bathrobe and staring at her. She did not bother to wave. She rolled the bin to the curb as she glanced around at the neighborhood street that used to be so very different. A curtain ruffled at the Johnson house that stood opposite hers. Maura hurried back up the drive, then slid the gate shut behind her, closing herself off from the street outside and the disapproving stares of the neighbors.

They still think I killed them, she said, walking back into the house.

Chapter 2

The waiting room at her psychiatrist’s office was full that day, and Maura took a moment before selecting a chair as far from other people as she could. She sat, sipping coffee from a paper cup that she had purchased at the convenience store across the street. The cup was her fifth that morning. Sleep had eluded her again. The yard work had failed to do the job of exhausting her.

A family sat to her left. Three children, whose ages, judging by the look of them, were between three and ten, were at a small table with short legs and miniscule chairs, playing some sort of make-believe game. Maura took a minute to realize what she was hearing.

I didn’t kill nobody, said the three-year-old girl.

Confess! hissed the ten-year-old girl.

You don’t remember. You were probably on drugs at the time, said a boy who looked to be all of six years old.

Maura tried not to stare. She looked over at the parents, who seemed oblivious as they watched whatever was on the television mounted on the wall.

I didn’t kill that man. I didn’t kill nobody, said the three-year-old again.

Maura envisioned the parents leaving their television set to display crime dramas twenty-four hours a day. What happened to playing cops and robbers? she wondered. Shouldn’t kids that age be playing a make believe version of Dora the Explorer or something?

Your brain has turned to mush on that stuff. You don’t know what you did, said the boy.

At that moment, the mother walked over to the three-year-old and walloped her on the head with a rolled-up magazine. Why wasn’t anyone behind the reception counter doing anything? Maura pinched her nose and willed herself to keep quiet. She would report it when she got inside.

I killed that lady’s husband, the three-year-old said in her tiny, innocent-sounding voice.

Okay, that is about all I can take today. Just then, Maura’s psychiatrist opened the door and motioned her in, saving her from hearing anything more.

She waited while he took her blood pressure. High again. Figures. It was that family that did it. She relayed to the doctor what she had overheard in the waiting room.

They’ll no doubt usher them in shortly and take care of it. Dr. Turpin did not seem to be too concerned. Maura sat back and assessed him, the man who had been assigned by her health coverage plan to make the decisions about what had filled her prescription bottles for the past two years. He looked as if he might have lost some hair since she had started seeing him. He spoke with a slight British accent, though Maura was not sure where he was from originally, but if it was England, that might explain the crooked teeth. He looked pale and doughy, as if he didn’t get outside very much. She doubted if he exercised. He was probably too busy seeing people like her. She looked into his gray eyes. As usual, they were unreadable. Must be something they teach at psych school, she thought.

Still not sleeping? He shined a penlight into Maura’s eyes.

No.

You’re not eating, either. We need to get you eating. There is a drug I prescribe for anorexia that might help.

I don’t have anorexia. And I’m on too many medications already.

The doctor rolled his chair back and consulted the computer before looking back over at Maura. This won’t interfere with the others. We need to treat the insomnia. Going this long without sleeping can… When was the last time you left the house? Took a trip?

Maura could not remember. Years, it seemed. She could recall little day trips, but her mind failed to fill in the blanks as to what those trips were and where they were taken. Can what? What can it do? Finish your sentence, Maura demanded.

Well, sleep deprivation can lead to problems with other things. Judgment, orientation, hallucinations. Nodding off while driving is the least of your worries. We need to get you to sleep. Have you given any more thought to calling the psychologist I referred you to? Psychiatry does only so much. I can give you meds. But you need some in-depth talk therapy. Some cognitive tools to help with your coping skills.

Maura thought he must be making some sort of joke. And in the meantime, you want me to take a trip? You mean like a vacation?

Well, yes. A getaway. A change of scenery, said the doctor.

Dr. Turpin scribbled on a piece of paper. I’m upping the dose on your sleeping medication. Careful with the alcohol.

Maura nodded, though she doubted the medication would work.

I’m also giving you a brochure. A few of my patients have taken this cruise and found it to be quite a healing change of pace. You’ve got some money. I urge you to think about it.

Maura perused the brochure. "The Cockaigne. Experience extreme luxury, ease, and magic, where physical comforts and pleasures are always at hand, and where the stress and harshness of everyday life does not exist. Baffled, she looked at her psychiatrist. You want me to go on a cruise?"

I think you should try it.

Why should I try a cruise?

Why not?

Chapter 3

Overboard! a woman screamed as Maura fell.

Maura felt as though she had floated off the side of the enormous ocean liner. The air was warm on her skin, and a breeze floated over her like a feathery blanket woven from tropical air, enveloping her like swaddling as she fell. As she descended, she thought the air should be colder.

"She won’t survive the fall! For God’s sake, do something!" someone else yelled.

A warning horn sounded from the ship. Maura saw what looked like hundreds of ant-sized people who seemed so far away, scurrying around on the deck overhead. She looked to her side and saw the faces. Plastered against stateroom windows were hundreds of faces, open-mouthed, taking in the drama before them as some form of ghoulish entertainment. A macabre burlesque, she was, after all, wearing little more than a nightgown.

That was what he had said, anyway.

***

That dress looks like a nightgown for a stripper. Who are you trying to impress? Then the slap.

Did he slap me? Do people still think they can get away with that? Maura remembered her hand feeling as though it were breaking under the impact of her fist on his nose. "Don’t you ever slap someone. No one slaps me." Maura grabbed her beaded clutch purse for the party. The vintage clutch with a silver clasp and tightly woven, shiny black Jet beads had belonged to Gran. Maura sat on the edge of the bed while he held his bleeding nose, mouth agape, looking at her in shock.

She put on her heels, a pair of strappy silver dance shoes she had bought online at a discount after first finding what she wanted in