Chasing Sophea: A Novel Read online

  People were like complicated jigsaw puzzles with a thousand scattered pieces. You just had to take the time, examine each piece one by one, and ultimately marvel at the finished product. He leaned back in his chair, pushed Play on his tape recorder, and carefully listened to every conversation he and Dahlia had ever had over the past six weeks. Dahlia was counting on him, and he didn’t want to be on the long list of people who’d obviously failed her. He glanced at the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders open on his desk and began flipping through the pages. He listened to her soft voice fill the room while simultaneously listing her symptoms in his head: depression, mood swings, panic disorders, sleep disorders, and he believed that she had suicidal tendencies. Several of these symptoms were common to many mental disorders, and that thought alone confounded him. And of course, they’d had sessions when she appeared to be fine and in complete control of her behavior, which he found odd.

  Trevor suspected that a lot of time had passed in her life between dissociative episodes, and for the most part, Dahlia had been living a normal, albeit unusual, existence; however, he still couldn’t believe that she’d never sought help until now. It was amazing that she’d made it this far without having a more serious breakdown. His patient clearly had a severe mental disorder; he just didn’t know which one.

  He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. He feared he was getting a tension headache, and the caffeine wasn’t helping. Perhaps if he stepped away for a moment and cleared his head, the answer would miraculously come to him. “Shit! Shit! Shit!” he yelled, and pounded his fist onto his desk in frustration when his mind remained blank. “What the fucking hell is going on here?” Trevor contemplated all the disorders, conditions, and illnesses he had diagnosed in his professional career. Over the past twenty-five years, nothing compared to this. He kept a little red notebook in his desk with notable disorders and subsequent treatments to remind himself every now and then, when his practice became tedious and irritating, that he was a real psychologist. There was Darlina Carsey, a balding second-rate actress, who suffered from a severe form of narcissistic disorder, not to mention the worst case of body odor he had ever experienced. Jesus, she could have caused a natural disaster. She’d been delusional most of her adult life, and he’d finally had to commit her to an institution in Victorville. And then there was Tabitha Luckner, who struggled with schizophrenia in addition to a mood disorder with psychotic features. And Erick Hayes, the poor bastard, suffered from Tourette’s syndrome and Asperger’s syndrome. The bloody wanker would be on medication for the rest of his natural life.

  Trevor scanned down the list and still nothing caught his attention, but then words leaped off page 339 of the manual and began swimming rapidly through his mind. They came so quickly that it was difficult for him to form a coherent thought. Dissociation. Trauma. Emergency defense system. Trancelike behavior. The signs had been in front of him the whole time, and he had missed them entirely. How could he have missed them? Why had he taken so long to figure it out? He knew, albeit subconsciously, that this would be a controversial diagnosis, one that would make or break his solid reputation. He would either be hailed as a bloody genius or ridiculed as a completely incompetent asshole. He jumped up in excitement and was immediately certain of his conclusion. Normally DID individuals are not diagnosed until they approach adulthood because DID most often masquerades as something else. But out of all severe mental disorders, DID has one of the best prognoses. Dahlia would have a chance if he could gain her trust and convince her to accept the diagnosis and subsequent treatment. He wanted to shout from the rooftops that he’d made the diagnosis of his career, but more important, he wanted to locate Dahlia before she deteriorated any further. She needed his help, and she needed it as soon as possible.

  He had never diagnosed a patient with DID, let alone prescribed a course of treatment. A part of him wanted to refer Dahlia to a more-qualified doctor, but he quickly recognized his own contaminated thought process, a benefit of being a psychologist. He was a qualified therapist with two degrees from Harvard, a thriving practice, and more than two decades of experience. He was the right psychologist for the job, and he was determined to be the one who cured her. It would take dedication, determination, and a long-term commitment of four to seven years. If Dahlia was willing, Trevor intended to be ready.

  He reviewed related texts from his extensive home library in South Pasadena and settled in for the rest of the night. He scoured papers, reread articles, and left an urgent message for a colleague he respected. He continued to research every available document on DID or MPD and prepared himself for the long road ahead.

  Phoebe waited nearly nude upstairs in Dahlia’s bed for Michael to come ravish her. She’d put on one of his silk shirts and fantasized about how he would feel inside her. Was he fast and rough or slow and gentle? She assumed from listening to Dahlia that he preferred to take his time, and her body spasmed in anticipation. She had been imagining this moment for years, and she wanted this reality to replace the one still lingering inside the house. What was taking him so long? What if he was having second thoughts? What if he didn’t want her? She smirked. That would be impossible. Everyone wanted her. She would tell him that Dahlia had left him and who knew if she’d ever come back. She would tell him that she was all the woman he would ever need. Phoebe was determined to make him forget that Dahlia ever existed.

  After several minutes, she tired of the world of make-believe and decided to take matters into her own hands. Choosing to have an affair couldn’t be an easy decision for a man like Michael, but Phoebe was committed to helping him make the right choice, guiding him to the promised land. She headed downstairs determined and confident. She could hear him clinking around in the kitchen. He was probably pouring glasses of Cabernet or soaking plump strawberries in Grand Marnier. He was imaginative that way. Aroused, she rounded the corner at the end of the stairwell and came face-to-face with Aunt Baby. They stared at each other briefly, and Phoebe composed herself. The enemy was here, and she hadn’t spoken to the enemy in quite some time.

  “Well, well, well, the world must be coming to an end if you’re standing here. That is what you do, right? Show up out of nowhere after the show is over.” Silence followed. Phoebe continued while Baby watched her every move. “Well, Baby Marseli Culpepper—you’re two for two. You were too late then, and you’re damn sure too late now.”

  Aunt Baby heard the familiar hostility in her voice. After all these years, it hadn’t changed, nothing had. She shook her head in disbelief and eyeballed the woman who stood half-dressed in her niece’s house. Sweet Jesus, what a mess. The woman, this Phoebe, had hated her when she was a girl, and it was obvious from the tone of her voice and the look on her face that she hated her still. It was of no consequence. Aunt Baby pinned her braids back on top of her head and steeled herself for a confrontation.

  “Where is Dahlia?”

  “Far, far away, I imagine.”

  “How long have you been here, child?”

  “Here in general or here in her house?”

  “Don’t you sass me, girl. Just answer my question plain and simple.”

  “Well, you know exactly to the day how long I’ve been around. Why would you ask a question that you already know the answer to? I thought you were gifted. I thought you had talent.”

  “Where is Michael? And where is Isabel?”

  “Unfortunately, Michael had to go run some ridiculous errand, and I don’t know where the girl is. It’s not like she’s my daughter.” Phoebe adjusted her thong and sat down. “What are you doing here anyway, Baby? I know Dahlia didn’t call you. She doesn’t call anybody anymore.”

  “I’m here to help my niece.”

  “Help your niece? You aren’t serious?”

  “I don’t know what devilment you’ve done, but if I have to go through you to get her back, I will.”

  Phoebe laughed and reached for Baby’s glass of wine.

  “You always h
ave tried to bite off more than you can chew. And, yes, what you’re probably thinking right now is true. Before it’s all said and done, one of us will be gone for good. And just so you know—this time, I’m here to stay. No more coming and going whenever poor little Dahlia works herself into a tizzy.”

  “You don’t mean that, child. Let me help you. I know there’s—”

  “No!” Phoebe interrupted. “Get it through your head, Baby, this is one problem that you just can’t fix. Go home, old woman; you’re way out of your league here.”

  Aunt Baby chanted a prayer under her breath, the same prayer she said every time she’d had to deal with Phoebe in the past. God help her, it had to work. “The hell you say,” the older woman spoke, swiftly reaching for Phoebe from across the table and holding on to her wrists as tightly as she could.

  “Baby doll,” she said softly, “it’s me, Aunt Baby. I know you’re in there. Come on out, my love, and talk to me. Come on, now. This time I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere.”

  Phoebe glared at Aunt Baby and tried in vain to twist away from the warm hands that restrained her. She fought to stay focused but her head began to throb, and then in spite of her struggle, blackness consumed her.

  Incredulous, Michael absorbed the sight before him. He had never seen such an opulent funeral home owned and operated by people of color. The house, or the main structure, resembled an old plantation of sorts, and sat on acres and acres of land. In fact, the property was captivating in a way he couldn’t quite define. He felt at peace and yet conflicted at the same time. The experience intrigued him, and he wished to know why. The journey itself from the moment he left home was beyond bizarre, and he didn’t know how to respond or what to say. Dahlia was behaving more and more erratically—ringing the doorbell like she was crazy and trying to seduce him in the middle of the afternoon. Under normal circumstances, he would have been thrilled to participate in an impromptu freak fantasy. What man wouldn’t? But for some reason, the nature of the action contrasted with who she was. It felt counterfeit and forced. It was almost as if she were someone else. He pushed the thought from his mind and focused on the sole purpose of his visit. His goal was to unravel a mystery, not manufacture new problems to solve.

  He drove through the enormous iron gates up the extended driveway toward the entrance. It was hard to imagine that his wife ever grew up in a place like this. It was not at all what he expected. He briefly considered turning around and flying home, but the house pulled him closer, and in the end, his feet would only move forward. He decided that he should locate his father-in-law first. That was the right thing to do under the circumstances. He would introduce himself, present the man with photos of Isabel, apologize for not coming sooner, and ask him why he and Dahlia hadn’t spoken in more than a decade. He reached for the doorbell filled with a mélange of emotions when he felt a firm hand on his shoulder.

  “No, son. Now is not a good time.”

  Michael stared into the eyes of the whitest black man he had ever seen. He was a tall ghost with yellow eyes, but he had tight blond curls and full lips, a wide nose, and a deep voice. Michael attempted casual conversation and prayed that the man could not sense his discomfort. “Maybe you can … can help me. I … I’m looking for Lucius Culpepper.”

  The strange man turned him away from the door. “I know who you’re looking for,” he said. “He’s around, but best if you talk to him later on. I imagine you have a lot of questions.”

  “I’m Michael Chang, Dahlia’s husband.” Michael extended his hand.

  “I know who you are.”

  “How can that be, sir? I’ve never been here before, and we’ve never met.”

  “Son, I know everybody around these parts and everything about this family. Who else could you possibly be?”

  “Who are you?” Michael asked, perplexed. “Are you related to this family, Dahlia’s family?”

  “I tell you what. You come sit with me for a spell, and I’ll answer some of your questions. The others? Well, you’ll have to see Lucius for those.”

  Michael paused and contemplated his options. Solving the mystery of his wife’s life had begun. He turned to the man with the yellow eyes and opened to the possibilities. “What did you say your name was again?”

  “I didn’t say, but it’s Percival. Percival Tweed.”

  “What do you do here, Mr. Tweed? What’s your connection to this family?”

  “Well, you could say I secure and maintain the final resting place.”

  “You mean like the casket?”

  “No. The ground.”

  “Oh.” Michael paused and digested the information. “Do you know my wife?”

  “Since the day she was born. C’mon, let’s take a walk.”

  “All right, then, I’ll go along for now.”

  Percival Tweed nodded and motioned for Michael to follow.

  “Where are we going, anyway?”

  “Back to the beginning, son, the very beginning.”

  Lucius felt as if he’d been lingering in a daze emotionally drunk for more than a millennium while the world passed him by. He was approaching a moment of sobriety and was humbled by its intensity. It pervaded every corner of his body, tightened his chest, and caused his eyes to water profusely. He imagined that his imperfections were boring holes in his body from the inside out for everyone to see. When he looked at himself and saw all that he had become, he realized that he was being held together by a string that was slowly beginning to disintegrate. Lucius had been a bystander in his own life or, worse yet, a nonentity, a voyeur of sorts.

  It hadn’t really hit him until now—the magnitude of his own desertion. For years since that wretched day, he’d blocked out every emotion that made him the least bit uncomfortable lest he be tricked into becoming an active participant in his existence. At the time, he believed his decision to be a brilliant strategy for survival—his and Dahlia’s. After years of denial and ignoring the obvious, Lucius Culpepper became trapped in a spiral of regret. Only now, at fifty-five, could he begin to admit to himself that he had possibly erred in judgment. He clenched his fists and knew that if he allowed himself to stop and feel the history of the moment, it would be the end of him, and maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. He had taken the cowardly way, done what his grandfather would never have done. Marcel would have died before he allowed any harm to come to his family, period. His grandfather had been a warrior that way, and yet he’d protected himself, concentrated on his own survival as if saving himself was the right course of action. I’m going straight to hell, he thought, and wondered how much worse hell could be than the life he was already living. No wonder Dahlia had banished him from her life. When she needed him the most, he had abandoned her for solitude, work, and a seventeen-year-old makeup girl he didn’t love.

  Back then, he couldn’t fathom how his course of action had destroyed those around him, torn away at them piece by piece. Perched on a hill overlooking all that he had been the beneficiary of—like his father and his father before him—Lucius Culpepper slowly began to hold himself accountable. Despite his best efforts for almost half of his life to remain separate from all that resided inside him, truth gradually began to crawl back into his bones. Reacquainting himself with reality was a painful experience that caused his heart to spasm with surprise at the welcome intrusion. His heart was startled by the sudden activity, and it somersaulted in anticipation of more distress because there was so much more, and it remembered. Denial left him as quickly as it had come, and God help him, he was relieved; but atonement, however much he desired it, was still a world away.

  Revelations aside, his heart began to splinter all over again, and this time, he absorbed the blow and allowed twenty-five years’ worth of pain to writhe out of his chest and invade every pore of his body. He gasped from the impact, fell to his knees, and opened a dialogue with the one he’d believed had abandoned him. “Father God, help me,” he prayed. “Tell me what to do now.” Amazingly, the answer was swift a
nd decisive. “Brace yourself, my son,” the voice whispered in his head. “A reckoning is coming.”

  Back when she was a girl, Prettybaby used to watch her mama grind herbs with a pestle and mortar and turn concoctions into miracles. Ailments and maladies seemed so simple back then. Cures, medicines, conversations were effortless, and afflictions were familiar. She should have smelled this creeping up on her long ago. Failure. Nothing good lasts forever, and she wasn’t as pure as her mother. Her life had been much too easy. Now her time had come to be tested. Most likely because she had taken her gift for granted—a sin—and somewhere down the line, she’d become too comfortable and missed an opportunity to heal.

  It was true. She could admit that to herself now. She had seen Dahlia’s wound then, held it in her hands, and given it right back to her. For once, she didn’t know what else to do or where to begin, and there was no one to ask. She’d prayed for years that the wound would mend on its own, but despite her prayers, it had grown and eventually swallowed the sweet little girl she used to know. Aunt Baby was not acquainted with defeat, and failure was an unfamiliar concept associated with other people. After all, she was a restorer, a giver of that which made you well. Healing was what she had been born to do. Her mama had always reminded her that she’d agreed to this work before she was born, and her soul would rebel if she ever denied what the creator planted firmly inside her, wrapped around her veins.

  People thought her mother to be one of those moonstruck Indians. Her mother, Oceola Moon, wasn’t considered good or bad, just different, and Prettybaby was moonstruck by association. “The apple”—they used to say whenever she and her mother took long strolls at sunset—“the apple don’t fall far from the tree. Yes, Lawd.” For a while, the characterization used to annoy Baby because her mother behaved as if they lived on another planet. They were the normal ones, with their caskets and herbs and rituals. It was everyone else in their community who was drowning in abject confusion.