CHAPTER FIFTY ONE -- BACK TO DR BROWN

They stared at me morosely. Mom looked as though I were a ghost. Cameron's expression was critical. My question indeed shocked them to the roots, as they hesitated responding the first time. "Do you?" I asked again, looking from mom's face to Cameron's. "W..wh..what did you say?" Mom stuttered. I noticed she started to withdraw from me slowly, by loosening her grip on my back. I knew the next thing on her mind was taking me back to Dr Brown, and as soon as she could. "Does any one of you know anyone called Gregory?" I asked again, desperately looking for an answer. Both of them shook their heads. "Why are you asking?" Cameron asked instinctively, his expression still, critical and unfathomable. "His name is Gregory. The guy...his name is Gregory. He is the one who tried to suffocate me. That's why I screamed" I said quietly. It was something I planned to keep to myself for a long time, maybe even forever, but not anymore. I was already growing tired of having to endure this every night, and pretend the next morning like I wasn't just at the point of death the previous night. My parents needed to know. Afterall, they were my parents and I relied on them for everything. I was afterall still a kid. As I made this revelation known to them, I shivered within me, because the horror on mom's face was unsettling. I'm sure she wouldn't look more terrified if she were watching a very horrific movie. "Be quiet, baby. We'll have Dr Brown attend to you. Be quiet and don't say a word, okay? Just lay down. Don't shut your eyes too, okay? I'll be right back." Mom kept issuing orders while she stood up and walked hurriedly , and with her back, out of the room. I could hear her voice in the living room because my door was left open. She was on the phone with Dr Brown. I knew this would happen. It was my fate to always end up in his office no matter how hard I tried to avoid it. I was going to accept my fate, until Robin came back to me. I had no other choice now. It wasn't a punishment on my parents' part; they only really cared about me, and wanted me to be well again. They both believed I was going crazy, and while it worried Cameron, it scared the beejeebies out of mom. Like , she was always obviously physically terrified. She was like a innocent child running away from a mentally deranged individual, and at the same time trying to help him or her. Mom soon returned to my room, rubbing her fingers together, and pulling two cots into the room carefully. I was laying in bed, with my eyes wide open, wondering why Gregory chose to reside in our house if my parents didn't know him. Why did he refuse to stop following me, and why's he trying to kill me now? What could possibly be going on? These thoughts ran through my mind at that moment and so I didn't hear mom when she said the first time that Dr Brown asked that they wait till morning before bringing me, until she said it a second time. "Dr Brown says we should wait till dawn before bringing you over" she sat at my bedside and rubbed my hair. Jamie and Pamela didn't blink; they were deeply asleep. Mom still looked very frightened. "The devil will have no say over you, my daughter. Don't worry" she said soothingly. There was a residue of tears in her eyes. Cameron got up after a while, and excused himself out of the room, claiming he needed to call someone urgently, and he gave us the full impression that it was about me. So, mom let him leave. But, she stood by me. Like she did all the time. Because she spoke to me constantly, I didn't fall back to sleep. My eyes were so heavy with sleep and if she had been silent, I would have slept again. It was barely 3am in the midnight, so you know what I'm talking about. I could also see that mom could as well do with a couple or more hours of sleep despite that she said it was okay to stay awake by my bedside, with her sleeping babies. Cameron didn't return to the room until about thirty minutes later. He subconsciously sighed continuously, and mom took it to mean he was very worried about me, but I was skeptical about that. He seemed to be carried away by something else which I couldn't lay my hand on. It was the first time I wished I could read minds. I would have easily found out the reason for his anxiety and uneasiness. "How long has this been happening?" Mom whispered, propping my pillows for the umpteenth time. I didn't know why she whispered now. Perhaps it was for the fact that her voice had been swallowed by fear, or perhaps, she was only trying not to wake up other neighbors in the estate with her quaking voice, because her voice was indeed jittery. "Started last night" I lied. I didn't want to make her feel worse than she was feeling that moment. It actually seemed like she was more worried than I was. Either that, Or I was angry No, mom. It's been happening since two weeks now, but you never noticed, because your husband is now more important to you than I am. Don't even ask me. You know you've neglected me . If you had at least spent one night with me in the last two weeks, you'd have known. "Tell me about it" mom asked. I wondered if she really wanted to know. "Do you really want to know, mom?" I asked carefully. She didn't respond. She just looked out the window with a startled countenance. "Did this person tell you his name was Gregory?" Cameron fired at me all of a sudden. Two questions begging for immediate response. "I know" I responded simply because that was the best answer to give him "Did he say his name?" "No, but I know" I said. "It seems to be the ghost of a man who was murdered, many years ago" "Why would a dead man come to you, huh?" Mom argued critically. "Not once, but twice or more. Why?" She was on the verge of tears. "It doesn't make any sense, does it?" She stared at Cameron, daring him to answer her rhetorical question. "Is he the same man whom you claimed was after Jamie? Remember you said someone's coming to take Jamie away, the one who lived at your window side before I changed your room?" "I don't know what you mean, mom" I said honestly, because I did not remember I ever said that. "There we go. The same way you forgot who Jack was! Are we certain about this eye surgery that was performed on you? I think it took some of your memories away. Do all these things make sense to you, Cameron?" Mom turned to him again. "Huh?" "It'll be all right babe. Don't cry too much. We'll pull through this, okay?" He finally mumbled, massaging mom's back. Afterwards there was silence for a long time. Only mom's voice was heard. She was sobbing. She did it so quietly that my sisters' sleep was not disturbed, although they turned in their cots, once or twice. We all maintained this position until dawn. Except for Cameron who left the room at a point. As soon as it was 6 am, I woke mom up. She had fallen asleep, after crying for hours, and Cameron was no longer in my room. I knew when he left and when I asked him where he was headed, he kissed my forehead and promised me he'd be back in a jiffy. Thanks goodness I had managed to stay awake until dawn. Maybe if I had slept again, I would have seen Gregory trying to suffocate me for the second time that night, and I'd have let out a shrill cry that'll wake up the twins and terrify mom out of her quick nap, and perhaps disturb the whole estate. 6 am came and mom prepared my bathwater and breakfast. I was in the bathtub while she breastfed both babies, and at the same time watched over the soup simmering on the cooker. Cameron was out, washing his car. No neighbor had come to check on me. That meant none of them heard my scream, or were they already used to it? Not even Mike Tony. As soon as it was a quarter past seven a.m, Cameron drove us to Dr Brown's specialist hospital. He asked that mom waited in the car with my sisters while he took me to Dr Brown himself but mom insisted that she'd join us. So, everyone including my baby sisters alighted from Cameron's car. It was the first time after all the unpalatable experiences in Kangaroo Estate that Cameron would ever be with mom and I, together in a public place. He was our family doctor or mental health clinician, and my own psychotherapist, so, we didn't need to wait. He called us into his office and attended to us. He was very friendly as usual. But my meeting with him didn't go well. He explained to my parents what the name of my condition was, and the symptoms. "Schizophrenia is a major psychiatric illness that calls for careful, often complex, and lifelong treatment. A combination of therapies is usually necessary to effectively manage the disease." "Since there is no known cure for schizophrenia, the treatment I'll be giving Ariana is aimed at reducing the severity of the disorder's impact on her life and helping Ariana manage her symptoms. It'll most likely reduce her night terrors as well. Treatment is most successful when symptoms are addressed early on. So, kudos to you parents for detecting this early enough" I badly wanted to scream "I DON'T HAVE SCHIZOPHRENIA! IT'S A FREAKING GHOST. YOU ALL JUST CAN'T SEE HIM. GHOSTS DO EXIST, AND I'LL BREAK YOUR TEETH, DR BROWN, IF YOU TELL ME AGAIN THAT IT'S ONLY A FIGMENT OF MY IMAGINATION. I AM FREAKING SEEING HIM EVERYWHERE. THIS IS NO FREAKING IMAGINATION!" but I resisted the temptation. After he spoke with mom and 'dad', he made them sign on a paper, he asked lots of questions and gave a lot of observations. Then, he asked them to go out for a while while he talked to me. They excused themselves and that was when it happened. About five minutes after they left and three minutes into a conversation with my psychotherapist, Gregory appeared for the first time in his office, on the empty seats beside me, one of which mom had sat, minutes ago. He was sitting and folding his left leg over the other. He was still faceless but his presence scared me so much. This time, he gesticulated towards me, and there was a disturbing movement on his face, where his mouth should have been. He must be trying to pass a message. I immediately screamed and ran to Dr Brown's seat. I didn't realize I was grabbing his collar until he called my attention to it. The spooky figure has now decided to follow me everywhere and appear even when I was with someone, not when I was alone anymore. He looked ferocious and very determined to harm me. I wished he would talk to me and tell me what I did wrong, or why he was out to torment me, and only me. Where are you, Robin? Please come save me from this ghost. Or he's going to kill me for real