Would she ever paint again?
As she drifted mouselike about their home, Kari began hearing her parents use the I word.Institutionalize.At first, she didn’t understand what was happening. But days turned to weeks, and the word became an increasingly familiar component of their arguments.
She was almost ready when Justin approached her. Playing the diplomat, seeking an alternative to having their parents lock up his only sister. He gently asked if she might be willing to speak with a therapist.
Knowing the alternative was just beyond the horizon, Kari agreed with a speed that surprised them both.
In truth, what she most wanted at that point was someone who could tell her what to do. Who might show her a way to change all the gray days into something with color. Who could show her a compass heading. Something.
Even so, the closer it came to that first appointment, the stronger grew Kari’s dread. When she finally entered the therapist’s outer office, she was ready to throw up.
But in that first moment of sitting down across from Indrid Anand, Kari . . .
Settled.
The impossible invitation was there in the room’s pastel calm, the woman’s penetrating gaze. Indrid Anand’s first words were, “Anything you tell me, anything you wish to share, whatever happens within these walls, it remains absolutely between us. Do you understand what that means?” When Kari responded with a nod, Indrid asked, “Can you please interpret that for yourself and tell me in words?”
“Whatever happens in here is confidential.”
“Exactly. Very good. Do you believe me?”
Strangely enough, Kari did. “Yes.”
“I’m so glad. Just to be clear, anything I discuss with anyone else must first be approved by you. And that agreement will cover only the explicit issues or thoughts you wish to share. Nothing more. Agreed?”
“Yes.”
“Very good. So how do we begin? Do you have any questions for me?”
She did, in fact. “Where are you from?”
“My parents are both Punjabi. They fled the disputed territory along the India–Pakistan border. I was born here. Along with my three brothers. I am the youngest.” Indrid was in her midsixties and possessed the stately grace of a thousand undistilled generations. “May I ask a question of my own?”
“I guess. All right.”
“If you could declare your number one ambition, your true life’s theme, what would that be?”
Kari struggled to breathe around the sudden great balloon that had filled her entire being. The therapist probably assumed Kari hesitated because she didn’t know how to respond. And before entering this chamber of secrets, that would have been her own true response. Now, though, Kari knew instantly what she wanted to say. What made her hesitate was having this supposed stranger from a far and mysterious land knock on Kari’s secret door.
Indrid waited with her. Unblinking. Intense. There with Kari in utter totality.
Finally, Kari said, “I just want to get one thing exactly right.”
The words seemed to push Indrid back in her seat. “How absolutely delightful. Tell me, Kari, do you know what that one thing is?”
Whenever Kari looked back on that moment, she recalled actually hearing the secret door open. The portal creaked and shuddered and scattered a year’s painful dust.
But it opened.
Kari asked, “Can I use your pad?”
Indrid was seated so close to Kari, their knees almost touched. She reached back and lifted the yellow legal pad from her desk. “Pen or pencil?”
“Either. No, both.”
The side wall behind Indrid held shelves, mostly filled with books and a collection of antique bowls in copper and bronze. But there were also two sets of photographs. Both held collages of young boys growing from gap-toothed childhood to marriage. To either side were two additional pictures, both of infants. Kari assumed these were Indrid’s grandchildren.
She drew. It flowed so easily, the images and intent so clear in her mind, all those empty months might as well not have existed.
