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Minnie is Snooping on the couple in 2A.
They are at the kitchen table. Ruth and Jericho are their names. Ruth curls on a chrome and red vinyl chair, her knees drawn to her chin, her brown hair spilling over her bare legs. Jericho stands in a stained t-shirt, his chest thrust forward as if a new self is straining to break free. The table hosts a solitary plate from which a bean-and-rice dish has been violently spilled, a muddy cone trailing across the white plastic tabletop. The companion plate’s contents smear the linoleum beneath Ruth’s chair. Ruth’s back jerks, her sniffles rattle. When Jericho cocks his arm she raises her head, showing a red tangle where blood has matted hair against her cheek.
“All right, Minnie,” Dr. Achison says. “That’s enough for now.” The kitchen fills with the whine of a desktop powering down and Minnie watches as Ruth, Jericho, the table, the room shudder like a balloon flying through space. Only there is no space, the scene is the space, and its collapse yields a sickening sense of compression. Minnie opens her eyes to the sight of the darkened office, her therapist’s shadowed face.
“So,” he says, reaching to unclip the device from her ear. “What did you see?”
#
Minnie began visiting Dr. Achison after her husband died, when her dreams turned too turbulent for sleep. In the nine months following Greg’s death she had experienced all the symptoms of bereavement. Finding a sock balled at the bottom of the hamper and sobbing uncontrollably. Finding herself dialing his office from work. Finding she’d misremembered a detail of his courtship, his body, and pleading at the altar of her grief for consolation. But the dreams introduced a totally unforeseen form of torture. Most were of his death, grisly fantasies so unlike his sad surrender to cancer she couldn’t imagine where they came from. Greg gunned down by assassins, his body riddled with perfect holes like Braille. Greg torn to bloody shreds by packs of wolves. Greg drowned in the tub, his eyes crusted with corals. Worst of all, in some of the dreams she was the victim, he the attacker. This didn’t make sense; her husband had never laid an unwelcome hand on her. Yet in her dreams he stalked like a murderous golem, brandishing hatchets, beating down the doors she put between them. At her first, tentative sessions with Dr. Achison they pursued the usual routes: anger at Greg’s abandonment turned to guilt then twisted back on herself. But the dreams didn’t stop, and when her therapist suggested they try something a bit more radical, she gratefully accepted.
The afternoon of her first Snooping session Minnie paused at her apartment door, frozen with unease. Her wedding photo gleamed on the wall, Greg in his tuxedo smiling shyly at the champagne flute in his hand, she half turned to face him, the lacy hat she’d worn in lieu of a veil piled on the table where the cake sat, tiered and ruffled. The toast was offered: long life. She’d been so dazzled by her husband’s beauty she could remember no more. Four years later, when he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, the cruel fact of his undamaged good looks seemed a spiteful joke. The oncologist gave him a year. Like the crystal flute, his fragile beauty would not last.
After one final, fruitless search of her purse, she closed the door and left the memory to await her return.
The Snooping setup was disarmingly simple: a slim box about the size of a laptop, with a wireless transmitter in the shape of a Bluetooth. The transmitter, Dr. Achison explained, directed a signal to the hippocampus, initiating a process of cerebral stimulation and memory retrieval. The operator could modify, redirect, or abort the signal on the subject’s cues, but could not access the Snooper’s mind. The Snooper, meanwhile, required practice not only to recognize and sort the scenes presented to her, but to distinguish the interior landscape sufficiently from the exterior to communicate what she saw. Ideally, in time she’d be able to provide the operator with continuous feedback so he could pinpoint the site of disturbance and help her open, address, and ultimately overcome it.
“But let’s start slow,” he said, gently clipping the device to her ear. It pinched slightly, warm from his touch. “When I press this button you’ll feel a pulse, a tingling behind your ear. I’ve tried it, it feels something like a cell phone on ‘vibrate,’ it’s not unpleasant at all. The tingling will penetrate, that is you’ll feel it deeply inside your head, but there still should be no pain. Most people prefer to close their eyes, at least at first, it cuts out distractions.” He smiled encouragingly. “Are you ready?”
Minnie’s throat felt dry. “What will I see?”
“Most people report it’s like a dream,” he said. “A very vivid waking dream. Or a movie. With characters, or personae to use the technical term. But unlike a movie, you’ll develop the ability to control what’s going on, to change the script.”
“And you’re sure this will help?”
“All I can tell you is that it’s helped others. On the premise that the devil you know is preferable to the devil you don’t.” He cocked his head, whether in irony or not she couldn’t tell. “Are you ready?”
Minnie closed her eyes, nodded, and felt her jaw hum. Then she vaulted inside with Jericho and Ruth.
#
In the first weeks many personae appear, their forms coalescing out of nothing, shimmering and wobbling like soap bubbles. Anthony, the homeless man with walrus mustache and Olive Parka who snoozes at the bus stop. Ray, the young black woman who dances in a leotard beneath the track lights of her apartment. Delilah, the stringy redhead who negotiates the hopscotch grid under an autumn spill of leaves. All of them alien, all of them intimate: functions of her mind, phantoms of neural firing. But they never commune, never last. They flicker and fade. They tantalize, but do not take.
It is Ruth and Jericho who arrive regularly, and always as one. Within a month the nooks and angles of their apartment are mapped in her mind: cream-colored carpet, off-white walls bare of photos or artwork, improbable jutting fireplace, front window seat, peeling kitchen floor, bedroom and bath down a narrow, unlit hall. Minnie struggles to report as she views. There they are again, they’re talking, no arguing, Jericho raises his voice, Ruth hugs a shawl around her shoulders. Or: Jericho seems subdued today, it’s hard to tell, he sits at the alcove window staring into the sun while Ruth putters in the bedroom, folding sheets. Or they’ve gone out, the apartment is empty, Ruth’s vanilla scent lingers. After the first session she witnesses no violence, only distance, a divide Ruth meets with silence and Jericho with a bristling disquiet. Minnie asks Dr. Achison whether the couple’s persistence means anything, and he concurs, guardedly, that it may: the obvious analogy suggests they are worth pursuing. He only cautions her not to become so fixated on them that she ignores or suppresses other potentially fruitful leads.
“If I were to suppress them,” she asks, “how would I know?”
He has no answer to that, beyond the suggestion that she consult her dreams.
Three months in, she is unexpectedly thrust into Ruth and Jericho’s bedroom. Or not altogether unexpectedly: she had wondered, worried, if this might be coming. Now from her position of hovering omniscience she spies the couple in bed, Ruth reaching up to Jericho’s face, he accepting her caress, eyes closed, cheek meeting her fingertips. Minnie is relieved to see this tenderness, but still she feels defiled, and the knowledge that it is herself she is watching does not help. She knows that, with effort, she can instruct her mind to terminate the session. But at the same time she admits she does not want it to end. She has been without a partner for over a year, Greg’s final months so fragile he bruised at her touch. If nothing else, the scene recalls when his body, and through his hers, was whole.
“Minnie?” She flinches as Dr. Achison’s voice enters the room. “Is everything all right?”
“I–” This is even worse, now she is in bed with her dead husband, two strangers, and her shrink. “I’d rather not say.”
She hears the ticking of his keyboard. “Would you like me to stop?”
Despite her shame, Minnie almost laughs. The truth is, she does not want him to stop, does not want them to stop, does not want herself to stop. And yet the distraction has taken its toll, the rhythm of their movements fracturing, the room dimming. Soon they will deflate, sag like wilted violets, and she will be powerless to prevent them. How horrible, she thinks, that she cannot close her eyes to avoid seeing.
“Yes, please,” she says, as the bedcovers stretch and bubble like gum. “I’d like to stop now.”
#
At the following session Dr. Achison tells her that crises differ from catastrophes. He offers this spontaneously, in no particular rejoinder to anything; if he guesses what she saw the previous week, he does not mention it. A crisis, he explains, marks a transition, the arrival at a crossroads. But choice is difficult; there is always the temptation to turn back. Hence the conflict, hence the crisis.
“You remember that line from The Wizard of Oz?” he says. “When they enter the lion’s den? I think it’ll get darker before it gets lighter. Which is another way of saying it’ll only get lighter if it gets darker.”
Minnie thinks it cannot get much darker than this. He reads her expression, tells her she cannot so easily escape the sorrow that has settled over her life.
“Will I ever?”
“That’s the hope,” he responds.
She has her doubts, but remembering Greg, her crystal glass, she takes a breath and enters the forest.
She finds Ruth and Jericho in a less compromising spot, their old standby the kitchen. Both are seated; a meal passes between their hands. Ruth looks at her partner levelly, without fear. He speaks softly, and she replies in kind. No accusations or innuendoes, just trivial chitchat such as young lovers trade. There are even moments of lightness, smiles, casual touches as they clear. Maybe, Minnie thinks, the crisis was theirs as well as hers. Maybe the x-rated scene was a reconciliation. Or–she still finds it hard to remember that they are her–a breakthrough in her own recovery.
“I’ll resist the forest-for-the-trees witticism,” Dr. Achison says as he removes the earpiece. “How was it?”
“Lighter,” she answers.
She spends the weekend boxing up her married life. The picture comes down, the album following it into storage. His clothes are long gone, except for a hand-knitted sweater and a tie or two. These she slips into plastic and deposits with the rest. She empties shelves of textbooks, maps and guides, novels shared and exchanged. She buried her husband with his wedding ring; many times since she’s wished she kept it, but now she tells herself she’s glad it’s gone. She hardly knows why she is so keen to purge the space; she wonders whether it’s time to move altogether. She asks what it means to heal. She breathes deeply, looks around the emptied apartment, and tries not to remember where everything used to be.
#
As the months pass and the memories of forgetting fade, she finds herself looking forward to her sessions. Ruth and Jericho have supplanted all the others (last to go was dancing Ray, who tapped madly before being hustled offstage). But Minnie welcomes the uncontested space, the space, she realizes, the two needed all along. Freed of the others, their relationship is improving, even thriving. Now when she Snoops she finds them cuddling by the ornamental fireplace, the chance vocabulary of Scrabble tiles lying forgotten on the hearth; or fleeing their confinement, strolling in the park, boating on the artificial lake. Next comes the ring Jericho presents Ruth: an opal set in silver, he slides it onto her left hand, and Minnie is surprised, but not displeased, to learn they are unmarried. This explains the ugly start: a young couple just finding their way, of course there’ll be hiccups. A bloody nose, she realizes, is no hiccup, but it has not recurred, Jericho’s hands are gentle as he cups Ruth’s shoulder or guides a strand behind her ear, and perhaps the first blow was her–Minnie’s–fault.
The apartment becomes a second home. Minnie fails to witness a formal proposal, but she presides over every sign of their courtship. Jericho surprising Ruth with roses, she returning the favor with back rubs. Extended exchanges at the dinner table filled with sly laughter and private allusions. Evenings before the TV, Ruth’s hand cradled in Jericho’s, he feeding her popcorn, she taking the kernels lightly on her tongue and teeth. And more nights in bed, Minnie no longer torn but simply relishing their delight in one another. She has not reported these encounters to Dr. Achison–she has not reported the disappearance of Anthony, Ray, and the rest–but she has come to believe that watching them together is no more inappropriate than watching her former husband’s body sleek from the shower or tense with their own lovemaking. Ruth and Jericho are hers, are her, and there can be nothing disreputable about sharing in their joy.
Minnie’s nightmares have ceased. When she dreams it is of Ruth and Jericho.
#
Eight months into the process Dr. Achison suggests a change.
“Thus far you’ve been a more or less passive observer,” he says. “That’s not a criticism, you’ve done wonderfully considering. But I think it’s time to step it up a notch.”
“But I thought we were making progress,” she says. At their last session Ruth and Jericho took another walk in the park, and she thrilled to see them holding hands, kicking leaves, contemplating other couples’ children.
“We may be,” he says. “But I’m afraid. . . .”
Minnie’s heart sinks.
“. . . you’ve become content to watch, to let things develop as they may. And that’s problematic, even dangerous.”
“Dangerous?” This is the first time he’s raised the prospect of dangers.
“Risky,” he amends, smiling. “Therapeutically speaking. It suggests a withdrawal from the process, a desire to cede control.” He smiles again, apologetically. “There’s a term for this, Minnie. Not that a term makes a thing real. Omniscience avoidance. Everything appears to be going well, yes? Ruth and Jericho’s relationship appears to be strengthening, healing?”
She nods.
“But ask yourself: if they were taking a turn for the worse, would you feel the same way?”
The answer is too obvious, which may be why she chooses to argue. “If they’re healing, doesn’t that mean I’m healing? If they’re me, if my mind–brain–is finding a healthier place, maybe I am taking control.” She suspects this is a lie, feels only pleasure at their strolls and sex, too gratifying for the hard work of therapy.
“It’s possible,” he muses. “Only you would know. But let me pose it this way: can you know when you have no basis for comparison?”
Minnie’s resistance wavers. Therapy, she’d believed before Snooping, was an inexact science: relative, a tautology. Whatever worked was good; whatever was good worked. “I don’t think I have enough control.”
Wrong objection; he pounces. “That’s precisely the problem. You can’t gain control until you think you can.”
Fearing another storybook analogy, she concedes. “What do I need to do?”
“Nothing drastic,” he assures. “Just when you’re in, try to think of yourself differently, less audience than director. Don’t simply watch; ask yourself whether it’s what you want to see.” He waves away her riposte. “I know you’ve done this to an extent. I’m simply asking you to try harder, to do more.”
“What will happen to Ruth and Jericho?”
For a moment his eyes scrutinize her face. He opens his mouth to say something, stops. “Let’s just wait and see.”
#
In her mind’s eye Minnie perceives a trap. She knows the therapeutic relationship is built on trust. On the edge of vacuum she senses personae crowding, swirling like vapor, clamoring for entrance. For the last time she gives up hope one may be her husband; for the first time she imagines one as her doctor, shadowy and stern. Why, she wonders, is it so hard to know one’s others, one’s self? Why can we never escape this mind? Then the room fills with light and Minnie watches intently a scene take shape on the brightening sphere.
Ruth sits at the kitchen table, a scent of cinnamon in the air. What was once a merely functional space has been leavened. A brass ladle hangs from the wall, its beaten surface reflecting golden cuts and crescents, a ceramic vase stands on the table, overflowing with baby’s breath. Ruth glances frequently at the hand-painted clock above the counter, rises to peer out the single window. Watching, Minnie feels a throb inside her stomach, a deep wobble greater than anticipation. When the apartment door opens and Jericho enters bearing blue flowers wrapped in plastic, Ruth runs to him, and Minnie knows what she has longed for has come to pass.
#
“Ruth is pregnant,” she announces without prelude at their next session. She has kept the secret a week, savoring it. But she can keep it no longer.
Dr. Achison blinks. Then he asks, “How far along?”
“She just took the test,” Minnie says. “But they’ve been trying for a while.” Her voice is triumphant, her eyes squarely on his. Now that the truth lies before them, she refuses to apologize for having watched and withheld so long.
He says nothing for a time. Minnie knows he is enough of a Freudian to be intrigued, even intimidated, by anything having to do with sex. “And how do you feel about this?”
“You told me I needed to take control,” she says. “This is proof I have.”
“Proof,” he repeats. “Minnie, how long has it been since you’ve Snooped on anyone other than Ruth and Jericho?”
“Months,” she says without hesitation. “Just after I first saw them in bed together.” She adds, needlessly and recklessly, “And I’ve been dreaming of them too. Real dreams. Good dreams.”
“You’ve banished the others?”
“At first it made me uncomfortable to watch, but now I know they’ve been trying all along. To have a baby.”
“They’ve been trying.”
“They, I. I’ve been trying to have Ruth’s baby.” She laughs. “And now I have.” She knows this makes no sense, she cannot be mother and father, watcher and watched, the one who wills and the one who receives all at once. But she feels absolutely sure of the miracle of surrogacy that has overtaken her life. This, she thinks, is what it means to heal: to become one, whole, a cosmos integral and secure.
“Minnie,” Dr. Achison’s voice interrupts. “How long has it been since you’ve had your period?”
She ignores him. She watches a fly bat against the window, stupidly stubborn to gain the light.
“Minnie,” he repeats. “Whatever is going on, Ruth can’t be having a baby. Or you can’t be having theirs. There is no Ruth, there is no Jericho. These people aren’t real.”
“They’re real enough for me,” she says. “More real than this office, than”–she points–“that machine. Their love is real. How do I know what’s real?”
“You know,” he says. “Reality isn’t always such a nice place.”
She rises. She considers a final gesture–dashing off a check, slamming the machine shut–but simply marches past him to the door.
“What about Greg?” he says.
She pauses, hand gripping the doorknob. “What about him?” Then she exits the office.
Another patient sits in the waiting room, an older woman thumbing a magazine. She looks up, thinking she has lost track of time. Her watery eyes search Minnie’s face. Then she smiles conspiratorially.
“I used to cry at night,” she confides. “Now all I hear is singing.”
#
Ruth reclining in a hospital gown, cool gunk smeared on her belly, Jericho at her side. The ball rolls across her flesh, the screen brightens with a gray, swirling form.
Ruth and Jericho at the mall, pricing prams, strolling arm-in-arm past the goldfish stream, spooning sundaes at the snack court.
Ruth decorating, blue and white, fingering the mobile, watching it dance.
Ruth lying in bed, aglow in a shaft of sunlight. Her skin pale, her arm above her head, her hair splayed. The door parts and Jericho peeks in, tie loosened, floral offering fanned under an arm. He smiles tenderly, retreats. Then his look changes and he leaps to the bed, lilies scattering. He touches Ruth’s shoulder, speaks her name. His eyes travel her body to where blood shadows the sheets.
#
Ruth is Snooping on the woman in 1A.
Minerva is her name. Chubby, with a headful of black ringlets and dark eyes, she squats among boxes in an apartment empty of furnishings. She calls out, but her only reply is silence.
Ruth rests a hand on her stomach, feeling the baby beat inside her, and waits for Jericho’s return.
