My Name is Lily Madwhip and I Don’t Need a Therapist

My name is Lily Madwhip and I don’t need a therapist.
“Do you think Roger is with God, Lily?â€
That’s my therapist. Her name is Ms. Kristie. She’s about my mom’s age, but uses less makeup, probably because she doesn’t have any kids of her own. Ms. Kristie wears a little chain around her neck with a cross on it. She also wears a jacket with too many buttons and not enough holes. I wonder what all those extra buttons are for. She always wears the same jacket. Does she only have the one, or does she have lots of jackets that all look the same? I’m never going to know the answer to these urgent mysteries.
Ever since Roger died I have to sit in this room twice a week with shelves full of books about child psychology and drawings by other kids on the walls and talk to Ms Kristie. I guess Mom and Dad thought I wasn’t handling Roger’s death appropriately. Well, Mom didn’t anyway. Dad doesn’t really talk to either of us much anymore. Mom is out in the waiting area with Paschar. I’m not allowed to bring Paschar in with me when I talk to Ms. Kristie. Other kids get to bring things in. There’s this girl with black hair who always shows up with a teddy bear that chuckles when she squeezes it. One kid even brings a toy fire engine with flashing lights. Flashing lights can cause seizures.
I don’t think Ms. Kristie likes Paschar.
“Sure,†I shrug, “Roger’s in heaven.â€
Roger isn’t in Heaven. He’s not in Hell either. Roger’s not in some underground cave filled with red demons carrying pitchforks that stab him as flames shoot out of rocks. He’s not sitting on a cloud with a harp either. I think he’d be pretty annoyed if someone handed him a harp. He’d probably throw it at them and call them an *******. Roger’s on the other side of town in a place called Holy Oaks Cemetery where Mom and Dad paid for a plot in the back by a willow tree and a creepy, stone crypt with an angel on top that looks nothing like a real angel. They got a little polished stone marker to put on his grave that just says, “ROGER T MADWHIP†in all caps and “Beloved Son†in cursive underneath.
And that’s where Roger is... there in his dead body, in a suit he’d probably make a face at if you told him he had to wear it, in a coffin with white padding, I suppose in case he gets uncomfortable, laying in the dark, six feet underground with dirt and worms on top of it all.
Paschar says Roger is in Purgatory, which I guess means laying in your dead body until they decide what to do with you.
Did you know there’s over two hundred bones in most people? When one gets broken, like if a man in a mask strikes you on the arm with a crowbar, the body knows how to repair it over time. Unless the body is dead, then they just stay broken forever I guess. Roger ended up with lots of broken bones. Some of them were broken more than once too. It was like a dozen guys in masks with crowbars just pounded on him for an hour. Now he’s stuck in his coffin with that suit he hates and a whole bunch of broken bones that are never going to heal. I wonder, when they decide where he’s going, if he’s going to pop out all floppy like a jellyfish. The idea of Roger like a squishy sack makes me laugh.
Ms. Kristie jots this down.
I go stand by the window overlooking the parking lot. It’s cold and wet outside today. There’s a slick spot on the sidewalk into the building where Ms. Kristie works that I can see from her office. A lady and her son are walking in from their car. The boy is probably a couple years younger than me, and wearing a pair of brown, corduroy pants. He’s going to slip on the slick spot, get those pants wet, and end up crying, but there’s nothing I can do about it so I look away. I hear the commotion from outside a moment later.
It didn’t rain when we buried Roger. I thought it was always supposed to rain when there’s a funeral. I even dreamed that it rained, but the rain was lots of little bits of glass, and it was cutting everybody. Roger’s friend Skeeter and Dustin were there in their suits and their hair combed and they were crying because the glass was cutting them. Everybody was covered in blood.
Mom said if it rained every time there was a funeral, it would never stop raining. That sounds like there are a lot of funerals going on.
“Do you miss him?†Ms. Kristie asks.
“Yeah.â€
Roger hid my foil Charizard before he died and now I don’t know where it is. Uncle George gave it to me for my birthday when I turned five because he was getting rid of my cousin Susie’s old collection and he said if I hung onto it I could probably use it to pay for college some day. Susie was a year younger than Roger. She died in a “boating accident†one summer during a family reunion. When people hear “boating accident†they think you were in a boat and there was an accident, like maybe you hit another boat or ended up out of the water, but Susie was in the water and the boat ran her over, so I think it was more of a swimming accident that happened to involve a boat. I was there when it happened, but that’s a whole other story. Ever since, I don’t like going in the water. Not as long as there’s still boats. And sharks. And piranhas.
“Do you ever feel like crying?†Ms. Kristie asks. She dyes her hair. She doesn’t think anyone knows, but I know. I suppose if I really wanted to blow her mind, I could ask Paschar where she gets it done and what the person’s name is who does it for her. Maybe then people will stop treating me like I’m making things up. Or maybe they’ll want to cut open my brain. Roger said they would do that if they thought I really did see things before they happen, but Roger’s dead now.
I don’t want them cutting open my brain, so I don’t tell Ms. Kristie I know her hair color is fake.
“I already cried.†I say instead. I did cry, but only because people expected it of me, especially at a funeral. “I just want to get back to school and see my friends.â€
I don’t have any friends at school. I used to have a friend named Rachel, but I warned her that her dog Ruffy was going to have seizures and die and she stopped being my friend. Other kids think I’m weird. Jeffrey Baker calls me Mad Lily. That’s okay because Paschar says puberty isn’t going to be kind to Jeffrey. If I really wanted to be mean, I could tell everybody that he still wets the bed sometimes, but Paschar tells me not to be mean.
Being mean lands you in Purgatory.
Ms. Kristie writes something in her notebook about me. I think it says that I’m uncooperative and repressing my emotions. I’m trying to be cooperative, but adults don’t want to hear the truth, they want to hear you say what they think is right. If you say anything else, they think it’s wrong and then you have to start all over again. Sometimes they put you on drugs so they can tweak the chemicals in your brain until you think things you wouldn’t otherwise, like how much you miss your brother who used to give you wedgies and hid your foil Charizard before he died and now you’ll never go to college.
“Ms. Kristie?â€
“Please, call me Kristie.â€
“Ms. Kristie, can I please bring Paschar in next session?†I ask.
She gives me that face adults make where they know you know the answer and are hoping you’ll take the question back before they have to give it. “I think Paschar should stay in the waiting room.â€
“Why?â€
“Because I want to hear from you, not Paschar.â€
She doesn’t really want to hear from me, because I would want to talk about why I’m suddenly seeing her lying motionless on the floor of some room with green carpeting and yellow furniture that came from IKEA. Her face is purple and her tongue is sticking out and it’s all swelled up like one I saw on a frog at the museum once. The frog was dead too. The world is decorated with dead things. I want to ask her if she feels dizzy or light-headed, and if she had enough to eat at lunch. I wonder if IKEA is an acronym, kind of like the one I see on the wristband they’ll give her at the hospital. DNR.
She thinks you’re schizo, *******. Roger says in my head. She thinks you think your doll talks to you.
I clam up. I don’t feel safe without Paschar. When I see things before they happen like this, often Paschar can explain them to me. I don’t know why he came to be with me. Maybe because in all the world I’m the only person that bothered to name their doll Paschar. Maybe he knew I could see things before they happen and came to keep me company and by a crazy coincidence I gave the doll the same name as him. All I know is he says he’s an angel and not to be afraid, and that always makes me feel better.
The time for my session finally runs out and Ms. Kristie escorts me to the waiting room where Mom and Paschar are sitting with other parents and their kids. My mom is talking to the mother of the boy who fell on the slick spot outside. He’s sitting beside her with teary eyes and a long snot coming out of his nose. Gross.
Ms. Kristie takes Mom aside and they have a conversation in whispers, so I take Paschar aside and also have a conversation in whispers. Two can play at that game. I know Ms. Kristie is telling my mother about “emotional repression†and my mother is asking Ms. Kristie about “pharmaceutical solutionsâ€. My mother likes pharmaceutical solutions.
I ask Paschar what DNR stands for. Then I have to ask him what “resuscitate†means. Sounds like I’m not going to be seeing Ms. Kristie anymore. I want to warn her, but I don’t know what to warn her about. Is it a bad fall? Does she have a heart attack? She looks healthy enough. I wish I got a fuller picture when I see things before they happen. But then, does it even matter? Nobody ever listens to me. Mom wants me to stop making things up to explain the bad stuff that seems to always happen around me. Dad already thinks I’m cursed and causing these things to happen. They sleep in separate beds now and Dad spends a lot of time out in the garage drinking and banging on Roger’s drum set.
I wonder if Ms. Kristie will go to Purgatory like Roger.
Ms. Kristie turns to me and flashes her fake smile. “See you next Tuesday, okay, Lily?â€
I fake-smile back at her, shaking my head sadly. “Okay.â€
Maybe I am cursed. But I don’t need a therapist.


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