“Was it hard, cleaning out the truck?”
“Far harder than it should have been. Everything in there seemed to weigh a thousand pounds. But it’s just a truck, right?” She swiveled around on her backside until she was facing him. “It’s just a truck,” she said again.
“Truck, bedroom, lifestyle. I can imagine it was very hard.”
“I couldn’t keep it clean. I tried. Well, I didn’t really try. I just couldn’t do it. Within a day I put everything back.”
“Sean says your racing scull is pristine. You could eat off the hull, he claims.”
She smiled. “He would say that. Although he’s not exactly without his quirks. Have you ever seen anyone so neat and orderly? I mean, come on.”
She snapped off a small branch from the fallen tree and tossed it in the water. As she watched it sail away she said, “I don’t know why I changed, Horatio. I really don’t. I don’t even remember changing to tell the truth, but with so many people claiming I did, I guess I have to accept it.”
“Okay. That’s a good admission. A very positive step, Michelle. Yet when I mentioned the rose hedge you reacted to that. Why?”
She’d visibly shuddered again when he’d said it. Another few minutes of silence went by. Michelle stared at the tree trunk she was sitting on; Horatio’s gaze was directly on her. He didn’t say anything, fearful he might ruin the possibility of the first real breakthrough since he’d started seeing her. His patience was amply rewarded.
She said, “Can you be afraid of something and you don’t even know what it is?”
“Yes. It can be buried so deeply within your mind that all you can register is the fear without realizing what the source of that fear is. Repression into the subconscious of past events that were beyond someone’s ability to deal with at the time is the brain’s fail-safe mechanism to protect us. We simply block it out.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that. But it’s akin to water in the basement that you try to fix by patching here and there. Eventually the damage becomes so severe that the entire foundation of the house is threatened as the water starts to seep into unexpected places, places you can’t even see until the damage is done.”
“So I’m a rotting house?”
“And I’m the best house fixer you’re ever going to run across.”
“But if I can’t even remember why I’m so scared, how can you help me?”
“There’s a tried-and-true method: hypnosis.”
Michelle shook her head. “I don’t believe in that crap. No one can hypnotize me.”
“Usually the people who are certain they can’t be are the easiest to do it to.”
“But you have to want to be hypnotized, right?”
“That certainly helps. But you want to get better, don’t you?”
“I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you about this stuff if I didn’t. I haven’t spoken to anyone about this, ever!”
“I’ll take that as a compliment. Will you let me hypnotize you?”
“I don’t like losing control, Horatio. And what if I tell you something that I can’t handle? What if it’s that bad?”
“That’s why I went to all those schools and have all the certificates on my wall. I’m the professional. Just let me do my job. That’s all I’m asking.”
“That’s asking a lot. Maybe too much,” she added bluntly.
“Will you at least think about it?”
She rose, nimbly walked down the trunk and hopped to the ground next to him. As Michelle passed him she called over her shoulder, “I’ll think about it.”
Horatio looked after her in exasperation. “Where are you going now?”
“I’ve got Viggie duty.”