The Truth Of A Kaleidoscope Mind

Chapter 1

THE FOOL O

Michael Fredrick Anderson’s car tires crunched on the gravel as he pulled into his mother’s driveway. Or, rather, this red brick house and its gravel driveway had belonged to his mother. Fredrick stopped his white Toyota Camry under a towering silver maple tree and stared through his bug-splattered windshield at the Craftsman house, caught in time in the 1950s, with its porch swing, white porch columns, and old rusted TV antennae alongside a gray satellite dish.

Beside him in the passenger seat, his best friend Chalsey Montgomery leaned forward and gazed through the windshield as well. It’ll be strange to walk in and not be greeted by your mom.

Fredrick snorted. If you weren’t helping me, I’d kill myself rather than face this. He knew he shouldn’t make such dark jokes, given his history, but he was in a dark mood. He turned off his car and lumbered out, his body tensing more with each step. Around him the summer blasted him with cheer, as if to slay him with toxic positivity: the golden morning sun, the circling songs of a mockingbird, and an azure sky with puffy white clouds painted onto the horizon. The grass glowed in the sunlight, and his mother’s snowball bushes bloomed with stunning whiteness at each end of the porch.

Fredrick escaped all the cheer into his mother’s silent living room. The unnatural stillness and lack of human energy signaled to him that his mother was, indeed, dead. Houses and other buildings had a certain tranquility, an energetic motionlessness, that only occurred when no one was present. Fredrick had entered and shattered it. Standing in the barrenness where his mother had dwelled, he wrongly filled it with his own fluctuating energy. This was not the sobbing grief of movies or TV shows, but a deep, throbbing confusion, a hurt like a lost child wandering through an amusement park long after their balloon has flown away into the sky and their ice cream has melted on their hand, searching for a parent who would never materialize.

A stack of Southern Living magazines teetered on the end table by the beige rocker-recliner. Even to the end, his mother had paid for a subscription and had given him her magazines once she had read them, an odd book club sentiment he had given up trying to fend off. An embarrassed ache swelled in his chest. That stack of magazines had been intended for me. A teal windbreaker lay over the back of the crimson sofa, and his mother’s lavender purse sat on the sofa cushion. The hardwood floors shone in the sunlight pouring through the windows, revealing a stray gray hair. A live person’s marks covered the room, but these items no longer had an owner. Death was the ultimate, and final, abandonment.

A sixteen-pound, orange, tabby cat scrambled out of the kitchen, claws clicking on the floor as he raced around the hard rock maple furniture populating the dining room and living room, meowing and demanding food.

You need to lose seven pounds before I try to re-home you. Fredrick sighed as he trudged through the house, wondering why his mother had overfed every cat she’d owned. She’d killed their first cat with diabetes and complained when her newest cat, Largo, wouldn’t eat all the food she plied him with. Then Largo had gotten diabetes as well.

I’ve tried five brands of cat food, she’d griped. But he still only eats half of it.

It was easier to be angry with her than to feel any other emotion, even now. Eat, eat, eat, he retorted. No fight could break their relationship more than her death had. Eat and never stop eating because you only prove you love me if you eat it all. Fredrick’s family had been a Clean Your Plate type. Everyone had been medically obese, and his mother had verbally attacked him for losing down to a healthy weight.

Chalsey trailed Fredrick and the cat into the kitchen. Towering oak cabinets reached the ceiling. White tile and white appliances offset the otherwise claustrophobic effect created by the cabinets and island. She stood at the entrance to the cellar. Even from the stairs, they could see the walls lined with boxes.

Fredrick opened cabinets until he found where his mom had kept the dry cat food. There was no container. The twenty-pound bag of food was snipped open at the top, a plastic measuring cup inside. He swallowed a groan. Of course. The scent of feline vitamins wafted from the opened cat food. He picked up the scoop, grimacing at the orange-brown dusting of kibble crumbs crusted to the white plastic.

All right. He eyed Largo. I am not feeding you an entire cup of this. He measured a quarter cup, shut the cabinet, and walked to the cat food dish at the end of the kitchen island on the floor.

Where do you want to start? Chalsey asked.

Fredrick paused instead of doling the scoop of food into Largo’s dish and received an impatient meow for his negligence. He glanced into the cellar, uneasiness tightening his lungs. His memory of his childhood was patchy, but he recalled fearing the cellar even as a toddler.

Might as well go through the boxes first. After all, I can’t auction off stuff hiding in boxes. Also, I hate the cellar, so let’s get it out of the way. He dumped the food into the dish and hated the sound of the kibbles raining down. It was like he could hear the diabetes-causing calories.

Sure. Chalsey marched down the stairs, all confidence.

In most ways, she was the complete opposite of Fredrick: short to his tall, blonde to his brunette, bohemian to his khaki-bland. She’d gone to college in Washington state, graduating from the famous hippie but superior Evergreen State College. She’d left Kentucky as a pimple-faced, anxious teen whom boys ignored and returned radiating joy, a virtual goddess in flowing gypsy skirts, prairie shirts, and golden ringlets cascading down her back.

Fredrick had lived his entire life in Kentucky, gone to college there, and believed he’d die there, too. His too-thin, somber self moved through its days in polo or Oxford shirts and nondescript slacks, a history professor whose fire only showed when discussing slavery and human trafficking. You’re the sun, I’m the new moon, he muttered.

Chalsey had already disappeared around the corner, but she leaned backward, showing her heart-shaped face. What?

Nothing. Fredrick set the measuring cup in the sink and followed her down the gray concrete stairs. He wished Chalsey’s confidence could bleed into his veins like a blood transfusion of life force. I want a new life. I want to feel strong, not descend into some mid-life crisis.

Sunlight half-penetrated the tiny windows, leaving the cellar dim, and he yanked the chain to switch on the bare bulb overhead. A mix of cardboard boxes and plastic tubs greeted him. He spied the Christmas tree box and a stack of red and green tubs he knew held Christmas decorations. His mom had been a champion decorator, with three Christmas trees out every year so covered in gorgeous ornaments that the trees disappeared under a coating of glamor. Sleighs, reindeer, Santa figurines, angels, and teddy bears in winter clothes had congregated on every flat surface and in every corner.

In retrospect, Fredrick had seen the decline in her. She had decorated less each year for Christmas in the final five years of her life. Last Christmas, she only had one tree out. I should have known something was wrong.

Chalsey pointed to the corner where a dollhouse sat on the shelf along with a collection of flower-printed boxes. Don’t tell me these are all your old toys.

Fredrick’s deep sigh seemed to expel his soul. He could picture the dolls, puffy stickers, and unicorns. A pink nuclear bomb could have exploded inside those boxes. Gotta be. Figures Mom would make even the boxes girly. I thought she would disinherit me when I told her I’m a man. He shuffled over to the shelves, his sneakers squeaking. Chalsey had been his best friend in high school, while he’d still been technically intersex but medically ruled to be female. Chalsey had missed his mother’s atomic explosion when he’d had gender-affirming surgery in college.

Or had it been gender-affirming?

Despite Mom’s Herculean efforts, sometimes I feel like I have no gender. Fredrick jerked the lid off a smaller box and discovered blue and red ribbons from Field Day in elementary school and a small gymnastics trophy, its brass discolored and spotted. With them was a flower-print diary, the word diary embossed in gold on the front.

I didn’t throw this away? Fredrick pulled the diary out of the box and considered its tiny fake gold lock. I bet you can’t even read my handwriting. It was so bad in elementary school.

Mine, too. Chalsey pulled the lid off another box, revealing a framed high school graduation picture: Fredrick with long ebony hair, makeup, and a girl’s class ring. It’s hard to remember you looking this way.

Fredrick wrinkled his nose. It’s hard to see those pictures. I always felt so awkward as a girl. He fished through the trophy box, looking for the keys to the diary. I might have to break this lock.

You want to read it? Chalsey put the lid back on her box and opened another, revealing three Barbie dolls and a rainbow-colored mass of Barbie clothes and shoes. God, your mom really tried hard to girlify you.

Every day. All day. Fredrick pulled on the thin piece of cardboard that held the diary shut, and it tore halfway. He yanked harder, and it ripped. Thanks to the force, the diary flew from his hands, and he snatched it back into his grasp by one corner. My only perk: excellent reflexes.

Chalsey picked up one Barbie. What a classic! This is Peaches-n-Cream Barbie. This is probably worth real money.

Fredrick only half-registered her words. The diary had fallen open a third of the way in. Jesus, my tortured, nasty handwriting. It’s as bad as I remember. The letters didn’t always stay between the lines, and his handwriting varied wildly, changing from blocky to bubbly or slanted to straight even inside a single sentence.

Let’s see if I have any luck reading it: ‘April 5. I had a fight with Angie today.’ He snickered. Oh, imagine that. I don’t even know why we played together. We fought so much. He squinted at his handwriting. ‘But I wish I’d stayed at Angie’s house. Dad was home alone when I got back. He took me to my room right away.’ Fredrick felt a chill shoot through him. Why does that scare me so much to read? ‘I always tell him how much it hurts when he touches me. But he won’t stop! He never stops.’ The word never was in all caps, underlined three times, and took up most of the remaining page.

Fredrick tasted metal in his mouth, and his teeth ached, a feeling all too familiar. He’d been having panic attacks since he was five. His heart thudded, raced, hurt, and he clutched his chest with one hand, his entire body trembling. That can’t—that can’t mean what I think it does.

Chalsey had frozen, the Barbie wearing an apricot ball gown still in her hand. She stared at Fredrick with wide brown eyes, all the blood seeping from her already fair complexion. ‘Touches?’

That’s not— Fredrick burst into a laugh, sharp and hysterical. I can’t mean⁠—

Abruptly, savagely, Fredrick began flipping through pages, spot-checking and skimming. Words and phrases jumped out at him: tried to hide in the closet...couldn’t pee for an hour...kept burning, and I cried...screamed at me...the look of victory on his face.

Fredrick dropped to the concrete floor, sitting on his heels and rocking back and forth. The diary fell from his hands, hitting the floor and snapping shut. Fredrick rocked and rocked, his arms crossed over his chest. It’s not true. It’s not true. It’s not true.

But I can’t remember half my childhood.

But I’m 43 and still can’t bring myself to have sex with anyone.

But my therapist said I have all the symptoms and red flags of someone who’s experienced sexual assault or abuse.

Chalsey knelt by him and opened her arms. Fredrick accepted the hug but kept rocking, his habitual panic response. She rocked with him.

It’s not fair. Where did those words come from? It’s not fair!

No, it’s not, Chalsey whispered.

Fredrick stopped rocking as cold numbness fell upon him, an ocean’s worth of shock, deep and icy and dark. The numbness was his old friend, dogging him through high school and college, flattening his days until all he imagined was a straight, gray road through a gray desert. He welcomed now what he’d hated then, his flying pulse beginning to ease and slow. He stared at the mountains of boxes and tubs around him, wondering what other horrors they would reveal.

But in the back of his mind, shining like a tiny pinprick of light, burned a single hope: What other truths can I find? My life makes no sense, and I know it.

Michael Fredrick Anderson, born Martha Fredrick Anderson, felt himself die on the cold cement floor and hoped his soul could claw its way back to life.

Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.

Fredrick sat at his mom’s tiny, two-person kitchen table by the back door and stared out the window, his brain flinging childhood songs, bits of fairytales, and clips of memories at him. Chalsey had ushered him upstairs to the table and now rummaged through his mother’s cabinets for herbs or herbal tea. She was a white witch, a Wiccan, a woman who walked the path of the Goddess, Gaia, with nature infusing her soul. Or so it seemed. Fredrick knew little about it. Thirty years ago, when they’d first met, Chalsey had been agnostic, Fredrick had been Southern Baptist, and neither of them had known anything about Wicca.

On the table in front of Fredrick lay the floral-print diary, its pink, lavender, and aqua flowers glaring up at him. He saw it out of the corner of his vision in all its girly wonder. Before him sprawled his mother’s back deck and yard, filled with oak trees and a detached garage. A squirrel ran down the deck banister, paused, flicked its tail, and zipped out of sight.

Fredrick’s mind vomited out disconnected thoughts:

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe.

She had so many children; she didn’t know what to do.

She gave them some broth without any bread;

and whipped them all soundly and put them to bed.

A memory of his father’s brown leather belt snapped through his mind, a mere nanosecond, but Fredrick saw it raised.

As a psychologist, Dad was outspoken about children’s well-being. Fredrick leaned his chin on the heel of his hand and discovered his face was numb. The American Psychological Association had published studies about the damage caused by spankings. He would get red in the face just talking about it.

Whipped them all soundly and put them to bed.

Half his clients were abused or human trafficking survivors. Fredrick’s lips felt numb, too. A mockingbird landed on the deck railing, its wings spread just long enough to show him their white spots. He had entire books about the symptoms, signs, and treatment for sexual abuse.

A flash of a memory: his dad’s fingers on his own zipper. Nothing more. Just a single image.

You know, if a person has a dissociative barrier in their brain that hides memories of abuse, that barrier will often start disintegrating when the person is in their 40s. Fredrick had double-majored in history and psychology, thinking he’d follow in his father’s footsteps. But then his father had died, and he’d pursued history instead. Is my brain getting ready to explode?

Chalsey walked over with a cup of tea, the tea ball still inside. This needs to steep for ten minutes. She set the cup in front of Fredrick and settled across the table from him. And maybe. If you read that entire diary, it’s probably assured. But I’m not a psychologist, so I don’t know for sure.

Fredrick peered into the cup, seeing the dark herbs trapped in the tea ball. Clearly, Chalsey had improvised. I wish I could burn this house to the ground. Having not known he would say that, he surprised himself.

He glanced up and met Chalsey’s gaze, her face lined with both worry and age. At 43, she’d survived her fair amount of pain: two divorces, a brush with alcoholism, and two career changes. But the one thing she’d suffered that Fredrick hadn’t was child abuse.

Or so they’d thought.

Every friend I made in middle school, high school, and college was molested. Fredrick picked up the teacup and inhaled the steam. I thought I was drawing those kinds of friends because my dad was a psychologist and I was a good listener. I was always like, ‘Well, Dad says that...’ whatever. Dispensing advice like a little psychologist in training.

Chalsey glanced out the window and reached up, tugging on a golden ringlet. She’d once weighed 200 pounds and fought for her right to weigh what she wanted. Then she’d divorced her second husband and converted her diet to all whole natural foods with no added sugar. Now she weighed maybe 120 pounds, the smallest Fredrick had ever seen her. Food had been her way of coping with memories of her father’s wandering hands. Well, I always thought you were good at understanding me. But like you said, treating abused children was your dad’s thing. So I just thought...

A muffled thump of sixteen pounds of cat jumping down from the chair or sofa in the living room interrupted Chalsey; Frederick flinched with a rush of sadness and hilarity. Even though Largo was a cat, Frederick schooled his face and pretended he didn’t hear, reacting with shame to his fatphobia. Yeah. Guess not, huh?

He turned his gaze upon the floral-print diary. He hadn’t picked it out. In his mom’s war to ensure he turned out a proper girl, she’d painted his room pink, purchased a floral-print bedspread and diary, and hung pictures of unicorns and flowers on his walls. Half of his wardrobe had been pink, half skirts, and half lace, with his mom’s favorite Easter dress being a pink, lacy one. Fredrick’s parents hadn’t allowed him to pick out his own clothes until he was 11.

Setting down the cup, Fredrick picked up the diary instead. A sharp surge of panic hit him, making his mouth water. He tasted metal again, and his heart raced. God. All I did was touch it, and I’m going to have a panic attack again. He dropped it and stood, walking to the oak cabinets. He wasn’t hungry, but he opened and closed doors, looking at the offerings just to have something to do. Boxes of instant grits, raisins, and bonbons greeted him. Well, I can clear up a mystery for my therapist. Why am I sexually frozen? Why do sexual abuse scenes in movies and books explode me? What is the reason behind the unrelenting anxiety and depression? Gee, I wonder.

Shifting in her chair, Chalsey leaned against the kitchen wall instead and crossed her legs. Her lavender gypsy shirt was so long it made a hill of fabric on the white tile floor. Well, do you really have depression or anxiety? You were diagnosed with panic disorder. But is it panic disorder? Or is all of this PTSD?

Fredrick paused, his hand halfway to a granola bar box. He snapped his fingers and turned away from the cabinet, pointing at Chalsey. Good point. I might have been misdiagnosed. He snorted and shut the cabinet without his granola bar. "Okay, so I’ve been misdiagnosed a dozen times. But I’m probably still misdiagnosed."

A second thump sounded from the living room, followed by a third and fourth one, like someone repeatedly dropping a bowling ball. Fredrick’s startle reflex caused him to glance in that direction, even though he didn’t have a line of sight into the living room. That poor, overweight cat is apparently getting some exercise.

You should tell Dr. Laurie immediately. Chalsey bounced her foot, her hippie-style chunky sandal threatening to fall off. They’ve dragged you through how many antidepressants now? Six? Seven?

Nine.

And none of them have worked. You deserve real help for the right condition.

A sharper thump, like someone stumbling into a piece of furniture, made Frederick’s shoulders tighten. Then a crack and the heart-stopping horror of glass shattering ignited childhood memories of being yelled at for playing too hard in the house. What is Largo doing? He stalked through the second kitchen doorway, crossed the hall leading to the primary bedroom, and exited through an archway into the living room.

Glancing around at the sofa, chair, two bookcases, and entertainment center, Fredrick saw no cat. Other than the stack of magazines and the windbreaker, the room was pristine and empty, its yellow walls glowing in the sun. Frederick observed that the pictures of elephants and palm trees were paired with knickknacks of pyramids in rainbows of color, creating a vague Egyptian theme in the room.

What the hell? Fredrick walked through the room, scanning. When he reached the second bookcase, he discovered his mom’s favorite angel figurine smashed on the hardwood floor. He glanced from the shards of white porcelain to the top shelf of the bookcase, which had been its home.

Chalsey entered through the dining room. What is it?

That’s impossible. Fredrick pointed to the broken angel. That cat is too fat to jump to the top shelf, and he would have to have jumped from the floor. There’s nothing close enough for him to jump from. The sofa, recliner, and entertainment center occupied positions too far away. I’ve seen cats do some wild stuff—real feats of agility. But that cat could not have done this.

You’re right. Chalsey crouched by the shards and picked up a broken wing. You know, the spirits, ancestors, and deities can send us messages in all sorts of interesting ways. It doesn’t have to be a dream or a spirit visitation. The world contains a wide range of omens.

Having been an atheist since his father’s death, Fredrick just shook his head. Well, the world would be more interesting if those things were true, but you know how I feel about this stuff.

Chalsey set the wing down and stood. I’m not asking you to be Wiccan. Just keep an open mind and track if there are any patterns. Many people report unusual phenomenon after a loved one dies. People from all different religions all over the world.

Nothing that cool ever happens to me. But I’ll keep a lookout just because it’s you asking. Fredrick whisked away, heading to the utility closet for a broom and dustpan, resigning the angel to its death.

Chapter 2

DEATH XIII

Armed with numbness and lingering shock, Fredrick returned to the cellar after throwing away the broken angel, Chalsey in tow.

He pulled lids off boxes, determined to resume work. I can’t let any of this stop me. Every moment that he allowed something to delay him from what had to be done, Frederick dragged out the process of dealing with his mother’s estate. His university wouldn’t give him time to take care of this. They hadn’t even given him a realistic amount of time off to arrange a funeral. And now more than ever, he wanted this task done. Coming back here had exploded in his face already. I’m not letting this drag me down into a depressive episode.

He found several black plastic tubs filled with his father’s old psychology books, including the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders III. Fredrick flipped through it, remembering pouring over the entries for depression and anxiety when he was fourteen and checking off which symptoms he had.

In the top of the third tub, there was a box of tarot cards. Fredrick recalled finding it as a teenager and playing with it. Hey, this might interest you. He held up the box, showing it to Chalsey. She was bent over a box filled with old curtains, drapes, and sheets.

Tarot? Chalsey walked over and accepted the deck. This is a classic Rider-Waite-Smith deck. Why would your parents have this?

Dad said some of his clients liked the archetypal symbols on the cards. Fredrick shrugged. He mostly used the cards with the Roman numerals on them.

Chalsey opened the box and