Lifting the Gloom E-Book

Bob Rich

• Herausgeber: Loving Healing Press
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Seitenzahl: 289

Beschreibung

A companion volume to Bob Rich's popular From Depression to Contentment: A Self-Therapy Guide, this little book is a collection of short stories and essays, each with a brief discussion that reveals a path to a good life. If you like a clearly laid out map to contentment, regardless of your circumstances, it's in From Depression to Contentment. If a ramble with surprising twists and turns is more your thing, that's Lifting the Gloom. And actually, the two go together like main course and dessert. Among the essays and excursions you'll find are:

• Laughter: the best antidepressant of all
• Defeating the Blood-Red Dragon: the legacy of childhood trauma
• Armor-coating our kids: become a great role model
• A Lucky Break: how to cope with anything
• Labels: us and them
• Plant Something Beautiful, Feed it with Sunshine, Water it with Love
• Buddhism concepts: equanimity is your friend
• Forgiveness is not just for other people
• The More You Give, The More You Grow
• Where Did You Put Your Attention?
• and more!

Leseprobe

Lifting the Gloom

Antidepressant writings

Bob Rich, Ph.D.

http://bobrich18.wordpress.com

http://anxietyanddepression-help.com

Loving Healing Press

Ann Arbor, MI

Lifting the Gloom: Antidepressant writings

Copyright 2021 by Bob Rich, Ph.D. All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-877053-21-4

This book is intended to inspire, instruct and entertain. It is not a book of therapy, and the author bears no responsibility for how you react to it.

It is a companion volume to From Depression to Contentment: A self-therapy guide.

Contents

Walk with me

The Underlord

The best antidepressant of all (that’s laughter)

Genius

You meet the nicest people in the oddest places

Ancient Wisdom

HIG: the new energy source

Breakfast

A catch

Expert Assessment

Defeating the Blood-red Dragon (the legacy of childhood trauma)

Let’s learn from Jim

Armor-coating our kids (role models)

How true is Dani’s story?

One of my angels

A Lucky Break (how to cope with anything)

Gabi can be your teacher, too

Liberation

Labels (us and them)

Another label, in 100 words

What about differences?

Plant something beautiful. Feed it with sunshine. Water it with love. (we all deserve it)

Sue has explained it all, hasn’t she?

Human nature being what it is…

On loving the same sex

On trans

Irreconcilable

Buddhist equanimity is USEFUL

Um... what’s equanimity again?

The lesson (grow from suffering)

Who is Jarro?

The onion and the pearl

Forgiveness

What can Matt and Mike teach us?

Tyrone joins Bill’s team

The more you give, the more you grow

Don’t you love her?

A random act of kindness

Two views of a park (the searchlight of attention)

Luigi

Pablo

Who would you rather be?

The Philanthropist (attention is a fertilizer)

Martin Matheson: from monster to marvel

The magic path (to happiness)

Resilience

Beryl

On having a good life

Wog’s revenge

The seven magic bullets

The glow

Preparing for The Bump

From the bottom, the only way is UP

Housework, in 200 words

Volunteering

The grumpy old man

Running on empty

The Professional Grandfather

Mirages

The face

Happily ever after?

Oh to be young again!

What’s going on?

Flow

The distance runner

The chess player

Happiness vs. contentment

Eulogy for Paul

Why did Paul get cancer?

Gratitude

And the destination

Walk with me

Fiction is far more fun to write than instructional stuff, regardless of how useful that may be. So, my popular book, From Depression to Contentment: A self-therapy guide, took many years. For over a decade, I knew I needed a book on depression, so from time to time I added material to it. Then it all came together in a couple of months.

Only, my publisher, Victor Volkman, told me he wanted it pared down to 50,000 words. But... but... but the best parts were several fictional stories that were more true than fact. They had to be left out — so, here they are for your enjoyment, and hopefully inspiration. Then I added new stories as they came to me.

In the original, each story was followed by an explanation that will help you if you suffer from depression, and invites you to be a helper and healer for those less fortunate. Not being one to waste stuff, I’ve included them here as well, and then I reckoned, I might as well follow the pattern.

So, if you like a clearly laid out map showing the path to a contented life regardless of your circumstances, grab a copy of From Depression to Contentment. If a ramble with surprising twists and turns is more your thing, allow me to be your guide, right here, right now. “There are many mountains to God, and many paths up each mountain,” as a Shintoist saying has it. And actually, I have designed this book to be a companion to the previous one. The two go together like main course and dessert.

Enjoy,

Bob.

P.S. some words in this book are in blue text, with a line under them. That’s a hyperlink to a web page, right? To my immense surprise, some people don’t realize this, and have sent me comments like “Why is this bit in blue?”

Now you know.

The Underlord

by Arianna Rich

2018 (9 years old)

The Underlord is rising,

Feeding on your tears,

Brush away the sadness,

That is what he fears.

The Underlord is rising,

Beside his little pet,

The black dog of depression,

Has raised its ugly head.

The sun will always rise each morning,

Will always set at night,

You just need to remember,

It will always be alright.

It doesn’t make you weak,

To acknowledge the black beast within,

It takes more guts to survive,

Than to let the Underlord win.

Roll yourself out of bed,

Push yourself out the door,

Make yourself call to friends,

Don’t be alone anymore.

If that black dog starts growling,

Tempt it with a treat,

Say you don’t need dark anymore,

These fears, we are going to beat.

Force that grimace into a smile,

Grab that black dog’s lead.

It’s turned into a playful puppy of hope,

And that is all that you need.

Arianna is my darling granddaughter, who has never personally experienced depression, but has immense empathy. Follow her instructions, and you will be free of depression, too.

The best antidepressant of all (that’s laughter)

It takes a great deal of effort to stay depressed while laughing. See if these three 100-word stories manage to lift the gloom.

Genius

PRESS RELEASE

This year’s Nobel Prize for Economics has been awarded to Emma Smith of Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia, for instantaneously doubling the global economy, an act of genius that has revolutionized the science of Economics.

She has evaluated the monetary worth of house cleaning, cooking, child care and early child education, dispute resolution and mediation services, taxi services at Uber rates, and information networking.

These services are provided within each family.

By assessing their value, she has managed to double the global Gross Domestic Product.

She has achieved this miracle without even including the monetary value of sexual services.

You meet the nicest people in the oddest places

Molly looked at the clock. Heavens, last night when she’d checked in at 2 a.m., a sign stated, they served breakfast only till 10 o’clock. She hadn’t bothered to take out her contact lenses, and now her eyes stung. She popped them out and smeared that soothing cream on. Eyes closed, she grabbed her toiletry bag and ran for the bathroom.

Through barely slitted eyes, she plotted the path to the toilet, turned and plonked down — onto something resilient.

Strong arms gently closed around her. A deep, laughing voice said, “Darling, welcome. Didn’t you know, neighboring units share a bathroom?”

Ancient Wisdom

By Murphy’s law, my husband’s dentures were being repaired just when our interstate daughter paid us a visit, but he put a good face on it. He soon made friends again with the grandbabies. Three year old Tommy became an instant admirer as the old boy pushed him on the swing, read him stories, and showed him some of the safer wonders of the workshop.

Dinner time came around, and Tommy noticed a little difference about Granddad. “Why don’t you have any teeth?” he asked.

Very seriously, my beloved looked at him. “Well, you see, I was born without teeth.”

HIG: the new energy source

When my daughter Anina was still a schoolkid, she and I wrote this story together, and entered it in a contest. It won first prize, earning us a solar cooker, which we used every summer for many years. And brag, brag, Anina is now a professor.

HIG is a greenhouse gas, produced globally in huge quantities, thus adding to the deterioration of our life support system. Like emanations from rubbish dumps, it is offensive to most people. Villagers in some cultures go to extreme lengths to avoid the embarrassment of being associated with HIG production. In our own culture, HIG is no longer taboo, but it is treated as the subject of low humor.

HIG has another similarity to rubbish dump gases: it is inflammable. According to Brampton et al. (1984), about 85% of it is methane. Unlike methane from the decomposition of garbage, however, it is produced in a decentralized way. Therefore it has the potential to involve millions of people in doing something for the environment, and earning some money at the same time.

What is HIG?

The initials stand for Human Intestinal Gas. This offensive, embarrassing substance is usable as an additive to other fuel gases. Under proper conditions, it burns to produce carbon dioxide, water and energy.

The collecting device

An existing technology, the flatus tube, can be adapted for collection. As doctors and nurses know, this device is used to relieve the suffering of certain patients. (Flatus is Latin for HIG, which could also be termed FF: Flatus Fuel.) The flatus tube is inserted into the appropriate orifice, allowing free venting of the gas into the air.

The collecting device is simple. It is a flatus tube with a length of flexible hose attached. The hose can be occluded with a stop-cock, and has a balloon glued to its other end. The balloon is worn on a convenient part of the body. When it is sufficiently full, the stop-cock is closed, the tube is withdrawn, washed, disinfected, and inserted into a hole in a storage container. The balloon is squeezed, thereby transferring the HIG to the container.

HIG distribution network

A network of purchasing points is needed. Current gasoline retailing outlets would do admirably. Each would have a large tank into which customers can transfer their collected HIG. It is our suggestion that payment for the gas should be free of income tax, and have no effect on Social Security benefits, in order to encourage this form of environmental action.

Environmental and economic benefits

Poor people would have some additional income, especially since foods thought to induce HIG production are cheap yet healthy. Charities and the like would have a new source of fundraising, e.g., a school could have a collecting tank, and ask supporters to donate their HIG.

A significant reduction in fossil fuel use would result, obviously a great environmental benefit.

Once the environmental and economic benefits of harnessing HIG were seen, the balloon of the collecting device could be proudly displayed: a badge of environmental consciousness. However, it is also easy to disguise the collecting balloon, making it enhance the width of a man’s shoulders, the prominence of a woman’s curves, even as a short-term phantom pregnancy.

Poor countries could supplement their export earnings by sending their population’s HIG to Japan or the USA, or could save precious foreign currency by reducing their energy imports.

Without a doubt, HIG is the fuel of the future. Its use is an admirable example of ‘turning bad into good.’ It is free to produce, cheap to collect, process and use, and it empowers people.

Reference

Brampton, K. C., Smythe, M. and Brzsyszky, X. W. The Biochemistry of the Digestive Tract, Churchill Livingstone, 1984.

And here is a recipe for a smile:

Breakfast

Getting breakfast is an adventure, when you live in a dangerous world.

It’s scary out there.

I peer out of my house.

I see no flying monsters... no stomping giants... no slavering crunchers.

Maybe it’s safe for now.

The air is pleasantly warm, with sunlight blessing the plants so I can almost hear them grow. It rained last night, giving everything a beautiful wet sheen.

I look around, still wary. The monsters of many kinds move so fast!

A flyer zooms overhead but keeps going, way too high to see little me. No other danger shows itself, though you never know.

I move out of the shadow of my overnight shelter and look around. Over there is a treasure: a plant with wonderful succulent leaves that will provide me with all the sustenance I need. I go over to it and start to climb. As soon as possible, I move onto the sheltered side, so that if a monster comes, I have a good chance of being hidden.

Happily, I start to eat.

Getting breakfast is an adventure — for a snail.

The next story about two nice youngsters gave me a grin when it emerged from my computer. But also, it has some lessons you might want to think about...

A catch

A gust of wind took my hat cartwheeling along the golden sand.

Out of nowhere, a sun-browned streak sprinted after it. He scooped the hat up, then put it over his heart and gave a theatrical bow.

A thought tickled my mind: Desi my girl, what have you caught?

He jogged back and ceremonially returned the hat. “At thy service, my lady,” he said.

I could do the medieval bit, too. “Methinks, sir, thou art too kind.”

Surprisingly, his face grew still, like he didn’t know what to say. So, to help him, I asked, “You got a name, noble knight?”

“George, but, um, I don’t kill dragons. Actually, I find them easier to talk to than gorgeous young ladies.”

“I’m Desi. Or on formal occasions, Desiree. That’s my father’s fault.”

“Actually, uh... it’s very apt.” He blushed. I thought I was supposed to.

I invitingly patted the towel and he sat beside me.

“Tell me more about dragons.”

“I’ve got a problem. This is homework for my psychologist.” He stopped, and again went red.

“Hmm?”

He grinned. “That’s what he often says, too. Anyway, I’m OK talking with blokes or old dragons. But someone like you, I... um... trip on my tongue.”

“So, your homework is to practice on poor maidens in distress?”

“I’m the one in distress. It’s to practice on maidens so if I make a fool of myself I never have to return to that place.”

“You’ve been doing fine. Now let me tell you something about me. I’ve had four boyfriends. The first beat me if he thought I looked at another guy. The other three considered me as a decoration, there for their benefit. I’m not interested in love and romance. What I need is just a friend. So, you don’t have to run away.”

He smiled. “Me, I’m a lost puppy looking for a home. That’s the trouble. Any girl takes me on will have me running after her hat for life. They find that out, and run the other way.”

“And what do you do when you’re not chasing hats?”

“I’m a third year engineering student at Melbourne University. And you?”

I had to laugh. “I’m a second year engineering student at Monash.”

The next half-hour was all about our courses. He looked at his watch. “Oh, I have to go. Desi... um... can we meet again?”

“I’ll buy some dog food and a litter tray.”

Expert Assessment

Another 100-word story, just for you.

Bright eyes gleam at me. “Nan, how do you stop getting sick from biting insects?”

“Uh... Put on mosquito repellent?”

“Nah! You stop biting them!”

I love his belly laugh.

“Your turn!”

“Hmm. What’s a fly without wings?”

“A walk! That’s easy. Try again.”

A long-distant memory helps. “All right, what’s twice the half of two-and-a-half?”

Lips moving, fingers twitching. Time passes. At last, “Two-and-a-half. Oh...”

“Yes. What’s twice the half of ANYTHING?”

Nan, I’m so glad. I heard Mom say to Aunty Laura that maybe you’ll be getting Alz-whatsit, you know, losing it? Well, now I can reassure her.”

Defeating the Blood-red Dragon (the legacy of childhood trauma)

It’s time to switch to some serious business.

Where does depression come from? Its multiple causes always include events that made a child feel damaged and overwhelmed. Let Jim tell you all about it.

Today is a day of joy: the Blood-red Dragon is running scared. Oh, she’s not dead, but never again will she drive me to despair, poison my thoughts, sour my life. I have conquered her, after Maureen and Colleen showed me how.

I am free.

The Blood-red Dragon moved in when I was five years old. I didn’t know what she was then, of course, only that something started gnawing at my heart after Mama told me, “Jimmy, Dad isn’t coming home anymore.”

I lay awake night after night, worrying about what I’d done to stop him from loving me. Mama wouldn’t talk about it, and for two whole weeks I wondered if he was dead, or gone away forever, or... I just didn’t know.

Then Friday evening when she tucked me into bed, Mama said, “Tomorrow your Dad is coming to take you for the weekend. You behave yourself with that woman, you hear?”

I wanted to ask what woman that was, but her face crumpled up, and for a shocking moment I thought she’d cry, so I said nothing.

The doorbell rang at nine in the morning. That was odd — didn’t he have a key? Mama opened the door and there he was! I raced past her and jumped. He caught me and swung me up like always. He carried me to the car and strapped me in. As he drove off, he said over his shoulder, “Jimmy, I’m taking you to play with two wonderful kids. They’re going to be your friends. They told me they’re really looking forward to meeting you.”

He stopped at a house with a nice garden. A lady stood at the door, two giggling big girls behind her. They all had dark, curly hair and blue eyes. Dad said, “Darling, this is my Jimmy.”

That confused me. Who was “Darling?”

But then Dad looked down at me, saying, “Jim, this is Aunt Katrina. She’s sort of your second mother. And those two beauties are Rayleen and Leonie.”

The two girls giggled again.

Aunt Katrina had cake and hot chocolate ready, and I did my best not to drop crumbs. This was great! Mama never gave me cake, because she said sugar’s bad for you.

The girls finished theirs before me. Leonie grabbed my hand and told me to come with her. I didn’t know what to do, but Aunt Katrina shouted, “Let the boy finish his!”

I happened to be looking at Leonie’s face, and became scared for a moment. Then she smiled. “OK, Jimmy, enjoy your cake, then come on, we want to play with you.”

I ate as fast as I could, and as I stood, Rayleen gave me a grin. “Come on, Jimmy, to our room. We’ll play,” and she walked off. Leonie giggled and skipped after her, then waited for me at a door with cartoons cut out from newspapers stuck all over it. “Come on, slowcoach,” she called, and I knew she laughed at me inside.

The room was all pink frills and dolls and books, with a double bunk in one corner. I knew about double bunks because my best friend Mike had them, and I’d slept at his place.

Very seriously, Rayleen told me, “Jimmy, I’m twice your age. You know what that means?”

I didn’t know how to answer such a silly question. Should I say ‘ten’?

“Listen stupid, that means that you have to do what I tell you. You must be obedient. OK?”

I nodded.

“Good boy!” She smiled at me. “Come and give me a kiss.”

She bent down and I kissed her cheek, the way I did with Mama, but she grabbed my head, put her mouth on mine and licked my lips as she sucked.

When she stopped, she said, “That’s how they do it on TV.”

I’d never seen anything like that on TV, only Sesame Street and Play School and the like.

“My turn,” Leonie shouted. I had to kiss her like that, too. I didn’t mind, though I didn’t like it very much either.

I wanted to stop after a while because my lips got sore, besides it was boring.

Rayleen said, “I’ve got boobies, did you know that?”

Again I said nothing. What could I say?

“Stupid, I’m talking to you!”

“Uh…”

“You want to see them?”

“No.” I wanted to go home. I would have cried, except I didn’t want them to laugh at me.

Leonie said, “Play mothers and babies! Rayleen, give him a titty.”

They laughed until both had to bend over and tears came from their eyes. I didn’t see anything funny, so just stood there.

At last, Leonie wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and looked at me. I could see she was trying to think of the next tease. “Hey Jimmy,” she said, “have you ever seen a girl’s bottom?”

I wanted to go home, to my safe world with Mama, and play with my Lego set, to escape from these strange, dangerous, unpredictable creatures.

Rayleen spoke in a teacherish voice, “James, you were asked a question.”

Both roared with laughter at that.

“You g-g-got any toys to play with?” I managed.

“Little baby is stuttering!” from Leonie.

“I want to go home.”

“Hey Jim,” Leonie said as if I hadn’t spoken, “You show me your dickie and I show you my pussy.”

I actually took a step toward the door when I felt my arms grabbed from behind. Then Rayleen held me around the chest, and she was much bigger, and Leonie stood in front, unzipping my jeans and pulling them down, and my underpants.

The door swung open, and Aunt Katrina came in with a tray that held steaming cups.

Instantly, the two girls were well away from me, and Rayleen said in an outraged tone of voice, “Mom, I was just going to call you. Look what Jimmy is doing!”

The tray crashed to the floor, the lady screaming at me, “You evil perverted child!” On an on she went, a great wave of shrill meaningless sound, and Dad was there and roaring, and picked me up, and a great stinging slap on my bare behind, and he said not a word on the drive home, and when we got there and he told Mama, she beat me with the wooden spoon, and for days she told me how I shamed her and who’d want to have a child like that?

***

And so the Blood-red Dragon moved in to stay.

I am now thirty-five years old. For thirty years, I have hated myself. For thirty years, I have known that I was ugly, and stupid, and evil, and that no one could possibly love me.

Somehow, everything went wrong after this. I didn’t want to go to school the next Monday, although until then I’d loved it. I didn’t want to go, but didn’t dare to say so to Mama. At school, I knew that everyone could see what a terrible boy I was and pulled into myself. When other kids wanted to play with me, something within said, “You’re an evil perverted child!” I didn’t know what “perverted” meant, but it had to be awful. After a while all my friends left me alone, and so did my teacher.

At the end of the year, they kept me down in first grade. And the something inside told me, “See! You’re stupid.”

When I got to high school, I still couldn’t read all that well, and math was a mystery. I made sure not to try at anything, because that way I wouldn’t fail. And girls were a terrible, threatening danger I stayed away from.

Strangely, I forgot all about Rayleen and Leonie and Aunt Katrina. In fact, until yesterday, I had no memories of my childhood at all. Dad never called for me after that day. I know he stayed with Aunt Katrina for several years, then they split up and he went interstate. He could have been dead for all the contact we had, and it was all my fault, and so somehow I put it all from my mind. There was only Mama and me, and I was a sad disappointment to her.

I left school at sixteen, which is the youngest you can, and got a job as a builder’s laborer. Digging ditches, carrying lengths of timber, wheeling barrowloads of concrete — I was smart enough for that, barely. But I was uncomfortable in the rough, friendly world of men. After a while, they left me alone too.

Then the company expanded. Glenn and Dino joined the team. They were mates, and perhaps two years older than I was. Glenn had red hair, a ready smile, and stories about a different girl each week. Dino looked like a bodybuilder, with olive skin, jet-black hair and eyes, and a quick brain that questioned everything. Although still a teenager, he soon convinced the foreman to do things differently, and as a result our team improved in productivity and we all got bonuses at the end of the year.

That was the good part. The bad part was that Dino noticed that there was something wrong with me. And this made me a perfect target for his sense of humor.

I’d be wheeling a barrow full of sand, when suddenly two huge shovelfuls of sand landed within it, one next to each handle. Glenn and Dino then laughed uproariously as the sudden shock jerked the handles from my grip and I lost the load. I’d open my lunchbox, to find a picture of a nude inside, and everyone howled with laughter as my face burst into flames. Dino delighted in mental arithmetic, working out quantities in his head before others could do it on paper, and he often shot questions at me, showing everyone what an idiot I was.

I lay awake at night, with waking dreams of murdering Dino. I saw myself ramming the sharp edge of a spade into his throat, and seeing his head severed off his neck, blood spurting. I saw myself pulling a ladder away, with him on top. I saw him buried in concrete, me holding the end of the hose of the pumping machine, playing the thick gray heavy stream all over his face.

But the voice inside me said, “You? You don’t have the guts to do it.”

So, after the Christmas break, I didn’t return to work. I had plenty of money, hadn’t spent it on anything except board to Mama.

I took it all from the bank and hopped on a bus. I didn’t care where it went. I didn’t even bother to say goodbye to Mama. After all, we barely talked to each other anymore, merely two people sharing a house. I thought she’d be relieved that I was gone. She was an attractive lady. Without me, she could perhaps start a new life.

I became an agricultural laborer. That suited me: going from crop to crop, place to place, up and down the land from one climatic zone to another, part of a shifting population of loners. No one cared if I kept to myself. Next week, we’d be going in different directions anyway.

For eighteen years, I’ve been a tumbleweed, a drifter, a hermit in a crowd.

I might have stayed like that for the rest of my life, if it hadn’t been for Maureen. She is fifty if a day, but with a lot of muscle under the rolls of fat. Her hair is a very artificial black, and I’m sure that the teeth exposed by that ready smile come out at night.

She advertised for a “hand to help on small dairy farm.” I phoned her from two towns away, gave her the names and phone numbers of my last three employers, then she said, “Jim, you’re on,” just like that.

“But... don’t you want to check me out?”

“Nah, I’ve a way of knowing about people, it’s never let me down.” She gave me directions.

It took me no time to get on top of the job. I’ve used milking machines before, and animals have never given me any grief, only people. When all the work was done on the evening of the first day, Maureen sat me down in her kitchen and put a beef stew in front of me. As she served herself, she said proudly, “My daughter Colleen’s had to go to the city, she’s starting at the University. That’s why I need someone to replace her.”

“Thank you for choosing me, Maureen. But I never stay anywhere long.”

She plonked her broad butt onto the bench opposite me and spooned a mouthful. “What you running from, son?” she asked when her mouth was empty.

I usually clammed up when anyone asked a personal question, but somehow, to my surprise, I heard my own voice say, “Uh... from myself I guess.”

“That’s the most terrible monster there is. You winning the race?”

“I...”

“Jim, my husband committed suicide, many years ago. My son, Terry, died in a tractor accident. I’ve survived all that, and still think life is good.” We continued eating in silence.

A chocolate pudding followed the stew. “You need a little fattening up,” she said with a laugh. I didn’t reveal my thought that she could do with a little less fattening up, but she looked in my face and laughed again. “Jim, I don’t have a man to keep me warm in bed. I need the padding on the cold nights.”

I got up at first light, but as I walked out to the kitchen, I saw Maureen coming in, fully dressed, carrying a basket of eggs. “Five from yesterday,” she said. “Not bad for six chickens.”

During the next few weeks, I repaired fences, filled the shed with firewood, fixed a roof leak in a barn, as well as helping to run the farm. Maureen and I worked well together. She respected my need for silence, and yet successfully drew me out on occasion, like on that first evening.

Then she sprung a surprise on me. “Jim,” she said, again over dinner, “I’m going to up your wages.” She gave her deep laugh at the amazement on my face. “Look, buddy, you’re worth it. I never have to instruct you on anything twice, you even find jobs that need doing and just go and do them. You’re intelligent, and willing, and good to have around the place.”

This was the first time in my life anyone had called me intelligent.

“Thank you,” I said finally, “but it’s not necessary. I’m happy to—”

“It is necessary,” she cut me off. “I appreciate your work. I want you to feel appreciated. My guess is that hasn’t happened very often.”

I managed not to cry in front of her.

So, more weeks passed, and the months. For the first time in my memory, I had a home.

Then Easter came around. On the Thursday evening, I was watering the standard roses Maureen has on each side of the driveway in front of the house, when a little red car went by and stopped at the front door.

A girl got out and called, “Hi, you must be Jim. Mom’s talked about you on the phone. I’m Colleen.”

In the red light of sunset, she looked like a goddess — slim, poised, beautiful.

I was ready to run. I could say nothing, not even to return her greeting.

After waiting for a response, she shrugged, pulled a backpack from the car and went inside.

I turned off the water, walked around the back to my room, and packed my few belongings. The voice within, my enemy, told me I had to go. I could not stay in the same house with her.

Suitcase in hand, I opened the door. The two women were in the corridor, approaching.

“I thought so,” Maureen said. For once she didn’t smile. “Jim, put that down and come to the kitchen.”

“Uh...”

“Now.”

I couldn’t resist the command in her voice.

Once I sat at my usual spot, with Maureen and Colleen opposite, Maureen said, “My dear boy, someone has hurt you, very badly.”

“No... I just... um...”

“You ever had a girlfriend?”

I had to get out of there. But Maureen’s eyes held me and I couldn’t move.

Colleen spoke up, but I avoided looking at her. “Jim, I don’t bite, you know. I’m a person, exactly like you are, or Mom. I’m not going to do anything to give you grief. Please let me have a chance.”

Of course she gave me grief, just by existing. Female, young, attractive, intelligent — she was everything that made me want to run. I didn’t know why I was terrified, but this was the way of the world. A stupid, ugly no-hoper like me couldn’t even be a moth to her flame.

Maureen interrupted my inner agonizing. “Jim, when the tractor crushed Terry,” her eyes suddenly shone with tears, “I felt the world had ended. And if it wasn’t for my darling Colleen, who was only a kid then, it might have.”

Colleen reached across and squeezed her mother’s hand. I saw this from the corner of my eyes, for I was looking down.

“I felt that I was a failure. A failure as a wife, for what kind of a wife has a husband who kills himself? And what kind of a mother allows a seventeen-year-old boy to do dangerous work that kills him?”

She stopped, then after a long silence, she suddenly banged the table with the flat of her hand. I jumped at the sound.

“But after a while, I worked out that the blaming thoughts were not me, not the real Maureen. I thought of the voice that imitated mine so well as coming from a big, cruel spider that sucked the joy out of my existence, tried to keep me forever grieving. And I decided I had a life to live.

“So, I examined the evidence, like I was judge and jury, and the monster spider was the prosecutor. Dermot committed suicide because of his problems, his inner demons. I was not responsible for his actions. And Terry had driven that tractor for two years, and he was a good tractor driver, and anyway he never listened to any warnings from me since he was ten years old. It was bad luck, or his bad judgment, or both.

“And anyway, beating myself over the head was not going to bring my two lovely men back.”

She smiled with her mouth while tears fell from her eyes, and I wanted to give her a hug. Only, I didn’t do things like that, ever.

Colleen said, “Jim, Mom’s monster was a big spider. What’s yours?”

I closed my eyes, and I could see the monster. I answered, “It’s a blood-red dragon.” The dragon had a long, scaly body, black wings, and a whiplike tail. A cruel, many-toothed grin split her face, and her blue eyes looked at me with contemptuous amusement. I knew she was a female, because, oddly, she had a pair of prominent bare breasts, like on the disgusting pictures Dino had put into my lunchbox.

“What’s the dragon’s name?”

“Leonie,” I said, without thought, surprising myself.

“Who is Leonie?” Maureen asked.

“I... I don’t know. I don’t know anyone called Leonie. Maybe that’s why I picked the name, so it’s not any person.”

“Maybe.”

“Jim, you’ve been here for a while now. Do you want to know what my considered opinion of you is?”

I looked at Maureen, not knowing what to answer.