Sisi(undoing)

In the beginning, there was a doctor.

I didn’t speak for months after Sisi died.

The funeral passed and my aunt Sade came to live with me in the big house with her children. Life went on as usual for everyone else. And I still hadn’t made a single sound, except for the occasional sneeze or cough.

I had gone to almost every child psychologist in the country, every church and healer Aunt Sade could find. None worked.

Doctors had tests to see if something was wrong with my voice box or brain, they wondered if I’d sustained physical trauma during the robbery, I hadn’t. I’d escaped with only shallow scratches and one or two bruises.

I’d spend hours sitting in Sisi’s room staring at nothing. I hadn’t let anyone touch a thing in the room. Her favourite black dress was still draped across the back of the chair, waiting for a Sunday that would never come. The copy of Twilight I’d been reading to her every night for months still had a bookmark on page 251, Sisi would never see 252.

Right when aunt Sade was ready to give up out therapy runs and just learn sign language, we found Doctor Abraham. He was supposed to be a specialist on mutism due to trauma, he’d come highly recommended.

Our first few sessions were the same basic routine as every other psychologist I’d been to. Physical exams, cognitive skills tests… Things like that.

After weeks of hypnosis, couch sessions and light therapy. Dr Abraham figured out a way to help.

Our sessions usually held on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The remaining days of the week were for tutors.

One Friday morning, I got to his office and he wasn’t around yet, his personal nurse- Alice- ushered me into a different room that I hadn’t been in before and left me there with a blank canvas and art supplies.

The room was painted completely white, the only furniture was a small couch that would fit only one person and a huge flat-screen television.

I figured that I’d try to draw something while I waited, since there was nothing else to do.

Immediately I picked up the pencil, I felt something click, it felt right to be holding that pencil in that moment, I lost track of time as I painted.

When Dr Abraham opened the door hours later, I was curled up on the floor, with tears streaming from my eyes beside a painting of Sisi’s face before she died.

He didn’t say a word to me, he just picked the painting, leaned it against the wall and led me out of the room.

I spent all our sessions for the next couple of months in the white room painting, sometimes Dr Abraham would sit in the couch reading a book while I worked. But I was mostly left alone during painting time.

I started speaking two months after the first painting, at first I just made sounds, a laugh when someone said something funny, humming to music. And then it progressed until I could talk fully.

I continued going for sessions with Dr Abraham for years, I’d go twice every week, and after I was done painting I’d sit with nurse Alice and him and catch up. I’d come to think of them both as foster parents.

By my 16th birthday I had almost convinced myself that I was normal, I was relatively happy, I had my aunt Sade and her two children, and I had Dr Ab and nurse Alice. Life was good.

Until it wasn’t.

I’d noticed some tension between Dr Abraham and nurse Alice for a few weeks, but I put it up to normal workplace disagreements.

One day, when I came for a session, they were arguing in the lobby and I heard nurse Alice say ‘not her!, not this one!, she’s been through enough already Abe. You promised…..” they stopped when they noticed me standing there.

Nothing out of the ordinary happened for the next two weeks, and I had already forgotten the exchange.

But nurse Alice suddenly always had a reason to be absent during my sessions, and Dr Abraham made it a point to touch me and stand uncomfortably close to me always.

At first I didn’t think it was weird, he had always been a toucher, and personal space was a concept he didn’t understand.

But it progressively got worse, fingers brushing my breasts, his hands on my butt when he hugged me, cleaning ‘food particles’ from my lips.

I didn’t tell anyone about it, I assumed I was just overreacting to something that was probably completely normal. Until one Saturday session.

Nurse Alice left for her ‘Bible study meeting’ immediately I got there as usual, before she left, she hesitated at the door and looked back at me, there were tears in her eyes and she looked like she wanted to say something. She didn’t.

I went to the white room as usual and got out my art supplies, I planned to make a painting of my parents during their last anniversary party.

I was trying to remember how deep my mother’s cupid bow was when the sound of a key turning in the lock startled me. It was Dr Abraham

“How are you today?” he asked

“so so” I turned back to the painting “I’m doing my parents today, I think it would look good in my bedroom beside the one of Sisi”

He came over and crouched beside me, he was so close I could feel his breath on the side of my face.

“beautiful…. Everything you make is beautiful, just like you”

I ducked my head to put some distance between our heads “thanks”

He put his hand under my chin and leaned in closer “don’t be shy, abi you want to tell me you don’t know you’re a beautiful girl? “

I couldn’t reply, I didn’t even know what to think. His eyes were shiny-looking, I had seen that look before, in the eyes of the pedophile before Sisi.

“what’s happening?”

“don’t pretend like you don’t know what’s happening, you think I haven’t noticed how you look at me?”

I leaned away from him” how I look at… whaaaa?”

“you want this too” he whispered, then he plastered his lips on mine.

I was paralysed, as his tongue thrust into my mouth and his hands grabbed at my breasts I felt the dam I had spent 3 years in therapy building split.

I didn’t feel it when he removed my clothes, I didn’t feel it when he thrust himself into me. I was completely numb.

He kicked the tub of red paint down, and the spilled paint looked so much like a pool of blood. I wanted to taste it.

I imagined rubbing myself all over with that blood and a moan escaped me. Dr Abraham interpreted the moan as enjoyment and started pounding into me faster.

A distant part of me knew I was experiencing physical pain, but I couldn’t feel it. All I felt was the thirst, I wanted to fill myself with red. Feel thick, hot life flow out of someone.

The good doctor finished and collapsed on the floor beside me panting. I looked over at him and imagined sinking my nails into his neck. My hands were on his neck before I realized what I was doing. I stood up and straightened my clothes.

“where are you going?” he asked.

I shrugged and picked up my half done painting “home, I have to be back before 6”

He got up and hugged me with his penis hanging out “when will I see you again?”

” Wednesday, as usual”

He smacked my ass and started straightening his clothes “OK then, ’til Wednesday”

Looking at him in his pristine white coat and white shirt, I wondered how he’d look in Red.

His voice stopped me at the door “but you’re OK with what happened right?”

“perfect” then I smiled and said under my breath “dead man”.