Meredith MacLeod Davidson
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Hysteric
 
 
 
TUESDAY
 
              They arrived at the shore in the night, mist marring the coastal highway, puddles lying in wait, cellphone flashlights hurriedly flicked on to navigate into the weather-beaten cottage by the sea. Under raised arms they ushered their belongings into the house, tracking muddied sand onto the laminate flooring. Finally, they negotiated with the dog, begging him to do his business as he ran about the bushes comprising the liminal space between land and sea, drunk on foreign scents.
 
              The bed was pressed tightly into the back third of the cottage – barely space on either side to walk, and but one hook to hang a robe or towel. With curtains pulled closed they shed their dirty travel skins and the couple climbed into bed, laid in silence as the sea-sourced rains of Oregon’s January belted their shelter.
 
              He fell asleep quickly, the minor gargle looping at the back of his throat revealing his slip of consciousness, but she remained awake. She’d left something in her car. Was it worth dressing, turning on the lights, disturbing the dog in his bed, heading back out into cold to fumble for it? The last ten hours spent upon her mind: Multnomah Falls, Twin Falls, Jackpot, Nevada. A peppering of gas stations where she’d swung her car in to sit, frantically chew mints, and splash sinkwater on her face all to quell the spiralling. It took everything in her not to drive off the side of the interstate at ninety miles per hour. She had read suicidal ideation was just the mind’s desperation to escape a situation, not necessarily life. Well, she’d arrived safely.
 
 
WEDNESDAY
 
              The rain had passed and the skies, while gray, low, emitted some light, some stillness. She couldn’t see the mountains for mist, but the sea’s rolling at least appeared controlled, to judge by sound. Still, she awoke with a clutch high in her chest, hovering about her collarbones.
              “Mark?” She croaked, his side of the bed empty, disturbed.
              She heard the scrabble of nails on counterfeit wood, the dog leapt onto the bed, army-crawling through the fluff of the duvet to accost her face with long-tongued kisses.
Mark rounded the corner, a carafe of coffee in one hand, a bowl of fruit in the other.
              “Steph, you’re up! Breakfast?”
              She couldn’t move. She realized suddenly she had still left it in the car, her forgotten thing, and the clutch rose to her throat. She willed herself to move, move anything – a finger? a toe? – but all she could do was slowly slide her eyes to meet Mark’s. He placed the carafe and bowl down, shuffled over to her with side-steps across the narrow space between bed and wall, and crouched awkwardly to place a hand on her temple.
              “Steph,” he stroked her hair, “Steph, breathe. The sea air, it’ll be good for you. It’s okay.”
              She closed her eyes as he pet her, the dog nuzzling gently under her arm, beginning a petting regime of his own, licking gently and with measured pace against her wrist. Okay. She opened her eyes. For a moment, she could do nothing but beam all her terrors into Mark via her eyes. Then finally, it broke. She filled her chest, an enormous breath. Opened her mouth and found she could form words, her tongue pliant, willing.
            “Mark,” she gasped, “Can you get my Benadryl out of the car?”
 
 
THURSDAY
 
              She slept all day. At the clinic in Arizona, she had entered the E.R. so many times with panic attacks, they had given up on her, labeled her file drug-seeking-behavior. She couldn’t afford the therapist, and she refused to have herself admitted to the psych ward – she had a full-time job and student loans that refused to drop in value. She had found the tip online, a message board for other underemployed debt-addled young adults: Benadryl is a good band-aid in the absence of adequate mental health care or resources. It exhausts the central nervous system and can help reduce the effects of anxiety. Steph found it mostly just put her to sleep. Which was fine. Anything to escape.  She built up a tolerance, taking 3-4 at a time and sleeping anytime she wasn’t working. It wasn’t sustainable. She took three more and slept again, the dog close beneath the covers.
 
 
FRIDAY
 
              Steph woke groggy but calm, enough to allow her to look outside, to stand up, to eat a handful of blueberries. All without losing herself to the ever-present pull of her terrors. She clipped the leash to the dog’s collar, wrapped a scarf about her neck, tucked rubbered boots on her feet, trudged out to the ocean. The tide was high, freeing only a thin strip of packed sand, wave froth edging ever closer to the dunes with each pull cycle. There were others out on the beach – locals likely, as during January all the restaurants and motels closed to tourists. She walked the dog the length of the town’s oceanfront, fighting wind and wave with each step, but nonetheless gaining a clearer picture of the town they had chosen, sight unseen, to call their new home.
 
              Rockaway Beach perched on the Northwest edge of Oregon, cupped closely by mountains to the East. Two miles long, the town was bookended by a hot dog stand and a general store hosting a rack of shelf-stable goods, canned soup, toilet tissue. There was a post office, a convenience store, but no supermarket. A laundromat and a Chinese restaurant, but no gas station. The Pacific Coast Highway cut through the center of town, zippering up the  commercial East side the residential West (stilted summer homes and brown salt-struck permanent ones). A single-track railroad bisected the town, parallel the highway. Behind the shops to the East, a lake divided town from mountains, then forest, and sixty miles away, the Portland suburbs.
              Mark and Steph’s cottage was on the North end of town, almost where the ocean curved inland, a mouth feeding from mountain to sea, cutting off Rockaway Beach from Manzanita and Astoria, then Washington State. Steph took the dog down to the hot dog stand, realizing only upon arrival that it was closed for the season. Still, she flung a leg over the coin-operated hot dog ride positioned before its locked entrance, quarters spent or wasted. Wandering back toward the cottage, they passed a trailer with a handmade sign: “Library.” Outside the town hall was a wooden board hosting a map of the town, blasted in blues and greens. Steph stepped closer to identify the map key. Tsunami Threat Levels. Rockaway Beach is built upon a stretch of land with a lake to the East and mountains to the North and South. It is due to this unique topography that in the event of tectonic activity along the faultline located just 60 miles off the Oregon coast, much of the town would be subsumed by the resulting waves. Waves can reach up to 200-feet tall depending on the severity of the earthquake(s) and may come in multiples. Residents and visitors are advised to have an evacuation plan in place in the event of any tectonic activity.
              A swell of panic surged suddenly in her gut. No! Desperate to maintain the scrap of stability she’d manufactured that morning, she tugged the dog back toward the cottage to reenter the safety of her bed.
 
 
SATURDAY
 
              The cloud cover broke finally, a beam of sunlight warming Steph awake. Prepping for the dog’s walk, she stuffed her pockets with valuables: wallet, passport, then grabbed a backpack to accommodate larger items: laptop, snacks, water, her diary. A change of clothes, a sack of dog food. The tsunami threat consumed her, lurked about her shoulders like a coat not quite yet lowered.
              Outside she let the dog lead, following as he discovered new scent trails, yanking her across the gravel road out toward the main highway, the railway. They paused where the gravel met the train crossing. On a roadside signpost a clean blue and white graphic: Tsunami Evacuation Route. The sun cast a hiccup of light over the mountain range cradling the town. She remembered a C.S. Lewis quote then, about a town turning its worst face to the railroad.
            “But what if the railroad runs the center of town? Is the worst two-faced?” Steph asked the dog, the wind.
 
 
SUNDAY
 
            In the night she was arrested conscious, chest constricted, throat closing. She clawed at Mark, asleep beside her. In his half-slumber he nearly hit her face to stop her. Steph couldn’t form words; a scream occupied her mouth.
            Mark stroked forehead, crushed her shoulder tension between his fingers like dried herbs. He massaged her back to a short, fretful sleep.
            She woke later, the crash of the waves and the whip of the storm threatened. It was day, and death, she was certain, had a fatal hold about her heart. “I think I’m having –“ she gasped, reaching for Mark as the dog paced the floor beneath the bed, whining in solidarity. “E.R.” she croaked, and Mark threw on his clothes, clipped the lead on the dog, and wrapped Steph in a coat.
            They drove the long 30 minutes South to the nearest medical center in Tillamook. Mark pinch her hand as he drove, drawing her dissociating mind repeatedly back to body. She clutched the dog in her lap, silent, and traced with her eyes the sweep of eagles through pines, cattle in the fields. Hold on to the real. She massaged her temples fanatically, anything to keep present, anything.
            Mark released her at the door of the emergency room – she didn’t remember checking in, had Mark helped? – but before she knew it, she was supine on a hospital bed, the yellowed wallpaper flaking at her in the ancient rural hospital, an IV plugged to her arm, a Valium haze settling her, soft, softer. The doctor ran an EKG, an X-Ray, blood tests. There was nothing wrong with her. Her heart was fine. She was no nearer to death than any other woman her age, her health. But I need relief! Where is Mark?
            The hospital discharged her with a bottle of exactly 3 Valium, some mindfulness pamphlets, a $300 bill, and a next-day appointment with the local gynecologist. Mark drove her home and put her to bed, placing the dog gently on the pillow beside her, stroking her sweat-matted hair down until she blissfully succumbed to sleep.
 
 
MONDAY
 
              ​Benzodiazepine dreams still addling her mind, Steph emerged from bed in the morning, stumbled to the kitchen, downed a glass of water. Mark was already seated at the desk with earpods in, immersed in his workday. He raised an eyebrow at her in acknowledgement, are you okay? The half-a-Valium she had taken yesterday still lingered in her bloodstream and gave her a relative sense of calm, despite the certainty of imminent death that remained about her every thought. Steph dispelled them, if but briefly, with a clench of her fist. She nodded to Mark, managed a half smile.
 
              Could she drive today? Could she make it back to Tillamook for her appointment with Dr. Harrison, OBGYN? Maybe with another half Valium. Steph walked the dog along the beach – cold sterile sand and an oppressive wind today – returned to the cottage and ate some fruit, forcing herself not to calculate the sugar content of the strawberries she mashed about her mouth, demanded of herself that she not immediately imagine this sugar converted into blood clots and artery clogs. It made no sense.
 
              She took a whole Valium and readied herself for the drive, finding herself compulsively packing again all her valuables, and, imagining the sweeping tsunami wave whisking away her sweet companion, she built a makeshift bed in the backseat of her car for the animal to burrow in while she attended her appointment. She had to hope that in the event of a great wave, Mark could save himself. She didn’t want to derail his workday.
 
              Mark pulled his earphones off for a moment, leaning out of his video conference, “You’re bringing the dog?”
 
              Steph didn’t have a good explanation for him. The dog was coming. She nodded curtly.
 
              The drive to Tillamook was grueling. A low fog hung over the coast and cows nipped at plant flesh wet with rain. Coming round the curve of a cliff and maneuvering down into one of the old fishing towns, Steph swore she felt her heart stop, then restart. She had to pull over, check her pulse, check her breathing, run through the series of questions every heart-attack inquiry webpage suggested. Heart rate felt normal. She smiled madly in the rearview mirror – the corners of her mouth lifted to the same height, so it couldn’t be a stroke either. The dog whined. Steph leaned back, inhaled through the nose 8 seconds, held for 4, exhaled through her mouth. She drove on.
 
              In Dr. Harrison’s waiting room, she traced with oily fingers the path of a fish along aquarium glass the size of an entire wall. When the big wave hit, these creatures will be freed while the rest of us drown, she thought.
 
              “Stephanie? Dr. Harrison will see you now.”
 
              A nurse led her to an exam room, gestured to the papered lounge. Steph did her breathing cycles again, took stock of the room: in one corner, an award plaque. In another, model airplanes. The doctor was, she speculated, a hobby pilot in addition to his expert survey of the female genitalia. Dr. Harrison entered the room, no knock.
 
              First, he weighed her. Then he asked about her cycle. Then he had her lay back on the lounge, lifted her shirt, prodded her abdomen.
 
              ​“I’ve been told you were admitted to the E.R. yesterday for anxiety.” Steph nodded in response. It had felt like a heart attack. It had felt like a crushing wave of a guaranteed, imminent, end of everything. What came next? Dr. Harrison flipped through the chart he’d marked with her weight just moments ago. “And I’m seeing your weight indicates you’ve exceeded a healthy BMI for someone of your height and age.” Steph nodded politely, habitually, thinking, okay? Dr. Harrison cleared his throat, “Some women experience hormonal disruption at excessive BMIs, and this can of course affect mood. I’d say lay off the soda for a while, get some exercise, that’s the best thing you can do for your health right now.” Steph nodded, but thought, but I haven’t had a soda in years. Dr. Harrison patted her thigh, “Good to meet you, I’ll see you back here in a few weeks.” He left the room and Steph gathered her things.
 
              As Steph exited the clinic, the nurse ran out behind her, calling, “Stephanie! Stephanie! – Dr. Harrison didn’t want you to leave without this,”
 
              A rain began to cut through the mist oppressing the parking lot. Steph squinted down at the slip of paper, reading, as droplets of water pocked the prescription page:
 
 
                            ​Ethinylestradiol 30mg
                            ​Refill 11x
 
 
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Meredith MacLeod Davidson is a poet and writer from Virginia, currently based in Scotland. Meredith’s short fiction, essays, and reviews can be read in Canthius, Redivider, The Adroit Journal, North American Review, North Dakota Quarterly, and elsewhere.
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