Chapter 15: Moira

Life on Furthurmore has done little to help me learn patience. Usually, the only thing I ever get impatient over is the arrival of dinner, or Jake being slow in bringing me a drink from the bar. Not nearly the same class of thing as waiting three days for the psychological evaluation to be completed. One thing we hadn't counted on was that they wanted to observe her for 72 hours. We could see her every day, for an hour in the morning, an hour in the afternoon, but that was it.

I wasn't expecting to be missing her from my bed as much as I did – she'd only spent a couple of nights in it. It wasn't the sex I missed (heck, I got plenty of that from Gary during those three days). It was the intimacy we had been sharing that I missed terribly. I wanted my baby back, and if that sounds maternal, well, so be it.

I was very pleased that Saralinda signed the forms allowing the clinic to report her medical and psychological condition to us. It would have been awful if we'd been kept in the dark due to privacy laws.

During those three days, they didn't share much, but they sure asked a lot of questions, wanting to know everything that had happened and everything she'd said since Gary grabbed her.

Finally, Monday arrived, and Dr. Tsushima called Gary, Jake, and me in for a consultation. Dr. Anna, as we'd taken to calling her, was a native-Hawaiian of Japanese ancestry. She was small and very cute, maybe fifty or older. She made you feel comfortable just by her presence.

She got right to the point. And because Gary was there, she promised to limit the jargon.

"Physically, Saralinda is fine. There's no indication of lasting physical effects from her overdose of pills, I found no indication she'd ever abused drugs, her blood work all was normal. Nothing to worry about.

"Her current psychological state is pretty good, though she does not have a lot of buffering in her mood control. Recollections of difficult times quickly illicit physiological reactions; she's just as quick to turn almost giddy when she gets excited about something.

"For the first two days, we did not medicate her with Chlorpromazine or any other antipsychotic, and she did clearly exhibit some mania.

"For the last twenty-four hours, we've been treating her with Carbamazepine, which is a mood stabilizer. Physically, she's reacting well so far, with no notable side effects as yet. This drug, like most maintenance drugs for bipolar, needs to be started with low dosages. We'll need to increase the dosage over the next few weeks. We've also restarted Chlorpromazine to dampen her current mania.

"I'd like to monitor her closely for another week, though there's no need for her to be resident here during that time. I would like to see her, though, for about an hour every other day, so we can fine-tune her dosage and make sure that her body is tolerating it well.

"My expectation is that she will do very well with Carbamazepine, and that we can hope to find a lasting treatment that will stabilize her mood without sedative effects. With you traveling so much, Jake will need to monitor her closely. From what you said before, we can do video link-ups from your ship?" Jake nodded. "Amazing what technology can do. I think between Jake and Moira's on-site presence and the ability to link over the internet, this will work out."

She paused, and all of us around the table nodded as we took in the information. Things didn't sound too bad so far, but Dr. Anna wasn't finished.

"So that's where we are clinically. We've also been pursuing a psychotherapeutic track, which has involved many hours of working through some of her past problems. Saralinda has suffered some very grave abuse, and she internalized and accepted much of the abuse at its face value – that is, she believed what her father and stepmother told her.

"We've been working the last three days to help her to reinterpret those abusive events. This involves letting her see the events as abuse, and to see that she had not acted to warrant what was done to her. It has been very painful for her.

"Moira – she credits you, and I feel I must too - with cracking the shell that her father and stepmother built around her. Our progress in the last three days was greatly aided by the self-image she has gained in the previous week as someone who can be loved. She has been unusually candid with us, sharing far more than I would ever have expected. It has allowed us to progress much further in terms of treatment and understanding of root causes than I would ever have believed. I am concerned by this degree of openness, however; it's not something I've often experienced with a patient, or even with an intimate friend."

And then she spoke directly to me, and there was no hint of a smile on her face.

"It's a dangerous game you've been playing, Moira. By both acting as de facto therapist and becoming her lover, you've put her in a precarious position. Right now she is very dependent on you, and if your support wavers, it could be very bad for her psyche."

I didn't need the reminder. I was already beating myself up about it.

"That said," Dr. Anna continued, "there's no turning back at this point. Don't fret over it; just maintain a high level of awareness about the situation. She is going to continue with you on your ship, right?"

"Definitely," said Gary. "I mean, you think she's able to, right? There's no medical or psychological reason why she can't, is there? Because if you think the meds will stabilize her mood a bit, I'm considering offering her a permanent spot."

I think this was news to all of us, and there were a lot of glances around the table. It was something I hadn't even realized I was hoping for, and the feeling of relief that emerged from my center surprised me. Jake appeared to mull it over for a second, then accept it as reasonable. Kate's lips tightened, and she looked down. Sometimes she and Gary were so much the old married couple they might have been.

Gary, for his part, seemed to realize the stir he had created. "Maybe I'm jumping ahead of myself..."

"It's your boat," said Kate tersely. Ouch.

"Hey, I think I like the idea," said Jake, moving to Gary's defense.

I didn't feel the need to chime in. "Please continue, Dr. Tsushima," I said.

The doctor looked around at all of us, to make sure she had our focus again.

"Okay. I also wanted to tell you some about her history, as she related it to us during therapy. Saralinda gave me permission to share this with you, as she didn't want to have to recount it again herself. The memories are very painful, and reexamining them endlessly probably serves no purpose. I must caution you that they are her reported recollections. We did use some hypnosis to try to free her from the psychological bonds trapping some of her memories. The accuracy of her recall, though, is subject to speculation.