Storiesonline.net ------- September's Children by Lubrican Copyright© 2009 by Lubrican ------- Description: Everybody knows he's making a list, and checking it twice, cause he's gonna find out who's naughty and nice. But what if SANTA was naughty? Who could keep a list on him? A story about gifts you might not want to read at Christmas time. Written as the logical "next step" and companion piece, of sorts, to "'Twas The Night Before Yuletide," posted a year past, just before Christmas. Codes: MF mag ------- ------- Prologue Most of us have stories to tell about our chosen vocation and how it has affected our lives. In the military they call them war stories, and you can hear them all night long in any bar where military folks congregate. If you don't like bars, just spend a little time at the local VFW hall. Most of these tales are entertaining, though suspending disbelief is an ongoing challenge sometimes. For the rest of us, our civilian "war stories" are usually a little less fantastic, though we all have the same urge to embellish the tales we tell. As a psychiatrist I hear a lot of that. Some of what I hear is pure flight of fancy that fulfills some inner need of the ego. It can also be brought on by misfiring neurons, or disease, or trauma to the brain. My name is John Smith. Don't laugh. There are, at present, 44,529 of us in the United States alone. And that is, in fact, my name, though by the end of this, my own war story, you may decide that I invented that name to preserve both my identity ... and my life. For the war story I'm about to tell you is one that may rip the fragile skin from the body of social order. The natural question to ask is why a psychiatrist, whose life is devoted to nurturing sanity, would bring forth something that may drive literally hundreds of thousands of people insane. The fact is that I have to expose this information. I'd go insane myself if I did not. ------- Chapter 1 Usually one can make a plan to treat a patient based on the diagnosis of a known affliction that is treatable with known methods. There are also diseases we know exist, but haven't figured out how to mediate yet. But the really tough cases are those in which the difficulty lies not in treatment of the patient, but in trying to decide whether or not the fantasies being displayed are, in fact ... fantasies. Maybe you've heard the saying "I'm not paranoid ... everybody really is out to get me!" Well, there actually are situations where that's true. It's rare, but not impossible. I met the patient I'll call Bob when his case was assigned to me for a mental evaluation to determine whether he was capable of understanding the charges against him in court. He'd been arrested for groping a pregnant woman in a restaurant. It was late August and we'd been through a grueling heat wave. A lot of people had sought relief in air conditioned restaurants and bars and because of that I assumed there was alcohol involved. When I checked the police report, though, I found that his blood alcohol level suggested he'd had nothing to drink at all. At least nothing alcoholic. The blood sample obtained wasn't screened for other mind altering drugs. Bob was still in jail the first time I visited him. Normally, somebody in his situation would have been released, either on bail or to his own recognizance. It was a minor charge, after all. All the report said he'd done was put his hands on the woman's swollen belly and "behave irrationally." But in this case, whatever he told the judge during his arraignment resulted in him being slapped right back in a cell until I could get there and do an evaluation. The jail has what they call a "First aid room" that can be used for the kind of initial exam I was being asked to do. Bob presented as a completely unremarkable fifty-seven year old white male. He had none of the physical features of a man who has abused drink for years, and he carried too much body fat to have been involved with most other drugs for any extended period. Of course there are substances like LSD or PCP that can wreck a mind while leaving the body unaffected. While my initial interview with him was supposed to gather information to decide what my report to the judge would be, I always approach these situations with an eye toward possible future involvement with he subject as a patient. My initial approach, therefore, was more to get the lay of the land, rather than come up with a firm diagnosis or prognosis. The first step was to talk to him and see where his thought processes were. If needed, further interviews and tests would come later that would illuminate underlying causes of concern. Assuming there actually developed any concern concerning his level of sanity, of course. Bob was already in the First aid room when I was taken there myself. I was handed from one guard to another, a burly, tall man, who stood against the door once I was inside the room. Bob was in restraints. The guard looked bored, but I asked the routine question anyway. "Has he displayed any violent tendencies?" The guard just shook his head. "Is there any really need for you to be in here with us?" "It's policy," he said calmly. I turned to Bob, who appeared to be sitting comfortably in an uncomfortable chair. I introduced myself and explained why I was there. "Will the presence of the guard bother you while we talk?" I asked. He looked at the guard and then addressed him. "You're married, aren't you?" The guard blinked and looked at his left hand, at the silver on his ring finger. "Do you have any children?" Bob went on. The guard still made no answer. Bob seemed unconcerned that the guard wasn't saying anything. "Were any of your kids born in September or October?" The guard moved then, centering his weight on both feet. This simple question had obviously hit a nerve. That was fascinating on one level, both because of the reaction to such a banal question and his obvious unwillingness to share any kind of personal information with an inmate, no matter how harmless. I decided to remain silent and watch. As so often happens, silence is uncomfortable and people try to fill it unconsciously. "I've got one kid who was born in September," the guard said. "How did you know that? Are you psychic or something?" Bob blinked a couple of times and then looked at me, ignoring the guard. "It would be better if he wasn't in here while you talk to me." This was the first indication that Bob's thought processes might be irrational, but he didn't tense up or display any aggression. Additionally his choice of phrase was interesting. He hadn't said he didn't want the guard in there. He said it would be better if the guard wasn't present. I would expect the former, and for him to use the latter was puzzling. I threw him a bone by addressing the guard. "This is technically a medical procedure," I explained. "Privacy will enhance the success of my objective." The guard shrugged. "I'll be right outside if you need me." He opened the door and then paused on his way out. "Unless the watch commander says I have to come back in." "Have him see me if there's a problem," I said. The door closed and I sat down across the gray steel table from Bob. "So you're a shrink," said Bob. He still showed no signs of agitation. "I'm a psychiatrist," I corrected. "Your brain will be exactly the same size when we're done as it is right now." I sometimes use that little joke to defuse anxiety in a new patient and break the ice. He gave me a wane smile. "You're going to think I'm insane," he said calmly. "Everybody does." "Why don't you let me be the doctor," I suggested. "You want to talk about why you got arrested?" "Sure," he said lightly. "Beats sitting in a cell with a bunch of drunks." He smiled ... a perfectly normal, completely ordinary facial expression to follow such a statement. "By the way, doc," he went on. "Do you have any children born in September or October?" I knew we'd get to the seat of what was appearing to be an obsession of some sort. He was obviously willing to discuss it. "I do not," I said. "I have a nephew who was born in October though. Does that count?" I didn't mention that I was born in September myself. If that month had some trigger effect on his psychosis I didn't want to disqualify myself right out of the chute. He frowned, and then said something that was mysterious on the face of it, and which would turn out to be prophetic. "Well, Doc, assuming you decide I'm not as crazy as a loon, you may think about your nephew ... and sister ... differently by the time we get done." What his situation could possibly have to do with my sister was beyond me, so I just smiled and suggested we get started. I went through the routine questions with him. I asked him if he had, in fact, groped a pregnant woman, and he explained that he had touched her, but not for sexual reasons. "We were in line together, waiting for tables," he said. "I was alone. She was with another woman, her sister I think. We got to talking and when she said she was due in September I put my hand on her belly. She got upset, and I tried to explain why I'd done it. That was when she freaked and they called the cops." "Why do you think she got scared, Bob?" I asked. "They all get scared," he said. "The ones I'm interested in, I mean. I don't pay any attention to the others." He blinked. "Well, that's not exactly true. I like pregnant women. I think they're beautiful. But I'm only really interested in certain ones." "Why is that, Bob?" I asked. "That's the part that will make you think I'm wacko," he said calmly. "That's why the women get scared too ... when I ask them about how they got pregnant." "You ask them how they got pregnant?" I couldn't help raising my eyebrows. This was a very interesting fetish already. "Why, Bob? I have a feeling you know how a woman gets pregnant." "Oh, I know how, all right," he said. "In some cases, though, the important thing is who got them pregnant." He wasn't making any sense. There was no thread to his comments. I began to think he had a dissociative problem. He must have seen something in my eyes, because he raised one manacled hand, palm out. "Look, Doc, why don't I just tell you the story. It will make more sense that way and you'll hear it in order. You'll still think I'm a candidate for the loony bin, but maybe it won't be as frustrating for you, okay?" "You're going to tell me the story of why you groped this pregnant woman," I suggested. "You'll understand that after I tell you the story. It's a long story, though. Have you got time?" I looked at my watch. I had forty-five minutes, which was plenty of time for any story a dissociative mind would try to spin out. I leaned back and nodded. ------- He started off by going off on a tangent first, which lent more credence to my budding diagnosis. "I'm going to assume you don't believe in magic," he said. "Most men of science and medicine don't. But I'd like to propose something." He looked to see what my reaction would be, but I held my face impassive. "I'd like to propose, just for the sake of argument, that any phenomenon that science cannot explain may be assumed to be magic." "I can't agree to that," I said. "I understand that lots of things that have been called magic have been disproven by the scientific process," he said. "But there are things that science cannot explain. I can't prove they're magic, but you also can't prove they are not. True?" "Within a very narrow meaning of the concept of proof, I'll accept that," I said. "So magic could exist," said Bob. "Because we can't prove conclusively that it cannot." "That's like saying there must be a color named blixtorg, because no one has proven there is not such a color," I said. "We understand each other perfectly," he said, with a small smile. I blinked. I had a sneaking feeling I had just agreed that magic could exist, and that there was a color named blixtorg, which nobody had yet seen. At least in Bob's mind. "Go on," I said. "I thought we were talking about your obsession with pregnant women." "We are," he said. "May I go on?" "Of course," I said. "What do you know about global birth rates?" he asked. "I thought you were going to tell me the story, not ask me questions," I said, a little peeved. "I can do that," he said, and launched into what sounded for all the world like a professor lecturing an undergraduate student. ------- "Something happened to me as a child that was the seed of my obsession. I'll tell you about that later, but it resulted in me doing a whale of a lot of research, and you need to hear that part first. "I was born in September. In school, I noticed that an awful lot of other kids also had birthdays in September and October ... more, in fact, than any other months. There were so many more, in fact, that teachers picked one day of each month to have a classroom birthday party for all of the kids born in those months, instead of having individual ones, like the other kids got. That stuck in my mind for some reason. It was just something odd, back then, but then something happened to me that made me get a lot more interested in that phenomenon. What happened is something I need to tell you later. What is most important is that it started my obsession. "I started collecting and reviewing data concerning birth rates by month. I found out I was right. The birth rate spikes in late September and early October ... not just in America, but all over the world, Doctor. I'll say it again. More babies are born in the months of September and October than any other months of the year. I have the data to show this phenomenon exists in multiple countries and has been a trend, statistically, for over a hundred years. No good data is available prior to that because of insufficient or suspect record keeping. What this means is that more babies are conceived during late December than any other month." He paused, looking at me as if he expected me to realize something. I didn't, and to be honest, I still thought he was rambling. I wanted him to keep talking, however, and I admit I was a little curious about where this would end up. That's because I was also born in September. I didn't tell him that, of course. I just nodded to keep him going. He looked almost disappointed, and then spoke again. "I wanted to know why." He stopped, closed his eyes for a long moment and then reopened them. He looked anguished. "Actually I already knew why, but I didn't want to believe it. I thought I was insane, and was actually trying to prove it, because that would prove that what I knew to be the case was false." He was definitely rambling, now, and it was appearing more and more that his dissociative problems made it difficult for him to concentrate. "What was this thing you believed, but didn't want to?" I asked. He held up a hand. "Please. I know this sounds disjointed, but it isn't. I've never actually been able to lay all this out to anybody, so this is the first time I'm presenting the evidence. I'm just trying to boil a decade of research down into a fifteen minute presentation. Then I'll tell you why, but you must hear the rest first, or you'll simply get up and walk out." "Go on then," I said. I resisted the urge to looked at my watch. "Initially I just asked people why they thought more kids were conceived in December than any other month. I was hoping I'd find a reason other than the one I knew about. Most people thought it's because inclement weather restricts opportunities for entertainment during December." "Cabin fever," I volunteered. "It's dark and cold, and what's more comforting than a warm embrace?" "Exactly," he said. "But the problem with that is that in any given December, while half the globe is mired in winter, the other half is enjoying summertime. Records of birth rates clearly establish that more babies are born in September in both the northern and southern hemispheres." For the first time since I had met him, he had presented a comment that engaged real interest on my part. He had a point, assuming his "research" was valid. "Now another group of people hypothesized that December is identified with the Christian celebration of the Birth of Christ. Genesis, which is also part of Hebrew Torah, includes the instruction by God to 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.' Those people suggested that religious fervor causes Christians to mate during this time of year." "That's a bit of a stretch, don't you think?" I asked. I couldn't help it. "Oh it looked good at first," he said smiling. "More than 34,000 separate Christian groups have been identified across the world. But you also have to consider that there are 19 major world religions which are subdivided into a total of 270 large religious groups, and many smaller ones. Christians represent a minority of overall believers." His voice took on that tone and rhythm that suggests someone is reciting something from memory. "It's hard to get really reliable statistics, because there's a lot of secrecy on the part of some groups, but the basic composition of religious affiliations across the globe are something like this: "About 33% of the population are Christian, 19% Muslim; 13.4% Hindu; 12.7% non religious; 6.4% follow one of the Chinese traditions; 5.9% are Buddhist; 4% are Sikhs; 3.8% are part of an ethnic religious sect, 3.5% are atheists, 1.7% ascribe to a historically new religion, like Scientology; and 2% are Jews. That leaves a total of 4% in other categorizations." "You memorized all of that," I said. Whatever his obsession was, it had a real grip on him. "The real point, doctor," he said patiently, "is that the birth rate is consistent across all those groups. What's going on has nothing to do with Christian religious fervor." I blinked. I hadn't thought of that aspect of his listing. This was actually an interesting mystery. I was sure there was a reasonable explanation for it all, but I could see how he got interested in it. He just hadn't been able to control his level of interest. "So what next?" I asked. "Well, a few people thought that it's because a lot of parents believe that September is the best month of the year to give birth to a baby. So they plan it that way." He looked at me. "And?" "Well think about it," he said. "In the northern hemisphere the baby will only be three months old when the weather starts to turn to shit and there's a danger of the child freezing to death. And in the southern hemisphere it's getting ungodly hot when the child is still an infant, and more vulnerable to heat stroke. What parent would plan that? For that matter, how many parents, particularly on a global basis, try to plan what month a child will be born in at all? They just try to have one." "That sounds reasonable," I said. I kept from wincing. I had just validated some of his reasoning, and that might prove unwise in the future. "But common sense doesn't necessarily come into play in issues of love. So what else is there?" He folded his arms and sat back. "There is only the actual reason, the reason I know about, and which causes everyone I've ever talked to about this to assume I'm off my rocker." "Can you tell me that yet?" I asked. "Sure," he said, almost flippantly. "Why not." He looked past my shoulder at the door of the cell. "But could you ask if maybe having a cup of coffee in here is all right? I'm dry as a bone, and you're going to need the caffeine in a minute." ------- The guard argued at first, but finally admitted there was no specific policy that he knew of that actually prohibited coffee being present during an evaluation. He wouldn't leave to go get it himself of course, but he got on the radio and asked for two cups to be brought. They arrived in the hands of a very curious uniformed woman. I thanked her for them and took them back inside. I sat down and waited. "Okay," he said calmly. "There is only one other phenomenon associated with December that on a world wide basis, given variations in the cultural story told, is common to a preponderance of individuals in any culture. That phenomenon is called by different names in different languages and cultures, and there is some significant variation in how it is described, but the fact is that most cultures have what we here in America call the Santa Clause myth." I blinked. He was gone again, and off on some tangent. He'd dissociated so much that he wasn't even on the subject at all, other than mentioning December. He kept going, though, so I let him, thinking he'd jerk to a stop at some point, when he realized he was way out in left field. "Now while the "myth" of Santa was originally instituted by Christians of the Caucasian race, it was quickly adopted by Christians of all races and ethnicities. There is building evidence to believe that even children in cultures and religions other than those made up primarily of Christians are lobbying for participation in the Santa phenomenon. All races and ethnic groups in America have joined in, at least to some degree. Even the Jews let their children celebrate Christmas sometimes, so that they don't feel left out of all their non-Jewish friends' celebrations." He grinned then, which was completely bizarre, considering what he'd just said. "Doc, did you know that a lot of social service organizations have long touted the danger of belief in Santa, because those children who are in cultures without a Santa myth feel deprived and saddened by the fact that they aren't good little boys and girls? If they were, Santa would come, would he not? He goes to every little American Child's house, and to all the houses in England and Australia and on and on. He comes to Johnny's house, and Debbie's house. Look at all the presents they got! Look on the satellite feed on December twenty-fourth, at the American weatherman who has Santa right there on radar! And so, in their depression, they believe in Santa, even if there is no cultural basis for that belief in their own country. And it is, for all intents and purposes, just as strong a belief in the Jolly Old Elf as that held by Johnny and Debbie. How, otherwise, could they be hurt by a creature who does not exist?" He chuckled. I did not. I had actually seen violence in later life that, through analysis, could be traced back to a feeling of being "bad" because Santa hadn't come to their house one year. Children that young couldn't rationalize that mom and dad were just broke that year, and that Santa didn't actually exist. But their mind could put the stamp of "BAD!" on themselves, and later that could explode into selfish violence. My mind was jerked away from that when he went on. "So these social service people have tried for years to dispense with Santa, because it isn't fair to propose this myth and disappoint so many children." He laughed, and it was an honest, deep laugh that shocked me. "They've tried denying the existence of this Elf for centuries, with no appreciable success. If anything, Santa's popularity has grown by leaps and bounds across the world." He stopped again and tilted his head at me. "But what has this to do with the birth rate?" he asked. I stayed mute. He was off the tangent, and it was disturbing to think that what he'd said was going to be brought to bear on the issue somehow. He was making connections that I couldn't see, which was disappointing because I hoped he could be rational. "I'm getting there, Doc. Just be patient with me for a little while longer. All this has to do with that thing I said happened when I was a little boy, but there's one more thing I need to tell you about first." "All right," I said. "I did an admittedly unscientific, but extensive survey. I interviewed over four thousand men who claim to "be" Santa. You know the kind I'm talking about. They dress up like some version of the jolly old man and appear in department stores or at the Mall or wherever. I pretended to be a journalist, and asked them why they did it. Some of them said it was just for the extra money, but they were in the minority, by far. But a lot of them turn out to be professional Santas. I mean they belong to organizations and pay dues and have standards and all that thing. Most of them said they were trying to make a difference in some child's life. These were the ones who, with a straight face, say they are merely subcontractors to the real Santa Claus who is unable to let each and every child in the world sit on his lap precisely because of his exponential growth in popularity. These men all claim to report directly to the Elf, in terms of the orders placed with them by children." "They told you this," I said. I couldn't keep the sarcasm completely out of my voice. "That's what they tell the children," he said. "They didn't tell me that. But they did tell me what the children ask for, and I have no reason to believe they were lying about that." "And what do the children ask for?" I asked. I snuck a look at my watch. There were still ten minutes I could give him. "I couldn't get a percentage, because some of these guys say it changes from year to year. A lot of these guys have been playing Santa for ten or fifteen years. But a lot of kids ask for a little brother or sister." He stopped, and looked at me again, like he'd said something important. A moron couldn't have missed his unstated hypothesis. It was such a level of insanity that it just didn't jive with his ability to be rational enough to carry on a simple conversation. I was so stunned at the mixture of signals I was getting from him that I couldn't say anything, and my silence apparently signaled him to go on. "I didn't stop there," he said. "I joined a volunteer organization that goes through all the letters that kids send to Santa. There are millions of letters sent to him every year, and the Post Office shuttles them off to groups like the one I joined. Some of them try to make Christmas wishes come true, and some of them send a note back to the kid explaining that he's all out of space ships that really work and would take them to the moon and stuff like that. But I collected the ones where somebody asked for a little brother or sister. I have over four hundred thousand of them, Doc." "You saved over four hundred thousand letters to Santa?" I asked, incredulous. Maybe I could publish something on this patient. "Just the ones who asked for a little brother or sister," he said calmly. I have them filed alphabetically by city of origin. Some day somebody is going to want to research them, once that somebody decides I'm not a raving lunatic." He sounded so sure of himself. I should have accounted for that, but his level of certainty was so high that I had to explore further. I decided to do that by poking a stick in his spokes, just to see what his reaction would be. "Bob, it's obvious where this is going. I'm not going to joke around with you and say that's the stork's job, but I do not believe that you believe Santa puts babies in prettily wrapped boxes under the tree." "Exactly the point," he said, quite seriously. Now I'll tell you what happened when I was a kid," he said. "Please let me finish before you say anything. I've never told this to anybody before. It makes sense to tell it to you, actually. I really hope you decide I am a raving lunatic, and can prove it to me. It would be so much better if that were true." By his tone of voice it was obvious he didn't want to believe this memory of his childhood was true. It was also obvious he'd thought a lot about this. Who wants to be categorized as a lunatic? The answer to that one is obvious, once you think about it: only someone who believes something really horrible. ------- Chapter 2 Bob closed his eyes and his shoulders slumped. He presented the classic indications of a man conjuring up an image in his mind, about to divulge something deep and dark. I let him work up to it naturally by remaining silent. "I was ten, and it was Christmas eve. I was more excited that year than usual, because I knew my dad had gotten a big bonus that year." His eyes opened and he stared at me. "That's the only reason I couldn't go to sleep. It's not like I was up trying to catch him." "Catch who?" I shouldn't have spoken, but I did. Time was getting short. "Santa," he said. Bob must have seen the unavoidable flicker of derision on my face, because he leaned forward. "I was at that age where you know he doesn't really exist, but you can still kind of milk the concept, if you know what I mean. Our parents still took us to sit on his lap and ask for things. We'd done that, in fact, just a couple of days earlier, standing in line with a bunch of other kids. I had to watch Suzie - she's my sister - while our mother and father did some shopping. Suzie was all excited about talking to Santa, but I knew it was all a lie, and that our parents put the presents from Santa under the tree after all us kids were in bed on Christmas eve. And that's what I was doing that night - just sneaking down to see what size the packages from Santa were going to be. I was just too excited to sleep." He paused, as if he were waiting for me to acknowledge that he had an appropriate disbelief in Santa Claus. "Go on," I said, instead. "I knew if I got caught I'd get in trouble, so I went to the kitchen first and got a glass of water. I thought I was so clever. But there were no new presents under the tree. So then I was worried I'd come down too soon, so I hurried to get back in my room." He stopped and frowned, and his eyes took on a glazed look, as if he were visualizing something far away. "But when I got to the hallway, my parents' door was open and the light was on. I knew I was busted, but I had the glass of water, so I decided to try to bluff my way through it if I couldn't just slip by without them seeing me." It was difficult, but I waited. He closed his eyes again but this time his whole body stiffened up. "As I approached my parents' bedroom door, I looked in, just to see if they saw me ... you know? But what I saw then..." He trailed off and I saw a single tear squeeze our of a tightly closed eyelid and roll down his cheek. He was exhibiting all the signs of someone who is reliving a traumatic incident. "Go on," I said softly. His eyes opened again, but the look on his face was hopeless. "I stopped because the bed looked all wrong. I could see my dad, lying on his side, and my mom's hair lying on her pillow. And I could see her legs ... her bare legs ... wrapped around him." Another tear welled out of Bob's left eye. "Your father?" I asked. Sometimes when a child sees his parents making love, it's shocking enough to cause problems later on in life. "No," he gasped. "There were three people on the bed." "Three?" "The one on top of my mom ... they were having sex. But it wasn't my dad. It was him!" "Him?" I prodded. "It was ... Santa," he whimpered. I sighed. He'd been so lucid, there for a few minutes. I'd thought I was going to get some really good information, and then he'd gone off the tracks again. "Santa," I said slowly. "It was him!" insisted Bob. "He looked just like all the pictures. He was big, and had on a red suit with white fur on it and everything. And he was humping my mother!" He shook his head slowly. "Right there in the bed, next to my father." "And you were ten," I said. I couldn't disguise the disappointment in my voice. "Old enough to know what was going on," he said defensively. "When I was growing up we knew all about it long before any of our parents wanted us to, and long before we got to sex ed in school. We never got to do any of it - not that young - but we knew what was involved." "Listen to yourself," I said calmly. "You just told me that Santa Claus, fully dressed by the way, was having sex with your mother, while her husband was lying in bed beside her." "I know that." I sighed. "Was your father watching?" "He was asleep!" snapped Bob. "I could hear him snoring. I could also hear the bed springs making noise as the bed bounced up and down. And I could hear my mother ... moaning." "So she was awake." "She knew who he was! She was saying his name." "She was saying Santa's name," I repeated. "Yes, and telling him how good it was." "And you were ten," I repeated, trying to impress on him how young that was. "Doctor, I told you it sounds crazy, but the fact is I remember every detail, as if it happened yesterday. I remember what happened next too." "There's more?" My voice rose. "Oh yeah," he said almost sadly. "I was frozen right there. While I knew what was happening, I'd never seen it happen before. I was at the age where I wanted to believe my mother had never had sex at all, and that Suzie and I were magic or something. You know the deal. Anyway, he made this giggling, groaning sound and went all stiff for a few seconds and then there was an explosion of some kind of golden dust or something and he like bounced off of the bed. He landed right on his boots, except that it didn't make enough sound. It was like he only weighed a few ounces. He looked down at my mother ... my naked mother ... and said "You were always a looker Marge, and it was even better the second time." And then he turned around and looked right at me and put his finger to his lips. I knew he was looking right at me ... that he knew I was there, watching. I heard the faintest 'Shhhh' from him as he fumbled around down where a zipper might be." Bob's eyes glazed over again. "Except I never heard a zipper." His eyes cleared and he looked at me. "And then suddenly his hand was on my arm and I was floating away from their door, back down to the living room, next to the tree. He said I was supposed to be in bed, and that he was going to have to take my name off the nice list and move it to the naughty one." By now I didn't know what to think. Maybe Bob really was around the bend. He went on, though, so I listened as his eyes glazed over again. "I still remember exactly what I said. I was horrified. I said 'That's my mom!' to him. He laughed, and said 'I'm just giving Suzie what she asked for, remember?' and he let go of me." Bob slumped, as with resignation, and he looked at me again. "Remember when I said they took us to see Santa at the store, and I was watching Suzie? Well when she sat on his lap she said she wanted a baby sister." I almost rolled my eyes, but controlled the urge. "So anyway he said I wasn't supposed to have seen that, and that he was going to have to do something about it, and the hair stood up all over my body and I started to run. I was looking over my shoulder at him, which is why I tripped over the edge of the throw rug that's only there during the Christmas season. I saw him laugh and he pointed his finger at me and it was like golden sparkles shot out of his finger and came right at me. I was falling, though, and my hand got between me and him so that I couldn't see him any more and the sparkles got all around me and I felt numb all over." He stopped, looking confused. "I don't remember anything else until Suzie came in and woke me up for Christmas Morning. And at that time I didn't remember any of what I just told you." I frowned. His comment wasn't registering as anything that made sense. "What?" "I didn't remember any of what I just told you until ten years ago. I was in a hockey game with a bunch of other enthusiasts and a slap shot hit me in the head. I almost died. I was in a coma for a week. When I woke up in the hospital ... that memory was in my head. But if I remembered all that ... why don't I remember any of the rest of the night?" "We can look into that later," I said, actually interested now. Physical trauma can affect the mind in ways we don't fully understand yet, but it's very different from disease. Treatment options are still experimental for the most part, but it's a fascinating field, and I was interested in it. If all this delusional behavior was based on damage caused by the accident, there was at least hope that approaching things from a rational standpoint might produce positive results in discrediting his possibly false memory. "Well you're not insane," I said firmly. I shouldn't have said that. Not then, and not in that voice. But I think I was already unconsciously starting treatment with the idea that convincing him of an alternate truth ... a rational truth ... would be possible. He actually laughed. I took it as a good sign, because he relaxed too. "Oh I don't believe that you actually saw all that," I said quickly. "But I believe you believe it. I don't think it's the product of some disease, and I think we can deal with it." "Oh really," he said, smiling. "Really," I said, also too firmly. "So how do we deal with the fact that that my mother had a little girl the next September?" he asked. I waved a hand. "You may actually have seen your father and mother making love," I said sagely. "But your ten year old mind couldn't deal with that reality. You said yourself that you didn't want to believe that your parents had sex. So you repressed that memory, subtly altering it in the process, and kept it suppressed until the accident." I held up a hand. "I'm not saying that's what happened, but it's what may have happened. It's one explanation for what you're going through." "My father had a vasectomy after Suzie was born," he said calmly. "When they found out mom was pregnant, they almost got divorced, because he thought she'd been cheating on him. I remember her crying and pleading with him to believe her. There were some really rough months there, until the doctor said his clamp might have leaked. Back then they just clamped things off, instead of cauterizing the ends, like they do these days." "Okay," I said easily. "So maybe the clamp did leak." "Melody doesn't look anything like Dad, or Suzie or me," he said. "You know better than to think that proves anything," I said, trying to get him to admit that at least some part of his theory was questionable. "Okay," he said, giving me what I wanted. "What about the fact that when I went to bed that night I was ambidextrous, and when I got up Christmas Morning I was left handed?" "What?" I was clearly confused as to what this had to do with anything. "Remember I said my hand got in the way of that gold dust ... the sparkles? That was my right hand. It took the full brunt of them, rather than my head, which was what I think he was aiming at. So I did forget what I wasn't supposed to have seen, but not as thoroughly as he intended. The accident shook it loose." He held up his right hand. "Before that night I was ambidextrous. I could do everything with either hand. But this hand ... the one that got hit by that dust or whatever it was ... I couldn't write with it any more, and I couldn't throw a ball with it or anything. It was like it had forgotten how to do everything it had ever been trained to do." "Oh give me a break," I said, finally unable to keep my frustration in. Bob wasn't at all shaken by my outburst. "I had a backpack when they arrested me. There's a book in it ... my mother's diary. I found it in her things after she died. Go look at the entry she made for Christmas day, 1972. She wrote about it." I looked at my watch. I had another appointment to get to. "Why did you grope that woman?" I asked him, point blank. "She's due in September," he said, his voice completely normal. "When I meet a woman who's due in September I can't help but think she might be carrying Melody's half brother or sister." I didn't know what to do. I obviously needed to spend more time with this man. He was clearly deranged, but I couldn't know why without further evaluation. He could understand the charges against him. I was sure of that. But he might be able to mount a pretty good defense based on insanity. That was something that could wait. "I'll be in touch," I said. Then I signaled the guard to let me out. "Doc," he called as the door opened. I turned. "Remember ... I was born in September too," he said. "And Santa said it was their second time." ------- I called the court clerk later that day. I confess I misinformed her, technically speaking. That was because if I just said he could understand the charges, they wouldn't need my services any longer, and I thought I could do something for this man if I had a little more time with him. His obsession had landed him in hot water. He might survive that, but who knew what all this Santa business might lead him to in the future. So it was for that reason that I informed the clerk that my initial contact indicated further evaluation was necessary. She grumped about it. They always do. Everybody thinks a psychiatrist has some mystical ability to look at someone and make a diagnosis right then and there. She tried to make me feel guilty by saying that the judge wasn't going to do anything about bail until I gave him my final report. Maybe the clerk's guilt trip worked, because I made room in my schedule two days later to see Bob again. I took along some testing materials in my briefcase. When the guard was going through it, inspecting all the papers, I remembered Bob's reference to his mother's diary and asked to see his personal items box. The perfectly ordinary book was in the box. I didn't have to look for the date he'd given me. The diary fell open to that page, as often happens when a book is opened to a particular part over and over again. Her handwriting was neat and legible. Christmas day, 1972. Something happened last night. I dreamed. I can't remember what it was about, but I woke up excited ... excited about Christmas ... but more than that somehow. I feel wonderful. Haven't felt like this in years and years. We made love last night. That hasn't happened in months. I can't remember that either, but I know it happened. No time for more. Must get breakfast ready and wake the children. Bobby's usually up begging to skip breakfast on Christmas, but I haven't heard a peep from him. I scanned over the following entries, only two of which seemed pertinent. She had written about how strange it was that Bobby couldn't do anything with his right hand any more. She was worried about it, afraid he had some kind of nerve damage. I leafed forward to the time frame when she found out she was pregnant. She agonized over that, and delayed telling her husband about it until the last possible moment. Over and over she wrote "How did this happen?" Bob didn't seem to be upset that he had languished in jail. He was willing to take any test I wanted to administer, and did. When we were finished with that he seemed to think I would already have the results. Instead of explaining the evaluation process, I addressed another of my goals. "I'd like to talk to your mother and sisters," I said. "Is that all right with you?" "I can tell you how to find Melody," he said calmly. "My mother and Suzie are dead. They died in the same accident." "Your mother and sister died together?" Maybe there was some emotional component to what was going on with him. "A train hit their car," he said. "Either Mom didn't see it coming, or she was trying to beat it. They never found out for sure." "I'm sorry," I said. He shrugged. "It was a long time ago." That seemed like he was trying to gloss over what had to have been a shocking situation. In fact, he showed less emotion about that than he had about the supposed mating between an imaginary figure and his mother. I decided to talk to his remaining sister before exploring his feelings about losing his mother and sister at the same time. ------- Melody was a stay-at-home mom who welcomed me into her home as soon as she found out who I was and what role I was playing in her brother's future. She knew about Bob's incarceration and was earnest about trying to help get him out of jail. A completely normal looking woman, Melody was of average height, with pleasant, though not exotic looks. The baby perched on her ample hip was typically cute and stared at me with solemn eyes. I asked how old the child was without thinking about it, and then caught myself subtracting the months in an effort to determine when she had conceived. I didn't finish the exercise, almost snorting in derision at how Bob had affected me subliminally. Instead, I tried to estimate her own age, and decided she was around thirty before I remembered that, according to Bob and his mother's diary, she was born in September 1973. That made her twenty-six. Family members of patients are a double edged sword. Usually they want to help, but all too often they think that lying is the way to do so. In that case they're afraid that if they tell the unvarnished truth, it will be used against their loved one. They're also curious, and sometimes have their own diagnosis, based on whatever they've heard from friends, or read on the internet or maybe seen on Oprah or somewhere. Of course they want to know what's up, but rather than taint their perceptions further, I usually just say something like "I'm trying to find out," and then start in with the questions. "What's your relationship with Bobby like?" I asked, using the name she called him by. "I'd say we're close," she said. "We're all each of us has left." "What would you say is the most difficult part of your relationship with him?" She thought about that for a few seconds. "He's eleven years older than I am. He's always told me what to do. That bothered me a lot when I was younger. I understand why he did that now, but not back then. Our mother died when I was just six. Bobby took care of me after that for two years, until Dad remarried. Then he joined the Navy. "So you don't remember your biological mother," I suggested. "I remember her perfectly," said Melody. I never considered Janice my mother. She's my step mother. It's different. I like her, but she's not my mother." I got back to the issue at hand. "How did Bobby take it when your mother died?" "We were all devastated, of course. I thought the world was ending. Bobby cried just like I did. Dad did too, of course. We all just kind of struggled on. The pain never really went away, but it got bearable. "You mentioned that you liked your step-mother, when she came on the scene. How did Bobby react?" "He was almost gone by then," said Melody. The baby started fussing. "I need to feed him," she said. "Do you mind?" "Of course not," I assured her. I wasn't prepared for her to open her blouse, pop open the tip of her nursing bra, and suckle the child right there in front of me. Once the baby was sucking, she looked back up at me. "He'd been wanting to join the Navy since he graduated from high school," she said. "He stayed there at home, working part time for a lumber yard because he was taking care of me. When dad married Janice he didn't have to do that any more. "Does he get along with her now?" She shrugged her shoulders. "Sure, I guess. I mean he comes to Thanksgiving and things like that." "How about Christmas?" "Usually," she said. "Not at first, of course, because of the Navy. After he got out he came home a lot. He tried to tell me who I could date and who I couldn't. We got into a lot of fights over that. I understand that part now too, of course. I was a typical teenager, I suppose. I loved him sometimes and hated him others. At least until he got put in the hospital and I thought I was going to lose him too. I was terrified." "He told me about that," I said sympathetically. "The hockey puck?" "Yes," she said. "I stayed right by his bedside as much as they'd let me. And I prayed and promised God that if he came thorough, I'd never argue with him again." "Well you got your wish," I said, sensing that she was about to tear up. "Do you think being hit on the head like that has something to do with his troubles now?" she asked. "I don't know," I said. "It's possible ... one of the things we'll look at. Did you notice any changes in his behavior after that?" "He was very loving to me," she said. "I just thought it was a change in my own attitude, but he seemed to try to take even better care of me then. He got into some arguments with Dad and Janice about it, even." "What kind of arguments?" "Oh, the usual. I don't remember most of them. I do remember one time, though. I wanted a later curfew and Janice was going to give it to me, but he argued that I should be home even sooner than the original time. I thought he was being a jerk." "I suspect that, as a young man who had seen the world, he was just trying to protect you from other young men," I said, smiling. "Yes," she said, returning my smile. "I'm sure." "Did he ever do anything that seemed odd?" She reflected on that. In the process she changed the baby from one shockingly pink nipple to the other. Maybe she thought that, since I was in the medical profession, modesty wasn't required. Once the baby had settled in on the second breast she spoke. "I can only think of one thing," she said. "Well, maybe two. He isn't married, and I don't understand that, because he's a great guy. But the only really strange thing is that years ago he told me he knows a secret about me, but he won't tell me what it is. It's not like he taunts me with it. Actually, he only told me about it once, right after he woke up in the hospital. He said he knew this big, huge secret about me, but wouldn't say a word about it further. Well of course a girl can't just forget something like that, so I've asked him about it a hundred times. He just looks weird and says I don't want to know, or something like that. It used to drive me crazy, but after a while I just figured it was something to do with being hit in the head." "I see," I said. "You do?" She leaned forward. "Do you know what this secret is?" I didn't want to go there. Not yet, anyway. I try not to lie to people, but there are ways to deflect a question without lying outright. "I'll ask him about it," I said. "You said you remember your mother. What do you remember about your sister?" "Very little," she said, sounding sad. "I remember tea parties, where we had chairs for dolls and stuffed animals. They made me happy. I remember that happy feeling. I get a kind of hazy mental image of her. Isn't that weird? I can remember Bosco the purple stuffed dog quite plainly, but not my sister's face." "I'd say that's normal," I said. "Most people remember images from that age, but not complete episodes." "She always made me feel so good," sighed Melody. Her eyes took on a slightly glazed, far away look. "I'll never forget those tea parties." "That's good," I said. "You're lucky to have those memories." "I was lucky to have such a loving sister," she said. "At every party she told me how happy she was that she'd asked Santa Claus to bring me." Her eyes cleared and she smiled brightly. "Isn't that silly?" Her comment about Suzie asking Santa to bring her unnerved me a bit, but her reaction - that if thinking of it as silly - reassured me. I then asked her if she was aware of, or knew anything about Bob's fascination with pregnant women. She smiled again and said "He's always liked to play this game of counting backwards to try to figure out when a woman became pregnant." "Always?" I had asked her. She thought about that for a few seconds. "I don't know. It seems like he's always done that." "Can you remember what you were doing the first time you saw him do that?" She closed her eyes. The baby, satisfied at last, let go of the nipple and rolled his head away to stare at me. Hunger came first, and then he explored his environment for new and interesting things. I couldn't help but stare at the elongated, now purplish nipple. I caught myself licking my lips and was mildly embarrassed. I looked up just as she opened her eyes again. "Now that I think about it, it was when he woke up in the hospital. One of the nurses was pregnant, and one of the first things he asked about was when she was due. I remember now. He opened his eyes, looked at me, said hi and asked why he was in the hospital. Then he said he was hungry. I was freaking out, because he was acting like nothing had happened at all. I pushed the button on the thingy clipped to his bed and the nurse came. Then another nurse came with some crackers and juice. She was the pregnant one and the first thing he said was 'When are you due?'" She blinked and nodded her head, completely unaware that her nipple was still exposed to me. Then she frowned, looking past my shoulder. "Yes! That was the first time. He did it all the time after that. I guess I just got used to it. I just figured it was a guy thing or something. He wasn't married, but he was very interested in children." She looked back at me and almost casually did up her nursing bra and covered it before moving the baby to her shoulder to burp him. "Doctor, I'm sure that bump on the head did something to him. It's hard to describe, but he was different after that. He was still Bobby, but there was something new about him. There was a tension or something in him that hadn't been there before. I wish I could tell you more, but I can't think of how to say it." "That's fine," I said. The last thing I needed was for another member of this family to become obsessed with anything. "His fascination with that is part of the problem, but I hope I can help him. You've been quite helpful." "What should I do?" she asked. "About your brother?" "Yes." "Just love him and be supportive. The support of family and friends is crucial to managing a mental illness." I cringed immediately as she stiffened. "So he is mentally ill?" "I misspoke," I said. "I shouldn't have said that. There is no diagnosis, as yet, and it wasn't fair to either him or you." "But he might be," she said, looking distressed. "We are all mentally ill at one time or another in our lives," I said. "It's perfectly normal to go round the bend occasionally. The important thing is that we get centered again. That's what I'm going to try to do with your brother." "Oh," she said, sounding relieved. "Okay, then. Just keep loving him. I can do that. He's been very good to me, Doctor. He's a good man. He wouldn't hurt anybody." I didn't want to agree with her up front, even though I was already pretty well convinced he wasn't dangerous. We doctors tend to hedge, though. A lot of perfectly normal people have been known to snap and do things that were totally out of character. Instead of agreeing with her, I just stood up. "Thank you for your time. I'll do my best to help him." The baby started fussing again and the odor wafting away from him explained it. I left while she was getting ready to change him. As I walked back to my car, I reflected on my impression of Melody, one of September's children. She was as completely normal and unremarkable as anyone could be. The concept that half her DNA had come from a mythical creature was simply ludicrous. There wasn't any other way characterize it. As I pulled into traffic my mind wandered and I thought about what kind of capabilities one might inherit from the DNA of Santa Claus. Would it be possible to simply look at another person and know if they were naughty or nice? Would one's laugh naturally come out in bursts of three? Would one be genetically predisposed to be a fantastic chimney sweep? I realized how ridiculous my thoughts were and laughed nervously. It came out as "Heh heh heh" and I almost sideswiped a car as my mind drew the ridiculous comparison between that and the fact that I, too, was one of September's children. My heart was pounding and I took several deep breaths to calm myself. I sighed, getting a grip on my emotions, and wondered if I'd need to spend some time with my own analyst before this was all over. ------- Chapter 3 To be perfectly honest, I was at somewhat of an impasse at that point. Everything I had learned meshed with Bob's story. His memory of seeing "Santa" making love with his mother had to be a dream or hallucination, of course, but it was still real in his own mind. And facts and circumstances in his life tended to support his irrational beliefs. I could understand that, since my own thoughts had been hijacked by this troubling concept. The real problem wasn't that Bob believed in Santa. That's a relatively benign delusion to have, never mind those social service agencies Bob had mentioned that think believing in Santa is harmful to the psyche. But this new facet of Santa's proposed existence was something that, for some at least, would turn him into a nightmare instead of a jolly, generous, friendly sort of fellow. As I thought more and more about Bob, I decided that the challenge was to bring some rationality back to his perception about children born in September. For that, I would need facts that would offset his hypothesis of who fathered September's children. If I could counter his statistics, perhaps I could refute his analysis and bring him to see that it was a simple obsession, based on erroneous interpretation of incomplete data. Once he saw that, he would have the anchor from which to begin changing his beliefs. At best he'd come to grips with the fact that we all have to give up Santa sooner or later, regardless of how much we wish he was real. At worst Bob could still believe in Santa, but that belief just wouldn't be so dark. Just like that, as happens so often in this business, I had a plan. ------- The problem with my plan was that the facts on which he based his analysis proved to be accurate, as best I could determine. My research disclosed sources of information I had no reason to suspect as faulty. Much of it came from web sites that dealt with hunger, or pediatric illnesses. The census might not be exactly correct, but it's not off by a huge margin, and there was no reason to suspect it was wrong concerning birth rates. The same was true of sources of information outside the United States, though some of them might be tainted by political issues. I ignored Bob's data on Santa Claus. I wasn't going to give any credence to that part of his fantasy at all. But the truth is by the time I had mined the available data about births in September, and by irrevocable connection, conceptions in December, I didn't have anything to refute his obsession with. I admit I got a bit desperate. That's why I began collecting anecdotal evidence. I know what you're thinking. Anecdotal evidence is all but worthless in the scientific process, other than to produce questions to answer using scientific method. But it was all I had left. I tried to collect the data and treat it on a scientific basis, but I admit the pool was small, in terms of a statistical study. Still, since I was using my own friends and acquaintances rather than selecting specific test subjects, it stood to reason that any information I got could be considered truly random For most people, going around asking everyone you know how old their children are and when they were conceived is a prescription for getting odd or even hostile looks. But as a psychiatrist, explaining that I was dealing with an odd case and was trying to get a broader view of things was usually enough to get me anything I wanted in the personal information arena. The odd thing was that it turned out I knew a lot of people whose children were born in September. It was astonishing, really, and a bit unnerving by the time I had exhausted the pool of people I felt I could interrogate on that kind of level. What was unnerving was that, once I had collected all the data on all the children and when each was born, it ended up that children born in September represented 18.635% of all the children in my little study. Think about that for a second. If you have a hundred children, born over a twelve month period, it comes out to a little over eight percent per month if distributed evenly. But my statistics showed a figure over ten percent higher than that for September children! I thought about how my information pool was restricted to people much like myself, and toyed with the idea that certain social classes might have some as yet unidentified preferance for mating in December. But my little group, which included two black couples, an Asian couple and a Mexican woman who was the single mother of three, was diverse enough that I couldn't quite cement that in my mind. I stared at the results of my analysis, and knew immediately there was nothing there I could refute Bob's obsession with. If anything what I had done supported his abnormal beliefs. I thought about asking for a consult from a few other doctors, but decided not to. For one thing I suspected other doctors would laugh at this particular obsession. I would become known as "The Santa Doctor," or worse "The doctor who killed Santa." Besides, once anyone found out that I had done an obviously flawed and unprofessional study, I knew I'd lose support and respect among my peers. So I was stuck, and I was running out of time. I called the judge and went out on a limb. I told him that Bob could, indeed, understand the charges against him, but that there were issues that would influence his defense. I added that I had no reason to believe that Bob was dangerous to anyone. I knew that would start the wheels of justice rolling again, but I hoped I might come up with something that could be used in his defense by the time his case actually got to trial. That was when I realized that I was too close to this case. I wasn't supposed to take sides. All I was supposed to do was produce a diagnosis and, if appropriate, a treatment plan. What happened in court was something I was supposed to be divorced from. When the judge thanked me, and said my services were no longer needed, I must admit I heaved a sigh of relief. I felt a little badly about telling Bob's sister I would try to help him, and that was why I decided to keep an eye on his case. I suspected he'd be ordered into psychiatric care, particularly if he explained his actions in court. At least I could share with his future doctor, whoever that was, what I had learned. ------- The only problem I had after that was that Bob's case had gotten under my skin. One day, while I should have been listening to a patient's long and admittedly boring recitation of every wrong that anyone she could think of had ever committed against her, I got an idea. Sadly, it wasn't an idea about what to do with the paranoid woman on my couch. It was about Bob instead. While the data I'd gathered wasn't useful for dissuading Bob from his erroneous interpretations of the data he collected, I had a number of mothers at my disposal who had given birth to September children. And that meant I had a number of mothers at my disposal who could tell me why they conceived in December. It was simple and, I thought, almost brilliant. True, there were only eight, which is a small number no matter how you look at it, but if I could present their rationalization as to why they chose December to become pregnant, it might at least put a chink in the armor of Bob's belief. I did get some odd looks when I went back to these women the second time. I thought it might be safe to share a little anonymous information with them, to get me off the "weirdo hook," as it were, so I explained that I had a patient (tiny falsehood) who wanted to have a child, but who was paralyzed by trying to determine the best time to conceive. That last was a rather larger falsehood, but I felt justified in perpetrating it, which probably should have alerted me that it was perhaps time to seek treatment myself. Of course I had to ask about all the children of the eight couples who had one or more children born in September or October, and why the date of the other children's conception had been planned, but that still only represented eighteen children in all, so it wasn't too onerous a task to get the information on the ten of them I was actually interested in. If only I had let things lie, where I had left them with the judge. ------- I scheduled all the interviews for a Saturday, so I'd have the whole day to knock them out. I have changed the names, of course, but here is what I found out: Melanie and Roger had two children, one of which was born in September. They explained that they wanted children three years apart, and that once Susan was well into her terrible twos, Melanie went off birth control. That was it. They let nature take it's course and Melanie became pregnant again during the holidays. She smiled and said "We've always called her our Christmas baby, because missing my period in January was such a gift to us." ------- Juanita, the single mother in the group, was a former patient of mine who I had treated for depression. The depression was related to her inability to find a man who she could both fall in love with and respect. She found it easy to fall in love. The respect part came harder, which was why her history was full of men who loved her and left her, as they say. It was also full of children whose fathers left them as well. Two of her three children were born in September, but at the time I had been treating her, she had'nt had them yet. Part of her treatment had revolved around the fact that she thought if she let a man get her pregnant, he would act responsibly, and bond to her. I thought we had dealt with that issue. The additional two children gave me pause about that. Technically she wasn't an active patient, though I had kept in touch with her after her depression was dealt with, and had adjusted the dosages of her medications a couple of times. The latest had been downward and when I interviewed her to find out when her children were born I had told her it was just a follow-up to see if she was doing all right. She had said she was fine, and I had simply asked when her other two children had been born. It was an opening for her to re-engage about any problems she was having. She recognized it as an opening too, but insisted that the two she'd had since then had been because she wanted them. I hadn't asked her to expand on that at the time. She seemed a little embarrassed when I came back the second time and asked for more details on her children. I assured her it was just to help this "other woman" decide when to have a child. She blushed, but spoke. "Ees little embarrassing," she said in her lovely Hispanic accent. "I was doing what jew tole me to ... jew know, being picky about the men, except that I love to go to the Chreesmas party every year. An I always drink too much tequila, and dance with so many men..." She looked at me, clearly hoping I wouldn't judge her for losing control. "That has happened to many women, Juanita," I said. "Maybe you need to go to a different party, where there are different men." "I deed!" she yipped. "The next year I went to a nice party at Meez Sorenson's house, where I clean for her. There was no tequila, only wine. An I doan remember even haffing sex around then, but ... here come Esmerelda!" "Oh," I said, feeling unnerved by her anguish. "That's too bad." "Oh I not depressed," she assured me. "I love all my cheeldren. They make me so happy. My seester, she no have any babies yet, and she helps me take care of them sometimes. She ask if I half another one maybe she can adopt eet, but I tell her no way. I mean I not wanting another one, but I'm doing hokay. I doan think any man weel want me now anyway, so I geeve all my love to my babies." ------- Linda and Frank were next on my list. Frank wasn't there, having gone golfing, but Linda said she'd field any questions I had. They had three children, the eldest born in early October. When I asked her why they'd chosen December to get pregnant she laughed. "We got married on Christmas Eve. We basically skipped Christmas with the family that year. He didn't let me out of bed for a week." ------- Lois and Bill explained that they had planned all of their children based on Lois's teaching job. She took a year off each time she had a child, so they tried to get pregnant such that the timing would make the child a year old when she went back to school. It had worked two out of the three times. ------- For Jill and Terry, who had one child (born in September) with another about halfway along, it was a completely different story. "I wanted a baby, but Bill said we weren't ready," said Jill. "We got into huge fights about it." "Then, without telling me, she went off the pill," said Bill, though his tone wasn't angry. "I did not!" she said, only slightly agitated. "This argument has been going on ever since then," said Bill smiling. "She insists she was on the pill when she got pregnant." "I was," Jill insisted. "That was a horrible Christmas, because we were fighting so much. Remember how many times you slept on the couch? But I wouldn't just stop taking the pill without your agreement," she complained. "I thought we weren't going to bring this up again," said Bill. "The pill isn't always effective," I said, trying to soothe the situation. "That's not what he means," said Jill. Bill said he was thirsty and got up, asking if anybody else wanted anything. He left the room. "What he was alluding to," said Jill, "is that because we were fighting so much, we didn't have sex for almost all of December. I kept begging with him to let me get pregnant, but he insisted we weren't ready. When I did turn up pregnant, and we figured out the timing, it looked to him like I had cheated on him. But I didn't!" "We got over it," said Bill, coming back into the room with a tray of drinks. He had obviously overheard some of her comments to me. "One look at Larry, with my hair and the same birthmark I have convinced me I was being a fool." "I'll drink to that," said Jill, raising her glass and finally smiling again. ------- Serena and Louis had identical twins born in September. Louis was playing golf with Frank, but Serena invited me in when I explained what I was asking for. "It was kind of funny," said Serena, offering me coffee, which I declined. "Frank just wanted to get me pregnant, and he had this fantasy about twins. He'd get all horny," she blushed, but went on, "and then, while we were ... um ... doing it ... he'd tell me he was going to knock me up with twins. I thought it was cute, because he was so pathetic about it. I think it made him feel macho to say things like that." "But then you had twins," I said, smiling. "That's the odd part," she said. "There's nothing in either of our family histories that would suggest we could even have twins." "Oh," I said, somewhat taken aback. "He was so proud when we found out," she said. "And other than the fact that it caused me to swear off ever getting pregnant again, I'm glad it happened. I mean they're so special. But it's a puzzle." ------- Lizette and Randy, like Melanie and Roger, had just wanted to have children and went about letting nature decide when it would happen. "Mariah came along fine," said Lizette. The girl, now seven or eight, was sitting on her mother's lap and beamed, as if she were responsible for being born. Her mother didn't seem to notice though, and went on. "She was born in May, and that was nice because by the time I was ready to take her out, the weather was really nice. "Four years later, we decided to go again," said Roger. Lizette popped in. "We didn't want the next one to have a birthday too close to Mariah's, so we started trying on New Year's Day." Roger picked it up again. "But nothing happened." "We tried and tried!" moaned Lizette. "I'd recently been hospitalized..." Roger stopped, as if he knew his wife was going to interrupt. "He almost died!" Lizette met his expectations and he continued as if they had rehearsed the break. "And ... well ... I had had some very high temperatures because of my illness and the doctor thought that maybe my reproductive system had been compromised," he finished." Lizette heard a silent cue and took over. "We tried everything, but nothing worked. We tried medicines, and exercises, and," she glanced at her daughter, "um ... interesting positions, if you know what I mean." "Nothing worked," Roger got in edgewise. "We even tried invitro fertilization," whispered Lizette, as if her daughter might not hear that. "It must have been very trying," I said, more to see if I could get a comment in than because I wanted to comfort them. After all, the baby they didn't seem to be able to conceive was playing in the crib nearby. Unless he was adopted, of course. I didn't think he was. I usually know things like that about the people I associate with. But then I hadn't known they were struggling to have a baby either. I decided to just let them tell their story. They'd get to the end eventually. That turned out to be a bad idea, because the end was actually supplied by Mariah, and it hit me hard. "Then, when we had all but given up," said Lizette. "I came through after all," Roger finished proudly. "It was like magic," said Lizette. "No it wasn't," piped Mariah. I could see the excitement build in her and she wiggled loose to stand on the floor. She put her hands on her hips and struck a pose. "And how do you know that?" I asked, foolishly. "Because I knew Mommy and Daddy were sad, so when we wrote letters to Santa in school, I asked Santa to bring me a little brother, so Mommy and Daddy would be happy again. It wasn't magic. It was Santa!" She beamed again, proud that her contribution had produced the desired result. Her parents rolled their eyes, and I sat back, trying not to shudder as chills ran up and down my spine like a roller coaster run amok. ------- When I left Lizette and Roger's house I was almost suffering from depression myself. I know I shambled, like a man in the grip of strong drink. I talked to myself in the car as I drove home. I had gained nothing. It was as if fate was determined to stop me from helping Bob. Oh, I know fate is merely a construct invented by man to explain random events, but it seemed very real to me at that moment. When I got home I searched the pantry and came up with a bottle of Johnny Walker Red that I'd had for more years than I could remember. There were probably five or six ounces left in the bottle and I stared at the beautiful amber liquid, wondering if psychosis was, perhaps, communicable. I'm ashamed to admit I killed that bottle that night. It was the only way I could calm the taunting laugh in my mind. ------- When I sobered up the next day I resolved to forget about Bob, and Santa Claus, and babies born in September. I threw myself into my practice, concentrating hard on each patient. I booked myself to the point of exhaustion, until my receptionist asked me what was going on. And, eventually, I began to think of Bob less and less. I did not, as I had intended, follow his case, or contact the provider I was quite sure he had been assigned. I was just thankful it wasn't me. In other words, I abandoned a patient and my professionalism ... all over Santa Claus. I kept rationalizing why I had forsaken Bob, of course. I told myself that this particular psychosis was so unique that there was no reasonable course of treatment. Some folks get crazy and just stay that way. My other medical brothers have incurable patients, so I should just accept the fact and move on. The problem was that Thanksgiving had come and gone, and the insanity of the Christmas season was in full swing. "Santa" was everywhere, which made it hard not to think about him. I decided to go see my mother. I had neglected her these recent years, except for the occasional visit during a holiday. She didn't complain, but I knew that rattling around in the big old house she'd raised us in must be wearing on her. My sister and I should have gotten her into a smaller house, or apartment years ago. When she met me at the door, though, her seventy-one years rode well on her. She had always spent what seemed like an inordinate amount of time on her hair, and that day it was flawless, as usual. Her smile of welcome was both genuine and joyful. I felt guilty for not coming to see her more often. "How you doing?" I asked, hugging her. "I'm better now," she said, squeezing me. I put my hands on her shoulders and held them as I pushed her back. "What's wrong?" I asked, full of concern. "Nothing's wrong, silly," she said smiling. "I'm just getting old, that's all. It's good to see you. Come in and have some cookies and milk." My mother had always been a cookies and milk kind of mother. When I was young, kids all over the neighborhood loved to come to our house because they all knew they'd be greeted with cookies and milk. Our house was like Grand Central Station as a result, with young people popping in to "see" one of the Smith kids, when half the time all they really wanted was a cookie. She didn't care and, to be honest, my sister and I didn't either, because the cookie jar was always full. So, over cookies and milk I set about things the way I usually did, asking questions half as her son and half as a doctor, trying to discover if there were any problems that could be resolved in either persona. I noticed that all the decorations were up, including the tree in one corner, where it had always been put. The psychiatrist in me perked up when she complained mildly about having dreams lately that woke her up at night. "What kind of dreams?" I asked. "Oh, land's sakes, I can't ever remember them," she said. "It's just crazy stuff in an old woman's head." "You're not all that old, Mom," I said gently. "I wish I could be around when you're my age," she sighed. "I'd love to hear what you think about it then." "I could help with the dreams," I said. "Oh?" "Sure. If you want." "It would be nice to sleep all night," she mused. She looked up. "But I don't like drugs." "No drugs," I said. "Just a little hypnosis to find out what's causing them. Then I can give you a few post hypnotic suggestions to lessen the stress." "You want to hypnotize me?" She smiled. "I always heard that was bunk." "It can be helpful," I said patiently. "It's a good way to get to blocked or suppressed memories. It's no miracle cure, but sometimes it can help. And it almost never hurts, even if it doesn't work all the time." Which is how we ended up in the living room, both of us sitting in comfortable chairs, while I told her to close her eyes and listen to my voice. I fed her a string of phrases designed to get her to relax and submit to that voice. She was a remarkably good subject. Some people fight it, because their subconscious demands that it retain full control. "You're very relaxed," I intoned. "You haven't felt this relaxed and safe in a long time." I saw her shoulders begin to sink, and her neck muscles lost their definition through her skin. "You're floating and warm and feel no tension at all." She sat, partially slumped. "How do you feel?" "I feel fine," she said. She'd already told me she'd had a dream the night before, so I just started with that one. "I want you to go back to yesterday ... Tuesday, Myrna," I said. I was using her given name, rather than "Mom" because I wanted her emotional level to be neutral. Her head was tilted down just enough that I couldn't see whether her eyes were open or closed. It doesn't matter for the process, but sometimes there are visual clues in the eye movements during hypnosis. I decided it didn't matter. I'd just take her through the whole day, eventually getting to the dream. "It's morning and you've just gotten up. What do you have planned for the day?" "I have to do the dusting," she said. "And wash the curtains. The floors are a mess. There's so much to do." "Why is all this necessary?" I asked. "Why for Christmas, of course," she said, sounding slightly indignant. "I might have visitors for Christmas." I had a glimmer of what might be the problem. While I wasn't married any more, and had no children, my sister had made a good match and was the mother of two. In years past we had all gathered at Mom's for Christmas morning. The previous year was the first time my sister had stayed home, so they could have their own family Christmas morning. My mother had said that was fine, but I now suspected she was having some loss anxiety. She'd lost her husband five years earlier and now she felt like she was losing her children at an emotional time of year. "Who is coming for Christmas?" I asked. I wanted to see what her expectations were. "Well I don't know yet," she said. Her shoulders tensed. "But the house must be ready, just in case. I don't want anyone to be disappointed." I thought I had the gist of it already. She was suffering from performance anxiety, worried about what people thought when they came to her house, and unable to keep up with the kind of cleaning her own standards demanded. It was fairly common. "Listen to me, Myrna," I said softly. "The people who come to your house love you, and they aren't concerned with whether or not you cleaned everything perfectly for them. They want to spend time with you, and that is why they come. Do you understand?" "Yes," she said softly. I thought that would probably do it. I suspected it wasn't necessary to know exactly what the dreams were about. And if she still had them I could always put her under again and explore further. And then, thinking about exploring further made me realize that I had ... at my disposal, more or less ... another mother of a September baby. That woman was my mother, and the September baby was me. I almost groaned as I realized Bob had crept back into my mind. But she was there, and she was already under... What the heck? "Myrna, I want you to think back to December, nineteen sixty-six," I said. "All right," she said, as if it were no effort at all to do so. "You're pregnant, right?" I asked. I winced as I realized I had just made an inappropriate suggestion, one of the real dangers of hypnosis. It can cause false memories to take root. "Not yet," she sighed. I felt relief. I hadn't screwed anything up. "So you're trying to get pregnant," I said, wincing again. "Yes," she said. "Why do you want to become pregnant?" I asked, getting back to the right kind of question rather than a suggestion. "Why to have a baby, of course," she said. "Why do you want to become pregnant in December?" I asked. "For the same reason I wanted to become pregnant in November, and October and September," she said. "Oh," I said. I'd struck out again. My conception had nothing to do with December as a target date. I felt the kind of frustration I heard in her voice. "You sound frustrated," I said, without thinking. She frowned. "If Harold spent more time doing his husbandly duties and less time at work I might be pregnant by now." I felt a chill run down my spine. Bob's theory flooded into my head. It was ridiculous. We're not supposed to use the word "crazy" but that's what his theory was. But so help me, something in me had to know. And ... she was already there, back in 1966. It was a little like having a time machine and being able to look back and see what was happening. "All right," I said. "I want you to think about Christmas Eve." She sat. I hadn't asked a question, so she wasn't providing an answer. "It is evening, and dark outside. What are you doing?" "I'm wrapping Harold's present," she said. "Where is Harold?" "He's working overtime again ... going to be gone for a whole week! He says the money is too good to pass up, but he's going to miss Christmas!" She showed signs of agitation. "I'll be at the peak of my fertility tonight, and he's off at work. How am I supposed to get pregnant that way?" Obviously the subject of my previous questions had lingered and she was still thinking about that. I tried to think of a question to get her away from that issue. "What did you get Harold for Christmas?" "I found the most beautiful pocket watch. It has a train on the cover." My father was an engineer for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railroad. I remembered that watch clearly. He had said it was much too precious to take with him on the train, and left it home. As I grew up, we timed his arrival at home by that watch. He would call and tell us to the minute when he'd get home and that watch was the test of his accuracy. As I thought of that, and what she had just said ... that he was away from home ... I felt something heavy begin to build in my stomach. I didn't know why, but I had this sense of foreboding. "Myrna, I want you to describe everything that happens, and what you're thinking about until I tell you to stop." "I'm winding the watch and setting the time," she said. "I want it to be right when he opens it. "I'm wrapping it in bright red paper. Harold likes red. I wish he was here. We could put on a record and dance." She got up and went to the tree, placing an invisible package on the floor under it. "There are so few presents under the tree. It looks so bare. If only we had some children, so I could pack presents under the tree." She lifted her head and turned it towards me. Her eyes were open. "I must get the cookies and milk set out. Then it's time for good little girls to be in bed, snug under the covers." She actually took a step toward the kitchen. Then she froze, and her head turned sharply. "What's that noise?" The woman standing before me turned her head this way and that. She looked tense. "What's happening, Myrna?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. "Shhhhh," she whispered back. Her head turned toward the fireplace and she took several steps backward, passing me to stand ten feet away from it. "It's coming from the chimney." She leaned forward, peering at the vacant fireplace. Her whole body was poised for flight and I almost said something to calm her. But there was nothing there. She was seeing something back in 1966. I'll never be able to convey the look that came over her face then. I'll try, but it will be a pale thing, compared to what I remember. Her face went from worried, to wide-eyed disbelief and then ... immeasurable joy. She spoke but one more word, before my world crumbled around me. "SANTA!" ------- The End ------- Posted: 2009-12-14 Last Modified: 2009-12-18 / 08:45:21 am ------- http://storiesonline.net/ -------