Sophia started her therapy session by saying, “I saw my mother yesterday, at least I think I did. I don’t have any proof. I didn’t even think to take a picture with her.”

Her therapist asked, “You saw your mother?”

“Yes, well I think I did.”

“What do you mean?”

Morning sun glanced through the window. Sophia looked down at the floor and began her story. “I met her on the street. We found a bench and she told me about her work and that she had been living in Corpus Christi for years. She seemed real, but after getting water spouted out of my apartment, I think she was just another part of my hallucination.” Sophia paused. She waited for interrogation about what she had just said. None came. Her therapist said, “Go on.”

“I didn’t get her contact info. I didn’t even think to get a picture of her. I was so overwhelmed by her that I couldn’t think.” From there she told the part of the story about the water spout and the sea castle. As she talked her therapist sat quietly listening. From time to time she cocked her slick blonde head and wrote down a note. Sophia continued to plow through her story. It felt like she was never going to get to the end of it. Finally she did. Her heart was pounding so hard she could hear it in her ears. Her therapist said, “So this was the fourth time something like this has happened to you.”

“No ma’am, its the fifth.”

Her therapist looked up from her note pad. “You told me about the time, you were five and your parents were freshly divorced. You told me about the time when you started to live with your dad. There was the time shortly after you and Robert married, and then there was the incident six months ago. What have you left out?”

If Sophia had had the courage to get up and run out of that room, she would have, but she had been an incredibly obedient child and she continued to be an obedient adult. She opened her mouth and let the story, the one she kept secret spill out. She had been eighteen and had gone off to college. She didn’t want to go to Texas A&M, but her mother had been determined she would go and did . Mama was still around at this point in time and was very invested in her future. Often she said, “I don’t want you to turn out like me.”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Sophia didn’t want to turn out like her mother either. It seemed going off to college was the cure, so she went. One weekend a group of her quasi friends decided to go to Galveston. The trip would take her close to home and what she most wanted was to be close to home. So she went. It was a decision she would regret for the rest of her life. This trip was not like high school trips. The partying was non stop at the beach and one moody handsome boy had joined the group and then, lured her away. What happened next had left Sophia scarred. Remembering the dark and the force used on her was as vivid as the night it happened. She had managed to break free of him and she had taken off running toward the shore. The next thing she knew the water had taken hold of her and was pushing her down into its darkness. It held her. She could breathe. It pulled her away from the shore. It pulled her to safety and then it tried to take her away. She didn’t want to go away, she did’t want to lose her life because of some stupid prick. It was then she resisted the tug of the water, it was then she started swimming hard. She came ashore further down and went straight to the bait shop and had called Daddy to come get her. The next semester, she had gone to the University of Houston.

When she finished this oh too familiar story from the life of a woman, she closed her eyes. Her therapist said, “I think you did see your mother, yesterday. I think she triggered what happened this time. Perhaps she will seek you out, perhaps she won’t. Think about the things those women told you. All of it was sound. The mind is a tremendously complicated entity.”

Sophia nodded.

Her therapist asked, “Remember your first session?”

How could she forget! Again Sophia nodded.

“Cleo turning five and starting school triggered you. When you were five your family fell apart. Your current family is not falling apart. Your past is not being repeated in your daughter’s life. Yes, she will have her own battles. She’s sensitive and imaginative and that is a tough but wonderful combination. Think about what happened yesterday. The sea didn’t take you to a terrible place. It took you to three women who poured some love and insight into you. They called it a delusion, but, it seems more like a sacred dream to me. It reminds me of some of the mythologies and dreams I have read about indigenous people. This time you didn’t have to fight the water. The water spout took you back home, it didn’t try to kill you or keep you, it released you. The Sea Castle was a symbol for your mother and it became one for you. It is a symbol you don’t have to keep. You are in uncharted waters, building your own family and your own life. The past does not have to repeat itself.”

“But what about Cleo’s drawing of the Sea Castle with my me and Robert’s mother and the Sea Lady, it predicted what happened to me.”

“Did it? Perhaps it just planted a seed that grew into what you saw and heard yesterday.”

This was all sounding a bit too mystical to Sophia.

Her therapist continued, “I will email my thoughts to Dr. Brown and you and she can discuss what method of treatment is needed as you go forward.”

“Okay.”