Behind the Mask (122 page)

Cameron found it difficult to focus on the topics being discussed by the advisory council. His mind and heart were continually drawn to concern for his wife. His deepest instincts were telling him this was no simple problem, and it would not be easily solved. He would do
anything
to solve it; if only he knew what to do. He knew the doctor had been sent for, but he wondered if he would have anything new to report.

Cameron’s heart quickened when the door opened. The young officer met his eyes directly. “You asked to see the doctor before he left, Your Grace.”

“Of course.” Cameron stood and said to the committee, “Go on without me. I don’t know how long I’ll be.”

In the hall, Dr. Furhelm nodded toward Cameron in greeting. “Your Grace,” he said, but there was a solemnity to his attitude that tightened Cameron’s nerves. “If we could speak someplace private.”

Cameron motioned with his hand, and led the way to a nearby parlor. Once they were inside, with the door closed, Cameron said, “Please . . . sit down.”

“Thank you,” the doctor said, and took a chair.

Cameron sat across from him and forced the topic open. “Any change?”

“None,” the doctor said. “I can find no logical explanation to the way her health declines rather than improving with time. She is losing weight; she’s thinner than she was before her pregnancy, and she becomes steadily less capable of giving Erich the milk he needs. There is no medical reasoning behind her seeming inability to do little more than walk across the room and help care for her son. At least she’s doing that. The very fact that she’s getting out of bed at all and moving around is very good. When the body doesn’t get used, it becomes useless. She is gaining some physical strength by merely moving around more. So that’s good.”

“Good,” Cameron said, but his mind was still with that first sentence. “If there is no medical reasoning, Doctor, then what might the problem be?”

Cameron didn’t like the way the doctor leaned forward and looked him in the eye. And he didn’t like the way he began by saying, “You and I have known each other a long time. I was one of the first in line to do anything I could to bring you back to power. I hope you know that you can trust me, and that I would do everything within my ability to serve you well.”

“Yes, of course,” Cameron said, wondering what on earth would require such a preamble.

“I’ve been terribly concerned about Her Grace, and I’ve prayed very hard to be guided in helping her. My mind has been trained to think in medical terms and to solve problems through that medical knowledge. But I’ve been a doctor too many years not to believe that what ails the body is often strongly tied in to what ails the spirit and the mind.” He cleared his throat and leaned back in his chair, seeming nervous. “I traveled out of the country to meet with a doctor who specializes in psychological matters.”

“What?” Cameron said, wishing it hadn’t sounded so sharp.

“It relates to matters of the mind and—”

“I know what it means, Doctor. Are you implying that my wife is losing her mind, or—”

“No, Cameron,” he said. The absence of his title made it clear at what level this conversation was taking place. “I’m telling you that she is depressed, and the depression is crippling her physically. I’m telling you that it is a very real condition, but very little is known about how to combat it.” Cameron put a hand over his chest, finding it difficult to draw breath as the doctor went on. “This man I spoke with believes if you can find a root cause for what’s troubling the mind, it can sometimes be undone.”

“And what about the other times?” Cameron growled, assaulted with images of Abbi living out her life this way.

Dr. Furhelm ignored him and continued. “I’ve told you that it’s common for women to struggle with feeling down following the birth of a baby. That combined with the medical trauma she survived could very well be the reasons, although I don’t have to tell you that I’ve never seen a woman respond this severely to either situation before. But I’m glad I went to talk with this man. I believe he gave me some valuable insight.”

“What?” Cameron asked eagerly, wanting even a tiny grain of hope.

“I did not reveal the identity of my patient, and I did not tell him anything of her recent history. I just asked him about the common causes of such intense depression.” Something in the doctor’s eyes told Cameron he wasn’t going to like this. He took a deep breath and said, “He asked if she had gone through any dramatic changes in her life. I asked him to give me some examples. He said, ‘For instance, has she moved away from an established home, given birth, gotten married, been faced with any emotional or medical trauma for herself or someone she loves?’”

Cameron squeezed his eyes closed as the list of changes and traumas in her recent life grew very long in his mind. The doctor went on. “He said that one or two of such changes could throw a person off balance, and that in most cases women were more sensitive to such changes than men. He told me that when a number of changes occur close together, it can be especially difficult for the mind and spirit to catch up.”

“But do they catch up, Doctor?” Cameron asked.

“Sometimes,” he said gently, but his eyes let Cameron know he hadn’t said everything he needed to say. Cameron just waited. “This man also said that some traumatic events in people’s lives can have a delayed reaction. It’s as if . . . a person will try to suppress it or hold it back . . . and eventually it overtakes them, usually when something else adds upon it, and there’s suddenly too much to bear. I asked him to give me some examples. He mentioned three things that he’d seen women go through that had created intense depression.” Cameron’s heart was pounding even before the doctor said, “One had been raped, one had been held hostage when her place of business was robbed, the other had witnessed a murder.”

Cameron’s anger and fear melted into raw, callow grief. He pressed his head into his hands, so overcome with a rush of tears he could hardly breathe, let alone speak.
What had he done to her?
What kind of
horrors
had he left her vulnerable to?

He felt the doctor’s hand on his shoulder, and wiped his face on his sleeve, attempting to grasp any measure of composure. “She is my strength, Doctor,” he murmured. “She has been since the day I met her.”

“In my opinion, Your Grace, God has a way of showing us strengths we never believed possible. Perhaps it’s time for you to be
her
strength.”

“Tell me what to do and I’ll do it,” Cameron said, still crying. “Anything, and I’ll do it.”

“There’s no easy or obvious answer,” the doctor said. “Encourage her to talk about what troubles her. Love her and accept her no matter what. Give her time.”

“Will that be enough?” Cameron asked.

“I can’t answer that. Only God knows the outcome, Cameron. I learned a long time ago that after all I can do, it’s up to God whether or not a life will be saved, an ailment healed. She may be a lot stronger than she believes she is right now.”

Or she may not,
Cameron thought. He felt the doctor squeeze his shoulder. “I’ll check back,” he said, and left the room. Once alone, Cameron sobbed like a frightened child, consumed with a despair that took him back to the months of his life preceding Abbi’s rescue. She had saved him, body and spirit. He had been completely broken, defaced of all hope. He’d been cruel and unkind, but she’d stood by him, unafraid of his inner demons and unwilling to give up on him.

Cameron gasped as something in his perspective shifted. He
knew
how she felt. The reasons were different, and he could never comprehend how the trauma in her life might be perceived by her tender heart. But he knew despair and helplessness. And he knew that no one was going to talk her out of it. But he could do for her what she had done for him. And that was exactly what the doctor had advised him to do.
Encourage her to talk about what troubles her. Love her and accept her no matter what. Give her time.
Surely there had to be an answer, there had to be a way beyond this. If
he
could recover from such despair, then surely Abbi could do the same. Because he knew for a fact that Abbi was a far better, stronger human being than he could ever hope to be. He just had to find a way to reach that part of her she’d lost somewhere in the turmoil of what life had done to her.

Cameron got down on his knees, then and there, losing track of the time that he prayed for guidance and strength to help Abbi get beyond this. Then he went straight to the bedroom and found her curled up in the center of the bed, mostly hidden beneath the covers. He would have preferred to find her asleep, but instead she was staring at nothing with dazed eyes.

“Hello,” he said. She turned to look at him but said nothing. “What are you thinking about?” he asked, sitting close beside her.

“Nothing,” she said.

“Abbi,” he whispered, and pushed her hair away from her face, “talk to me.” She said nothing. “Tell me, Abbi, what rolls through your mind while you stare at walls with that nowhere look in your eyes. Share your heart with me, the way you used to.” Still she was silent, and he added, “Where did I fail you, Abbi? Tell me and I’ll change it. I’ll do anything.”

“You didn’t fail me, Cameron,” she said, her voice distinctly weak.
“I
failed
you.
I broke my promises to you. I told you I would take on whatever you asked of me, and I didn’t. I let you down.”

“No, Abbi, you didn’t let me down. It was too much too quickly. I know that now. But surely we can come to terms with this. If you would just . . . talk to me.”

She only started to cry, and she clutched onto him, holding him tightly while she wept without restraint. Then her tears slipped into silence, and then she slept. Cameron held her close and prayed, but three days later he was still praying, and she was still completely closed to him. If anything, she felt further away than ever, and his heart burned with fear. More days passed while he pleaded with her to talk to him and continually expressed his love and adoration for her. But the responses she gave him were hollow and lifeless. He repeatedly suggested they leave for a while, take a vacation, have some time away. She not only wasn’t interested, she seemed afraid to even leave the room.

With his desperation deepening, Cameron left his work in the hands of others and found himself, as he often did lately, in the chapel. He missed supper while he remained on his knees, begging God for the answers to see his wife happy and whole again. He was only vaguely aware of night settling around him, but still he stayed there, praying with all the fervency of his soul. He told God for what seemed the thousandth time that he would do anything, give up everything, just to see Abbi whole again. He simply needed to know what to do.

Cameron realized he’d been asleep when his head bolted up. A hint of daylight was showing through the stained glass at the head of the chapel. His back and legs hurt, and he could feel an impression on his forehead from the back of the pew where it had been resting. He groaned and eased himself onto the pew behind him, grateful to glance around and find himself alone. His reasons for falling asleep here assaulted him, and he groaned again, wondering how his life had come to this, how
Abbi’s
life had come to this. He wondered if he would ever get an answer to his prayers, or if there simply wasn’t any solution. He gasped when a sensation rushed into him, like a warm wind in his face that had brought with it every memory of the life he’d shared with Abbi. Instantly, his mind took hold of the entire circumference of their relationship, from the moment a dream had led her to his door, until the day she’d given birth to his son and nearly lost her life. He’d pondered her impact on him many times. He’d recounted memories and listed all the ways she had enriched his life. But never had he felt it like this. Overwhelmed with the enormity of her place in his life, he felt all the more determined to do everything in his power to give back any portion of all she had given him. But
what?
Was that the answer to his prayers? A stark reminder of how much she had done for him, leaving him all the more helpless and guilt-ridden because he could do nothing for her?

Cameron stood up to leave, then he sat back down as if he’d been physically restrained. He told himself it was the weakness in his legs from the hours he’d spent kneeling on a cold floor. But a moment later, the answer to his prayers appeared in his mind with absolute clarity. He knew what he needed to do. He knew the answers. And he knew in his heart that if he was willing to do his part, God would not let him down. But it was another hour before Cameron could reconcile the answer enough to stand up and face it.

Georg noted through the course of the usual meeting with the advisory council that Cameron’s mind was clearly elsewhere. He’d shown varying degrees of concern and distraction since he’d nearly lost Abbi, but today it was startlingly worse. Georg felt uneasy to the point of being alarmed when Mr. Lumburg addressed Cameron, and he paid absolutely no attention.

“Your Grace?” Mr. Lumburg said, and still Cameron didn’t answer.

Georg nudged him, since he was sitting at his right.