Two

 “I thought we could have lunch at the park today. This is some crazy December weather,” says Katie’s mom. “Your cousins will love it.”

Katie nods in agreement. The wind is howling, but it’s a warm breeze and the thermometer reads sixty degrees Fahrenheit. Besides, Katie’s worn out from pushing her cousins up and down the street on their new bikes.

The kids wolf their lunch, eager to climb on the play set. Looking at the other mothers around, Katie is surprised by how young they are. The youngest mom there has three kids, Katie guesses ages seven to three, and doesn’t look any older than twenty-something herself. One of the children is wearing pajamas with a jacket; the youngest is in a pink dress. The eldest holds Katie’s attention the longest because his outfit is not only put together, but it is out of the ordinary for a child his age. He’s wearing dark wash jeans, a striped, pink-purple shirt with a darker purple skull design on the front, and a grey zipper hoodie with a darker grey plaid pattern.

On someone her age, Katie would have not thought twice about the outfit, but on a boy of maybe seven Katie wasn’t sure what to make of it. The mother couldn’t have come up with the outfit, not entirely at least, she’s barely dressed for the day in too-tight, light grey sweat pants, an oversized t-shirt, and a grey hoodie; Katie wrinkles her nose as the woman’s cellulite wiggles beneath the tight material; she’s fit, but it’s the kind of fit you’d call a woman who has bore three children into the world. Katie watches the child a while longer, before deciding he’s going to have a hard time in school because the other kids will be intimidated by the self-confidence the boy possesses. Katie knows kids who have things figured out early have to deal with jealous peers. She says a silent prayer the boy won’t be tormented too badly.

The trip to the park ends on the swings. Katie takes her turn on the swing after pushing her boy cousin. The girl cousin is trying to swing high, so Katie pumps her legs to match. Soon, she’s pumping harder and flying higher. The initial rush of wind excites Katie, but soon it’s replaces with a sinking in her stomach. Fear clutches her and she stops pumping. She slows down as fast as she can, dragging her feet in when the approach the ground. Katie knows better than to suddenly stop, she doesn’t want to lose her lunch, but she needs to not be so high in the air, unsecured.

Katie is annoyed by her body’s reaction to the height of the swing, she didn’t use to fear the height of swings, but she can’t help it. There had always been a healthy fear of heights, but so long as something was keeping her from falling, it did not worry Katie much. Until now. It wasn’t the only new phobia.

Sometimes when Katie walked across the floors in her new home, she felt certain she was going to fall through them. The floors were stable, but walking across certain areas, Katie had to reach out to touch a wall or piece of furniture, to assure her all was well.

Musophobia, a fear of mice. But honestly, Katie felt that one was quite rational. There is surely a gene in every human which makes them scream when they find a mouse in their homes.

And finally, the claustrophobia. It was the worst. It started three months ago, the evening of her great-grandfather’s visitation. It was in the basement of his church, and the funeral director had parked the hearse in front of the entrance. Katie dissolved when she saw the hearse, erupting into a fit of shivers. The body wasn’t supposed to be there. Her mom had said the body wouldn’t be there. Her relatives went inside while Katie excused herself, saying she needed a moment. Katie couldn’t get out of the car, but soon she couldn’t breathe in the constricted space. She ran to the baseball field beside the church, ripping off her sweater, kicking off her shoes, pulling off her tights, untucking her shirt, and gasping for air. Katie would have ripped off more clothes, but there were no more layers to shed without getting indecent. She sobbed for what felt like hours before someone was sent to check on her. She tried going into the building through the back door, venturing out to stand with her family. But people took this as a sign to greet her, and smile at her, and say what a great man her grandfather was to her, and pat her, and hug her. With the crush of the hug, Katie felt the walls rushing in. She ran to the kitchen, but the walls were closing in there too, so she fled the building, returning to the baseball field.

Some friends of the family took her out to eat, buying her a large chocolate sundae, which she ate eagerly. They took her back to the church when she received a phone call that her best friend had arrived. Katie’s heart lifted when she saw her friend, a kind girl with deep brown eyes and curly brown hair which bounces when she walks. Katie doesn’t remember touching her friend the whole time, in fact, she remembers putting her hands behind her back at one point to keep from crushing her friend in another hug, but Katie can’t shake the feeling that she was holding her hand or giving her a one-armed hug the entire time. Even if the connection was imagined, it bolstered Katie, and it kept the walls back. Katie reentered the building, her friend in tow, showing her all the pictures from the wonderful life of her grandfather, laid out to view on a plastic table.

There hadn’t been outright claustrophobia like that since. Nothing so classic. However, there were several occasions when Katie needed to leave wherever she was, just get out to find some oxygen. One such occasion had taken her to the park by her grandfather’s house for an hour on a morning when the temperature was a mere twenty degrees. That was His fault. The most recent was also a trip to escape Him. The close quarters at her grandmother’s house were closing in. Katie needed to get away before she had a meltdown in front of everyone. Katie made it an eighth of a mile before sitting on the side of the road beside a cow pasture. Katie wished the cows were nearby, she found their lumbering presence reassuring. Alas, they were in a different pasture, and the only soul on the hill was Katie, at least until her grandpa walked past on his daily walk. She sucked up her snot and dried her eyes as his head crested the hill. She was up and walking past him, back towards the house, before he realized what was going on.

Katie is shaken from her dark remembering by her nine year old cousin begging to be pushed higher into the air on the swing. With an imperceptible shudder, Katie moves behind the swing, pushing him higher and higher.