excitement, and then leave weary. Each time she witnesses the loss of their hope, it erodes her own.
4
As she approaches Provincetown, Cape Cod, her new destination, uncertainty and fear make way for hope at the sight before her. Professor Elizabeth Montgomery waits at the door of her practice; once an abandoned lighthouse, it now stands as a grand beacon of hope.
The driver opens the door. The woman steps out.
‘I’m here, I’m here, I’m here, I’m here,’ the woman says, making her way up the path to meet her.
‘What on earth are you saying?’ Professor Montgomery asks, frowning.
‘I was told to say that, at the hospital,’ she says, quietly. ‘So people know where I am.’
‘No, no, no, you don’t speak like that here,’ the professor says, her tone brusque.
The woman feels scolded at first, and upset she has put a foot wrong in her first minute upon arriving, but then she realizes that Professor Montgomery has looked her directly in the eye, has wrapped a welcoming cashmere blanket around her shoulders and is walking her up the steps to the lighthouse while the driver takes the bags. It is the first eye contact she has had with somebody, other than the campus cat, for quite some time.
‘Welcome to the Montgomery Lighthouse Advance for Women,’ Professor Montgomery begins, leading her into the building. ‘It’s a little wordy, and narcissistic, but it has stuck. At the beginning we called it the “Montgomery Retreat for Women” but I soon changed that. To retreat seems negative; the act of moving away from something difficult, dangerous or disagreeable. Flinch, recoil, shrink, disengage. No. Not here. Here we do the opposite. We advance. We move forward, we make progress, we lift up, we grow.’
Yes, yes, yes, this is what she needs. No going back, no looking back.
Dr Montgomery leads her to the check-in area. The lighthouse, while beautiful, feels eerily empty.
‘Tiana, this is our new guest.’
Tiana looks her straight in the eye, and hands her a room key. ‘You’re very welcome.’
‘Thank you,’ the woman whispers. ‘How did she see me?’ she asks.
Dr Montgomery squeezes her shoulder comfortingly. ‘Much to do. Let’s begin, shall we?’
Their first session takes place in a room overlooking Race Point beach. Hearing the crash of the waves, smelling the salty air, the scented candles, the call of the gulls, away from the typical sterile hospital environment that had served as her fortress, the woman allows herself to relax.
Professor Elizabeth Montgomery, sixty-six years old, oozing with brains and qualifications, six children, one divorce, two marriages, and the most glamorous woman she has ever seen in the flesh, sits in a straw chair softened by overflowing cushions, and pours peppermint tea into clashing teacups.
‘My theory,’ Professor Montgomery says, folding her legs close to her body, ‘is that you made yourself disappear.’
‘I did this?’ the woman asks, hearing her voice rise, feeling the flash of her anger as her brief moment is broken.
Professor Montgomery smiles that beautiful smile. ‘I don’t place the blame solely on you. You can share it with society. I blame the adulation and sexualization of young women. I blame the focus on beauty and appearance, the pressure to conform to others’ expectations in a way that men are not required to.’
Her voice is hypnotizing. It is gentle. It is firm. It is without anger. Or judgement. Or bitterness. Or sadness. It just is. Because everything just is.
The woman has goosebumps on her skin. She sits up, her heart pounding. This is something she hasn’t heard before. The first new theory in many months and it stirs her physically and emotionally.
‘As you can imagine, many of my male counterparts don’t agree with me,’ she says wryly, sipping on her tea. ‘It’s a difficult pill to swallow. For them. So I started doing my own thing. You are not the first disappearing woman that I’ve met.’ The woman gapes. ‘I tested and analysed women, just as those experts did with you, but it took me some time to realize how to correctly treat your condition. It took growing older myself to truly understand.
‘I have studied and written about this extensively; as women age, they are written out of the world, no longer visible on television or film, in fashion magazines, and only ever on daytime TV to advertise the breakdown of bodily functions and ailments, or promote potions and lotions to help battle ageing as though it were something that must be fought. Sound familiar?’
The woman nods.
She continues: ‘Older women are represented on television as envious witches who spoil the prospects of the man or younger woman, or as humans who are reactive to others, powerless to direct their own lives; moreover, once they reach fifty-five, their television demographic ceases to exist. It is as if they are not here. Confronted with this, I have discovered women can internalize these “realities”. My teachings have been disparaged as feminist rants but I am not ranting, I am merely observing.’ She sips her peppermint tea and watches the woman who slowly disappeared, slowly come to terms with what she is hearing.
‘You’ve seen women like me before?’ the woman asks, still stunned.
‘Tiana, at the desk, was exactly as you were when she arrived two years ago.’
She allows that to sink in.
‘Who did you see when you entered?’ the Professor asks.
‘Tiana,’ the woman replies.
‘Who else?’
‘You.’
‘Who else?’
‘Nobody.’
‘Look again.’
5
The woman stands and walks to the window. The sea, the sand, a garden. She pauses. She sees a shimmer on a swing on the porch, and nearby a wobbly figure with long black hair looks out to sea. There’s an almost iridescent figure on her knees in the garden, planting flowers. The more she looks, the more women she sees at various stages of diminishment. Like stars appearing in the night sky, the more she trains her eye, the more they appear. Women are everywhere. She had walked right past them all on her arrival.
‘Women need to see women too,’ Professor Montgomery says. ‘If we don’t see each other, if we don’t see ourselves, how can we expect anybody else to?’
The woman is overcome.
‘Society told you that you weren’t important, that you didn’t exist, and you listened. You let the message seep into your pores, eat you from the inside out. You told yourself you weren’t important, and you believed yourself.’
The woman nods in surprise.
‘So what must you do?’
