THERE WERE THREE PEOPLE IN THE room with her, three separate voices. Her mother and father were two of them, but she didn’t recognize the third. Maria pretended to be sleeping while she listened to her parents tell the story of her life to voice number three. Her childhood sounded almost idyllic.
… such a happy kid.
… very social and outgoing.
… always popular.
She couldn’t help but wonder if they were all recalling the same childhood. Maria’s memories of youth involved watching from her window as the other kids in the neighborhood played kick the can. Every night she would pray that, just once, they would knock on her door and invite her to join in. They never did, at least not until she hit puberty.
“This just doesn’t make any sense.”
Her mother’s frustration was pitiable, but as much as Maria wanted to decode the mystery for her, to show her the truth, she just couldn’t do it.
“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Bethe. I can’t imagine what you and your husband are going through.”
Voice number three belonged to a woman. She was confident and concise, with a touch of compassion, as she effortlessly dictated the pace and direction of the conversation. She was no doubt the psychiatrist her doctor had been calling for earlier. “If you don’t mind, I just have a few more questions.”
“Go ahead,” her father said. “It’s fine.”
“Does Maria have any family members, specifically blood relatives, who have ever suffered from depression or bizarre thoughts?”
“Not that we know of,” her father replied. “The other doctor asked us the same thing a couple days ago, and we’ve been racking our brains trying to put the pieces together. Neither one of us has ever been treated for any kind of psychological problems. We’ve both had our ups and downs over the years, of course, but never anything we couldn’t work through.”
Ups and downs. If she’d been asked to describe her parents’ marriage the first time she was seventeen years old, Maria would have likened them to June and Ward Cleaver. She couldn’t have fathomed their marital problems until she became a wife, and it wasn’t until her mother lay on death’s doorstep, succumbing to cancer, that she learned a secret she had no business, or interest in, knowing.
Maria pushed the memory aside, wondering whether Sylvia had ever been able to convince anyone she’d come back from the future and hoping she wouldn’t have to use that secret to convince her mother of the truth.
You get one chance.
What did Sylvia mean by that? One chance at suicide? One chance to get home? Had she already used up her only chance? There was an answer out there somewhere, a way home. She just had to find it. Who could help her, though? Sylvia would still be an infant, Rachel a toddler, and Detective Andrews a soldier heading off to war soon.
Bienville still seemed her best option. Her children hadn’t been there, but she wasn’t convinced she wouldn’t find her husband if she went searching again. She could almost see him standing in the hospital corridor in his blue scrubs with a stethoscope draped around his neck. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d gone to visit him there, and she was saddened by all the broken promises she’d made to herself, and to Will, to set aside an hour and have lunch with him.
The itch that had taken up residence beneath Maria’s cast was daring her to ignore it again, inching its way from her hand to her fingers like the delicate legs of a spider. It was a useless endeavor, trying to will it away, and when she twisted her arm to alleviate it, a blazing pain shot through her wrist.
“Son of a bitch!”
The words catapulted from her mouth before she could contain them, landing in the circle of voices in the far corner of the room. Her father sprang from one of the plastic chairs like a gazelle ready to bolt, treading through waters so foreign that fight or flight must have seemed his only two viable options.
“Maria, please!”
“Please what, Dad?” She pulled her head off the pillow so she could see him. It was the only part of her body that had yet to be restrained, but it pounded with the effort. “I’m tied down to a goddamn hospital bed, my arm feels like it’s being stuck with a hot poker, and I’m trapped in hell! So please what?” Her eyes darted between her parents before they homed in on her mother and the unmistakable quiver in her lip. “You have no idea what’s going on around here, Mom. You don’t even know…”
That you’ve been dead for the past two years.
She somehow stopped herself before she finished the sentence. She had enough sense to know that highlighting her psychosis in front of her new psychiatrist would not get her out of the hospital.
“Good morning, Maria.” The woman peeking over the rail was stout, her girth nearly matching her height. “I’m Dr. Anderson,” she said, “and I’ll be your psychiatrist while you’re in the hospital.”
She paused as if expecting a response, but Maria rewarded her with silence before letting her head drop back onto the pillow. She was grateful when her parents were dismissed to the cafeteria, and they seemed equally grateful to be excused, almost tripping over themselves to get out the door. Her doctor settled her oversize frame onto the plastic seat of an undersize chair beside Maria’s bed before she opened the notebook on her lap and readied her pen above it.
“Now,” she said. “I know a little bit about the days leading up to your suicide attempt from talking to your parents, but I was hoping you could fill me in on some of the details.”
Maria let the words seep in as she considered an explanation, an excuse for nearly severing her arm in two, knowing there was little she could say or do to keep the word suicide out of her chart.
“I guess everyone thinks I was trying to kill myself,” she mumbled.
“Weren’t you?”
The truth hung in the background of Maria’s mind, a story so bizarre it was certain to rival any that Dr. Anderson had ever heard. But even if she could convince this doctor that suicide was not her intention, the diagnosis of psychosis would be waiting to take its place.
“I wasn’t trying to kill myself,” she said. “Not in the way that you think.”
“What were you trying to do?”
Maria could almost feel the warmth of the water washing over her skin as she held the tip of the blade against her wrist, certain she was going home, certain her nightmare would end in that tub. I was trying to get back to my family.
Her memory was vague and sketchy, like a 1930s movie that had been poorly spliced together. She kept seeing the storage unit, the one place her husband had made her promise not to go. She must have been there. Why couldn’t she have just listened to him? She could have stayed home in bed, resting and preparing for the birth of her son. She could have taken Charlotte to ride her bike and spent the afternoon with Emily. She knew she must have lied to him, because she remembered sneaking out of the house and standing on the concrete floor. Her memory was fuzzy and incomplete, but there was something there, just out of reach, a place her mind refused to go.
“Look, Maria.” Dr. Anderson sighed into the silence as she closed the notebook on her lap. “I’ve been doing this for quite a while, and, unfortunately, I’ve seen my fair share of suicides. But in all this time I have never seen anyone do to their body what you did to that wrist.” With the tip of her pen she pointed to Maria’s casted arm, which throbbed from the unwanted attention. “It took two surgeries to put that wrist back together, and I can’t even imagine the rehab you’ll have to go through. So, whatever it was that led you to do that to yourself, it needs to be addressed.”
“I guess I can understand how it looks,” Maria said, seeing herself through the diagnostic eyes of Dr. Anderson. What could make her psychotic and suicidal if not schizophrenia or bipolar disorder or severe depression? There was only one thing she could think of that might get her out of the hospital without a more involved workup. “I didn’t want my parents to find out,” she continued, “but I took some pills the other night to keep me awake so I could study for my AP exam. I guess they made me a little confused.”
“What kind of pills?”
“I don’t know what they were,” Maria continued, hoping her doctor had some experience with methamphetamines. “Someone from school gave them to me and said they’d keep me awake and help me concentrate.”
Dr. Anderson flipped through the pages of Maria’s chart, scanning through her lab results from the emergency room and shaking her head. “There was nothing in your system when you were admitted. They did a drug screen, and everything was negative.”
Maria shrugged.
“What about the pregnancy?” Dr. Anderson asked. “You were really convinced you were pregnant when you came in through the ER.”
“I was never pregnant.” Maria tried to laugh it off, but the words seemed to catch in her throat, a difficult lie to swallow. “I don’t know where that came from. It must have been those pills I took, because I barely even remember any of it.”
“Well, some drugs can certainly do that.” Dr. Anderson’s pen landed with a thud on her notebook before she leaned back in the plastic chair and nodded her head. “I’d like to run another drug screen. A more specific one to make sure there’s nothing left in your system. I need you to be honest with me, though, Maria. Was it just that one pill or were there others? And how long has this been going on?”
“It was just that one. But I took it for a few days before bed while I was studying. Just to help me do better on the exam.”
Dr. Anderson picked up her pen and jotted something in her notebook before she continued. “You know I have to tell your parents about this, right?”
“I’m ready to tell them, but I don’t want them to think I’m on drugs. It was just a onetime thing.”
“I think they’ll understand,” she said. “Before I go, though, I have a few questions to make sure your memory is functioning. Would that be okay?”
Maria nodded for her to continue, relieved to have gotten over that hurdle. It was almost too easy. Once she was out of the hospital, she’d find a way home. She’d figure it out. There had to be some sort of loophole, some clue she was missing. She’d been rash, acting on impulse, but she’d be more careful now.
“Can you tell me your full name?”
“Maria Bethe.”
“What year is it?”
“1988.”
“What month is it?”
“April.”
“What state are we in?”
“Alabama.”
“What country are we in?”
“The United States.”
“And who is the current president?”
Who is the current president?
The question echoed in her mind until the names of former presidents were spinning through her thoughts faster than she could hear them. Reagan, Bush, Clinton. Who was the president in 1988? She’d imagined it would be the little, day-to-day details of life that would trip her up, not the significant chunks of history that were printed in books and taught in school.
“Maria.” Dr. Anderson tapped her pen on the notebook. “The president?”
“The first Bush,” she said.
“The what Bush?”
“I mean … there’s no first or second yet. It’s just Bush. George Bush.”
“There’s no first or second yet?” The doctor closed the notebook on her lap and placed it on the table before she capped her pen and tucked it into the front pocket of her white coat. She didn’t bother with a response. She rose from the chair and brushed the wrinkles from her skirt before she raised the bed rail and collected her notebook from the table. “What does that even mean?”
“It’s Reagan, isn’t it?”
“I’d like for you to get some rest, Maria. I’ll be back to see you tomorrow and maybe then you’ll be ready to tell me what’s going on. I can’t help you unless you’re honest with me.”
“No, please don’t go. I promise I’m not lying to you. I’m just still a little fuzzy from all the medicines they’ve been giving me.”
“You’re not being honest with me, Maria. I’ve been doing this long enough to see that quite clearly. I don’t know what you’re hiding, but if it’s drugs you’re taking, then we need to get a handle on that. And if it’s something else, and you’re trying to downplay your symptoms, then I need to know so I can make sure we keep you safe. There’s something going on that you’re not telling me, and my job is to find out what it is.”
Her instinct was to beg, but Maria kept her mouth shut, counting down from five so she could rein in her compulsion. It was a setback, but it didn’t have to be a disaster.
“I’m sorry,” Maria finally replied. “I’m not quite myself, with everything that’s happened. I’m just ready to get out of the hospital.”
“Nobody wants to be in the hospital, Maria. Let me get that drug screen back and talk to your parents and then we’ll discuss our options. For now, though, I’d like you to get some rest.” She glanced at Maria’s casted arm. “You still have a lot of healing to do.”