CHAPTER 6
Eve
WHEN I DID MY MORNING ROUNDS, FRANCES HAD STILL BEEN ASLEEP. I was anxious to check on her since our run-in yesterday and see how her medication is working today. My first afternoon patient is set to arrive in ten minutes, so I stop to see Frances first.
She’s sitting in an armchair next to the window. She’s fifty-eight and homeless. Our corporate owners make a big deal about devoting ten percent of our beds to the indigent. Which is great, but it also makes the company look good and gives them some tax breaks. No one has been to see Frances in the three weeks she’s been with us. She’s about thirty pounds overweight, weight that seems to hang in loose folds from her otherwise bony frame. Her long hair is a tangled nest of gray with streaks of chestnut brown, a shade so pretty that you wonder what it was like when she was young, before the streets and mental illness claimed her. We’ve diagnosed her as being on the schizophrenia spectrum. When she attacked me, we’d just tried a new medication with her. Obviously, it didn’t work the way we wanted it to and she’s back on her old medicine, which zones her out too much. Medication is tricky and doesn’t work the same for everyone. It’s more of a guessing game than you’d think.
“Good afternoon, Frances.”
She turns her head slowly in my direction, her face puffy from meds and other medical conditions.
“Hi.” Her voice is a whispered grumble. I wonder if she even remembers the scuffle we had.
“How are you feeling?” I scroll through her chart on my laptop.
She doesn’t reply, just stares out the window at the bare winter woods beyond the grounds. Old psych facilities tended to be built out in the country, away from society as if trying to hide the patients away. Most new facilities attempt to keep people as part of the world and are situated in more populated areas. This place has that pre-modern feel from when it was built in the forties. We’re out on a country road, down a winding driveway, isolated.
“Frances?”
“I’m okay.”
It’s been tough getting much out of her, and our therapy sessions have been challenging. Frances doesn’t like to talk about her life, and I can only imagine how fraught with difficulties it has been. Sometimes she mentions a husband, but she says that he died, or he left her. The details are always sketchy as if she’s thinking back to a time so long ago that she’s not sure that it even happened. She also says that she had a child once, one day it’s a boy, the next day a little girl. Despite our best efforts, we haven’t been able to track down any family for her.
“Would you like the TV on?” The room is so quiet, so devoid of human life. I sigh.
“Sure,” she responds at last. I click on the flat screen mounted high on the wall. A talk show with laughter and brightly attired women appears.
“Not that shit,” Frances says.
I flip through channels until she stops me at a nature program where the camera follows a tiger slinking through the jungle. “I like that better,” she says laconically.
“Can I get you anything?”
Her dull eyes meet mine. “Yeah, you can get me the fuck outta here.”
“Soon, Frances. You’re not strong enough yet.” She’s not stable enough. I know that the staff is looking at places to send her when she is stable. Back in an office down the hall, people are working on her case, trying to figure out what to do with her. She coughs, an old smoker’s hack, and reaches for a plastic water cup, her hand shaking.
“Okay,” she says, lips wet. Her eyes travel back to the TV.
“I’ll stop in later,” I say.
“Okay,” she says again, and I leave the room, pulling her door closed.
* * *
My last outpatient appointment of the day is Marie Williams, a thirty-five-year-old who has been dealing with depression since her parents were killed in a car accident four months ago.
She sits demurely in the armchair and heaves a big sigh, tucks a pale tress behind her ear, smooths her silk blouse.
“I had a pretty good week,” she says. “Until yesterday.”
“What happened yesterday?”
“A guy nearly hit me at the intersection of Main and Westberry.”
“Were you hurt?”
“No. He hit his brakes in time and swerved back into his lane, but it brought back my parents’ accident, so I freaked out a little. Then I started thinking about them all afternoon, how my life completely changed in an instant. I didn’t sleep well last night.” Her eyes tear up as she glances out the window.
“That must have been frightening.” I get that more than she realizes. Someone ran me off the road a couple of years ago. That’s how I met Nathan, at his shop. The cops were never able to find the culprit. It was late, dark, and I couldn’t give them any helpful details. But I wasn’t hurt, so it wasn’t a big deal.
“Sometimes that scenario keeps spinning in my head. If only I’d driven them to their appointment that day like I planned.” She wipes her eyes with her fingers, her nails polished a deep red. “Dad shouldn’t have been driving. I should’ve taken his keys away.”
“You know that wasn’t your fault?”
“Yes. Of course. But I can’t help thinking about it sometimes. I told them I’d reschedule the appointment and take them at a later date. It was a routine appointment. It could’ve waited, and I had an emergency meeting that I couldn’t get out of.”
“So, what did you do yesterday after the near miss?”
She blows out a breath. “I went home. Tried to do some work. I called a friend and we talked.”
“Good. How do you feel today?”
“Better. I got some exercise at lunchtime and that seemed to help, too.”
“How is your medication working?”
“Great. Since I started on it, I’m pretty good most days. So much better.”
“That’s terrific. Anything else you want to talk about?” We still have ten minutes left.
She fidgets with her scarf. “My parents’ estate. That’s still not settled.”
“That can be difficult. Do you have someone handling it?”
“Yes. I’ve got a great attorney. I’m thinking of taking a trip when it’s wrapped up. Maybe Paris.”
“That sounds lovely.” Marie is a human resources consultant and appears to be pretty successful. She self-pays for treatment. Says it makes more sense since she is a private contractor and carries only minimal insurance. And money doesn’t seem to be a problem for her.
She talks about her mother, sorting through her things, and that brings another tear to her eye. She reaches for a tissue from the box on the end table. But sorting through a loved one’s possessions can be therapeutic, and despite the tears, it seems so for her.
We’re finished, and Marie and I stand. She slips into a three-quarter length, camel-colored wool coat and pulls dark leather gloves out of her pockets.
“See you next week, Doctor Thayer. And thank you.”
Marie’s progress gives me some sense of professional satisfaction. And I need that right now, when my life seems to be getting the best of me.