IT’S STILL DARK out, snow now starting to come down heavy, as we prepare to leave the motel room. I’m in the green sweater dress, gift of the working girls down the road. It’s hugging me tight, conspiring with the bullet bra to raise my curves to Barbie levels. I throw the wool coat over it and walk out the door.
We stop briefly at Worthy’s house, and while he changes into his sheriff’s deputy uniform, I pull the solar recharger from my purse, plug the link into it, then set them on the windowsill in the kitchen. Before we leave, I phone “my” house and get that odd, continuous tone that lets me know Worthy’s friend has delivered: the line is down.
Just before dawn, we head out in the patrol car and soon come to a familiar stretch of wrought iron fence.
“You sure about this?” Worthy asks me one last time.
I nod and we turn onto the road.
But when Worthy and I pull up to Hanover’s gate and I look up at the bronze plaque reading HANOVER STATE PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL, I feel like the girl in a teen horror movie poised at the front door of the possessed house while the audience screams, “Don’t do it!”
The guard approaches Worthy’s window. “Morning, Officer. Can I help you?”
“I have a readmit. Dorothy Frasier. Patient of Dr. Sherman,” Worthy says, indicating me in the seat next to him.
The guard eyes me before noting the name on his clipboard. “You can go ahead and take her up to reception. Speak with them,” he says, then opens the gate.
As we round the final curve of the hill and the Gothic turrets and peaked roofs of the enormous hospital come into view through the falling snow, I take a deep breath and tell my thumping heart to stand. The fuck. Down.
Worthy pulls the car past the grand main entrance and its looming clock tower, to a spot in the nearly empty parking lot a short distance from reception. Turns off the engine. It’s a couple minutes before seven.
I reach for Worthy’s hand, and we sit in silence a few moments before he says, “After this is all over, and you’ve gotten those in 2035 what they need and they develop a cure, maybe you could return here to 1954. I know a guy who could get you papers, a new name. We could … At least give it a thought.”
And now my mind is giving it all my thoughts.
Even though what has to be accomplished before I could return is huge, any thoughts to life beyond it more a wish than a plan, I can’t help wondering what it would be like, an afterlife here in 1954 with Worthy. No one chasing me, no mission on my shoulders. We could take trains, ships, and airplanes. Travel everywhere. See the sights of this still-civilized world.
Or I could do nothing in particular with the deputy, just let each day unfold like the gift it would be …
I let my mind contemplate sharing the blissfully mundane with Worthy. New Bix and the deputy doing some deeply normal activity together, like going to the movies or yardwork. Maybe cooking … the two of us in his cozy yellow kitchen, sipping lemonade while we shuck corn to go with the hamburgers Worthy’s going to cook out back. I even get him one of those aprons that says KING OF THE GRILL—
Ridiculous. For Chrissakes, the guy would be over a hundred years old in 2035!
True. It’s strange to think about.
Another thing to think about—losing him and being devastated. Devastation’s not good for survival.
But maybe Worthy’s worth the risk. Deep down, it feels like that.
Enough with the feelings, snowflake.
Old Bix, the voice, they can’t take any more loss. Not New Bix.
He’s another man who’ll blind you. Leave you weak. Look what happened with Paul.
That wasn’t love. Enough of the self-talk—what I want has never been more clear to me. I look around the parking lot to see if we’re alone. We are. “Worthy?”
“Yeah?” he says, looking at me. And I lean close and kiss him on the lips. It’s an amazing kiss. When we pull apart, we’re both grinning like idiots, and we stay like that for a long, wonderful moment.
Enough. It’s time.
She’s right. Worthy’s watch says seven o’clock.
“Ready?” he asks. I nod.
Worthy exits the car, and I take those few moments before he reaches my door to prepare.
Time to redon the mask.
Slow myself down. Flatten my cadence. Dull my countenance. Back to the damaged Dorothy who left here with Paul. Then it was a variation on my actual state. I was still getting over the punishing effects of the protocol. Now it’ll be a complete performance from the moment I step out of the patrol car.
Can I pull it off?
Worthy opens the door and holds out his hand. Before I take it, I say, “You need to be able to deny knowledge of what I’m about to do. So as soon as you turn me over to them, you leave. Okay?”
“Yes, Mrs. Frasier,” he says, and “helps” me up, then holds my upper arm, all formal and cop-like, as he walks me slowly down the long path to reception. The wind’s beginning to pick up, the last of fall’s leaves blowing with the new snow across the path in front of us.
The guard at the gate must’ve called ahead because the door at reception opens before we even reach it and there’s Wallace in the doorway, smiling stiffly.
I don’t say a word. Keep my gaze unfocused, my affect flat. Let Worthy do his law enforcement thing. “Good morning, Miss Wallace,” he says.
“Deputy Worthy,” she answers with a frosty voice, and I remember she was there in the visitors’ room when Worthy went against the doctor’s wishes and spilled the beans about his and Paul’s lie, sending me into hysterics.
“Mrs. Frasier’s husband has been in an accident requiring surgery, and since we were somewhat acquainted, he left a message for me at the station, requesting I bring Dorothy here and secure appropriate accommodations for her, till he’s well enough to contact the doctor himself.”
“Morning, Dorothy,” the marly nurse says, eyes narrow and peering into mine, like she’s trying to divine something.
Is Wallace CIA? Dr. Coal-Eyes’s partner in interrogation? And if she is, am I still on her radar?
If I wasn’t, I am now.
“Good morning, ma’am.” I think I slur it convincingly, but I could swear the maybe-spy is eyeing me funny, like the day I left Hanover. Does she see through my slows? Suspect the ruse Worthy and I have cooked up?
Stop. More likely, she’s simply being her usual stone-cold imperious self, and I’m being paranoid. Whether you’re sick or well, this place is a petri dish for paranoia.
Worthy hands Wallace an envelope. “This letter I was given from Mr. Frasier explains everything.”
The deputy and I cooked up the note last night. It states Paul would like his wife readmitted to the familiar surroundings of the Unit since she’s still in a fragile state, and he’ll call as soon as he’s able to discuss “possible resumption of the protocol.”
Worthy fought that last part, worried Sherman would overstep the instructions and start treating me before hearing from Paul. But in the end I convinced him that to make sure they admitted me to the Unit, we needed to throw some chum in the water for Sherman. Entice him with the possibility he’d get to finish what he started with me. One last chance to be instrumental.
As the nurse reads over the letter, Worthy looks at me, uneasy. He’s not comfortable with all the subterfuge. I, on the other hand, seem to be quite at home with it. Just hope Hanover will admit me on the basis of a handwritten note.
Wallace looks up from the letter. “I see. Very considerate of you, bringing her here, Deputy. Come in out of the snow while I write up the intake form. I’ll just need a signature from you and then you can be on your way.”
It worked! She’s admitting me! I manage to contain my elation, catch Worthy’s eye before we enter but see no hint of joy. Just worry.
Hanover’s familiar medicinal stank greets me when we enter reception. I remember being frisked here my first day. Several lights, suspended from the ceiling, cast ghostly circular patterns on the gray-and-white checkerboard floor. As we follow Wallace over to reception’s large desk, Lester enters the room. A slight smile briefly appears on his face when he sees me.
“Lester, would you help with Dorothy,” the nurse says as she fills out the form.
Worthy glares at the attendant as he approaches, and for a moment I’m scared he’ll lose it and go after him. But he manages to resist the urge, lets Lester take me over to a spot under one of the big lights.
I keep my eyes pointed down.
“All right, Missus Frasier,” Lester says with exaggerated clarity, “open your mouth real wide for me and keep it open.” I comply, but he still grips my cheeks and forces my jaws farther apart, orders me to lift my tongue, then shines a flashlight in my mouth.
When he’s satisfied, he says, “Now give me your coat and hat, dear.” I very slowly take them off. And as I hand them over to Lester, now getting an eyeful of my snug green dress, I notice Worthy watching and cringe.
I wouldn’t have thought I’d feel embarrassed to have him witness this pocketing of my free will. After all, I’m just playing a role, right?
Only there’s a part of me that feels it’s not a role.
I’ve been that patient, struggling to make sense of the confusing world around her—which makes all of Lester’s slow and sweet talk in front of Worthy excruciating.
The deputy signs the intake form and Wallace hands him a pink receipt for me, like I’m a load of bricks, then escorts him to the exit. At the door, Worthy gives me a last worried look before Wallace shuts the door behind him.
I’m alone. But I’m in.
The nurse goes back to her desk and picks up the phone. “Dr. Sherman’s exchange, please,” she says to the hospital operator.
“Take ’em off,” Lester says, pointing to my weaponized loafers, and I slip the shoes off carefully, praying the Bazooka Joe’d inner sole on the right stays in place over the box cutter. True to form, Lester gives the left just a cursory glance before dropping it back on the linoleum.
But for some reason, he’s more thorough with the right, peering at its inner sole a long tick. Now his hand starts to reach inside it.
I’m moments from being caught before I’ve even begun.
But then Wallace calls out, “That’s fine, Lester. You can go ahead and take her.”
Lester stops his search. Drops the shoe on the ground.
I step back in it and start breathing again.
But then Wallace adds, “She’s been at home, so no need for delousing. You can bring her straight to A-Ward.”
A-Ward? That’s not at all how I need this to go.
“The Unit?” I ask her, trying not to betray the alarm beneath my slow, slurry words.
“The doctor would need your husband’s signature on a special paper for that, sweetheart. But you’ll be just fine in A-Ward for now.”