THE CLOUD OF mint green around me gradually comes into focus and I see the familiar tiled walls of the Unit treatment room. Its big, bright light blares down on me from above, amplifying the painful throbbing now going on in my head, and I try to rub my temples for relief.
But find I can’t.
My arms and legs have been strapped to the examination table. The right sleeve of my dress has been pulled up—someone’s discovered my new fishing line sutures.
And my feet are bare—they’ve removed my weaponized loafers and set them in the corner. Shit.
Yet I’m still in the green dress. No one’s taken the time to put me in a Unit gown yet—Sherman in too big a rush to restart my treatments, plug me back into the Tennessee Valley Authority’s electrical grid.
Pretty certain the doctor’s not taken kindly to being duped. No doubt it’s a heart-wrenching tale Stokes has told him about his wife’s relapse and deceit, filled with details both false and true. And now the doctor’s more than ready to shake my Etch A Sketch, wipe away my latest delusions with a triple shot of 150 volts.
But Stokes would first want whatever information I’ve gotten from Mary.
The scrap of pink streamer.
I madly crane my head around, trying to peer into the pocket of the gray cardigan. Twist and contort myself till I see what I feared—both pockets empty.
He’s got the name. I need to get out of here. And I scan the room for ideas.
That’s when I see the Dalmatian in a fireman’s hat picture on the wall.
I’m not in the green treatment room of the Unit. I’m in its twin: the infirmary’s procedure room.
The door swings open, and Nurse Wallace enters. “Miss Wallace,” I say, free of slur. No point in pretense now. “I’ve got to talk to the doctor. Please!”
She approaches me, about to respond, when Sherman enters. “Dorothy, I think it’s time you and I had a frank discussion,” he says, and Wallace withdraws to the storage cabinets on the far side of me, busies herself pulling various items from them.
Convince him without giving the whole truth.
“Doctor, I need you to listen, really listen, to me. I’m not Dorothy Frasier, and that man who calls himself Paul, he’s not Paul Frasier. He’s probably killed the real Paul Frasier.”
That’s a bit too much truth.
Sherman looks at Wallace. “Return of her Capgras syndrome,” he says soberly. She nods, and he jots a note in my nearby chart.
“I know, I must sound deranged,” I say, “but someone with proof of this will be here tomorrow—”
“Is that so?” he asks, a trace of facetiousness in his doctor voice. Prick.
“You don’t understand. There’s something extremely important I’ve got to do, information I need to get to certain people before it’s too late, and that man posing as my husband, he’s trying to stop me…’Cause he wants it for himself—”
“I can only imagine how upsetting it must be to think that’s what’s happening here,” Sherman says. “But I assure you, dear, everything’s going to be just fine…”
Just fine. Yeah. Got it.
“You see, Dorothy, we’re blessed to live in a time of tremendous advances in the treatment of mental illness. Which means we now have choices in how best to help a patient. There’s no one right approach for everyone…”
“Doctor—” I start, but he puts his hand up and I knee-jerk stop talking, my brain still a tangled mess of lost connections and new reflexes Sherman has wired into me.
While I’m temporarily struck dumb, Sherman continues. “And after learning the truth from Paul today, about his injuries, about the struggles you’re clearly still having with your illness, then observing you firsthand … Well, it’s clear a new approach is needed.”
“You’re giving up on the protocol?” I ask.
“Yes.” He turns to the nurse. “You can go now, Miss Wallace,” he says, and the nurse sets a cloth-covered tray down on the table beside me, then leaves the room.
On the tray are an array of items: squares of cotton gauze, rubbing alcohol, a scalpel, a hammer—and two long, ice pick–shaped tools with heads shaped like mushrooms.
Lobotomy. Fuck.
Stokes has set me up. Told Sherman I attacked him with a knife. Even slashed himself to back up the story. And now that the doctor thinks I used a weapon, he believes I pose an immediate danger to others.
So he’s going the “traditional” route with me.
Like Betsy.
“No. No, no. You can’t do this!” I plead with Sherman as I strain against the leather restraints binding me.
Sherman’s unperturbed by my response. “In a short while, with these specialized instruments called leucotomes, I’ll be performing a minor but, I believe, life-changing procedure on you. It’s called a transorbital lobotomy—”
“You have no fucking right!” I scream.
He pats my squirming shoulder. “It’s time to put an end to this struggle, dear. Let you get on with your life—a life lived with far less conflict. The lobotomy might not be able to free you of your delusions,” Sherman says, “but it’ll dampen your emotions, weaken the urges associated with them. Give you and your husband the peace I know you’re both looking for—”
“I told you, he’s not Paul Frasier. He’s taken his place! You’re making a huge mistake!”
“A brief shock to sedate you and then the procedure. The whole thing will take less than ten minutes. And after you’ve recovered, you’ll get to go home, do all those things you love again. Bowling, cooking—”
“Like Betsy?” I ask. “Is she home doing all the things she loves?”
“Not the outcome we’d hoped for with Miss Apel. It happens from time to time. But that’s nothing you should worry about,” he says, and turns to jot another note in my file. “I know it seems scary, Dorothy, but trust that we’re making the right decision for your needs.”
“My needs? This is about my needs?”
“Try to relax, dear, you’re in good hands,” he says, flipping my file closed and heading for the door. “When you wake tomorrow, you’re going to feel completely different about this.”
“No shit! I’m also going to be drooling and pissing myself, you quack! What kind of dumbass fuckery is this?” I yell as he steps out into the hallway.
You need a better exit strategy.
The scalpel on the tray.
The one lying next to the long, pointy thing Sherman’s going to shove through my eye socket, into my brain …
Focus.
The scalpel.
I pull hard against the restraint strap on my left wrist, fingers stretching, trying to reach the corner of the cloth covering the tray Wallace has left so tantalizingly close.
But I fail. It’s just out of reach.
So try again.
I give it a second go, manage to touch the cloth with the tip of my finger. But I just can’t grasp it.
Again.
This time I strain against the thick leather like some rabid dog on a leash, the strap cutting painfully into my arm. Don’t care. It can have my arm if I can keep my mind.
And I succeed! Manage to pinch the corner of fabric between my fingertips!
I ever so gently draw the cloth toward me till the tip of the scalpel is hanging as far off the tray as I dare bring it. Then I reach up, grasp the blade’s cold metal between my sweaty fingertips.
Carefully, I lower the instrument, bring it down to my side.
Seconds later, I’ve manipulated the scalpel into the backward angle required to bring its blade against the leather strap and begin to saw away at it as quickly as I can.
Out in the hall, Sherman’s speaking. “She’s a little hysterical. There’s always some amount of upset before the procedure. Perfectly normal, Mr. Frasier.”
Stokes. He decided to stick around. Make sure the procedure is carried out. His wife’s struggle ended. I can hear him laying his earnest-husband act on thick: “I just regret not listening to you earlier, Doctor. Things might have been so different.”
“I suppose we’ll never know if it would’ve made a difference,” Sherman says. “Or if her illness was simply too advanced, the delusions and violent urges too entrenched for the protocol to work. But you’re making the right decision now, Mr. Frasier.”
“If it’s okay, I’d like to wait here … till it’s done.”
“I understand. I’ll come down, let you know when it’s over. There is one more thing we need to discuss. The directive.”
“For Dorothy’s sterilization?”
“I know you were against it when she was entering the Unit, and I understand the reluctance to commit to something so permanent at the time. But now that she’ll be undergoing lobotomy, I urge you to reconsider. There’s a certain lack of ‘pushback’ in patients after the procedure—”
“‘Lack of pushback’? What do you mean?” Stokes asks.
“More often than not, they simply aren’t capable of governing their own bodies, of saying no. And given your wife’s tendencies, her history … Well, undesired pregnancies can and do result. Reproduction needs to be prevented in women such as your wife, with mental disabilities.”
Jesus Christ.
“I suppose you’re right, Doctor,” Stokes says.
“Glad we could come to an understanding, Mr. Frasier. Here are the consent forms for both the lobotomy and the sterilization via tubal ligature. I’ll just need your signature—”
“First I want to see her.”
“Oh … Yes, certainly.”
I cease my sawing, quickly slide the scalpel under my hand and out of sight before the two enter. In Sherman’s hands is the paperwork required to end my critical thinking and reproductive abilities. The doctor sits down at a nearby desk and busies himself with my file while Stokes puts his hat on the counter and comes over to me.
“Hello, darling,” he says, the portrait of a loving husband.
I want to kill him.
“I know how hard this is,” he says, gently taking my captive right hand in his. I force his hand around for a closer look at his wrist. And now I see it: hidden beneath the anchor’s indigo lines, a two-inch-long scar like mine. Blood vessel adjacent.
Stokes smiles and twists my hand violently back around. Kisses it. “This will all be over soon, Dee.”
“You can’t let them do this, Stokes!” I plead, and he and Sherman exchange looks.
“Don’t worry, darling. Dr. Sherman’s a real expert at this surgery. Takes no time at all when he does it. And afterward, none of today’s unpleasantness will matter.”
“Motherfucker.”
Another look passes between them. Stokes waits for the doctor to return to his reading, then quietly reaches over and picks up the ice pick–like leucotome. Examines it briefly, then smiles at me and returns it to the tray.
Nausea begins to build in me as the enormity of what’s about to happen hits home. What my life will be like after Sherman performs the lobotomy. Badly. Each day unfolding like the last, as I recover from my “procedures,” dully waiting in some chronic ward for the day my fake husband comes to bring me “home.”
And kill me.
There’s a knock at the door, and when Dr. Sherman exits to speak with whoever’s there, I say to Stokes, “If I used you, our relationship, to obtain information last summer, I’m sorry. But there’s too much at stake here in 1954 to—”
“Ah, your mission. Saving mankind. That valuable scrap of paper you obtained for me. Can’t believe you actually got Dr. Pell to give up the name. Kudos for squeezing it out of that poor, doomed woman.”
I did that, didn’t I? Squeezed Mary for information, then discarded her like a tissue.
“Well, no sense in dragging this out, Beatrix,” Stokes says, and walks over to the forms. As he begins to sign, my fingers quietly feel out how far I’ve cut the leather strap. So close.
Dr. Sherman reenters and sees “Paul” has signed the papers. “Ah, good timing. The attendant is here to prep Dorothy, cut her hair,” he says. “We find it best to keep hygiene postsurgery as simple as possible for the patient. Makes for an easier transition.”
Fuck.
Sherman gathers the signed consent forms and exits just as Lester enters carrying heavy-duty electric hair clippers and a cloth to catch my hair as it falls. He gives me a smile.
“Ah, here he is, Dee,” Stokes says, “the nice man who’ll be giving you a brand-new hairdo.” He leans over me. “Good night, darling. I’ll be bringing you back home very soon.” Then he kisses me on the lips as Lester looks on.
“She’s all yours,” Stokes says to Lester, then picks up his hat and walks out the door, whistling “Blueberry Hill.”