For once, on this our day of judgement, the breaks go our way. First, because I’m inhabiting our body, not Kirk or Eleni. Second, because I gained control early enough to prepare. I’m wearing a pale-green suit, a yellow blouse with a round collar and flesh-colored pantyhose. My nails are trimmed and polished, my makeup fresh and lightly applied, my hair swept across my ears. I’ve a thin gold chain (plated, of course) around my throat and a ring I picked up at a flea market on my finger. The ring holds a four- or five-carat amber stone that I like to pretend is a citrine, but that’s almost surely glass.
No question, we look good today. But my appearance, my presentation, is a sham. Inside, I feel more like a defendant than a professional, a defendant on her way to the courtroom after learning the jury’s reached a verdict, yes or no, door A or door B. The heels of my pumps rap against the stone floor with each step I take, marking the distance, closer and closer, our lives, as always, out of our hands.
Chin up, I tell myself. Show fear and the dogs will bite. Stay brave and you have, at least, a chance.
The city’s built a new extension with a shiny glass façade on Kings County Hospital. The façade makes the hospital appear new and modern, but once you get into the building the fact that Kings County is 150 years old becomes apparent. I’m walking through an administrative wing, one of the oldest in the complex, toward a conference room near the Accounting Department. Ahead, I see a woman standing in front of an open door. In her twenties, she’s short and plump with the bright-yellow hair I associate with teenage Latinas. A black briefcase rests on the floor beside her.
The woman steps toward me as I come closer, her eyes inquisitive. “Carolyn Grand?”
I nod as I take the hand she offers. “Yes, and you’re … my lawyer.”
She ignores the skeptical tone. “You look fantastic. You’re beautiful.”
“You seem surprised. What exactly were you expecting?”
“I don’t know.” She cocks her head to the side and grins. “Maybe wild hair spiking in all directions, eyes bulging out of your head. And drool, of course, lots and lots of drool.”
I laugh, despite myself. We’re crazy, the issue decided long ago by experts. But our illness is not the result of some faulty gene. Our psychosis is reactive and we’re never what people who meet us for the first time expect. I find myself wondering how Malaya might have received Martha if she’d walked down that corridor in denim shorts with her hairy legs on display. Or, God help us, Eleni in seven-inch hooker heels.
Malaya reaches for her briefcase and waves me forward. “Shall we go in?”
My heart jumps into my throat as I enter the room, knowing as I do, as we all do, that I might walk back out a ward of the state. Confined, of course, for my own good.
A hush follows my entry, all eyes on me: What will I do? How will I act? Halberstam recognizes me. I can see it in his eyes, see him make a quick calculation. More than likely, he’s revising whatever argument he intends to make. One diagnosis for presentable Victoria, another for Martha or Kirk.
I nod to him, the gesture obligatory, before I sit to face the panel. There are five of them seated behind a conference table with a faux-leather top. The administrative law judge, Mitchell Jefferson, sits in the middle, so old, pale and shriveled that he might be his own shroud. Two men and two women sit to his left and right, the women on the right and the men on the left. The two men, both in late middle age, are Dr. Plink and Dr. Scotto. On one level, they seem polar opposites, Plink trim and fit, Scotto ready to order a casket. The man’s wheezing with every breath, and his watery eyes are as yellow as my blouse.
The two women are Dr. Ewing and Dr. Vasarian. Vasarian appears to be in her sixties, but Ewing, a black woman, is much younger. She’s the only one who looks directly at me and I desperately want to read sympathy in her look. I discover pity instead. We’re going down.
I take a deep breath, telling myself: You can deal with this. You’ve been there before. Sooner or later they have to let you out. Meanwhile, I’m an eyeblink away from bursting into tears.
“All present?” Judge Jefferson doesn’t wait for a reply. “Good, then let’s get started.”
The door opens at that moment and a young man steps into the room. He’s got that crazy hair you find on six-year-old boys just out of the shower and a lopsided smile that belies his apology.
“Sorry to interrupt,” he says, dropping into a chair set against the wall.
Everybody straightens, even Judge Jefferson, who more or less uncoils. As Malaya explained it, there are thousands of administrative law judges in New York and they’re not elected. They’re appointed by a chief administrative law judge who may be fired by the mayor at any time for any reason.
Jefferson’s voice is a lot stronger when he speaks up, but his smile is the grimace of a lizard under the shadow of a diving hawk.
“Sir, are you in the right room?”
The man unzips his jacket to reveal a placard attached to a chain that circles his neck. I can only read a single word of what’s printed on the placard, but I know it’s the right word: PRESS.
“This is a public hearing, right?”
Malaya Castro reaches beneath the table to squeeze my hand. And though her eyes remain focused on Judge Jefferson, the message is clear enough. She told us she’d have our backs and she’d meant it. Judge Jefferson looks at the doctors to his left, to his right, and suddenly they’re all looking at each other, unspoken questions flying back and forth like bullets. Who, what, how, why? The man with the ultrathin laptop resting on his thighs has all the answers, but he’s not talking.
“Well, then,” Jefferson says. “We’ll begin with Dr. Halberstam. Please read your report, Doctor.”
Although Halberstam’s notes are laid out on the table, he doesn’t intend to consult them. He turns them facedown, then starts to rise, thinks better of it, and drops back into his seat.
“Carolyn Grand was released from involuntary commitment on July 21 of this year. She entered therapy as a condition of her release and I was engaged to conduct that therapy. We’ve met thirty-four times since then, the last two days ago.”
The good doctor stops abruptly. His chin moves to the left, as though he’s about to peek over his shoulder, but then he catches himself and takes a breath. Behind him, the reporter’s fingers fly across the keyboard: click, click, click, click.
“Regarding the death of Carolyn Grand’s father, I’ve inquired, of course, at every session, with the same result each time. On one level, this is unsurprising. As individual identities may be absent for relatively long periods of time, dissociative identity disorder inevitably produces memory loss. On another level, the constant reply ‘I didn’t exist’ to any question regarding Carolyn Grand’s movements on the night her father was killed seems artificial. More to the point, it mirrors a pattern of evasion that manifested itself early in therapy and that I have not yet penetrated. Carolyn Grand is extremely guarded and quite intelligent. She intentionally withholds. This is only to be expected, given her childhood experience, but unless there’s a breakthrough, the main goal, to integrate her various identities, is very likely to fail.”
Halberstam drones on for a moment, excoriating us for our collective failure to trust him, but I find myself drifting away. Now that the record’s official, recorded by the court and the media, Halberstam’s merely covering his risk-averse butt.
Jefferson waits patiently until Halberstam pauses for a moment, then leans forward. “Your recommendation, Doctor?”
“I recommend, short term, that Carolyn Grand remain in therapy. I would also recommend that her status be reviewed again thirty days from now.” He lifts his chin but doesn’t look at me. “Assuming, of course, the police take no action.”