Chapter18.html

I stood in my kitchen and pushed number two on my speed dial. I leaned my shoulder against the cool wall and sobbed, praying Heather was home.

Heather picked up and I whispered into the phone, my voice jagged, “Heather. This is going to kill me. I can’t—”

She must have broken a few speed laws to get to me as fast as she did. When she walked in, she stared with a wide-eyed look of shock on her face. “What’s happened?” She took a step toward me. I heard a pop as her heel crushed one of the pills still strewn on the floor. “What is going on?” She picked her way around the pills toward me. I stood in silence, staring back at her, lips trembling. She lifted her hand up to my cheek. I flinched.

I nodded like an obedient child. “He’s saying horrible things. Calling me names.”

Maybe it was out of relief that Heather was there and that I wasn’t alone anymore, or maybe it was insanity’s full embrace, but I felt a sudden urge to giggle.

A laugh, a floating burp of hilarity, burst from my lips. “You think I’m crazy, huh?”

I cut her off with a loud hoot of laughter. “I do. I think I’m crazy, Heather.” Tears flowed down my cheeks as I shook with laughter. “I feel exactly like I’m crazy.”

“Have you been talking to God?”

“No, I’ve been talking to Kevin.”

The on-call doctor in the hospital psych ward glanced up from the chart he was reading. I thought I saw a look of weariness in his eyes, but he just adjusted the glasses on his nose and looked back at the file. I sat across from him, hands on the small table in front of me, and studied his bald spot.

The doctor poised his pen over the file and looked at me. “Does this ‘Kevin’ have supernatural powers? Can he perform great things?”

It was an odd question, but this was an odd place. I figured there was a good reason he asked. I thought of a story Kevin had told me before we were married. When he was ten, he had ordered X-ray glasses from the back of a comic book. They didn’t work, but instead of wasting money by throwing the glasses away, he used them as part of a mad scientist Halloween costume. I had been impressed that a ten-year-old boy would be so responsible with his money.

I looked at the doctor. “Well, I don’t know about great. But he’s very thrifty.”

Without missing a beat, the doctor said, “Kate, do you know where you are?”

“Yes. I’m in the hospital.” I glanced around. “In an exam room.”

“What day is it?”

“Trick question,” I said, louder than I intended. “It’s night.”

He took off his glasses and looked at me.

“Sorry,” I said. “It’s Thursday.”

“What year?”

I told him.

He made a brief note in the file. “You seem coherent.”

“Thank you.” The giddiness from earlier threatened to return. I squelched it by looking around the room. Signs of previous violence were everywhere. The walls were pockmarked with shoe prints and holes, as if someone tried to kick and claw their way out of the room. The bed to my left was a small exam table like you’d find in a doctor’s office, rather than a regular hospital bed. Black straps resembling seatbelts hung down—restraints.

“Who brought you here?” The doctor said.

“My dead husband.”

His head jerked up as if I had drawn a pistol. His eyes darted over my face, hands, and clothes. Maybe searching for clues of a recent murder. It must be difficult to work here, I thought.

“He’s been dead for over a month. I mean, he died over a month ago. I didn’t kill him. He did that himself. No, I don’t mean he killed himself. He died. By himself. I mean, I didn’t help him.” My voice became a tiny squeak. “He died.”

The doctor rubbed his eye with a finger. “I meant did someone come with you to the hospital tonight? Did you get a ride, drive yourself, take a bus, walk?”

Stupid. “My sister, Heather, brought me.”

He made a few marks in the file. “Okay, now. I hear you say your husband died. What has happened since then that has brought you here tonight?”

“Well, he talks to me.”

“Your husband?”

Who else? Didn’t I just say that? Okay, calm down. Answer the question. “Yes, my husband,” I said and smiled brightly to show how cooperative I was.

He didn’t smile back. “What does he say?”

“Nothing. Nothing important, anyway. Just daily stuff. The kettle is boiling. Go wash the cereal bowls. He’s cold. That sort of thing.”

The doctor made a muffled “uh-huh” sound, but offered nothing more.

I took a deep breath. “Except the last time.” I began to shiver in the stale room.

“When was the last time he spoke to you?” he asked.

I couldn’t stop shivering. I ran my hands up and down my arms, trying to infuse them with warmth. “Today. I—I kissed someone.” I felt embarrassed to say it out loud, like a teenager caught in the backseat of her father’s car. “I don’t even know why I did it. We were just talking and then he kissed me and …” My voice dropped to a whisper. “Kevin saw.”

The doctor opened his mouth, and then closed it again.

“You know that old saying, ‘Sticks and stones can break my bones’?” I said.

“Yes.”

“Kevin’s words hurt me.”

“I’m going to recommend we admit you for tonight. “

“A danger?” Heather hollered as she thumped down the hospital corridor. She was taking me home after my overnight there. “You, Kate, are not a danger to anyone.”

In my mind’s eye I saw the hood of Kevin’s Mazda rive the side of Maggie’s Mustang. Was I?

But I said, “No, I wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

Heather flung her arms above her head. “That’s my point. How dare they say you would?” I’d never seen her so agitated. Every step was a declaration, every gesture so sweeping, I felt the desire to duck out of the way.

“They didn’t really say that.” We moved through the automatic doors together and walked toward Heather’s car. “They said they wanted to assess if I was a danger to myself or other people.”

Heather shot me an annoyed look. “Same difference. They’re the crazy ones.” She yanked at her purse until she produced a set of keys. I stood beside the passenger door, waiting for her to unlock the car. Over the roof of the car, I watched her fumble with the keys. I heard them hit the pavement, and then heard Heather swear under her breath.

It was only eight in the morning, but the sun blazed with ardor, promising a hot day. I felt like a warmed-over piece of toast. I hadn’t slept at all. “You okay over there?”

Heather glared at me over the roof of the car. “Okay? No. I’m definitely not okay, Kate. I’m the total opposite of okay.” She pointed the remote-control door opener at the car and jammed a finger down on a button. The trunk popped open.

Heather and I watched the trunk lid bob for a moment. She pushed another button and I heard the door locks click open. I slid into the passenger seat while Heather closed the trunk with a slam. I reached for the seat belt.

Heather got in and stared at the dashboard. I watched her out of the corner of my eye. She put her head down on the top of the steering wheel. I contemplated offering her a there-there pat on the shoulder, but I kept my hands in my lap. I hadn’t expected Heather to react this way. In truth I hadn’t thought much about how my situation had been affecting her. My panicked phone calls, my accusing questions. Throwing her out of my house. It must have been difficult.

She cast me a sideways glance. “What happens now? Do you have to go back?” She jerked a thumb toward the hospital. “Or what?”

“I’m really sorry about all of this—”

“No. Don’t be sorry. Let’s just move ahead. What happens next?”

I shifted in my seat. “Heather, I can see this is hard on you. I feel terrible—”

“I know you feel terrible,” she bellowed, hands flying in the air like demented butterflies. “I feel terrible. Mom feels terrible. Everyone feels terrible.” She looked at me, eyes brimming with unshed tears. “All I want is to get us from terrible to … to … not terrible. Better. Good, even.”

I pressed my lips together, not knowing what to say.

Heather looked straight ahead, out the windshield. “We used to be good. You. Mom. Me. We had happy lives and happy times together …” Her voice drifted off. She pulled in a long breath. “So what’s the next step for you?”

I swallowed a lump of misery. She was right. Somehow I had to get through this train wreck of fear and pain. “They set up an appointment for me with a doctor in the city next week. A psychiatrist.” I shrugged. “Maybe that will … make things better.”

Heather gave a slow nod.

“The doctor here at the hospital said I need to begin treatment with a Dr. Alexander, because he specializes in this sort of, um, problem.”

“Which problem?”

I examined my hands on my lap. “Hearing voices sort of problem.”

Heather started the car and backed out of the stall.

When we arrived at my house, I told Heather she should leave, go home, that I’d be fine alone, but she ignored me and started picking up the codeine pills on the kitchen floor. Part of me resented the help. I wasn’t a child who required watching, and I could clean up my own messes. On the other hand I was relieved she was staying. Maybe Kevin would leave me alone with Heather here. And it gave Heather something to do, a place to direct her energy.

So I left her tidying up the kitchen, and wandered into the den. I was looking for a package of blank recipe cards and a pen. Kevin used the cards to write out speeches he occasionally gave at bank functions.

I took the top card and began to write. There was much to tell the psychiatrist, and I wanted to get it right.