I have been unable to draw the full story out of her, but I do know from the casefile that she pled guilty to the murder of her husband by way of a mental disorder defense, which is how she came to be here. Patient stated she found her husband in a compromising position amid explicit photographs of himself with neighborhood children she recognized. This led to a severe psychotic break she has yet to fully overcome. I feel the biggest facet of her depression stems from her feelings of inadequacy as a woman and mother. She believes her husband cheated on her because she was so detestable that even a child was preferable to her.
Oh, boo-fucking-hoo.
One of the patient’s most vivid delusions is one in which she believes she is deeply in love with me and that I have reciprocal feelings.
A hot rash crept up and over my chiseled chin to my temples. I scrubbed my hand across my brow.
This patient’s infatuation with me has developed into such a dangerous fantasy, it has been remediated with my voluntary transfer from this facility, for both of our safety. Leona Davis was unable to withstand transfer in her delicate state.
Delicate my ass.
Pregnant at the time of her incarceration—
Holy shit! Hold up!
—patient has recently given birth to a somewhat-healthy girl and is being closely monitored by the medical staff for postpartum, which she suffered with her first infant from a previous marriage. No matter what she tells you, we do not have a child together; this is part of her delusion. The baby is her recently deceased husband’s.
I have a baby? The news sent me reeling. I fell backward into my chair. I hadn’t thought my temporary shell would include such common human frailties as queasiness. I was wrong, boy, I was wrong. My diaphragm tightened.
The child is being cared for by a paternal aunt at present, and it has been recommended the child visit as much as possible to help the patient stabilize. In closing, I wish you well. For the most part, this patient is pliable enough, and I hope she’ll see fit to continue the work we’ve managed to accomplish in treatment.
Sincerely,
Dr. Alfred Winger, Psy. D.
My hands shook violently, spilling the papers to the floor in a confused scatter.
The first time I laid eyes on Leona in group therapy, I almost lost my nerve and walked right out. She seemed docile, curled on a chair in the corner of the room, distanced from her fellow patients.
Goddamn, she looks like shit. Her skin was as gray as her institution sweatshirt: dead and wax-like. Giving birth and taking life had obviously emptied her. But her eyes remained clear, offsetting her pallor.
I loved your eyes. Surreal blue against white, like a Grecian seaside town. Beautiful.
Thinking of Leona taking me away from my first kid ignited such a searing burn in my chest, I had to beat it down immediately or it could spread out of control. I was not going to let her get the best of me.
Bitch.
Her eyes drifted to her lap, and I steeled myself for the takedown.
“Good morning group. I’m Dr. Carter, Dr. Winger’s replacement …”
It didn’t take long.
Before group the next Tuesday, the door to my office slammed open.
“You’re expected to knock.” I looked up and nodded to the orderly who had rushed in behind her; he backed out of the room and closed the door.
She came at me much quicker than I’d expected. I scrabbled backward in my chair to avoid her grasping hands.
“Leona—uh—Mrs. Davis!”
“Give them to me!” she growled through her teeth—a cheetah with her nails extended. Much swifter in her shriveled body than I had given her credit for.
I stood and anchored open my lab coat with hands mounted on my hips, relieved I was able to stay composed. “What can I do for you, Mrs. Davis?”
“It’s Ms. Davis!” her hysterical voice grated. “Why did you take my meds away?”
She braced herself on my desk and leaned toward me, breathing hard. She didn’t seem to notice the twelve-foot extension cord loosely coiled like a snake next to her hand.
I scooted my chair back toward the desk. “Uh—Dr. Winger and I—uh—felt that you would make better progress without them. You’ve been having extreme depressive episodes while on the medications we’ve tried, so we felt it was time to take you off to, you know, see how you do.”
Her cerulean eyes were wide, imploring, and wild. “You asshole, that’s not true! I can’t live like this, trapped by my own brain, not even knowing if my thoughts are real.”
“Calm down.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down. You’re an asshole,” she raged. “You did this! I don’t believe it was Alfred! He loves me, he knows everything about me. He loved … me …”
What a damn whore.
I raised my hands to show her I was no threat. “Ms. Davis, you haven’t attended any of the individual therapy sessions I’ve invited you to in the last week.” I reached for her wrist—a light touch to bring her back before someone heard her. “I’m not surprised you’re feeling upset. The medicine works best in tandem with therapy.” I retracted my hand and retook my seat. “As the medication decreases, the therapy has to increase. That’s how this works.”
Leona slumped into the seat opposite me and sobbed. “I might as well just die.”
“Oh? And why is that?”
I leaned in toward her, careful not to retrigger the time bomb in front of me. Not yet. I couldn’t look straight at her, not this close, so I focused on her thin gash of a mouth. I was more nervous than I expected to be.
She was crying hard now. “Please, I’m begging you. I need my medicine. I’m afraid I’ll hurt someone—my baby—if I don’t keep my brain working right.”
My hands fiddled with the prop on my desk. “Tell me about your baby, Leona. What’s her name?” I stroked her with my soft words.
“I named her Marie.”
I waited, willed her to continue, then finally cleared my throat.
Her shoulders fell. “She’s almost three weeks old, and they took her from me in the delivery room and gave her to my bitch sister-in-law. And nobody believes me that she’s Alfred’s.” She wiped her nose with her sleeve. “She’s only come to visit once so far, and I have all this milk …” She sniffed and lifted her hands, angled toward her breasts. “And she’s supposed to come on Saturday, but all Marie did was scream when I held her, and I feel like I can’t be a good mother without drugs; that I might do something, that I might hurt her … or … or … worse.”
I stood and came around the desk to sit near her, perched on its edge. I brushed her dark bangs from her face and lifted her chin. She twitched as if I’d shocked her, but didn’t recoil.
“There, there.” I laid a comforting hand on her shoulder, proud I could sound so … empathetic.
Moving softly behind her, I approached the door. Now for the kill. The lock slid into place with a dull CLUNK, and I returned to the desk edge.
“Now, I haven’t read your case file, so why don’t you tell me how you came to be here as a new parent.” Stab. “Why, where is your husband in all this?” Slash.
Leona gave me a quizzical look for the briefest of seconds. Recognition? I hoped not.
No stopping.
“I killed him.”
I was giddy. “I’m sorry, did I hear you correctly? You killed your own husband, the father of your child?” Stab, twist. “That’s got to be so hard on you.” I patted her back before returning to my chair. “That poor child too.” Slash, tear.
Her eyes became ice. “She’s not his baby.”
Keep pushing. “She’ll receive proper care, living with her father’s family, and hopefully she can come to forgive you someday. Then again, she may not.” Stab. “It’s just something you’ll have to live with.” And rip.
I contemplatively glanced at the water pipes hanging parallel to the ceiling, rubbing my chin.
Leona’s eyes trailed to the ceiling as well, then to the fluorescen
t cord on the desk. A substantial tear breached the corner of her eye, and I sat, watching its painfully-slow descent down and around her gaunt cheek.
“Not the best of circumstances for a child—” I folded my hands on the desk. “—no father, and now, no mother either.” Stab, slash, slice.
“Why would you say that? Alfred is her father.”
“I know you may think that, but I can assure you, the child does not belong to him.”
She sniffed, folding her arms defiantly. “She does—if they’d just let me talk to him, he’d tell them. He’s just protecting me.”
“But he left you and confided to me that you’re delusional.” Rip, snap, tear.
Her blood-starved white knuckles appeared on the arms of her chair as she strained to stay seated.
Ah, now we’re getting somewhere.
“He abandoned you so you’d stop trying to pin your murder victim’s kid on him.”
She jumped up. “You’re lying. He loves us!”
“He doesn’t love you or your brat.” Twiiist. A smug grin spread across my face. Now, go for the jugular. “He said you are unfit to be a mother.” POW! Bullseye.
She flew at me, hands aimed at my throat, launching both of us to the dingy linoleum. Leona landed on my chest, straddling me. Any other time, I might have welcomed this as foreplay.
I squeezed my eyes shut. “Aaaahh! I think you broke my ankle!”
The pipes, sweetie, the pipes.
She jumped off, and in a flash, had the bright orange coil in her hands, eying the sturdy pipes above her.
I pulled my knee to my chest and rolled back and forth on the floor feigning injury, like a professional soccer player. “My ankle. I can’t get up! Please, Leona, don’t do anything rash!”
Leona tossed one end of the cord over the low-hanging hot water line, then deftly tied a hangman’s noose. I was grateful she seemed to know what she was doing, but just to be sure, I’d greased the cord enough to make the knot slide. Wrapping the free end around the desk leg, she tied it off, then stepped backward to inspect her work, as if mentally measuring whether or not she’d left enough slack to get the job done.
I rubbed my head, as if the world was swirling around in front of me, and kept my eyes on the floor. I didn’t want to spook her. She was focused, eyes blazing.
She mounted the chair and slipped the noose over her head.
I reached up toward her. “Leona, wait! Don’t!”
“You don’t care about me.”
“Leona, I do,” I said softly, hanging my head. “But maybe you’re right, maybe this is for the best, so your daughter doesn’t visit her homicidal mother at the nut farm for the rest of her life.” I covered an accidental smile with my hand. Over and done with quickly. “For the good of the child.”
And with that, she kicked the chair.
Take a bow.
Satisfied, I watched her from the floor. Her face swelled, shiny and red as an apple, eyes pushing out of their sockets. If she had even the briefest thought she’d made a mistake before, she knew it for sure when I stood and casually strolled to her swinging body.
Her eyes widened. She clawed to loosen the cord strangling her neck. If she was just six inches taller, she might have been able to reach the floor and free herself.
“Yeah, that’s right, whore,” I leaned in and whispered. “I got you.”
She kicked at me, then seemed to realize she was using what little breath and strength she had left. I stepped backward, hands in my pockets, and let her fight for her life. The wait wasn’t long.
As soon as her weak bucking stopped and she hung limp, I untied the desk-end of the cord and let her down. Working fast, I laid her on the floor and removed the noose. It was harder than I expected, but my tiny particles of energy filled her body and expelled her soul.
With a squelch, I was—I can’t even explain the feeling— vacuumed from my rental body and awoke in hers with a sucking inhale. Leona was evicted.
See ya, bitch.
A disorienting high-pitched hum infiltrated my brain. Oh man, it feels like crap in here. I sat upright, rubbed my head, and looked at my temporary shell sprawled on the floor.
Goddamn, my neck hurts!
I stood, careful to take it slow, and opened the office window to let in some fresh air. The unfamiliar feeling of my breasts jiggling for the first time briefly caught my attention.
Weird.
Leaning against the wall for a few long moments to steady myself, I willed oxygen to penetrate my muscles and clear my head. As I rested, the office supplies, diplomas, electrical cord, even Dante’s Inferno, and what I assumed was my wife’s lifeforce, moldered and combined into a swarm of molecules flying past me and out the window. Everything had disintegrated but my temporary shell.
Shit, if they find him here, they’ll blame it on me.
It had to look like a suicide. I was able to lasso the body where he lay, and using the desk leg as a pulley, drag the dead weight underneath the pipe. When I tried to string him up by the neck, however, I realized the weakness of my newly acquired scrawny body. It was no use, he was too heavy for me to lift.
“I’m sure gonna miss you, buddy.”
I can’t take this. Jesus, I can’t do this anymore. This bitch never sleeps!
Rats climbed on me at night, horrifying entities penetrated me while I tossed and turned with insomnia. My inner life was now filled with terrifying images of gore. I didn’t need to see my crime scene photos; Leona’s brain replayed my murder constantly. And the sex! I was tormented by raunchy visions of her and Dr. Winger— Alfred—doing things she’d never done with me. Were they real? Memories? She had always been such a cold fish.
Our brains and thoughts, hearts and souls, and everything in-between seemed to be melded into some weird stew: a few ingredients mostly me, many ingredients all her. I was left with the memories of what had happened in my life, but most of the intensity and all the paranoia and whispers were Leona’s. My soul in her body, her sick brain controlling my thoughts, and such a full range of emotion I couldn’t begin to temper. I didn’t realize it would be like this.
Do it! Do it! Do it! the voices chanted, urging me to kill myself day and night.
Why her body? Such a stupid, stupid decision made hastily in bitterness. Why hadn’t I planned this better?
Fuck.
I stepped into Dr. Parsons’ office and quickly closed the door and leaned against it, eyes closed, my palms and forehead pressed against its cool wood surface. The shadow men were at it again today, and they’d chased me down the hallway.
Dr. Parsons, the small, beak-nosed man who had filled my spot—or more accurately, Dr. Carter’s spot—looked up from his desk. “Hello, Leona. Shadow people after you?”
He cocked his head to the side, surveying me with sharp eyes. The way he raked me up and down, from my tits to my mouth, disgusted me. He was usually completely oblivious to my inner turmoil.
“Will you please put me back on my medicines?” I implored.
He began shuffling papers around his desk. “No. I’m sorry. I can’t do that, Leona. Your previous therapists have noted that you do not tolerate medication well. It causes you to have suicidal ideation. You will remain off all drugs until further notice.”
“But …” Goddamn, why did I alter her fucking file?
“It’s too soon. You need to heal physically first. The bruising on your neck is still visible and you still have all those scabs. And now there’s a second murder. I think I should take you back to baseline and start all over.”
“No! I didn’t kill him!” The first female shrill to my voice I’d noticed. I had left the body noosed and on the floor, clearly a suicide; he was just too stupid to notice.
“You may not remember, but we found you passed out next to Dr. Carter on the floor in his office. We haven’t quite figured out how you did it, but you did kill him and stage the scene to make it look like a suicide.” He resumed shuffling paperwork. “The rope marks o
n his neck were made post mortem.”
A cold dread filtered into my lungs, seizing them. Shit. With the suspected murder of Dr. Carter now pinned on me, I’d be locked in here forever. My bangs clung to the sweat on my forehead.
“Is there anything else?” he asked placidly when I’d paused too long.
“No.” I backed out of his office, retreating to lick my wounds.
“Oh, Leona!”
I stuck my head through the closing door crack.
“Marie is coming for a supervised visit tomorrow. That should brighten you up a bit.”
So innocent. I was falling in love. Tiny fingers wrapped around mine. I looked into her soft, blushed face. Perfect chubby cheeks and furrowed brow. Doe-lashed brown eyes. I even saw her crack a tiny smile—a real smile—and not just gas.
“Aren’t you perfect?” I cooed, fascinated at how simply holding my baby started the hot prickle of my milk letting down. Two wide circles spread across the front of my shirt.
“Revolting,” my sister, Amanda, said, looking at my chest. She sat across from me at a visitor’s table, impatiently tapping her foot and checking her watch. “Can we move this along? It’s almost time for her to eat again.”
“But you just got here.”
“Yeah, well, I still have other things to do,” she snapped. “And I didn’t expect to get stuck with some sperm donor’s baby until I could figure out how to get her placed elsewhere.”
Something was off. I raised my eyes to her heartless expression; nothing was there for me but disdain. Placed?
“What are you talking about?”
“C’mon, we all know she isn’t my brother’s child. Jesus Christ, Leona, I’m not an idiot.” She stood and grabbed the baby out of my hands. “You both have blue eyes. You can’t make a brown-eyed baby; it’s genetically impossible. Google it.”
The inside of my head spun, whirring around and around like a top. There really was no way this baby could be ours?
“We’re leaving,” Amanda announced.
Both of us stood in a face-off.
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