30 Feet Strong

by Hannah Paige

  Pam liked it outside. The fresh air felt good in her lungs, lessened the pain a little bit. She spotted an empty bench on the far side of the green area and the ache returned as her lungs clenched once again. Just like that, her sanctuary was gone. Everywhere she went, Pam was reminded of Darin. She felt stupid, weak, letting objects like a bench, a coffee pot, a hose, even a color, dictate how she felt or what she did.

  It wasn’t until that evening during visiting hours that she finally spoke for the first time that day. She’d been prodded in afternoon therapy, but her lips hadn’t budged. If she talked, she might think of Darin again and then she would cry. Again.

  She was in the family room trying to focus on one of the books she’d plucked from the shelf. But her mind was spinning, contorting in agony, and she couldn’t concentrate.

  When a nurse called to her, she flinched in her seat, “Pam, there’s someone here to see you.”

  Pam almost dropped the book. No one had ever come to see her. “Tell her I can’t see her,” she grumbled, assuming it was April.

  The nurse softened her tone, coming closer to where Pam sat, “Are you sure, Pam? She seems quite anxious to see you.”

  “I’m sure. I don’t—I can’t see her. I’m sorry,” Pam was beyond tired of saying those words, but she felt like for every action she took she needed to apologize to someone. She never did, or said, the right thing anymore. “I just can’t.”

  The nurse nodded, clasping her hands behind her back, “Alright. I’ll ask her to leave then.”

  Pam stood up to watch the nurse head back out of the family room. She leaned out into the hallway that led to the main lobby where visitors entered, but Pam didn’t see April there. Instead, she saw the nurse approach a blonde woman in a white blouse. Pam watched the nurse mouth something and the blonde woman tried to argue, but the nurse put up a hand, stopping her. Pam stepped out into the hall and before she knew exactly what she was doing, she found herself in the lobby, standing before this woman she didn’t even know.

  The nurse stopped talking as Pam suddenly appeared at her side, “You’re the one that’s come to see me?” she asked, looking right at the blonde woman.

  She nodded and Pam turned back to the nurse,

  “I’ll see her, if that’s alright.”

  The nurse beamed at Pam’s change of heart and patted her gently on the shoulder, “Of course. Remember, evening group is at 7:30,” she whispered to Pam before taking her leave down the hall.

  Pam turned back to the blonde woman, who motioned to a table near the windows, “I hope you don’t mind, I brought my son along.” Pam hadn’t noticed the tiny blonde boy, sitting cross-legged on the bench at the corner table. She wondered why the nurse hadn’t mentioned there was a child here to see her as well.

  “He’s actually the one that really wanted to see you. I’m just the chaperone, you could say,” she shrugged lightheartedly, and Pam followed her over to the boy.

  “I’m sorry, do I know you? Either of you?” Pam said, before the boy could introduce himself.

  He looked up at her with the most incandescent eyes Pam had ever seen; they were like two perfect pearl-drops of the bluest, clearest ocean water to be found.

  When he spoke, his voice came out in warm whispers, comforting and honest, “You’re Pam.” It wasn’t a question, not even a confirmation, but a statement, as if Pam was the one who didn’t know.

  Pam nodded and looked to the blonde woman, “Again, do I know you two?”

  The blonde woman shook her head, “No, my son,” she frowned at Pam and looked between her and her son, “he has some things to discuss with you. He’ll explain everything, I promise.” She looked to the boy, “I’m going to grab a cup of coffee. I’ll just be over there if you need me.” She motioned towards the other side of the room where a TV had the news playing for a couple of other visitors.

  The boy nodded, giving his mother a satiny smile, “Okay, Mom. We’ll be fine.” And he shone his eyes on Pam again. She felt like there was a spotlight on her, demanding the truth from her, the only problem being that she didn’t even know the question.

  “I’m William, William Thomas Clark,” he extended his hand to her and Pam shook it, sitting down next to him.

  “I’m Pam, but you already knew that. How did you know my name?”

  He withdrew his hand, cocking his head at Pam, “I could tell you now, but I don’t think you’re quite ready.”

  Pam frowned and shifted her feet underneath her, “Alright, then do you mind telling me why you’re here?”

  “I’m here to help you,” he stated plainly.

  Pam raised her eyebrows, “Oh, are you, now? How old are you?”

  The boy chuckled, “I find it so amusing that’s always one of the first questions people ask me. Age is such a determining factor these days. If I say I’m eight years old, for example, you’ll probably cast off anything I say, laughing at my broad imagination. You’ll treat whatever I say with the same respect that adults treat a kindergartener that’s describing the monster hiding in their closet or the ghost they saw out their window one night. Opinions and accounts aren’t valued when they come from a young audience. But if I tell you that I’m, let’s say, twenty-nine, then your opinion of me increases, doesn’t it? Suddenly you find yourself listening to what I have to say because laws say that I can rent a car or a hotel room or purchase my own bottle of champagne.”

  Pam found herself searching for the right thing to say, set back by the boy’s mature answer, “I, I guess you’re right. Age doesn’t really matter, or it shouldn’t.”

  “Don’t get me wrong, age can help mature a person. However, I would like to make the point that just because someone is older, doesn’t mean they can always help. Just because someone is nine years old, like me, that doesn’t mean they are helpless and confused about the world.” He smiled as Pam sat there, speechless, “You’re very pretty, Pam. It’s been a long time since anyone has told you that, hasn’t it?”

  It had been about ten years, actually, since Pam had heard anyone say that. Crazy, helpless, troubled, and, of course, depressed where adjectives that had more often been associated with Pam in the past few years, but not pretty. She felt herself blushing in front of the boy, “Thank you, William Thomas.”

  Back when baby names were crowded around the center of Pam’s brain, she’d always thought up first and middle names so that she could use them in a pair. She hadn’t thought about that in a long time.

  “I appreciate that. You didn’t come all this way just to pay me compliments, did you? Because, while it does help my self-esteem, momentarily, it doesn’t really help me.”

  He smirked at her, “I didn’t really come too far, actually. My mom and I were just in New Jersey, visiting a friend. So, it wasn’t too far of a drive back up here. And I think that helping your self-esteem is a large part of helping you, even though it may seem like a little piece. A person should receive a compliment every day, because that one compliment may seem small to the giver, but to the receiver,” he ballooned his cheeks and blew out a great puff of air for emphasis, “it can make all the difference in their day, maybe in their life, if you’re lucky. Take you. If someone told you that you were brave or pretty or that you were someone that deserved a chance, wouldn’t your attitude start to change eventually?”

  Pam had no idea if that was right. She hadn’t thought that way in a long time, and right now, that kind of hopeful mindset seemed miles away, impossibly unreachable, from where she sat in elastic pants in the psych ward of a New York City hospital.

  The boy’s lips hitched up into an encouraging half-smile, “That’s alright, Pam. You don’t have to answer that now. You haven’t been the giver or the receiver for a long time. Would you mind if I came back again to see you tomorrow? My mom and I don’t live too far from here, and I would love to come back for more visits.”

  “I don’t really know much about kids,” she admitted, feeling the need to let him in on one of her most
abashed deficiencies; he was, after all, volunteering to spend time with a forty-one-year-old childless, husbandless, majorly depressed woman. At the very least, he deserved a caution sign.

  He smiled again—Pam thought he did that quite often, even more than most averagely content people, unlike herself—and stood up, “That’s alright, Pam. Neither do I.”

  He started to walk away, and Pam stood up, desperate for answers—and for company, if she let herself give in to her inner need, “Wait, I don’t understand. You never told me how you’re going to help me.”

  He shifted his spotless, white tennis shoes so that he could face her, “I’ll see you tomorrow, Pam.”

  Pam stood there a moment and watched William Thomas take his mother’s hand and lead her out of the hospital wing. He led her.

  Pam stumbled back over to the table by the windows, where she had left her notepad and red pen. She picked up the pen, uncapped it, and wrote down her first goal.

  ‘Pay one compliment a day. Brighten at least one person’s day, even if you can’t brighten your own.’

  Chapter Three

  Evening group was always the worst part of Pam’s day. The patients gathered in a circle in the family room—to feel ‘more connected’—and shared what progress they had each made that day. There were a lot of tears, a lot of shameful admissions, but sometimes a few joyous moments where a man or woman would say, ‘I did it. I actually did it’, meaning that they had a breakthrough, they felt good, they got up and didn’t feel like dying that day. Those were the moments that the group leaders lived for. Everyone in the circle would clap for the lucky patient, partially because they were all proud of them, partially because they were jealous that they had somehow found a way out of the endless hallway with no doors and no windows that the fellow depressed patients were still stuck in.

  That night, Pam was sitting next to an ex-junkie with tattoos up her young, pale arms. The girl couldn’t have been more than eighteen years old, barely old enough to check herself in on her own. Pam could have been her mother. The thought occurred to her as the girl was finishing telling the group about her day, how she had wanted a hit so bad that afternoon when she’d seen some visitors sharing a kiss in the lobby.

  The realization shocked her, seemed to lock her bones and muscles into place, and Pam felt herself lose her footing somehow and was tumbling away from the circle, slowly losing her grip on the antibiotic-riddled air and the uniform seats and the all-too-real feelings jelling in the other patients around her.

  “Pam? Pam?” she heard someone call to her from the dark abyss, “Pam?” the feminine voice called out again, “Pam, are you alright?”

  Pam’s eyes cleared and she saw the nurse leading the group therapy meeting staring at her. A couple of other patients had their eyes locked on Pam as well, but most of them knew exactly what had happened to her. She’d fallen down for a second and hadn’t wanted to get up.

  Pam shook her head, wiping at her dry eyes, “Yes, yes, I’m okay. I’m fine. I was just—just thinking about my day.” She knew the answer would lessen some of the concern held by the nurse.

  But the concern was only replaced with pleased curiosity, “Oh? And how was your day?”

  Pam used to ask her husband that question every day after he got home from work. The words used to be so empty, just a conversation starter. Now they inflicted a kind of panic that her answer wouldn’t be up to par, that she would disappoint and have to apologize, again. It kick-started an endless loop that Pam was constantly running.

  “Pam how was your day?” the nurse repeated, less cordially this time.

  “I wrote down a goal, today,” she blurted, when her mind finally arrived at a suitable answer.

  The nurse raised her eyebrows, “Did you? That’s fantastic, Pam. And what is that goal?”

  She spoke slowly; her words seemed to ooze out of her like cold syrup that had been bottled up and refrigerated for too long, “To wake up every morning and try to make someone else’s day a little better.”

  “That’s very benevolent of you, Pam. But what about trying to make your own day better?”

  Pam thought for a second, recounting the strange boy she had met earlier. He seemed a hundred years old, possessing perspectives and encompassing theories that forced Pam’s mind into somersaults as it tried to decipher the real meanings behind them all.

  “I need to be the giver for a little while, I suppose. And who says that the giver doesn’t get anything, either? Who says the giver never gets anything in return?” Her eyes darted away from the carpet and met the nurse’s confused look, “What if I gain something too, just by giving? What if, by trying to make others’ days better, I make my own day, and maybe even life, better in the process? What if—what if helping others is just a small piece?”

  A large part of helping you, even though it may seem like a little piece, William Thomas’ words echoed in Pam’s head, and she couldn’t help but feel like the boy had intended this epiphany for Pam all along.

  “I’m sorry, the giver? Pam, what—”

  But Pam wasn’t listening to the nurse’s words anymore. She was busy inspecting the crack she’d discovered inside of her: the one that now dissected the endless hallway so that a sliver of light sliced a silver dagger through the darkness. And while the constant pain was still very much present, a weed that took time to uproot, the prospect that it might disappear one day had been planted right alongside it inside Pam’s mind.

  The following morning, Pam met Ingrid in the food line to accept breakfast and her morning cup of decaf. The nurse handed her a cup of pills and a shot of orange juice, because, really, what are antidepressants without liquefied vitamin C? She swallowed the pills and showed the nurse her empty mouth before taking a seat with Ingrid by the windows in the corner. It had become their table and the other patients seemed to respect their space by leaving it empty for them that morning.

  “So, what was up with you yesterday at group?” Ingrid asked, shoveling some eggs into her mouth.

  Pam took a sip of her coffee and felt herself smile inside, “I met a little boy yesterday, William Thomas.”

  Ingrid drew her eyebrows together, “A boy, huh? Did you see your husband too?”

  Pam started to shake her head; she wasn’t hallucinating. She had a long list of problems to sort through, but seeing things that weren’t there wasn’t one of them…was it? When she thought about it some more, Ingrid’s point started to scare her. The nurse hadn’t mentioned the little boy and no one paid the two of them any attention when she and William Thomas had been talking. No one else had seen him. She hadn’t touched him, so she’d never known if he was really there, sitting in front of her, telling her everything that she wanted to hear.

  Her hands let go of the coffee cup that was on the way to her lips and it clattered down on the table. Pam felt a dull warmth running into her lap and down her legs, dripping off her ankles. She knew that it should have scalded her skin, the coffee that she’d spilt on herself, but she barely felt it.

  “Oh my God. You’re right. I imagined him,” she whispered, staring out the window that was at her side. Of course, it all made sense, now that Pam thought about it. Nothing and no one could have been that optimistic about life or unharmed by the world. He was too good to be true. Her depressed mind had dreamt him up as an escape hatch out of this place. But then, what about the crack she’d sworn she’d found inside of her, the unlikely satisfaction she felt at the idea of improving? Or had that simply been a side effect of hallucinating?

  She blinked her eyes, trying to bring herself back to the table by the windows, “Ingrid, I—”

  Ingrid reached out a hand and steadied Pam’s own shaking palm, “That’s alright. It’s hard to come to terms with it in the beginning. I remember the first time I saw my daughter.”

  Pam wished that she had the energy to stand up, stalk off, screaming at Ingrid for making her feel so small. That was all she wanted to do; make them all see that she hadn’t
imagined the perfect boy, that he was perfect and real at the same time. Maybe if she yelled it, she might believe it too. But all she could do was whisper, “He was so real. I needed him to be real.”

  Pam moved through the rest of her day in an achy haze. It felt like she was dragging through thick, sloppy mud with jeans on, just trying to get through the normal actions of her day. Every step hurt, granted this wasn’t new. The only difference between this pain and the pain she’d encountered on all other days, was that Darin wasn’t the cause of it. Pam was. And the only person she thought could possibly make it better was the one person that she couldn’t have, the one person that had sent her on this downward spiral ten years ago.

  Before she knew it, she was back before the embodiment of her disease, on the bench, at the table, by the windows.

  William Thomas sat completely still for the second day in a row. He hadn’t said a word to Pam since she’d entered the visitor lobby and taken the seat beside him. Or if he had spoken, Pam hadn’t heard.

  “I can’t take this. Just go, just leave me alone.”

  Pam hadn’t realized that she’d shared the thoughts aloud until she looked at the little boy and saw the momentary hurt in his clear eyes.