“You have a grasp of so much, Kendra.”
“For a wacko.”
“I’m more interested in your feelings. What was going through your mind that night?”
“Picture your husband chopping off your hair,” Kendra said. “Picture him slitting his own throat. Picture that, for starters. Then picture me holding the knife.”
“You admit to holding the knife.”
She jiggled her head in the negative, not to deny the truth but to assimilate it in her mind. “Joel staged it to make it look that way. He put the knife into my hand and forced me to do it.”
“Your memory turned it around.”
“Joel turned it around.”
“Before or after you slit his throat.”
“Before.” Kendra heard what it sounded like. It sounded crazy, even to her. She tried to explain. “I couldn’t fight back. He was too strong.”
“Give me a reason why I should believe your version.”
“We owe a ton of money. He wants to put my mother in a state institution. But first, he has to put me in one. It all goes together. Like a layer cake.”
“After he does everything you say, then what? What has he accomplished?”
“He’ll have Mac’s money.”
Defeated, the doctor sat back. “You’ve given up, haven’t you?”
“Deal with it. I have.”
“All right ...” The doctor wasn’t as collected as Kendra supposed. Half-moon patches stained the underarms of her suit. She was at a loss of how to approach her patient, how far she ought to push her, or how far back she should bend. “Tell me your side of it.”
“You weren’t listening.”
Collecting her thoughts, the doctor tapped her fingers on the shiny surface of her desk. Her office hadn’t changed since last winter except for heavy drapes replacing wooden blinds. Seeing that slats let in just enough sunlight to give the patient hope, the doctor should have kept the blinds. “You were supposed to follow up with me on a regular basis. If you had, none of this would’ve happened.”
“I’d still be sitting in this chair.”
“On a voluntary basis as opposed to an involuntary one.”
“It would have come to this anyway. Joel planned it from the beginning.”
“Did he?” Evelyn shifted her head. She was thinking about everything Kendra had said, trying to put it together, looking for a way to believe her patient despite all the contradictory evidence. She gave up and said, “You stopped taking your meds.”
“I’m pregnant,” she said, as if it explained everything. “What am I on now? I can barely stay awake.”
“That’s to be expected.”
“What about the fetus? Are the drugs dangerous?”
“There’s always the possibility.”
“Then why give them to me?”
“It’s either that or jeopardize your own health, which would jeopardize the fetus in any event. You can refuse the meds, but I advise against it.”
“Why? Because it would give you the perfect excuse to hold me here for the full ninety days. And then another ninety days after that?”
“This isn’t a jail.”
“Forgive me, but when there are locks on the door and jailers guarding the gate, it sure feels like one.”
The doctor consulted her notes. “It seems your latest psychotic episode started with a dress.”
“Wasn’t my color.”
“And the receipt?”
Kendra delivered the artificial smile again. “Couldn’t find it.”
“You threw it out.”
“I didn’t buy the dress.”
“Or don’t remember buying it.”
“Joel’s law clerk bought it. The store has a video.” Kendra ran fingers through her cropped hair. “You still haven’t told me what I’m on. They’ve given me little yellow pills, but they’re different from the Risperdal.”
“Clozaril. Two-hundred milligrams.”
“Going up to ...?”
“You’re an intelligent woman, Mrs. Swain. I’ll be straight with you. Clozaril is an antipsychotic drug. It’s used to treat schizophrenia.”
“Very good, Doctor. I have my badge of honor. And the fatigue?”
“Will abate over time.”
“Not if you keep increasing the dosage. When I get out of here, will I be able to function? Will I know my own name? Will I know Joel’s? Can I ever be trusted around a knife again? What else have you written down on your yellow notepad? Another pill?”
“Prozac. Twenty milligrams to start. A green-and-yellow capsule.”
“Graduating to?”
“Green and orange.”
“What does Prozac do?”
“Take away these feelings of depression.”
“How miraculous. Side effects?”
The doctor blinked before answering. “Anxiety.”
“But there’s a pill for that, too.” When the doctor didn’t answer, Kendra licked her lips. “How long before the medications take effect? Before I can get out of here?”
“Let’s go down that road when we get to it.”
“I’m the kind of woman who studies roadmaps before she goes on a trip.”
“Anywhere from two to six weeks.”
Kendra reasoned out the pros and cons. Weeks or months, what did it matter? In the long haul, Joel would get his way unless she could do something to stop him. And she needed her full mental capacity, at least what was left of it, to help herself and her baby. “Take me off the medication. Give it to Joel instead. He needs it more than me.”
“You’d be making a monumental mistake.”
“Maybe so, but I have to think about the child. He or she already has a bad start. I don’t want to make it worse.”
“You’ll have to sign a release.” When Kendra shrugged, the doctor made a note.
“Did Joel tell you about the blackouts? He did, didn’t he?” A smile rose on her lips, not a funny-bone smile, but the kind of smile the devil’s handmaiden dispenses to a sinner. “He used Rohypnol. GHB.”
“The date-rape drug,” the doctor said.
“I can’t prove it, of course. But it comforts me to know it wasn’t all in my head. It was a trick, you understand. A trick of the mind. Perpetrated by a master magician.”
Evelyn took in the information without showing anything. Plainly she didn’t believe Kendra. The same way she didn’t believe Joel had sliced his own throat.
“Has Joel been released from the ICU?”
“Several days ago.”
She turned the information around in her mind. “Time compresses, doesn’t it, when you’re living in hell. No one would say before. I’ve been asking. Do you think they heard me? Do you hear me now?”
“Mental illness does that to you.”
“Makes me mute?”
“Compresses time.”
“What day is it today?”
“Thursday.”
“When did everything happen?”
“Last Thursday.”
She leaned her tired head onto a tired fist and thought about the events that led up to this predictable moment. “I suppose mental illness depends on perspective, Doctor. You believe I’m schizophrenic. I don’t. Did once. Not anymore. I’m so sure I’m not sick, I’d be willing to bet my life on it. Ergo, from that statement alone, you’re certain I am. Whereas I believe, with the same certainty, that Joel is the one who’s sick.”
“He’ll be back at work in a week or two.”
“I won’t.”
“He’s been calling every day, several times a day, asking after you.”
“It’s not that he cares, Doctor. He doesn’t want me to interfere. He’s buying time to make sure everything comes out his way.”
The doctor made a note in the file. Kendra would have liked to read that note. Patient delusional. Blames everything on husband. When Evelyn finished writing, she laid down the pen and folded her arms. It appeared the formalities were over. “Birdie told me a fe
w interesting things. But I want to hear the truth from you, not the glib version. What’s been going on between you and Joel?”
“I told you. He’s insane and I’m not.”
“I’m speaking at a deeper level.”
“It’s not deep at all. It’s very simple.” Silence had a way of making Kendra speak, even when words couldn’t solve what was wrong between her and Joel. The doctor already heard the truth and didn’t believe it, even to the point of discounting anything Birdie might have told her. Glibness was the only weapon Kendra had left in her arsenal. “If your degrees mean anything, you would’ve already figured it out. He’s making me look insane, and I’m making it look good. We’re working on it together. It’s a husband-and-wife thing.”
“He’s prepared to take you back.”
“So long as I stick to the regimen. Or back to the psycho ward for me.”
“You think we’re against you. We’re not. We’re for you.”
“The thing of it is, I was more than willing to go mad rather than believe my husband was driving me crazy. That’s the kind of wife I am.”
Chapter 35
KENDRA AND GERALD were alone inside the droning elevator. They didn’t speak. There was nothing to say.
When the doors opened on a teeming lobby, it was like stepping out of a burial chamber and into a moving picture of the way life used to be. The revolving door—so near and yet so far—let people inside, but also provided a way out, into a placid summer day filled with blinding daylight and cruising taxis. The fast tempo matched the pulse in her gut.
Gerald slid between Kendra and the exit, and clamped onto her arm securely enough to bring her quietly along but gentle enough not to hurt her. The power he exerted was impersonal, yet a grin consumed his typically intractable expression. Clearly he took pride in his ability to read a madwoman’s mind and handle her with relative ease.
They strolled through a corridor and walked past a waiting area, a gift shop, and another door promising deliverance. He called for the elevator. People loitered in the vicinity, visitors for the most part, clutching flowers and chocolates. Everything seemed incredibly normal, except for the prison guard standing beside her.
She said, “You guys ought to rethink this arrangement.”
He stared at attention, his gray eyes fastened on the floor indicators.
“Coming this way, I mean. It’s a jolt for nutcases like me to be walking among the sane. The temptation to run off is too great.”
He adjusted his hold.
“If I made a scene, right here and right now, I could probably get away.”
He gazed down at her attire and snickered.
She indicated the bustling throng of people. “They’d be on my side.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” He shifted his weight. “You’d get me in trouble.”
“Exactly my point. There must to be a back way. So I won’t be tempted to run. A freight elevator. Or underground walkway.”
His massive hand and fat fingers loosened, snaked down the length of her arm, and reattached at her wrist, though not as tightly as before.
“Make a formal proposal, Gerald. Put it before the board. They’ll promote you to head of security by Labor Day.”
The elevator rang its arrival. They stepped onboard with a sea of other passengers.
Over the next few days ... or was it weeks ... Kendra established a routine that made her vanish, irrespective of the teddy bears and Gerald’s abiding presence. Tractable is what they were after; tractable is what they purchased, pills or no pills. Popsicle sticks and Play Dough occupied many an idle hour. Television permanently tuned to cable news expunged a university degree. In group therapy, she espoused the correct bromides in proper grammatical order. In the meditation room, she made the walls disappear. In the workout room, she walked the treadmill five miles a day, letting the whirr of machinery cloud out nightmarish scenes that included blood, screams, and sirens. Since she wasn’t on a diet of pills, she was closely watched. Every minute was recorded and categorized. Other patients stepped around her as if she were death warmed over. In a way, she was.
A shopping bag containing warm-up clothes, athletic shoes, and underwear was left in her room. The store tags were still attached. A gift from Doctor Silverstein, Kendra presumed. Or perhaps Birdie. In any case, Joel was probably still a patient in the hospital, lying in a bed just down the corridor or around the corner, and grieving as Kendra was grieving but in a much different way.
For better and worse, for richer and poorer, in sickness and health, ’til death do us part. Even when flesh was separated from flesh and mind from mind, their marriage vows endured.
Gerald came early to collect Kendra for her Friday appointment. With a grin stuck on his otherwise placid face, he took her down a freight elevator and walked her through a series of underground passageways. Doors marked RADIOLOGY, PHLEBOTOMY, and ONCOLOGY were arrayed like houses on a Monopoly board. He didn’t say anything, but evidently, this was a special day.
“That was quick,” she said.
“You’re an important patient.” His eyes slid sideways. “Your father-in-law went to school with Judge Ball, the same judge who signed the commitment papers. That’s why you’re not in County Hospital. The state’s attorney wanted to prosecute. He saw your case as a political springboard since Jordan Swain is an ally of the mayor.”
“It’s a good thing my husband didn’t die then.”
“If he had, would’ve been murder in the first. As it is, your father-in-law wants everything kept quiet. He wants to be the next governor. Instead of what’s-his-name, the state’s attorney. He’ll do everything he can to keep you under wraps. You’ll probably be transferred to a state hospital once your health insurance runs out.” He glanced down at her expanding waistline. “But not before the baby is born.”
“You’re just chock full of bombshells, aren’t you, Gerald?”
“When I told my boss you might bolt, he immediately signed off.” He used a key on a chain to access a storage room. Together they walked past rows of dusty shelves and rusty file cabinets. “But this was my idea. I checked everything out very carefully. No one will disturb us.”
He pushed open the door of a secluded back office. Staleness blew out to greet them. The room was windowless and dark. Kendra made out a desk, a bookcase, a table and chairs, and a leather couch. She inhaled a bitter-tasting breath. The time was at hand when she must either commit to baseness or retreat to nobleness. If she chose the former, she could lose her soul. If she chose the latter, she could lose everything.
“Did I read you wrong?” he said. “When you suggested another route, I thought it was a hint for ... for something else.”
“You didn’t read me wrong. This is exactly what I meant.”
From the moment she took a street hustler into her loins and into her heart as a way to exact revenge on the man she truly loved, everything was destined to come to this moment, when she intended to use another lover to break the chains that bound her to a madman.
She entered the room. He followed. The door closed behind them on a hush. The click of the lock being engaged spurred her to wheel around. The motionless silhouette of a man taken in by trickery hovered near the door. “When’s the next election for governor?” she asked.
“Not for three years.”
“Can they keep me committed for three years?”
“I think they can keep you committed for as long as it takes. I think it’s up to you. I think they’re waiting for a sign.”
“What kind of sign?”
“That you’ve given up.”
Everything about the room was gray, including Gerald’s eyes. Kendra unzipped her hoodie and moved towards him. “What’s it like in the state hospital?”
“Worse than here.” Everything melted away but his gray eyes.
Ten minutes later, they took another freight elevator in the professional wing and arrived at Doctor Silverstein’s office. She eyed the pin watch on her la
pel, made a judgment call, and motioned Kendra inside. Gerald withdrew, closing the door after himself.
Kendra retired to the leather couch and engaged in a round of sarcastic repartee. They talked about Emily and Mac but left Joel out of the conversation. Kendra asked about privileges: visits, phone calls, and stainless steel utensils. “They won’t even trust me with plastic ones. Someone has to cut my meat for me.”
Evelyn gave Kendra one of her solicitous smiles. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Afterwards, Gerald reversed the route and the protocol. They did another quickie on the couch. He slapped his forearms on either side of her torso, aligning her beneath him. His gray eyes watched for some kind of reaction. “You must think I’m a jerk. Or hard up. I’m not, you know. I’m married,” he said, as if it explained everything. “I have kids. Responsibilities.”
“Life’s tough.”
“Damn straight.” And he cried.
Kendra pulled her arms around his quaking hulk and let him get it out of his system. The balance of power had transferred, but he wasn’t going to appreciate it until it was too late.
She stopped marking off her mental calendar and lost track of the days. In her universe, one day was exactly like another. Nations could be on the verge of nuclear annihilation, but world events weren’t going to change her situation unless the hospital became ground zero. No one came to visit. She gave up wondering why. She was on a list for telephone privileges, but her name never rose to the top. She’d gotten used to the absence of mirrors. She stopped asking when she was going home.
On a rainy day, the institutional air made tumid by summer seeping through the cracks of shatterproof windows, a patient jostled past her lunch table and slipped a note onto her cafeteria tray. Torn from the bottom edge of a legal pad, the paper was folded into eighths. Kendra stared at it before fingering it off the tray and slipping it into the pocket of her sweatpants.
Later she took her afternoon exercise. The treadmill whirred with her fast pace. The note was still in her pocket but no longer folded into eighths.
Days poured into nights, and nights into days. An idle life was a boring life, especially for the mad.
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