by Sandra Block
“Yeah, but the woman is insane, and he’s talking about releasing her.”
“Dr. Goldman,” Jason says, “this is a psychiatric facility. If you wanted to work with sane people, you should have gone into internal medicine.”
“Act-tually,” Dr. A says, “I do not think this would be a safe bet.” “Safe bet” is probably one he has been practicing. I have noticed he has started peppering phrases with idioms. “There are plenty of crazy people in internal medicine.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Radiology then. Lots of sane people in radiology,” Jason says. “And I’d be making a shitload more money when I got out. Remind me why I didn’t go in to radiology again? Oh yeah, dark rooms, not good, kept falling asleep.”
I read out loud to them: “‘Patient voices regret over her past actions. States she would like to visit Children’s Hospital or become a Big Sister to help other children. Her dream is to become an elementary school teacher or social worker to help troubled kids, as she feels she was not helped.’ Is that not unbelievable? She’s acting like Mother Teresa, and he’s falling for it, hook, line, and sinker.”
“It’s a fishing metaphor,” Jason says as an aside to Dr. A, who is already writing.
“It’s bizarre. It’s like she’s gaslighting me,” I say.
Jason holds up his hand. “Old movie reference, don’t write it down.” Dr. A pauses with his pen above his notebook. Jason pitches the apple core into the wastebasket five feet away with a flourish and misses, earning some miffed stares from the nurses in the station.
“I’m not cleaning that shit up,” says one of said nurses.
Jason ambles over and scoops it up, shooting again and missing again. “Yeah, I was in the drama club,” he explains, picking it up and dropping it in directly above the can.
“I was, too!” says Dr. A, a bright smile bursting onto his chubby face. “Which plays did you perform? Although we did mainly Thai theater.”
“Would you people listen to me?” I say.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Jason says. “We heard the big news. Your patient is crazy. Not your issue, girl. It’s going to be Dr. Grant’s problem if something happens.”
“Like, you mean if she kills someone?” I shake my head. “That is completely fucked-up.”
“Hmmph,” Jason says. “What’s not?”
“Ah, this is true,” agrees Dr. A, as if we have just uncovered one of the world’s great truths. “What is not?”
* * *
Sofia is facing the window, sketching with her charcoals, when I walk in. Stepping closer, I see she is drawing a branch from the maple tree in the window, all the knots and whorls, the naked twigs. She stops when she hears my footsteps, holds the charcoal still for a few seconds, then starts up again.
“Looks good,” I offer.
“Hmm,” she responds. Even she has learned the “Hmm.”
I sit down, pulling open her chart on my lap. “Any more thoughts about what I said?”
“About what?” she asks.
“About talking about your mom.”
“Not really,” she says, her arm swaying in strokes. The room smells flowery, sweet. Like jasmine.
“Are you wearing perfume?” I ask.
She scratches out more detail in the bark. “It’s my body lotion. You like it?”
“Yeah,” I say. “It’s nice.”
Sofia turns around from her drawing and smiles at me. It is an all-knowing, mocking smile. Then she turns her head again and goes back to her drawing. Her smile unsettles me, but then again, I might have imagined it.
“Everything okay in group therapy?”
“Yeah,” she says, noncommittal.
“How about the food?” I ask, half in jest.
“The food sucks. That’s nothing new.”
“Do you have visitors bring you anything from the gift shop?”
Here she lets out a withering laugh. “What visitors?”
I have no answer for this. You kill your mom, and you don’t get a lot of visitors. I decide to circle back to my original question. “You know, Sofia,” I say, jotting down my note on the lined hospital paper, which looks much the same as yesterday’s note, “we’re going to have to talk about it eventually. If you ever want the chance to tell your side of things.”
“Hmm,” she says again, to the window, still drawing.
I pause, toying with a paper clip from the chart. “I noticed, from looking at the notes, that you seem to open up more with other members of the team.”
She looks up from her sketch. “You mean Dr. Grant?”
“Yes.”
“Oh,” she says, scratching into the paper, “I just tell him what he wants to hear.”
The paper clip squeezes lines into my index finger. “What do you mean?”
She shrugs, dotting the page with her charcoal. “It’s not like I just started playing this game, Dr. Goldman. I’ve been doing this for twenty years now. He’s just like everyone else I’ve ever met in this kind of place. He loves to talk. Talk, talk, talk, talk, words, words, words, words. So I’m just giving him what he wants.”
I pause. “You mean you’re lying to him?”
“I didn’t say that,” she amends. “No one said the word ‘lying.’ It’s not like what I’m telling him is untrue.” She is grinding the charcoal on the page now, and dark knots spring up on the bark. “I would like to become a teacher or be a Big Sister for some underprivileged kids. It’s never going to happen, I know that. But talking about it doesn’t hurt anyone.”
Now she’s talking in circles. “But you just said you were only saying what you thought Dr. Grant wanted to hear.”
Sofia gazes at me with pity in her eyes. “It’s complex, Dr. Goldman. Maybe I’m saying what we both want to hear.”
“Okay,” I say, realizing we are not any closer to the truth. I close the chart and stand up. Therapy dispensed, on to the next victim. “See you tomorrow then.”
“Yup, see you tomorrow.”
I walk out, the scent of jasmine lotion trailing into the hallway.
* * *
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and my heart leaps like a gazelle. It has been over a week since Jean Luc’s last text, not that I’m counting. The number is unlisted, which means he’s probably at work at the new government job.
“Hello,” I say in my sexiest, “Happy birthday, Mr. President” voice.
“Dr. Goldman?”
“Yes,” I answer, confused, realizing this is not my little kumquat.
“Dr. Grant here. You just have the two patients, right?”
“Yes,” I say, my heart slowing to the pace of a geriatric gazelle.
“There’s someone in the ER, needs to be seen for a consult. Delirium versus new onset schizophrenia.”
I am taking this all down. “Okay?”
“Elderly female, bed eight. Just do the consult, and we can all see her later after we round on the floor patients.”
“Okay, is she—” I ask, but he has already disconnected with his typical social grace. Looping my stethoscope over my neck, I head off to the ER.
The place is packed as usual. Patient beds overflow in lines up and down the hall. Snatches of conversations float around the room.
“Can we get an NG in room eight?”
“So I’m like, ‘Don’t tell me he did that because I am not about to hear that…”
“Nurse, nurse, please! I’m in agony over here!”
I sidle up to bed eight, ignoring stares as I walk by. You would think the man vomiting blood in room ten would be more interesting than a six-foot-something female in a lab coat, but apparently this is not the case.
“How’s the weather up there?” a nurse asks me with a cutesy smile as I enter and she exits the room. I smile until my teeth hurt.
As I leaf through the chart of kind old Mrs. Rosenberg, aka Bed Eight, an ER resident strides into the room and looks me up and down. “Hey,” he says by way of greeting. “You the psych resident?”
“That’d be me.”
“Mike,” he says, and I shake his hand.
“Zoe.”
Mike is cute. He’s tall with an athletic build verging on gym rat from working out against the bloat of night work and all the crappy snacks at the nurses’ station.
“So what’s going on with this one?” I ask.
The patient is looking at me warily. “I’m not going to answer any questions, so don’t even ask,” she says. Her voice is querulous and shaky. “My husband put you up to this, didn’t he?”
I stare at her, startled by the charge.
“Don’t lie to me, I know he did,” she continues, getting angrier.
“It’s okay, Mrs. Rosenberg,” I say in as soothing a voice as possible. I can have a soothing voice when I try; I’ve been practicing. I don’t touch her hand because I can tell that would set her off.
Mike puts his hands on his hips, revealing impressive biceps from under his scrubs. This may have been the purpose of putting his hands on his hips. “Her husband went to the cafeteria,” he says. “But over the last few weeks, he says she’s been acting odd. Accusing him of poisoning her, saying he’s having affairs.” He shrugs. “He’s eighty, so that would be pretty impressive.”
Mrs. Rosenberg’s eyes veer back and forth, as if she’s watching a tennis match. She turns to Mike. “She’s in on it,” she says, pointing to me. “I know she’s one of his hussies.”
Mike laughs and raises his eyebrows at me. “Now, now, Mrs. Rosenberg.”
“‘Now, now’ nothing,” she crows. “I know what I know.”
The room curtain clinks open. “Hello?” an elderly voice calls out. “Can I come in?”
It is Mr. Rosenberg. He looks kindly enough, in his navy V-neck and khakis, carrying coffee for his wife. He doesn’t look as if he’s poisoning anyone, much less having an affair with me.
“And her labs are?” I ask.
“One hundred percent normal. Little hypertension, nothing else. She just got back from CT, so we’re waiting on an official read, but I didn’t see anything. No big stroke or bleed anyway.”
So this could actually be elderly onset paranoid schizophrenia and not a completely bullshit ER consult after all.
“Wanna take a peek at the CT?” Mike asks.
We duck through the checkered peach curtain to a Stone Age computer in the center of the room and scroll through the images. No bleed, no stroke. Mike is standing close to me, close enough for me to smell his aftershave. Pine something.
He clears his throat. “Hey, I know you’re kind of involved with Mr. Rosenberg and all, but if that doesn’t work out for you, would you ever want to grab some coffee or something?”
I stare at him for an uncomfortable four seconds, ascertaining that he is in fact serious. “Mike, you seem like a nice guy—”
Here he winces melodramatically and says, “But…”
“But…I’m kind of seeing someone already.” As I say this, I wonder if this is true. My pseudoboyfriend, who is five hundred miles away, whose last text was over a week ago, in tersely written French I had to look up. I’m starting to wonder if “broken up” means broken up. “Someone not married to my patient,” I add.
He laughs and crosses his arms, biceps poking out through his sleeves again. “Oh well, the best ones always are. I had to try,” he says. “Maybe I could get your number, just in case.”
I grab the patient’s chart, ready to head back to her room and be pummeled by a woman scorned. Hell hath no fury. “If you really want me,” I say, flirting I suppose, but not quite ready to give up my digits, “just ask for a psych consult.”
Chapter Eight
Moonlight is spattered on the tile floor.
A whirring noise buzzes next to me, vibrating in my head. I am curled up, so they can’t see me.
“Zoe?” a voice calls out. “Where are you?”
I don’t answer, curl myself tighter. The smell of smoke tickles my nose, and I hold my breath. My heart beats in my ears.
“Zoe? Come on out, honey!”
Footsteps track outside the door and I watch them, still holding my breath. My lungs are blowing up, aching. I cling to Po-Po. My hands are smeared with blood, seeping under the cuffs of my nightgown. I wonder if I’ll get in trouble for staining it, the way I did when I spilled hot chocolate on my new pants and Dad got angry.
Shadows of tree branches sway on the floor, like snakes.
I can’t hold my breath anymore, my heart is thumping out of my chest, and I gasp.
The footsteps stop as the door opens.
A muscular man in a yellow rubber coat stands in the doorway, blocking the light. He has a huge ax over his shoulder as if he might be chopping trees. “Zoe?” he asks.
“Yes?” I say, hesitant.
His face is stoic, serious, but then he smiles. At first it is a kind smile, but it changes into an eerie, spooky smile, and he pulls back the ax in slow motion, and the sharp silver edge shimmers as it flies right toward me.
“Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!” I scream out, falling to the floor as he winds up for another swing.
* * *
“Hey!” Scotty shakes my shoulder. I leap away from him as if he is on fire, smacking my elbow against the wall. Shocks race down my arm.
“Zoe, what the fuck?” He stares at me across the bed. “Seriously. What’s going on? Isn’t your psycho doctor helping you out with this shit?” That’s his pet name for Sam, and all of my previous psychiatrists: “psycho doctors.” And now I’m becoming one.
I shrug, my mouth too dry to speak, and I’m too shaky to trust my voice anyway. He stares at me another long second, and his eyebrows soften into a look akin to tenderness. I feel a flood of love for him and understand in a flash what all these women are seeing in my annoying little brother, more than just a cheap James Dean imitation.
“I’m fine,” I say, throat sore from screaming. “Go back to sleep.”
He doesn’t get up from the bed. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. Really. Go to sleep.”
Scotty stands up, stretching, looks at me a last time, and turns around to pad off to his bedroom. Whereas, I pad off to the bathroom, where my new stock of Xanax is patiently waiting to still my nerves. I do not yet have to ration my supply this month. Then I am in my bed, lying on my back and waiting for the Xanax to kick in, like a bride waiting for her spouse. Without realizing it, I am plunging into another dream.
A panicky dream of looking for something, but I don’t even know what I’m looking for. I’m asking everyone if they know where it is. I ask Jason, Dr. A, my mom, Scotty. It’s as if they are all in some kind of “Zoe’s subconscious” cocktail party, and I’m weaving my way through them. They are talking, trying to tell me where I put this thing, but I cannot hear them. I just see mouths moving, which sends me into a deeper panic. They are all milling around, ignoring me and talking silently to one another. Finally, I reach Jean Luc. I ask him if he knows what I am looking for, and he opens up his beautiful mouth (I find it beautiful, even in the dream) and says, “Que sera, sera.”
“But that’s not even French,” I point out, but he doesn’t hear me.
Chapter Nine
Another day in paradise.
I’m running late because I couldn’t find a parking spot in the resident lot, so I had to drive over to the overflow parking on the opposite side of the hospital. I slip into the seat between Jason and Dr. A, scalding my hand with coffee and simultaneously staining my new khaki pencil skirt (which lightened my credit card by fifty bucks last week), and last but not least, earning the unambiguous glare of Dr. Grant for being late.
This morning’s Grand Rounds lecture is “The Theory of Memory,” given by Dr. Wong from the neuropsychiatry department. Neuropsychiatrists are geekier than either psychiatrists or neurologists, which is no easy feat. In the Olympic sport of Geekdom, neuropsychiatrists would win the gold medal hands down, psychiatry silver, and neurology a close bronze. Dr. Wong is no excep
tion. He wears khakis and a short-sleeve yellow button-down shirt every single day, winter or summer, along with large, white sneakers you might see elderly folks wearing for laps through the mall, though Dr. Wong is in his forties. He surely invited his share of Kick Me signs in his time.
“Ahhhhm, there are many theories of memory, starting back in 1896 with Sir William Osler,” Dr. Wong drones. His voice is more powerful than Xanax. I may doze off despite the third-degree burn on my hand.
“He gave this lecture last year in medical school,” Jason whispers to me. “Brutal.”
Dr. A, meanwhile, is sitting on the edge of his seat, eyes wide open, as if it’s the last inning of the World Series.
“Ahhhhm, then, in the early 1900s was the empiricist theory of the association by contiguity.”
“Brutal” is being kind. I am fighting the urge to check my e-mail with every fiber in my soul, knowing if I do, Dr. Grant might leap out of his chair to throttle me.
“John Locke and John Stuart Mill, ahhhhm, are prime examples of philosophers of empiricism.” His voice carries on in its monotonous tone for another ten minutes. Jason has started a tally sheet on his “ahhhms” and even Dr. A’s eyes are a touch glazed now. Dr. Grant is checking his e-mail on the sly.
I slump back in the chair and allow my brain to wander, an activity that’s a true pleasure for me, as I’ve been working on coping skills since birth to keep my brain 100 percent focused. Every once in a while, a dog likes to be off his leash.
My mind instantly fastens on to last night’s dream. Of course, the kindly volunteer fireman turns out to be homicidal. I am probably the only person who could use dream rehearsal to make a nightmare worse. At this point, I have to face the fact that the nightmare is not a fluke, but a recurring problem. And if inserting a fireman won’t work (in fact, I dread ever seeing his face again), I have to try something else. The best way to quiet this beast, to steal it out of my subconscious and kill it dead in the light of day, is to solve it. I open my iPad, pull up a note, and start writing.