by Sandra Block
“You’ve made a life here,” I offer.
She snorts. “Oh yeah. Art therapy. Group talk therapy. Recreational therapy. The fun never stops around here.”
A laugh rings out at the next table over, as if to bely her point. My other patient, the teenage girl with the cutting scars, is sitting with a new patient, a heavy girl with an enormous butterfly tattoo starting at the back of her waistline and traveling up to her scapulas. It’s unattractive to the point of tattoo artist malpractice; I can only imagine how it will look in twenty years. Both girls wear heavy, kohl-black eyeliner, cracking jokes to each other. In their hospital gowns, they are simpatico, fat and thin versions of the same girl: sad, artistic, misunderstood. I wonder if this is who Sofia Vallano used to be: sad, artistic, misunderstood. And matricidal.
“Were you happier in the old place?”
“What, you mean my former mental hospital?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm.” Sofia considers this. “Maybe.” She layers her cards in a long row. The cards are tattered and marked from years of cigarette-stained fingers and coffee-cup rings. “I didn’t think about things as much.”
“But maybe it’s good to think about things more. Face them.”
Sofia smirks at me a second, then goes back to her cards. “Good to face my father raping me every night? Good to face stabbing my brother? I’m not seeing how this is so wonderful.”
I notice she didn’t mention killing her mother. “Facing things isn’t always easy, but it gets us somewhere.”
“Yeah, well, I was fine with stagnant, thank you.”
I decide to change tacks. “Did you have any friends there, at the old place?”
“Friends?” she repeats, as if this is a foreign concept. “Sort of, I guess. Mostly people who would come and go. No lifers like me. At least, no lifers you could actually carry on a conversation with.”
“I could see how that would be.”
“Not like you,” she says.
“Like me?” I ask her, surprised.
“Yeah. Like you.” She lays down another row. “I like you,” she says, almost shyly.
“I like you, too, Sofia. And I want to help you.”
She gathers her cards again and shuffles them with a loud rattle. “I don’t know if you can.”
“All I can do is try,” I say.
She shuffles again, then taps the deck on the table. I see the patient who thought he was Jesus, milling about. He is asking the other patients for cigarettes, but no one gives him one. “Maybe if I had a goal,” Sofia says.
“A goal?”
“You know, a purpose.”
I can guess where this is going. “Such as being released?”
“Yes, that would be a good goal,” Sofia says, flipping down a row of cards, not looking at me.
“Let’s focus on getting you feeling better first,” I say, avoiding the subject. “How’s the Wellbutrin working?”
“It’s crap,” she says, smacking another card down.
“We just added it. It might take time.”
“At the old hospital I had a goal at least.”
“Okay. What was your goal there?”
Sofia’s blue eyes narrow at me, then she returns to her game. “Maybe that’s for me to know and you to find out.”
And this from someone who supposedly likes me. She lays the bait, and for the millionth time, I don’t bite. Though it’s hard to know if these pissed-off moments represent Sofia the psychopath or Sofia the irritably depressed. To give her the benefit of the doubt, she does consider the thought of suicide “delicious.”
I shut her chart. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Sofia.”
She doesn’t answer, and I walk out of the break room with some relief, leaving her to the buzzing fluorescent light illuminating her cards. When I sit down in the room behind the nurses’ station to check my e-mail on my phone, I see two voice mails waiting, both from Jean Luc. I put the phone up to my ear to hear the first message, my breathing speeding up.
“Please call me. It is important, Zoe.” Loud breath, waiting. “Okay, talk to you soon.”
Next message: “I know you are mad at me, Zoe. But I just need to talk to you. Please, Zoe, answer the phone.” Here he waits a good thirty seconds, as if he doesn’t get the concept that it’s already gone to voice mail. “It’s over with Melanie. C’est fini. Call me.”
My heart goes into spasm. “C’est fini.”
Whether he wants me back, though, or to lean on me in his time of need, I’m not sure. Blond, thin, wispy, beautiful Melanie. Jean Luc–beautiful. The kind of dreamy, mythical creature you might see walking down a red carpet, shyly smiling at her premiere, flashbulbs blinding her. And it’s over.
Jason walks into the room and snags a nacho chip from the tray in the middle of the room. He crinkles his nose. “Stale.”
“Yeah, that tray’s been sitting there, like, all month.”
He sits down beside me, flicks a thread off his knee. “I was hungry.”
“I can see that. Hey, what are you doing in an hour or so?”
“I don’t know, no plans. Why?”
“Want to go for a run?”
He lets out a loud sigh, patting his belly. “No, I don’t want to go for a run, but the three pounds on the scale this morning tell me that’s not such a bad idea.”
“Delaware Park?”
“Sure. Where?”
“Zoo side,” I say, smelling buffalo already. I walk to the elevators, passing the rec room and the silhouette of Sofia Vallano slumped over her cards.
* * *
“Why don’t we live in California?” Jason asks, already short of breath in the first twenty-five yards. “No sane person chooses to live where it snows six months of the year. There is no rational reason we are not currently in California.”
“Did you apply for a residency in California?” I ask.
“Of course,” he says, puffing. “Motherfuckers didn’t want me.”
“Okay. So that’s the rational reason you’re not currently living in California.”
“You don’t have to be so adamant about it.”
“I’m not being adamant. I’m just being factual.”
“Factual, my ass.”
Which really invites no response, so we keep running. It is cold out, but a soft cold. The sun is setting, imbuing the air with a tawny, bronze light. It is my favorite time of day to run. My feet are hitting the street with a satisfactory pound, Jason’s pace just off-step from mine. I fall into the rhythm of running, my brain smoothing scattered thoughts, my arms chugging effortlessly, and Jason’s ragged breathing a soundtrack. Jason inserts his earbuds and turns on his MP3 for his own soundtrack, as he ineptly raps along to some hip-hop. I can hear the beats through the earphones.
My mind wanders pleasantly, released from its leash.
Rochester, no-go. So I have one more mommy to try from my facial-recognition hit. Sylvia Nealon from Cleveland. Doubtful, but worth a shot. One last-ditch effort to find my birth mother before I do as Sam says and let go of my obsession and work on things with my real not-real mom. I might ask Scotty if he wants to accompany me on the last stretch of the search, but maybe not.
The smell of buffalo dung is fading as the golden light deepens into nighttime. Jason is keeping up, his breathing evening out now. I think again about Beth Winters. Maybe I will never know who she is, if she’s my mother or not, and I will just have to accept that. But then again, maybe Sylvia Nealon can give me the answer.
My mind saunters over to Sofia Vallano again, slapping down her cards. Is she ready for release? Dr. Grant’s plan: Get her depression under control, talk with Jack again, and “dismiss her from involuntary confinement to a mental institution.” “With daily outpatient therapy in the hospital to start off,” he said. “Of course we want to keep a close eye on her. And we also want her to be successful.” In my heart of hearts, I think Dr. Grant is right. It’s been twenty years. She deserves a shot. Even if I don’t wa
nt to have her over for tea.
Next up on the thought parade: Dah-dah-dah-dum…Jean Luc! Who is no longer with the svelte Meh-lah-nee and may or may not want me back, just as I may or may not want him back. I have listened to his message at least a dozen times now, like an itch I can’t stop scratching, but have shown inordinate impulse control and held off on calling him back. I picture the wine-scented cork, now long gone in a sanitation dump somewhere, paired with shame at my spectacular failure with Mike, who seems to have moved on swimmingly to a new Amazonian creature.
As we run on, feet banging the pavement, I hear the soft patter of hoofbeats and see a horse and buggy ahead, slowly clomping closer and closer to us. I’ve seen a few of these now in the park; it’s a new thing for Buffalo. “Romance in the Park” it’s called. Freeze your ass off under a thin flannel blanket on a horse-and-buggy ride through the park, smelling horse dung instead of buffalo dung, trés romantic.
I am pondering the cruelty of putting blinders on these horses when a gunshot goes off somewhere. Maybe it was a car backfiring, but it sounded like a gun, and even more concerning is that the horse is spooked by the noise and is now bucking and zigzagging in our direction.
It all happens in a second.
The driver in his cheesy top hat, red-faced and yanking the reins with all his might, calls out “Whoa, Ginger!” The couple inside clings to the carriage bench for dear life, Jason rips out his earbuds, and my foot transforms into a ball of pain as the carriage wheel, quite unromantically, rolls over it.
* * *
My foot throbs with every pulse, as if someone is rhythmically dropping an anvil on it. I know this seems unlikely, but that is how it feels. I am trying not to moan and not to focus on it, which is like thinking of something else while someone punches you repeatedly in the head.
“Girl, you look like shit,” says Jason, leaning on the bar of my gurney. We are in bed eighteen in the ER, not where I had planned on spending my Friday night.
“Thanks, Jason,” I choke out. “I was running. I wasn’t getting ready for a fucking pageant.”
“I’m just saying. You should always wear something decent. You never know.”
“You never know what?”
“Who you might meet! Your big Frenchman, Jean Luc. He could have been around the corner. Instead of that stupid horse.”
Here I allow myself a loud groan. “Please don’t say that name.”
“Why? He was superhot,” he says. “That boy was nothing to be ashamed of.”
I know Jason is just trying to distract me from the pain, but he is just plain annoying at this point. Still, he did manage to call 911 and convince them that yes, I got run over by a horse and buggy and needed an ambulance, while the carriage driver put the horse-smelling, scratchy red blanket over me so I wouldn’t go into shock. This is far better than Scotty, my usual running partner, would have done. He would have still been saying “What the fuck, Zoe? Seriously, a horse?”
Zing, zing, zing my foot is humming. I peek down at it, which is a mistake. A pot roast, purple with a hint of red, comes to mind. My foot has swollen to twice its usual size. I lean back again, light-headed.
“Ooh, girl, that looks nasty.”
“Again, completely unnecessary, Jason.”
Snatches of absentminded whistling echo closer and closer, then the curtain rips open, and of course, it is Mike peeking through. Here he whistles again, more of a “What the hell did you do to yourself?” kind of sound.
“Wow,” he says, almost chuckling. “Zoe, that’s impressive.” He sticks his head back out the curtain. “Nicki, we’re going to need ten milligrams morphine here.”
Morphine. Thank God.
“So what the hell happened?” He looks Jason up and down to figure out the relationship. Jason is looking him up and down for a different reason.
“I was running,” I say. “A horse and buggy rolled over me.” Every word is excruciating.
“Of course. The old horse-and-buggy jogging injury.” He flicks the X-ray up onto the light board. It is a half-inch lopsided. “See that?” he asks.
“No, Mike. I’m a psychiatrist. I tried to forget all the radiology I knew.”
“Okay, then. That is a broken third, fourth, and fifth metatarsal.”
“Holy shit,” Jason says, looking at the film.
“What this means,” Mike explains, “for the psychiatrists among us, is that you are going to get casted tonight, and you need to be off your leg for two weeks.”
“Two weeks?”
“At least. Maybe more. No work for a month.” He points to the syringe just handed to him. “How do you feel about the happy stuff?” he asks.
“Morphine?”
“Yup. Any allergies?” he asks, glancing at my chart.
“Nope. Bring it on.”
Mike plunges the needle into the IV bag port with a grin. The morphine tingles over me like a wave, turning the anvil hammering into a soft hum. My brain is drifting, everything soft and gooey. Mike’s face looms up in front of me. “You know, Zoe,” he says, “if you wanted to see me again, there are easier ways.”
I laugh, not a small titter, more of a rolling, elongated laugh. I have the odd feeling I will never stop laughing. Then my eyes start closing.
“Hey,” I mumble, grabbing his arm. “Who?” I ask, forgetting for a second what I was asking, then grasping it right before I fade off. “Who was the woman?”
He looks confused for a moment. “What woman? From the coffeehouse?”
“Yeah.” I am forcing my eyes to stay open, vision swimming double.
“Oh, that was my sister.” His voice takes on a teasing twinge. “Why, were you jealous?”
Chapter Thirty-One
There is no comfortable place to put my cast on the couch, though I don’t know why this should be a surprise. I give my toes, covered by an old navy-blue sock that has seen better days and smells like a locker room, a vicious scratch. I’m cutting down on the Vicodin, except at night, which has worked marvelously for my insomnia.
“You’re not taking it with the Xanax, though, right?”
“Right,” I answer. Well, maybe just a couple of times. Looking around the room, I sense that something is different, though I can’t place it.
“So,” Sam says, “about the incident in Rochester. Sounds like that was tough.”
“Incident,” as if it were a crime scene. “Yeah, it was disappointing. But I think I’ll give it one more shot.”
“Really?” he asks.
“I don’t know. Cleveland’s a quick drive, and I have some time off. It’s worth a try. I’m not hoping for much. She’s probably not going to end up being my mother.”
He nods. “Maybe not.”
“But if I don’t see for myself, I’ll never know.”
“That’s true.”
“So if I go and it’s not her—then it’s not her. End of story, case closed. I can move on.”
“Right,” he says, nodding again, and we both wonder if this is true.
“It’s the clock!” I yell out, and Sam turns to me, startled. “You changed the clock.” The old pewter one is gone, replaced by a dark brown, wood-grained clock, also more nautical of course.
“Yeah, I don’t know,” he says, moving his head to look at it. “I thought the other one was ticking too loudly.”
“Hmm,” I say, nodding. So now who’s got OCD? I scratch my knee. It’s as if my knee and my toe are in a competition to see which can itch more.
“Tell me, what are you going to do if it’s not your mother?”
“I don’t know.” I look out the side window at the parking lot. Piles of icy snow, frosted with dirt, stud the pavement. “I don’t even know what’s true anymore. I just don’t understand why my mom lied to me.”
“Why do you think?”
I work my fingers under the cast, dispatching another itch. “I honestly don’t know. Except, maybe, in some misguided attempt to protect me.”
Sam looks do
wn at this desk. His face reflects off the gloss. “You know, I have kids, Zoe. And I would do anything to protect them. Anything. That’s just how it is. It’s a natural instinct.”
“I’m sure that’s true,” I say, wondering at the fact that I had no idea that Sam had a family, and indeed no curiosity regarding the matter for nearly a year now. My therapist as an actual human being, what a concept. Sometimes my self-absorption knows no bounds.
“Maybe you’ll never know the reason, but you might want to start thinking of it in a positive, rather than a negative, light at this point.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, assume that there was a good reason for her lying to you. That she did have your best interests at heart, as she always has, and just try to leave it at that.”
I nod. “Yeah, maybe.” But I’ve never been much good at leaving it at that.
“So how’s your patient doing?” Sam asks.
“Sofia?”
“Yes.”
I shift my heavy leg, which is going numb, crumpling the leather.
“You can put that up on the table if you need to.” He points to the cast.
“Oh, right. Thanks.” I maneuver my leg onto the table with a minor crash, and he tries not to wince. He is probably going to disinfect that table from top to bottom as soon as I leave. “I haven’t been to work all week, but I have checked in. Nothing much new, I think. Kind of in a holding pattern. She says she was molested; her brother says she wasn’t.”
Sam smooths his goatee. “In these types of cases, it is usually customary to believe the victim.”
“Yes, I know,” I say to his minipsychiatry lecture. “And as much as I hate to say it, I actually do believe her.”
Sam twirls his pen in his fingers, a fake Montblanc. He has a few in the glossy brown pen box on his desk. “Why do you put it that way?” he asks.
“What way?”
“That you ‘hate’ to say you believe her? Odd thing to say about your patient, isn’t it?”
My cast squeaks against the tabletop. “I guess.”