by Merry Jones
“No, not tonight.”
“Zoe. The wedding’s on New Year’s Day. I’m planning to give it to her for Christmas.”
How touching. My ring would make a lovely Christmas gift. Technically, of course, it was not Michael’s to give, but a detail like that wouldn’t faze him; he just assumed he could have whatever he wanted. My property was his stash, there to dig into anytime.
“Gotta go, Michael.” I hung up, fuming.
Michael was so—so Michael. How had I married that man? Had I ever loved him? I wondered. He’d been smart, charming. Cute, in a soft, preppy sort of way. A great kisser. Ambitious, hardworking. But had I loved him? I wasn’t sure. More likely, back then, I’d had no sense of who I was. I’d tried to define myself through him, wrapping myself in his life and career as if they were a snug bathrobe. I’d married not so much to be with Michael as to be married. To be a wife. And the ring was a symbol of that marriage, of being Michael’s wife, someone I wasn’t anymore, didn’t want to be. I stood lost in thought, images and questions darting through my mind, until Molly zoomed downstairs, wearing her red sweatsuit.
“Found ‘em, Mom.”
“Good work.” I grabbed her for a hug.
She looked pensive. “Mom? How does the Tooth Fairy get in the house?”
“I guess she flies.”
She frowned. “She isn’t real, is she? You made her up.”
What should I tell her? I was late for work, had no time for a discussion. Molly at times revealed insight beyond her years; at others, she clung to childlike fantasies. I wasn’t sure which way to go on the Tooth Fairy. “I didn’t make her up. But can we save this for tonight when we have more time?”
Still frowning, she nodded, and I was temporarily off the hook. Angela approached, carrying socks. A block away, the church bell began ringing the hour. Oh Lord—I was late. It was nine. I grabbed my coat, said good-bye to Angela, kissed Molly, and ran out the door.
Jake stood at the bottom of our front steps, biceps bulging, sandy hair tied back in a ponytail, the dimple in his chin shadowed by three days of beard. “Morning, Ms. Hayes.”
“Hi,” I nodded.
“Watch yourself—your steps are icy,” he said. “I’ll have my guys sprinkle some salt.” “Thanks, Jake, that’s great.”
“No trouble.” His teeth twinkled when he smiled. Almost handsome, he would have been irresistible if his eyes were just a tiny bit farther apart. Jake’s contracting company had done most of the renovations on our street. He was always around, always helpful. When Molly was a baby, he’d helped me lift her stroller up the steps at least a hundred times. “Be careful,” he warned. “Sidewalk’s slippery.”
“Thanks, Jake.”
I rushed on down the street, passing curbside trash bags, realizing it was trash day. Michael had distracted me, so I hadn’t put our bag out; maybe Angela would remember. Damn Michael, anyway. He’d made me later than I’d already been. I should have told him flat out, no, forget it. No way was I going to give him another thing. But then, the ring had been his grandmother’s. Maybe I should give in one more time. Cursing, I stared at the sidewalk, resisting the debate, refusing thoughts of ex-husbands, rings, and fingers. I plowed ahead, watching only the squares of pavement ahead of my feet, not where I was going. At the corner of Fifth, I almost ran smack into old Charlie.
“Oops, sorry,” I called, whizzing by. Damn, that was close.
“Whoa, Miss Zoe,” Charlie wheezed. “You’ll get a speeding ticket, you don’t slow down.”
“Sorry.” I kept moving, trying to get around him, but Charlie stepped sideways, blocking me, apparently determined to have a neighborly chat.
“I’m late for work,” I explained.
“You can’t be late, miss; you haven’t even got there yet,” Charlie replied. “Besides, you have to meet someone. We have a new neighbor.”
The new neighbor stood beside Charlie. He wore a camel cashmere overcoat and tortoise shell glasses. He was slight in build, pale in complexion, sparse in hair. Refined, probably in his late thirties. Removing a leather glove, he extended his hand. “Woods is my name. Phillip Woods.”
His hand was larger than I’d have expected, his grip softer.
“I’m Zoe Hayes,” I panted. “I live right across from Charlie.”
He nodded. “Yes, of course. The house with the wrought-iron chairs. I’ve seen you out and about.” He blinked rapidly, almost twitching. A nervous person.
I tried to calm him down with a compliment. “My daughter likes your Santa Claus.” I smiled, trying to conceal how I felt about the thing.
“Does she? Well, that’s the idea, isn’t it? ’Tis the season. It’s all for the children, right?” His eyes flitted from point to point, settling nowhere.
I nodded, backing away. “I really do have to run—late for work. See you, Charlie. Nice to meet you, Mr. Woods.” I stepped around Charlie to the curb.
“Yes. Likewise, Ms. Hayes.”
Charlie took my arm and walked with me for a few steps. Lowering his voice, he said, “Miss Zoe? Watch your step. Mind yourself and your little girl. It’s a bad world we live in. You hear?”
I nodded and kept walking. “Don’t you worry, Charlie. I will.”
I hurried off to find a taxi, but I felt Charlie’s eyes on me, the weight of his gaze, until I turned the corner at Sixth. He seemed kind—even grandfatherly—but he said the oddest things.
FIVE
THE INSTITUTE WAS SEPARATED FROM WEST PHILADELPHIA BY high wrought-iron fences and expansive sculpted gardens. A rambling configuration of dark brick and stone, for almost a hundred years it had housed patients with disabling diseases of the mind. Today, it hunkered moody and brooding under the stark winter sky.
The taxi dropped me off at the far end of the circular drive. I hurried past manicured hedges through the arched double doors. Inside, they’d decorated since last week. A massive blue spruce towered overhead, heavily laden with tinsel and metallic balls of green, red, and silver, an open-winged angel precariously perched at the top. The tree was colossal; even so, it struggled to bring cheer and festivity into the Institute’s somber halls. A huge brass and crystal chandelier dangled above it in the domed foyer, glittering like a huge tiara. The floor was marble laid with Orientals; the walls were inlaid with mosaic cherubs and figures depicting biblical tales. The one nearest the door showed the Garden of Eden. Eve and the serpent engaged in eternal conversation while chubby-winged infants peeked disappointedly at them from the skies. Across the foyer, the receptionist’s desk sat alone where three wide corridors met, each holding echoes of lost voices, forlorn whispers that would never be heard.
Agnes and I knew each other, but neither was particularly happy about it. Agnes used her position to shield staff and patients from any and all visitors, and she considered herself, with her thirty-odd years on the job, superior to relative newcomers like me. With only three years at the Institute, I was in her view still an outsider, possibly more suspect even than visitors. I’d learned that I would never win her approval; it was better to avoid her when I could.
I rushed past her desk across the expansive foyer toward the wing where I worked; Agnes flashed a professional smile, exposing a polished overbite.
“Oh, Ms. Hayes. You have a message.” She held up a yellow piece of paper. Agnes color-coded her messages. Yellow meant that the message had originated “out of house.” When I reached the desk and took the paper, she flashed her teeth again and turned away.
“Nick Stiles” was scrawled at the top of the paper. Nick Stiles? It took a second to place the name; he was that police detective who’d come about the finger. The one with those piercing eyes. Why had he called? And why here? Why not at home? Agnes had checked the box marked “please call.” Beneath that, she’d written his number and “at your convenience.”
At my convenience. Then it wasn’t an emergency. My curiosity would have to wait until after the morning session. I shoved the note into my coat pocket and rushed to the
art therapy room. The room, formerly an employee lounge, was where I had my small office. With only two small windows, greenish fluorescent lights, and tan linoleum floors, it wasn’t the optimal setting for an art studio, but here the art itself was secondary to the artists’ creative expression. Their easels and worktables clustered around a wooden riser beneath the windows; I headed for the storage closet to lay out supplies.
Art therapy hadn’t been my dream. My dream had been to be the next Georgia O’Keeffe. But as my marriage had soured and my need for an income had grown, I’d recognized the need for a plan B, so I’d gone back to school and prepared for a career that, unlike painting, could actually pay some bills. My studio had become an office, and the art I worked with was no longer my own. For now, at least, being Georgia O’Keeffe was on hold.
The session that day began well. patients seemed energized and ready to work. One by one, I greeted them and led them to their easels. As usual, I planned to spend a few minutes with each of them, hearing whatever they wanted to tell me, directing their energy to their artwork. Before I could, though, Kimberly Gilbert, plump, thirty-one years old, and schizophrenic, began to wander, splashing asymmetrical shapes onto the walls, furniture, even other patients—any surface except the one provided for her. I gave chase and repositioned her at her canvas, but as soon as my back was turned, she floated away again.
Then Sal Stephano and Hank Dennis began bickering. Hank, sleekly handsome and forty, suffered a compulsive disorder and insisted that his every brushstroke be perfect. In a typical session, he’d begin and destroy a picture twenty times; nothing was exact enough for him. Given his fixation on perfection and order, he became unsettled when Kimberly applied paint where it didn’t belong—especially on his own shirtsleeve. Hank became flustered and furious, cursing, then verbally swiping at Kim-berly. I separated them, reassuring him that the paint would wash out of his sleeve, directing his attention back to his own project, but he remained agitated, pacing and talking incessantly, narrating Kimberly’s every move.
“Look—My God. She’s not going to—yes, she is—My God, she did it. My God—she painted the curtain!”
I went after Kimberly, but she skittered out of my arms as I promised Hank again and again that the paint was water soluble. Meantime, Sal, a heavyset twenty-seven-year-old diagnosed with bipolar disorder, had had enough of Hank’s nerves and began mimicking him in annoying falsetto.
“Oh God oh God! Oh no!” he wailed. “She’s going to, no she isn’t, yes she is, no she isn’t, oh my God, yes she is—OhmyGOD, the curtains!” Sal pulled Amanda DeMarco’s arm to get her attention. Amanda, working on her self-portrait, ignored him.
Amanda, twenty-two, had worked on this painting for weeks. She’d painted herself with long, flowing chestnut-colored tresses, arm in arm with a smiling older woman who resembled her mother. In reality, Amanda had pulled out most of her hair and eyelashes; there were no flowing tresses, not anymore. All that remained on her head were a few hard-to-reach clumps. And her real mom was ice cold and much removed. But the world in Amanda’s picture was perfect, ideal, and completely false. Amanda’s bubble.
Or it was until that morning. Even with the help of Gus, the orderly on duty, I couldn’t calm everyone. The group was out of control, skittish. Hank got fed up with Sal for mocking him and shoved Sal. Before Gus or I could intervene, Sal stumbled against Amanda, knocking her brush into her perfect world, leaving a stripe of cadmium across her mother’s throat. I ran in, fending off pandemonium, separating Sal from Amanda, Hank from Sal. Amanda frantically wiped at her painting with an acetone-drenched rag, effectively erasing her mother’s head and neck, wailing inconsolably as I soothed her with useless phrases.
All this time, Sydney Ellis stood at his easel, at attention. He didn’t paint, didn’t touch a brush, didn’t blink when Kimberly Gilbert painted circles on his pants. Sydney was a new patient, a schizophrenic still adjusting to his medications. Last session, he’d walked in circles around the room, too agitated to stay still. Sydney needed a calm, nonthreatening environment to ease himself into treatment. Art therapy was supposed to provide it. Who knew how poor Sydney was affected that day by our chaotic little group? progress was not linear, I reminded myself. people took back-steps, sidesteps, and sometimes they stumbled. Still, I was angry with myself. I was responsible for the group’s focus or loss of it. I scolded myself, analyzing how I might have taken control and protected them, reviewing could-haves and should-haves. Finally, escorts arrived; the session ended. As everyone left, I noticed that Amanda had pulled out the remainder of her eyelashes. I was exhausted, felt defeated. And it wasn’t even noon.
When I had a minute, I called Detective Stiles. He was out; I left the message that I’d returned his call.
My next session was with Evie Kraus, at the Institute as a guest of the Commonwealth; a few years ago, she’d filleted her lover with a kitchen knife and hadn’t spoken a word since then. Evie’s doctors, hopeful that she’d begin to speak, had reduced her regimen of medications. So far, she remained silent, but she’d begun to draw prolifically. Hunched over a sketch pad, working her tongue, she concentrated on her picture so completely that, despite her formidable size and multiple serpent tattoos, she seemed more like a girl Molly’s age than a twenty-eight-year-old psychotic killer. Evie’s drawings always showed what was literally in front of her. The chairs in the corner. A potted plant, a pair of slippers. The view of the train tracks out the window. I wondered if her mind ever traveled outside these walls to other times or places. Her drawings hadn’t let on.
Her session went peacefully. I began to relax. Then, near the end of the session, a new, overeager orderly barged in to take her back to Section 5. Maybe Evie thought he wasn’t going to let her finish her drawing. Maybe his energy level startled her. Whatever her reason, though, she moved quickly. Six feet tall and 190 pounds, she bounced up and grabbed a chair and swung it at the orderly’s head. He ducked, avoiding the blow, then grabbed the chair legs. I came up behind her and, while the two of them danced around the chair, tried to hold on to her, telling her in a calm, soothing voice to put down the chair. But the orderly sounded an alarm, and suddenly nurses, aides, orderlies, and the janitor ran in. I was certain that, given a moment, I could have calmed her. Instead, half a dozen frantic screaming people in pastels rushed her from all sides and tackled her and slammed her to the floor.
Afterward, I lost it with the orderly and his cohorts. As the therapist in charge, I and only I should have determined what happened in the session. But the damage had already been done, and all afternoon I kept hearing the crunch of Evie’s jaw landing on linoleum.
The day that had begun with Michael’s call did not improve with age. Each of my patients and even the staff members were off kilter, unsettled. Like me. Maybe there was a full moon. Or maybe emotions were contagious, spreading like the flu.
Finally, just before four, I closed the art room for the day. It was Thursday, the night Susan and I took Emily and Molly to gymnastics class—our weekly night out—and I wanted to get home early enough that Angela could get home before dark. I hurried to Market Street to catch a train and, reaching into my pocket for my SEPTA TransPass, found the message from Detective Stiles. Damn. I wondered if he’d gotten my message. I tried him again on cell, but there was no phone service in the subway, so for the entire train ride it nagged me. Why had he called? What could he want?
SIX
THE WALK HOME FROM THE TRAIN, AT LEAST, WAS PEACEFUL. Crisp December air, late afternoon sun. The sounds of traffic and my own shoes on solid pavement. Finally, I thought, my day was settling down. But when I got to my house, old Charlie was sitting on the front steps. I hoped he was just resting, that he’d get up and let me pass. He didn’t. No, as I approached, Charlie didn’t move at all, other than to stretch his mouth into one of his wide, open grins.
“Hi, Charlie.” I tried to step around him to follow.
“Hello, Miss Zoe.” He nodded my way. “Not too cold
today.” Still smiling, he slid over slightly to the center of the steps, blocking my way. “Sit awhile?”
“Sorry.” I tried to sound friendly. “I can’t. The sitter has to get home, and we have someplace to go.”
Charlie looked up the steps. “Give it a minute. All that can wait.”
What? He didn’t budge. “Charlie, I’ve got a million things to do before we go.”
“Sit a minute.” It was a command. “Just for a minute.” He didn’t look at me. “Go on. Sit.”
It wasn’t like Charlie to order people around. Something must be on his mind; as reluctant as I was to linger, I was also curious. Besides, I was tired. It wouldn’t hurt to sit for a minute. One.
So I sat. The cement was hard and cold, and Charlie’s aroma was strong. It wasn’t quite offensive, just stale. Musky. I leaned back against the railing and looked at him. Charlie’s jacket was frayed at the collar, worn at the cuffs. His shoes were scuffed, his pants stained with paint and oily patches. A handyman’s uniform. For a while, he was silent. I watched his breath clouds swell and fade as he stared into the street. Finally, quietly, he said, “Miss, how many years now have we lived across the street from each other?”
It was an unexpected question. How many years had it been? I remembered moving in, Michael carrying me over the threshold, my arms around his neck. I didn’t want to remember that, didn’t want to count the years. “I don’t know. Thirteen? Thirteen years, I guess.”
“Thirteen years. That’s a pretty long time, right?”
“I don’t know. You’ve lived around here a lot longer than I have, Charlie.”
“Well, that’s true. I’ve lived here since before they came in and fixed up everything. Gentrified it. I was here way before your house was even built. This used to be a vacant lot with poor folks’ homes all around it. They’re all gone now, of course. Torn down. And the poor folks have mostly gone.”
I nodded, wondering what visions Charlie saw when he looked up and down the street.