Phantom Limb: A Gripping Psychological Thriller

by Lucinda Berry

  “You were in the tub when you did it and you became unconscious before you turned off the water. You’d called Dalila earlier in the night and something in your conversation scared her. She came over to check on you and heard the running water, but she couldn’t get you to open the door or answer the phone. She talked the apartment manager into letting her into the apartment. They are the ones who found you.” She paused before going on, “Unconscious and not breathing.”

  I had a fleeting glimpse of the white porcelain tub in our apartment splattered in blood. An arm hanging over the side of it. Words written in blood on the tiled wall that I couldn’t make out before the image was gone.

  “A few more minutes and …”

  “I wouldn’t be here.” I finished the sentence for her.

  Poor Dalila. It must’ve been so awful for her. I was sure finding me had reminded her of the time she found Emily in the tub. We sat in silence again, each of us in our private thoughts.

  Lisa broke the silence. “Do you think it would be helpful for you to see Emily’s grave?”

  My stomach flipped at the suggestion. “I haven’t ever thought about it.”

  “Dr. Larson thinks it would be a good idea for you to see Emily’s grave,” she said.

  She went on to explain how she’d talked to Dr. Larson twice since our visit yesterday. She assured me they’d only talked about my progress and how he believed seeing Emily’s grave might help me in my recovery process. The thought of seeing Emily’s grave made me catch my breath and felt like someone had put a clamp on my chest. I’d gotten used to saying Emily was dead. It rolled off my tongue easier and easier each time I said it. It was amazing how quickly it’d happened, but something about physically going to see her grave made it too real. It would make it a reality I’d never be able to take back. It would be more saying good-bye. More letting go.

  “I’m not sure I want to. Do you think I should?”

  “I think it would be a good idea. It might help you heal and bring closure.” Her eyes were serious. I’d never seen her look so serious. “There’s a possibility seeing her grave could help you to remember her death and fill in some of the gaps in your memory. Or it might not, but it could bring you more acceptance of her death and the motivation to continue moving on.”

  Moving on. Thomas had said the same thing last night.

  “How would it work?” I hadn’t seen anyone leave the hospital yet. I didn’t know it was something you could do.

  Dr. Larson had given Lisa permission to take me. He’d already written the order and gotten permission from the team for me to go. All Lisa had to do was tell him when. She was excited about it. She rambled on about how good it would be for me and all of the ways it would help my growth. She’d even got permission to attend the team meeting after we went to the grave so she could be there when we processed the experience. Apparently, Dr. Larson and the others had changed their views on allowing a therapist who wasn’t affiliated with the hospital to be part of the treatment team. I still wasn’t convinced it was a good idea for me to go to the grave, even if both of them thought it was.

  “When would we go?” I asked.

  Although the conversation had started out with her asking me if I thought it would be a good idea, it was beginning to feel like I didn’t have a choice if Dr. Larson and the team were involved. Would they think I wasn’t making progress if I didn’t go? Would they send me to the state hospital if I refused?

  “We could go as early as tomorrow morning.”

  “Tomorrow morning?” My mouth dropped.

  I hadn’t expected her to say tomorrow. Not at all. I thought she’d say a few days or a week, but tomorrow morning? I wasn’t ready for that. I needed more time to prepare myself.

  “I think you should take advantage of being here. This is the best facility in the entire state. There’s no way to know how you’ll react to seeing Emily’s grave, and doing it while you’re here gives you a safety net to work through your emotional response. Your days here are numbered and we want to be able to help you as much as we can before that time gets here. This is a very safe environment for you.”

  I hated to admit it, but she was right. I felt safe and sheltered. My world had shrunk to the four walls of the family room, but the walls contained me. I found it oddly comforting to be surrounded by people who had serious mental problems because I didn’t feel so screwed up. I’d gotten used to how everyone shared horrific events from their past. I’d never known people who’d experienced trauma like I had and it relieved me. I’d grown to like living in such a small world. I liked doing the same things every day in the same way.

  I took a leap into the unknown in hopes that she was right.

  “I’ll go to Emily’s grave.”

  If she thought it was going to help me, she was probably right. Seeing Emily’s grave might propel me to begin taking the necessary steps to rebuilding a new life for myself outside of the hospital, as scary as the prospect seemed. A life that existed without any version of Emily. Make-believe or otherwise. I started crying even though I didn’t want to.

  “Is it always going to feel this way? I hate crying and falling apart all the time.”

  “I wish I could give you a date for when it’ll be over, but I can’t. I can tell you from experience, though, that it will get easier. I grieved the loss of my childhood for years and there are still times when I have to allow myself to cry over it, but it’s no longer as overwhelming and as all-encompassing as it used to be, like I’m sure it feels for you right now.”

  “I feel like it’s going to swallow me up.”

  “I understand.”

  I knew she did because she’d spent the first five years of her life eating out of garbage cans. She’d had a big brother who took care of her while they lived on the streets in the same way I took care of Emily. She handed me a handful of Kleenex from the box on my desk. I wiped my eyes and blew my nose while she explained how she would set everything up for the morning and that I didn’t have to worry about anything except trying to get some rest.

  I couldn’t fall asleep that night. I lay awake feeling as if I’d drunk two pots of strong coffee before going to bed. My mind was on a frenzied search. Every time I closed my eyes, I relived pieces of Emily’s and my life. I saw glimpses, like stilled shots of Emily and me in our apartment. Ones where I was sitting at the table doing my homework and she was in the kitchen, laughing and joking as she cooked us dinner. She loved the weekends. They always made her smile.

  I replayed scenes over and over again. Us going to the movies. Us going shopping like we used to do when she wasn’t depressed, digging through piles of clothing at Goodwill looking for the perfect find. Her nudging me to get up when the alarm clock was going off after the third time I’d hit snooze while I pulled the pillows over my head.

  I rewound our childhood, remembering the stories we told each other. Stories of princesses with knights who protected them and kept them safe from evil. Imagining candy that grew on trees and whipped cream popsicles. I remembered how happy we were when we got to live with the Rooths. Our first Christmas with presents. Getting to go to school together. Learning how to ride our first bikes—the ones with the pink streamers and the baskets in front with big purple flowers.

  But I didn’t only remember the good times. Memories of all her struggles and pain flooded through overshadowing the times she was happy. All the blood she shed. The journal filled with bloody writings I’d found hidden in her closet when we were sixteen. The pink flesh of her wounds. All of the hours I spent holding her while she sobbed, promising her it would be okay while she argued with me that it was never going to be. Her begging me to let her die as I fought to force her to throw up the pills she’d taken, sticking my finger down her throat since she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

  Lisa had called Emily a tortured soul and she was right. No matter how much I loved her, she still hated herself. She’d never recovered from what Mother had done to us, and Mother’s
special friends had done more than violate her body. They’d violated her insides in ways I’d never let them get to mine. There was a lot wrong with Emily that was never wrong with me. She’d been saying she wanted to die since we were nine and trying to kill herself since we were thirteen. Maybe it was time to give her what she’d always wanted.

  I tossed and turned. There wasn’t any spot where I felt comfortable. I kept telling myself not to look at the clock, which only made me look at the clock more. At four, I gave up on the idea of sleep.

  I threw my covers off and stood. I peeked out my door. The hallway was empty and dark, except for the small glowing lights along the floor. The nurses’ station was still illuminated with light. There was only one nurse behind the desk and she was busy working on the computer. I opened my door a bit more and slid my body through. I tiptoed down the hallway and stopped three doors down. I looked back over my shoulder to make sure the nurse was still occupied and breathed a sigh of relief that she was.

  I crept through Rose’s doorway. She was sprawled out across her bed as if she’d been wrestling in her sleep. I walked towards her bed.

  “Rose,” I whispered. Waited. “Rose.”

  I jiggled her shoulder. She startled and turned to look at me. She rubbed her eyes.

  “Elizabeth?” she asked.

  I was flooded with embarrassment. I felt like a little kid creeping into their parents’ bedroom at night after having a bad dream.

  “I’m sorry I woke you up. I couldn’t sleep.”

  She sat up, rubbing her eyes again. She patted her bed. I took a seat.

  “I’m so scared.” My voice was quivering.

  She grabbed my hand and squeezed it. We sat in silence, afraid to talk in case someone came in and found me in her room. I laid my head down on her lap and she stroked my hair. I fell asleep listening to the hum of the air conditioner.

  23

  Polly saw me in Rose’s bed when she knocked on the door for the customary morning wake-up call, but she didn’t say anything. I rushed back to my room, not wanting to test her leniency. In a few minutes, she was at my door.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked.

  It never mattered that nobody talked to her about how they were feeling. She never quit asking. I was sure she knew where I was going. Nothing was a secret in the hospital. I shrugged my shoulders. I was glad she didn’t say anything about being in Rose’s room.

  I showered, and for the first time since I’d been at the hospital, I thought about what I was going to wear. I stared at the clothes Dalila had packed for me. I picked a pair of jeans and my favorite gray American Apparel T-shirt. I threw my hair back into a ponytail and was ready to go. I didn’t bother trying to eat breakfast because my stomach was already doing gymnastics. Instead, I sat and watched everyone around me having theirs, wishing Rose could eat with us.

  “I can’t believe you get to go out on a pass today,” Shelly said. “I’m so jealous.”

  “Me too,” Denise said.

  She always agreed with her. Shelly could say Denise had orange eyes and even though her eyes were green, she’d nod her head in eager agreement.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To see my sister.”

  “You have a sister? I didn’t know that.” Shelly moved from her chair and plopped down in the chair next to me. “Older or younger?”

  “Older.” I didn’t add by three minutes. I didn’t tell her because it would only elicit more questions from her.

  Tobi joined in the interrogation. “What are you guys going to do? How come you’re getting together? Is it some kind of family emergency? It usually has to be some kind of emergency for them to let you out.”

  “It’s not an emergency. Just a visit.”

  I hated when I got cornered by them without Rose. She was so much better at shutting them down and getting them to mind their own business. How was I going to get away from their questions when she was gone?

  “Where are you guys going?” Shelly asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  I had no idea where we were going. I assumed Emily was buried close, but the Rooths might have a family cemetery far away where they’d buried her.

  Lisa arrived before breakfast was over and unlike me, she looked well rested. Her eyes were bright and shiny. Her face glowed and her hair was pulled back neatly from her face.

  “Are you ready?” she asked.

  I wasn’t ready, but if I waited until I was ready I wasn’t sure I’d ever go. I stood and followed her to the nurses’ station. I filled out a form on a clipboard with my signature, the time I was leaving, and who I was leaving with. Lisa scribbled her name on another paper.

  I followed her through the first locked door, feeling like I was somebody else. It was as if there was a ladder in my head that I’d crawled up to get out of myself and was watching my body perform from somewhere above me. I watched myself walk beside Lisa as she chattered through each twisted corridor and locked door, looking down at my faded blue jeans with the hole in the middle, wondering when my brown hair had gotten so long. We found our way to the elevator and made our way down.

  We stepped outside and the blinding sun jolted me back into my body. It’d been so long since I’d been outside that the sun hurt my eyes, making me squint. The air smelled different. It was more alive, like it smelled right after it rained. Everything looked brighter and more vibrant.

  “I parked across from the building. I’m cheap and didn’t want to pay for parking.” Lisa laughed and pointed across the road.

  She drove a red Honda Accord. I slid in and was flooded with memories of all of the lunches Thomas and I took in his Honda. By the time Lisa had left last night, it was too late for our scheduled phone date. I missed hearing his voice. I couldn’t help but wonder if we were ever going to be able to eat lunch in his Honda again.

  I didn’t ask where we were going. I stared out the window, watching the trees and houses flash by. I watched the lights flicker and turn color as we passed through them. The world still existed and had continued moving. There was a part of me that thought the world was on hold, but time hadn’t stopped while I was in the hospital. Time hadn’t waited for me to catch up. It had kept going and it was going to keep moving forward whether I wanted it to or not.

  “Is there anywhere you want to stop before we get there? Do you want a coffee or something?”

  I appreciated the gesture, but the only thing I wanted to do was to get this over with. I was afraid if we stopped the car and I got out that I would start running in the opposite direction. I would take off sprinting as fast as I could and never look back. As it was, I didn’t know if I was going to be able to get out of the car once we got there.

  Lisa slowed down as we passed St. John’s Cathedral and put her blinker on to turn into the driveway. It was the church Dalila and Bob had taken us to every Sunday until we were sixteen, even though neither of us believed in God. At sixteen, they’d given us a choice as to whether we wanted to keep going or not. We never made another Sunday. I hadn’t stepped foot in a church since then, no matter how many times Thomas had asked me to go with him.

  She made a left-hand turn and followed the driveway to the back where it opened up into a large parking lot. There was a small cemetery behind it. The parking lot was empty. She pulled into a space to the side of the gate and turned the car off. Neither of us moved to get out.

  “Have you been here before?” I asked.

  I realized as soon as I said it that I already knew the answer. She’d mentioned being at the funeral before and I was sure she’d gone to the grave site too.

  “I stood next to you during the burial. It was a beautiful service.”

  Dread crept up the back of my throat. “Do I have to do this?”

  Lisa laid her hand on my knee. “Honestly, no. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. We can go back to the hospital if you’d like or just sit here for a while. But, I think it would be a good idea for you t
o see her grave. I support whatever you decide, though. Really, it’s up to you. Take all the time you need.”

  I stared out the window at the rows of headstones for a long time. It was hard to imagine that each stone was a marker for somebody who’d died and Emily’s headstone was somewhere among them. She was out there. My legs felt like lead. The feeling of being underwater was back.

  “I don’t know if I can go out there. I feel sick.”

  “I know you’re scared and how hard this must be for you. Even though your brain doesn’t have a memory of being here, your body does, so I’m not surprised that you’re feeling sick. Remember how yesterday we talked about how there was a possibility being here might trigger more of your memory?”

  I nodded.

  “I’d encourage you to focus on what’s happening in your body right now and not ignore it—it might help you to get in touch with your experience. Just give yourself permission to feel whatever you feel and allow any memories to come.”

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to. The thought of getting out of the car and seeing Emily’s grave filled me with a sense of impending doom.

  “I want to go back to the hospital … I can’t.” I started to cry.

  Lisa pulled me close and held me next to her, stroking my arm. “We don’t have to do this. We can go back to the hospital. I won’t force you to do anything, but I want you to know something.” She pulled away from me and cupped my face in both of her hands, peering into my eyes. “You’re the bravest person I’ve ever met. If anyone can face this, you can. I wouldn’t have brought you here if I didn’t think you could handle it or that it was going to help you.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  “I do.”

  I opened the passenger door.

  “Are you sure?” Lisa asked.

  I wasn’t sure, but I was going to do it. I stepped out of the car and walked to the front of it. She followed my lead and came to join me. She took my hand.