by Gae Polisner
He opens his eyes and squints up at me, says, “In a minute,” then rolls over and pulls the towel over his head. The back of his neck is burnt, so I adjust the towel downward to cover it and the rest of his reddening shoulders.
We’re on vacation at some fancy resort in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The hotel pool has been crowded all day, but it’s nearly dinnertime so the other guests have begun to depart, finally leaving enough room on the far side so we could do it, race, he and I, if he wanted.
“Play with the other kids. Let him rest, Klee.” Mom glances over from the chaise lounge next to him, a book splayed open on her chest.
“They all have brothers or sisters to play with. Plus, now they went to dinner. They don’t want to play with me.”
She picks up the book again and turns the page. “Don’t be silly. Play alone, then.”
“I’ve been playing alone all day.”
Dad rolls over and sits up. “It’s okay, Mari. I’ll do it. Let’s go, kiddo. I bet you can’t beat me.” He gets out of the chair and bolts toward the pool.
“No diving, it says!” I call after him. Dad doesn’t listen, plunges into the deep end, but no one left around the pool seems to care. I lower myself in from the side and take off after him to the deep end.
I might be scrawny, but I’m fast. We race five times and I beat him twice, though one of those times is mostly a tie. By then, we’re both tired and panting, so we quit and float on our backs. Just me and Dad, side by side. Palm trees line the edge of the pool, and brown coconuts dot the high fronds. That song comes to me, the silly one Dad sings sometimes about the lime in the coconut and the doctor mixing it all up, which makes me smile.
“I like it here. Don’t you?” I say, but my voice through the water sounds far away and distorted, so I’m not even sure he can hear me. I stand, letting the water leave my ears, and hold to Dad’s swim trunks so he doesn’t float away. “I wish we could stay longer.”
Dad rolls his head to the side to look at me, the waterline covering his bottom eye. “If wishes were fishes,” he says.
“If fishes were wishes,” I say.
“If only … That reminds me…” He rights himself and moves toward the steps, so I follow. He sits and pats the step above him for me, and I smile again and brace myself, because I’m pretty sure I know what this means.
“There was a great Taoist master,” Dad says, “named Chuang Tzo. And one day—well, one evening, the great Chuang Tzo dreamt he was a small silver fish darting through the waves.”
“What kind of fish?” I ask, swishing my hands through the water while he thinks on this.
“I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter.”
“It does.”
“Okay, a mackerel. Let’s say a mackerel, then.”
“Are they silver?” He nods. “Okay. A mackerel, then.”
I cup my fingers like a hand fish and move it through the water, arcing up into the air, then diving down beneath the surface.
“Good work,” Dad says. “You act out the words best you can. So, in the dream, Chuang Tzo had no awareness of himself as a person. Only as a fish.”
“The silver mackerel,” I say, making my hand swish along the edge of the steps.
“But when he awoke, Chuang Tzo found himself lying there, dry—on land, of course—a human again.”
“And?” I ask, my hand flopping over to land belly up on the edge of the pool.
“And, as he looked around, he thought to himself, ‘Was I before a man who dreamt about being a fish, or am I now a fish who dreams about being a man?’”
I stare up past the coconuts to the sky. An airplane is going by, a silver fish gliding through clouds. When my father doesn’t say more, I ask, “And, which was he, the man or the mackerel?”
My father looks at me and nods, then starts out of the pool again, taking my hand.
“I don’t know. Good question, son. Which was he?”
Day 10—Morning
Dr. Alvarez’s door is open when I get there. She sits at her desk doing paperwork. “If you do this type of work,” she says, “it’s not the patients that will kill you, but the forms.”
She nods at the couch and I sit. There’s a green stress ball on the table, and I take it, thinking of Sister Agnes Teresa, of our late-night swim, wondering if my hair still smells of chlorine.
“Give me a moment. I’m just finishing up,” she says. I turn the stress ball in my hand: “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”—Viktor Frankl.
“I found that this morning, thought it had your name on it,” she says without turning around. After another minute or so, she shoves the stack of papers in a drawer. “So, I was thinking,” she says, standing, “it’s beautiful outside this morning, and as far as I know, you haven’t been out in days.”
It hits me when she says this. I haven’t been outside since I got here.
“Of course, if you were recovering from appendicitis or some sort of surgery or whatever, you might stay indoors for a while. Wait till you felt strong enough to venture outside. Mental illness is no different. Sometimes we need to stay inside, sort of cocooned up where we feel safe. But I’m guessing you’re ready to go out now. You’re doing much better, Klee. I hope you feel that. So, I’m thinking the fresh air will do you a world of good.”
The phrase “mental illness” sticks in my head. It sounds awful and permanent. Or maybe I’m thinking about it wrong since most illnesses get better with time. Maybe it doesn’t matter what you call it, though, only figuring out what you need. And, Dr. Alvarez says I’m doing better, so maybe I am, though suddenly being anywhere but in here—inside the safety of the Ape Can—seems more than a little intimidating. Maybe because it means they’ll be sending me home soon.
“What if I’m not ready?” I blurt. Dr. Alvarez’s eyes meet mine. “What I mean is, how can I be ready, if I still don’t know how I got here? Metaphorically speaking, I mean, ’cause I know how I got here literally.”
Dr. Alvarez smiles and smoothes her slacks. “Baby steps, Klee. You’ll be ready. How about we start with a walk, though? The grounds are quite lovely this time of year, despite all the construction, and I sprung for my comfortable shoes.” She holds up a foot, revealing sockless brown loafers. “Some of the spring bulbs are starting to bloom, and the honeysuckle is divine. That’s the upside of all the recent rain. April showers and all that, right? You could even bring a canvas and some paints?”
I shrug but get up. The thought of going outside is appealing, if not the part about trying to paint. Despite all of Dr. Alvarez’s prodding, and my mother’s fiercely heroic efforts to cart all that stuff up here in her Chanel suit and high heels last week, I’ve not yet cracked open a thing.
“My patient after you has graduated to something less intensive, like you’ll be doing soon,” Dr. Alvarez adds, “and no one new has been put in her time slot yet, so I have some extra time today. I thought we might take a leisurely walk. I won’t know what to do with myself otherwise.” She smiles, then catches something else in my expression. “That’s right, Klee. People do graduate out of therapy, all the time. They go from in here to out there. From every day to weekly, to not at all in some cases. People get better and go home. They resume their real life, though often with some therapy in place, as I would recommend in your case. Not yet, of course. But soon. You don’t need to be in a place like this much longer. This is more than most of you kids really need.”
“If you say so,” I say.
“I do. I say so. Now, about that walk. I’ll wait down here. You go up to your room and get your things.”
* * *
I head down the sterile hallway, past the god-awful fish mural to the stairs, and pull open the heavy steel door.
The smell of chlorine drifts up.
Maybe the pool door is open. Maybe there’s therapy going on like Sister Agnes Teresa says. How come I never noticed the smell before?
I want to go down and explore,
but we’re not supposed to wander the halls. “There are only two places you should be while you’re here: somewhere specific, or on your way there,” a nurse had told me the day Dr. Ram first came in to see me. “It’s important you follow the rules.”
Dr. Ram stopped in again yesterday to check my vitals. He even removed my bandage and said I was looking good. “Not much more than a notch, really,” he had said. My hand moves reflexively to my ear. Only a regular Band-Aid there now.
Progress, then, right? So, maybe Dr. Alvarez is correct. Maybe when I go home it won’t have to be a big ordeal.
I head up the stairs to get my things. A canvas and some paints. I’m reluctant, but Dr. Alvarez is waiting for me.
Soon, she had said about me going home, but the thought—the possibility—makes me dizzy. Of course, I have to leave here at some point. I need to catch up in school. Get on with my life. But soon? I don’t feel ready. Not yet. Not at all. I’m not ready to face Sarah. To face school. Or Keith Abbott or Scott Dunn.
Fuck.
I grip the railing and race up the rest of the stairs, and lie down for a minute on my bed. The whole freaking room is spinning.
I focus on the ceiling, then look out the window, at the edge of the excavator glinting yellow-orange in the sun. Better. I’m still safe here. This place, this room, feel as much like home to me as anywhere lately. Certainly, as much as our new house does.
When I feel steadier, I walk to the bathroom, splash cold water on my face, and stare at myself in the mirror. If nothing else, I’ve got the most impressive stubble I’ve ever grown. Not that it’s saying much. I’m not a fan of it so much as taken by surprise. Maybe that’s what I should do: Grow a beard, put on a hat, and return to school incognito. I doubt I can shave anyway. It’s not like they’re handing out razors in here.
“Dude, you are a world-class fuck-up,” I say aloud to myself, then head back into the room to gather my supplies.
* * *
“Everything okay?” Dr. Alvarez asks, concerned. “I was worried you decided not to come.”
“Yes. I was just looking for some things.” I pat my backpack, which is jammed with two 5 × 8 canvases, a choice of brushes, and a box of acrylics. “I’ll need some water, though. If I’m going to paint.”
She pulls two bottles of Poland Spring from her purse. “Will this do?” I nod. “Good. We’ll make it work somehow, make a bowl out of bark or something.” She laughs and adds, “Now, what say you we blow this popsicle stand?”
* * *
One blast of sunshine and, at least momentarily, everything feels lighter. I inhale deeply, and Dr. Alvarez smiles. “Keep up,” she says, walking briskly. “Amazing what some fresh air can do for the soul.”
We cross the courtyard where the excavator is in full motion. I shove my hands in my sweatshirt pockets and follow, wondering all sorts of personal things about her I don’t know. Like her age, and why she works in the Ape Can. I mean, who wants to deal with a whole bunch of kids who have gone psycho? When we clear the noise, I ask. “It’s probably none of my business, but I was wondering how old you are?”
“Funny you should ask. I’m about to turn forty. In two weeks. It’s a big one, I suppose. Why?”
“No reason,” I say. “Just, you know pretty much everything about me.”
She laughs. “Fair enough. Did you think I was older or younger?”
“Both,” I say, and she laughs more heartily now.
At the far end of the courtyard there’s a gazebo surrounded by mostly barren gardens. When we reach it, she says, “Let’s sit for a moment,” and we move toward a circular bench and sit facing out toward the Ape Can.
“They keep talking about expanding the property to include more amenities, put some tennis courts in, maybe an outdoor dining patio. But so far all I see is pointless digging. It would be nice, though, wouldn’t it?”
I nod. “How long have you been here? Working, I mean.”
“Thirteen years.”
“Wow. Long.”
“It is, isn’t it?” She stretches her legs and clasps her hands behind her head. “I got a residency here right after grad school and have stayed ever since.”
“Do you hate it?”
She laughs again and shakes her head. “God no, does it seem like I do?”
“No, not at all. I just wondered. It seems hard.”
“Hard, yes. I guess it is. But, I love it, too, actually. It’s just difficult to believe I’ve been here so long—anywhere that long. I was just your age a blink of an eye ago, on the verge of everything, and now, well, I’m here, on the verge of old.” She smiles, but she seems a little sad when she says it.
“You’re not that old,” I offer.
“Well, when you put it that way…”
I laugh realizing how it came out.
“This birthday … forty … It’s a little tough to swallow, I suppose. But I try not to think of it that way. I’ve accomplished a lot, or enough to be at peace with myself. And, I’m always getting better at what I do. Or trying to get better, at least,” she adds. “I’ll probably never be quite as good as I want to be.”
“But, doesn’t it get depressing?”
“The work? No. I wouldn’t call it that. Hard. At times, frustrating. I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve wished I had a magic wand.” I smile at that, and she knocks off her shoes, wiggles her red-painted toenails around. “But, depressing, no. The opposite of that.”
“Really?”
She puts her hand over mine, squeezes, then lets go. “We all need some help at one time or another, Klee, it’s as simple as that. No shame in needing it.” I nod, wondering if it can really be that simple. “Now, not trying to help?” she says after a pause. “I think that would depress me. Although life is not always easy, and, like I said, having a magic wand would be good.”
I turn and squint at her. “To be honest, sometimes it seems like you do.”
“Well, that is a compliment, isn’t it? So, thank you. That means a whole lot to me. But let’s hold that thought, see how I do at getting you out of here. And, anyway, I’d like to take vast amounts of credit, but the truth is, mostly all I do is listen. It’s amazing how listening helps. Or at any rate, it rarely makes anything worse.” She slips her shoes back on. “I’m okay with that. Not making anything worse.”
She seems like she’s going to get up, but then she changes her mind, spreads her arms out on the bench, tilts her head back, and closes her eyes.
“I love it out here. So very peaceful,” she says. “You know, Voltaire said, ‘The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.’ I often think that’s true, that, for most people, time will cure what ails them.” She chuckles and sits up. “Or maybe I just want to believe that because it takes the pressure off of me.”
“Is there a ball for that? The Voltaire quote?”
“Ha, no,” she says, resting her head back again. “But there should be.”
I want to laugh, too, to trust that time and distance will heal things, but I’m thinking of Sarah, of my mother, of the party and Abbott, of all the humps I have to get over if I want to be well again.
* * *
After Valentine’s Day, things are better for a few weeks, but by March, Sarah has pulled back again.
“What’s the difference?” she says when I try to talk about it. “You’re leaving for Boston soon.”
“I can stay if you want me to, go to Pratt in the city instead.”
“Don’t say that, Klee! It’s ridiculous!”
“Sarah—”
“I swear! Don’t say it again.”
So, I try to hang on but not push her too hard, even when doing the first seems impossible without doing the second. But I have to. Sarah’s the only thing worth anything here in Northhollow.
In school, she’s constantly with her friends, casting me aside for Abbott and Dunn and a few of the girls they hang out with. I realize that, beyond their first names, I
don’t really know them at all, haven’t made much of an effort. There’s probably no point in making one now. Less than three months left of school and I’m out of here. The city or Boston, pick one. I won’t stay here in fucking Northhollow. Maybe Sarah’s right. Maybe I do think I’m too good for here.
Still, I try to find balance. The few times I try to make plans with her, Sarah says she has plans already, but I’m welcome to come hang out with them.
Them.
It’s always felt like that, hasn’t it? Either just us or just them. I decide I’m going to try harder to fix it, for her sake. Which is what happens on Friday when I ask Sarah about her weekend plans.
I find her at her locker. Talking to Abbott.
Asshole.
I put my arm around her and make small talk, before finally asking what’s up for the weekend. Sarah flinches at my arm so I pull it back, worried I seem like a possessive douchebag.
“Hey,” I say, “listen. I have to work on my portfolio tonight. You want to head into the city tomorrow and walk the High Line?” I turn to Abbott now. “Hey, Keith, how about you get a date and come with?”
“Klee … he doesn’t want to—” She sounds mad. I don’t get it. I thought she would like that I invited him.
“No can do, Alden. No fancy museums for this dude. Besides, party at Dunn’s house tomorrow night. Didn’t you hear? We’re celebrating. Porter got accepted to Michigan. A D1 school and all that. It’s a big deal.” He smiles disingenuously. It makes my stomach roil. “It’s pretty huge news around here.”
“I hadn’t,” I say. “And the High Line isn’t a museum. It’s a park. A linear one. You know what linear is?” Sarah gives me a look. “Maybe a rain check, then.”
“Maybe, yeah,” Keith says. What he doesn’t do is reciprocate. What he doesn’t say is, “You should come to Dunn’s.”
Fine by me. I wouldn’t go if he asked. A little late to be making friends after all.
* * *
Dr. Alvarez stands. “Hold that thought. Let’s walk for a bit.” I look up, surprised. “We’ll walk and talk some more. Maybe we can find a spot to paint,” she adds.
I shoulder my backpack and get up. I’m sweating for some reason. I wipe my damp palms on my jeans.