The Reach

by Nate Kenyon

  “None of this is in the file. Do you know why?”

  “That you’d have to ask Dr. Wasserman.” A sudden sharp intake of breath; then the professor moved on. “I think it’s important to capitalize on any progress you made during your first meeting. You should get down there as many times as you can this week.” Then, quietly, a bit more gently, she said, “I know you feel that we sprang this on you without proper warning. I can only say that if it were completely up to me I might have handled things differently.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  “Take another look,” Shelley said. “You’ve read the file, you’re better prepared. Now’s your chance to get through to her. Write down everything you see, everything you feel is important. We’ll meet in my office on Monday.”

  —8—

  The next few days passed uneventfully. But when Jess Chambers reached the hospital for what would be her fourth session with Sarah, she was informed by the admitting secretary that Dr. Wasserman had gone to attend a psychiatric conference in New York. He had left instructions for her.

  I am allowing you to continue with your sessions while I am gone on one condition: that you hold them only in Sarah’s room and only after she has received her medication. She remains in restraints for the time being at my request. If you are alone with her, be alert and do not allow her to touch you.

  The staff has my instructions and will follow them to the letter. I do not want Sarah moved while I am gone for any reason. Maria is perfectly capable of handling any request. She is aware of the situation and will decide what is reasonable.

  Please record in your notes everything that occurs. If you have any questions I may be reached through my secretary.

  Jess did not know whether to feel angry or relieved that Wasserman was gone. He had hovered over her for much of the week, and pushed her a bit after her last visit, asking her in detail about her observations and theories. She hadn’t had much to say; each of the hour-long sessions since the first had been spent in silence. Sarah had not moved or made a sound, and after long periods of note-taking, sketching, and the occasional unanswered question or thought, Jess had left to go home again, her frustration levels growing.

  She knew it would take time for Sarah to get used to her presence. And there was always the chance she’d never respond to anyone or anything again. But still, it was a depressing experience. She had begun to wonder if Sarah mouthing those words during that first visit had been her imagination playing tricks on her. Muscle spasms could sometimes look like attempts at speech.

  Maybe I’m crazy. Maybe I just saw what I wanted to see.

  She made her way down to the basement, feeling the chill of the place settle into her bones. Do not allow her to touch you. A strange warning indeed. She wondered whether it was simply Wasserman’s way of lending a greater importance to the proceedings. His instructions made her feel like a child left home alone for the first time, and of course that was exactly the way he wanted it. Goddamn it if I’m going to play his games.

  Maria was out from behind the desk before the elevator doors fully opened. Her voice was tense and her face and neck rigid, and sweat stood out on her forehead.

  “She is not still,” the big woman said. “The way she looks, it is not right.”

  “Has she had her medication, Maria?”

  Maria shook her head. “Soon. I do not like to go there. I let you in the hall, no further.” The woman nodded again. “You go see what I tell you.”

  This time at Sarah’s door was subtly different than the last. The hallway seemed darker than before. A bulb was out and the lights farther down the hall cast strange shadows. Jess stopped for a moment before swinging the door open.

  Sarah was crouched against the far wall, rocking slowly back and forth, her long black hair sweeping across her face. She still wore the straitjacket. At the sound of the door closing she jumped, and then continued rocking from the heels to the balls of her feet.

  Any change is a good sign, Jess told herself. Something is better than nothing. She examined her own state of mind, reaching deep down inside where cold things grew. On the way here she had been jumpy for some reason, nervous enough that she checked for sweat stains under her arms. But now that she was in the room with Sarah she felt her anxiousness subside. Wasserman’s instructions had made her angry, and the anger helped her focus.

  Establish trust, Jess told herself. The first goal. “I’m going to release your arms now, Sarah. Do you hear me? I’m going to release you.” She reached over, slowly, slowly, undid the buckles. Slipped the girl’s arms from the jacket and let it fall, and stepped back. Through it all Sarah remained limp, pliable as soft clay. The rocking had ceased abruptly as soon as Jess touched her.

  Later she would admit to herself that releasing the girl had satisfied the small, petty part of her she had allowed Wasserman to reach. Now she only thought of it as an attempt at a connection.

  The signs of schizophrenia. Disorganized thinking, unstructured thoughts. Bizarre and illogical behavior. What else had Professor Thomas said? Study the facts and make your own determination.

  Crouching by the girl’s side, she spoke once again of her reasons for coming, trying to be as honest and straightforward as possible. She told Sarah that they could be seeing each other a lot in the future, and that they could be friends if she wanted that. She reassured the girl that all she wanted to do was help.

  Then she spoke of anything that came into her head: her classes, her cat Otto’s unexpected arrival on her doorstep last fall, her family. Jess concentrated on keeping the words coming, keeping her voice calm and even, letting the sound soothe the girl who was rocking once again back and forth at her feet.

  Eventually her thoughts began to go off onto new tangents, so that it was several moments before she realized something else had changed. She heard a single sound, slow, muttered, unintelligible. The rocking had slowed; Jess kept her voice close to the same pitch while she shifted gears.

  “I know you’ve been treated badly by some people in the past. It’s just you and me now.”

  Sarah did not look up, but her hair had fallen away from her face, and she had stopped moving. Silence lasted for what seemed like hours. Then, in a remarkably clear, quiet voice, she said, “They’re looking at me. Staring at me. All the time.”

  Bingo. A thrill ran up Jess’s limbs. “Who, Sarah? Are they with us right now?”

  Sarah did not move or indicate that she had heard. Jess got the sudden idea the girl had been talking to herself. Still, she glanced around, more to satisfy Sarah than anything else. All she saw were the ash-gray walls and ceiling, and the padded metal door.

  She took this opportunity to examine the girl’s face more closely. A plain face, pale and broad, but her eyes were large and set widely apart above a long nose. She was the sort of girl who might have been pleasant-looking, under certain circumstances; but here under the blue-white lights she looked like a dog that had been kicked too many times.

  Of course she was drugged. And judging from the way the skin stretched across her skull and limbs, Sarah had not been eating well.

  Jess tried again: “Who’s watching you, Sarah?”

  Sarah looked up from beneath a black slash of hair. Jess was pinned by the sparks of light dancing in her eyes. Those eyes did not belong to that face. She felt like a burglar caught in a searchlight, exposed, naked, open to ridicule.

  Don’t be silly. She’s just a child.

  “I could kill you. Stop your heart if I wanted. If you’re lying.” Suddenly Sarah dropped her gaze from Jess’s face and turned, muttering, “No. No. No. She isn’t one of them. Not that one. No.” Her voice had quickly become rhythmic, almost a muttered incantation. A method of coping with something that cannot be faced. A defensive tactic meant to soothe the mind. Meaning to distract her, Jess moved quickly to her briefcase for her notepad, but as she moved she felt the girl’s eyes seize her again, and for a single, groping moment a hand tightened inside her chest.<
br />
  And then it was gone. She froze with her fingers on the notepad inside the case, her heart fluttering.

  She was imagining things. She was too keyed up, her adrenaline pumping. There were moments in time that coincidence lent a greater importance; this was simply one of them.

  Jess took the notepad out very slowly, telling Sarah exactly what she was doing in an easy, quiet voice. “What I said before, everything I told you is true. I’m here to listen to you, when you’re ready to talk. That’s all. Do you understand?”

  “No friends for me here.”

  “I see why you might feel that way. But I’m not from this place. I was asked by a friend of mine to come see you. They thought I might be able to cheer you up.”

  The girl regarded Jess with some curiosity. Jess was reminded once again of an animal that had been abused. Her heart ached for this girl.

  “Do you remember when I came to visit you the very first time? You asked me to help you.”

  “My head. It’s fuzzy.”

  “When you want to say something, it comes out different. All mixed up. Is that it?”

  “They do it. They’re watching me all the time.”

  Delusions of persecution was a common symptom of a schizophreniform disorder. And yet, so far Sarah had followed their conversation better than Jess could have hoped. She had showed a clear progression of thought, memory recall, cause-and-effect reasoning. These things didn’t add up.

  “Do you know where we are, Sarah?”

  “Prison.”

  “Do you know why you’re here?”

  “I was bad.”

  “And what did you do when you were bad?”

  “Hurt people.”

  “Who put you here?”

  “Them.”

  “Am I one of them?”

  “They’re white.”

  “You mean they have white skin? What do they look like?” For a moment she was puzzled, and then, suddenly, “You mean they have white clothes. White coats. Is that it?”

  Sarah just looked at her.

  “They’re doctors,” Jess said, “and you’re right. I’m not a doctor. You can tell that, can’t you?”

  “No doctors.”

  “Why don’t you like them?”

  “They hurt my head.”

  “Does your head hurt right now?”

  “Yes. I know what they’re thinking. They don’t like me.”

  Where to go from here? She was running the risk of overwhelming the girl, of pressing too hard. “Sarah, would you like to play a game?” Jess dipped into her briefcase again and pulled out a series of test cards. “I’ll ask you some questions, and show you some pictures, and you tell me what you think. Okay?”

  She went through the deck, testing Sarah first on colors, then shapes, both concrete and abstract. She had to use tricks several times to make the girl focus. Then she moved on to a TAT test, giving Sarah scenes on cards and asking her what was happening in them. It was a simple way of determining mood, the idea being that the subject would describe a scene in a certain light depending on how he or she was feeling, giving the interpreter a glimpse of the deeper emotions underneath.

  Sarah reacted mostly as Jess had expected, when she would react at all. Her answers indicated hostility and depression.

  Jess tried Rorschach. “What do you see here, Sarah?”

  “People. Big and mean people. Ugly.”

  “And here?”

  “Fire. A roof on fire.”

  “It’s a building? A house?”

  She shook her head. “It’s burning. They’re gonna go away. They’re gonna be gone.” She wouldn’t say anything more. Jess tried another inkblot, and another, but Sarah kept silent, withdrawn inside herself again.

  Jess found herself at a loss. Sarah was exhibiting signs of mental distress, but nothing to the extent that had been described by Wasserman. Absent were the unusual postures or mannerisms, loose associations that were common to schizophrenics. Her observation about the “white” doctors was perceptive and her fear was understandable.

  Something still did not add up. It was as if her file were written about someone else.

  Suddenly the girl stiffened. Jess paused and put the inkblots down. Sarah had turned to face the door and was clearly growing agitated. Her eyes seemed to turn a deeper, violent color. And there was something else in her gaze, something Jess could not pin down. The feeling she got was of looking at a lake of dark water and seeing a huge, black shape rising to the surface.

  Jess stood up and stumbled to the narrow window, aware of a new depth to the air, a sudden charge. She could hear muffled footsteps coming along the corridor. She craned her neck as Maria came into view, carrying a tray and another set of restraints. Maria stopped outside the door, fumbled in her pocket as if for her keys; then she looked up and made a gesture. The door was locked.

  Jess tried the bolts, but they wouldn’t budge. She fumbled in her own pocket. Maria’s keys were here somewhere; she had let herself in with them. But they were not in her pocket. They were nowhere to be found. She rattled the handle.

  When Sarah began to shout, the sound was so sudden and so loud in the tiny room that Jess flinched and whirled around.

  “Leave me alone!” There was fear in the girl’s eyes, and something else. “I don’t want you to come here!”

  Jess saw Maria freeze outside the door. She heard a popping sound and the tinkle of glass as several lights blew in the hallway. Maria’s tray clattered to the concrete floor. Jess Chambers felt the hair on her head lift as if she were rubbing her feet across a carpet. The air temperature dropped. Something had entered this room; she felt the air ooze thick and heavy, filled with a presence that snapped and writhed like live electrical lines.

  She tried the bolts again, but they would not budge. She scanned the room and struggled to keep herself calm. She had never been irrational; there was no reason to start now. There on the floor, nearly at her feet, were the keys.

  She looked back at the girl through the liquid air.

  Sarah’s eyes had rolled up into her head. Droplets of sweat slid off her forehead and spattered to the floor. Her limbs were shaking. Jess immediately thought of an epileptic fit, but the indications were not quite right. It was more like a concentration so tense and desperate as to cause a seizure. She shouted Sarah’s name, and the girl whipped her head back and forth, teeth chattering together, making one long unintelligible sound: “N-n-n-n-n-n-n-n—”

  It built, swelled—

  —then, all at once, ceased. It was as if a wave of water had broken over their heads, as if a light switch had been flicked off. In the sudden stillness Jess could hear Sarah’s unconscious body slump to the floor, and her own breathing, rough and ragged, loud in her ears as a bellows. Quickly she went to the girl, felt her pulse, quick and light as a bird’s wing, her breath fast and shallow. But the skin of her forehead had smoothed and she looked peaceful.

  Jess went back to the door. This time the bolts slid back smoothly into place with a soft click, and the door swung open. Maria was on the floor on hands and knees, scrambling to sweep up the contents of the tray. A syringe and several vials, more pills…

  Emergency lights had blinked on, throwing feeble orange light on the hallway. Slivers of glass from the broken bulb glinted orange on concrete. There were shouts from the other rooms, someone running above their heads.

  “She’s okay,” Jess said into the silence, more for herself than the nurse. “She’s out cold.”

  Maria seemed to flinch at her voice. Then the big woman climbed to her feet and took a new syringe out of her pocket. Wordlessly she entered the small room and knelt at Sarah’s side; lifted the syringe to the light with trembling hands, tapped it, squirted a tiny fount of sparkling clear fluid, and bent again to the girl’s arm.

  Only then did Jess remember that she had forgotten to put Sarah’s straitjacket back on. But Maria did not seem to notice.

  —9—

  “Evan Wasserman
called this morning,” Shelley said. She sat straight in her chair with her hands folded over the papers strewn across her desk. “He told me you went directly against his orders and removed Sarah’s restraints.”

  “I felt that she had to trust me. I took a chance.”

  “A very dangerous one, according to Evan. Sarah has been aggressive with people before. You went in before she had her medication. He was extremely upset about that.”

  “What could she possibly have done? She’s ten years old.”

  “That’s not the point.” Shelley paused. “Evidently there are problems between the two of you. I understand why. But the simple fact of the matter is that this is his hospital and his patient. You have to follow his rules.”

  Jess tried to keep down the sudden blood that rushed to her cheeks. She nodded, feeling like a scolded child. It was ridiculous, really. Shelley was right. And yet she felt betrayed.

  “Tell me exactly what happened.”

  Jess related the previous day’s visit, beginning with her arrival in Sarah’s basement room. She tried to remember everything Sarah had said, each indication of her mental state, including her paranoia about the “white” people. Still, Jess had the frustrated feeling that she was unable to get across the thrust of events exactly the way they occurred. There were things that happened that would sound crazy if she repeated them now: the way the lights had blown out in the hall, the sudden jamming of the door locks, the way Sarah knew her medication was on its way long before there was any sign of Maria and the tray. Jess prided herself on her logical, orderly mind. Those things were not logical and she tried her best to dismiss them.

  And yet she couldn’t, damn it. They kept pushing themselves back in.