by Amy Reed
They saved your life, didn’t they? Isn’t that what just happened? The tube down your throat, the clean stuff in, the dirty stuff out. You’re clean now, right?
Isabel, wake up.
The men are yelling, “Move, move, move!” We do what we’re told. We run down the hall, down the stairs. We don’t want to be trampled. We don’t want to be the ones who keep you from getting to the hospital in time.
The neighbors stare at our strange parade. Me in the front, then your mother, then all the men in uniform, and then your body, laid out and on wheels. We stand to the side while they load you into the back of the ambulance, beautiful sleeping cargo. Your mother grasps her heart and starts weeping. One of the ambulance men tells her to drive to the hospital. She nods and says, “My keys. Where are my keys.” I put my hand on her shoulder and tell her we’ll find them.
I look at you. At your thin arms strapped in. Your feet bare and too vulnerable. I start to panic. You will freeze. They must do something or you will freeze. “Someone get her a blanket!” I yell. “It’s freezing out here. She’ll freeze to death.” And as soon as that word comes out of my mouth, everything is silent and still and breaking.
“We’ll take good care of her,” the ambulance man says, and I have no choice but to believe him. And as he’s reaching for the doors, I see the tiniest movement. Your fingers, your hand, it is moving. Your eyes are opening. You look right at me, and something inside you smiles, and just as the doors are closing, I see the side of your mouth bend, I see your lips part and form the word “Hi.”
From: condorboy
To: yikes!izzy
Date: Wednesday, March 14—5:11 PM
Subject: empty
Dear Isabel,
I’m writing because it’s the only thing I know how to do. My fingers type with the blind faith that you are there, even though I know you’re not. And maybe these words have become something more than emails; maybe they are a kind of journal. Writing to you is like writing to another piece of myself.
You are in the hospital. You’re lying in a foreign bed somewhere, your insides scraped raw from the charcoal the doctors made you drink to clean you out. The bottle of pills that was supposed to make you better became your weapon. The medicine became poison.
I came to the hospital but they wouldn’t let me see you. I’m not family and you were still too fragile. I would have waited forever, but your mother sent me home, said there’s not much I can do for you just sitting there. So I left, but not until after she held onto me until I couldn’t breathe. I could feel her shudder as she wept. She said “thank you” in a voice so low it almost didn’t sound human. Maybe mothers are the only people capable of making that sound. Our first meeting, and already we know each other too well.
So I’m at home, trying not to obsess, trying to let my mom think she’s comforting me. Your mother has been calling regularly to give updates. I am trying to watch TV, but all I can see is a hospital drama starring you and your family. Your mother in constant vigil by your side. Your dad pacing the hall, beating himself up for finally going back to work and leaving you home alone that day. Your sister and Karen holding each other tight, praying to not lose their child’s only aunt.
Mom says tomorrow you’re going to the psych ward. You will be stabilized by then, filled up with fluids, caught up on sleep, your physical body in some sort of state resembling normal. But what about the rest of you? Are you going to be so heavily medicated you become someone else? Are they going to turn you into a zombie to save you? I don’t want to picture you with blank eyes and a drooling mouth, imprisoned in some chlorine-smelling, fluorescent-lit dungeon. Mom says she’s familiar with where you’re staying, she knows some of the staff, and she’s confident they’re taking good care of you. When I picture you, it’s with your hair wild, laughing, a deep red sunset and evergreens behind you. The memory smells like pine needles and salt water. Not like a hospital. Not like disinfectant and sick people. But I’ll take what I can get. It’s better you’re there than nowhere at all.
It seems like I should be feeling differently than I do. When someone you love tries to kill themselves, there must be some protocol of grieving and fear. Maybe I’m in shock. Maybe I’ve used up all my pain already as I’ve read and reread the emails that tell the story of your unraveling. Maybe this is something I was expecting deep down, something I had unconsciously prepared for. Is it wrong for me to feel relieved? Am I a monster for feeling grateful that they finally caught you, that you’re trapped and being watched so you can’t hurt yourself anymore? What else could have been done?
Maybe freedom and safety will always be at war with each other, and maybe one day freedom will win. Maybe someday you can have it back, maybe someday soon, but right now it seems irrelevant. Freedom is the least of your concerns. I’m glad you’re there, Isabel. I’m glad you’re getting a break from holding the world on your shoulders, even if it probably feels like prison.
After all this time trying to save you, maybe I finally have. Maybe I’m the reason you’re in there instead of a casket. I wonder if I’m supposed to feel proud of that. Should I pat myself on the back for calling your mom after reading your last email? Is it because of me that she called 911 and rushed home from work? What if she had picked up my message ten minutes later? An hour? What if those pills had more time to do their damage? I try not to think of these things, but I can’t help it. What if I hadn’t called at all? Maybe you hate me for it now, but I’m counting on you being glad someday. You’ll feel better and all of this will seem like a sad mistake, and you’ll look into my eyes and tell me how grateful you are to have had another chance.
Love,
Connor
Day 1
I blink and there’s a blank room with two beds, two dressers, two scared strangers. If you squint your eyes just right, this could look like my first dorm room. Does college smell this much like sorrow? Can you hear so much crying through the walls?
All I can do is listen. They say I can’t talk for a few days because my throat is so raw. I cough up little specs of blood. They give me lozenges that taste like sadness. God has finally found a way to shut me up.
This is not real life. This is frost.
We’re not allowed to wear shoes. Regular clothes are fine, but something about shoes must threaten our sanity. They give us these little brown ankle socks, one size fits all, with the little white rubber pads on the bottom to keep us from slipping. What kind of trouble could you get in with shoes? Maybe you could hang yourself with the shoelaces. Or maybe you could run faster. Maybe you could stand just a little more sturdy.
Every two hours, I open my mouth, I lift my arm up. The thermometer tells them I’m still human. My blood pressure says my heart’s still beating, or whatever blood pressure is supposed to tell. In two hours, maybe not, and then they’ll have to check again. My vital signs like clockwork.
I’m becoming a chemical concoction. The doctor says I may be on Lithium for the rest of my life. Plus there’s Zoloft for the depression. Ativan so I can sleep. Something else whose name I forget.
Apple juice in little cartons. Jell-O in single-serving cups.
I can project myself into these hallways. I can make myself a hologram. I walk around, in and out of rooms and chairs. I do what they tell me, no more, no less, and nobody knows that I’m not really here. The real me is somewhere else, safe for the time being in some shoe box or suitcase, an inconspicuous home for a soul.
From: condorboy
To: yikes!izzy
Date: Friday, March 16—7:04 PM
Subject: breathing
Dear Isabel,
I talked to your sister today. She said you’re doing really well. She seems like a no-nonsense kind of person, so I’m pretty sure she’s telling the truth. She said everyone at the hospital is really nice and knows what they’re doing, and you seem to genuinely want to do what they tell you. We laughed about that a little—you doing what you’re told. It must really be serious
if you’re not fighting everyone every chance you get. We were sort of laughing like it was a joke, but we both knew it wasn’t a joke at all. We talked about how we want to feel relieved that you’re getting help, but it’s a tentative kind of hope. I guess the stronger you get, the stronger the hope will get too.
It’s torture not being able to see you, but I guess I understand why it should only be family at the beginning. Mom and Jeremy have been great, and it’s been nice getting to know your family. But I feel like everyone’s just paper cutouts of themselves, that the only real people are you and me. Señor Cuddlebones knows something’s wrong and has been by my side nonstop. Sometimes I have to stop what I’m doing so I can remind myself to breathe, and it’s like it’s her cue to lean over and lick my hand until everything feels a little more normal. It’s like a gift she has or something. My mom’s friend Liza brings animals to retirement homes to cheer up the patients. I should tell her Señor Cuddlebones wants to apply for the position.
I’m talking nonsense now. I guess I don’t really have a whole lot to say. It’s like someone pushed a big pause button, and time is stopped. We’re all just waiting for something to happen, like the president is going to make a big State of Isabel’s Mental Health speech, and then we’ll know what we’re supposed to do with ourselves.
Love,
Connor
Day 2
It’s weird writing with a pen instead of a keyboard. It’s making me have to slow down. I’m thinking in chunks. Just like in dreams, my wrist doesn’t want to bother with transitions. I bet in ten years kids won’t even learn how to write. Instead of practicing their letters, they’ll start doing keyboard drills in kindergarten. And writing stuff by hand will be this old-fashioned thing that only a few people know how to do anymore, like sword fighting and speaking Latin. And then when technology fails and all the computers explode or whatever, no one will know how to communicate and we’ll lose our written language and be like cavemen again drawing pictures instead of words. And maybe that’s when the artists will take over, when what we do will be important, when everything has to be said with symbols.
It’s impossible to tell how crazy everyone is in here. This one guy looks fine, dressed up like someone’s dad you’d see mowing his lawn on a Sunday afternoon, khakis and a sweatshirt, psych-ward casual. But then you realize that you’ve never heard him speak. Then you see the forest of scars up and down his forearm. Then you’re walking down the hall and hear a whisper of pain, like a movie with the volume turned low, and it gets a little louder as you walk, and then you’re standing next to the Room, and you look inside the little window and there he is thrashing around, throwing himself against the padded walls, screaming at the top of his lungs. But you can only hear the muted version; you can only see him on this tiny screen.
From: condorboy
To: yikes!izzy
Date: Saturday, March 17—11:28 AM
Subject: garbage
Dear Isabel,
Jeremy went into Seattle by himself two weekends ago to hang out at some Queer Youth Center and didn’t even tell me until today. I asked him why he didn’t ask me if I wanted to come, and he was like, “Because of everything going on with Isabel, I didn’t think you’d be interested,” but I could tell that wasn’t the full truth. So I kept bugging him until he admitted the real reason. He said, “Why would I ask you to come with me to hang out at the Queer Youth Center?” and I was like, “Because I’m your best friend, that’s why.” Then he just shook his head like I was some dumb kid and said, “I didn’t really go there to find friends, Connor.” What a bastard.
Two idiots decided to have an eating contest at lunch yesterday, so they stuffed their faces with sloppy joes until one of them barfed all over the cafeteria floor. That was the highlight of my day.
Love,
Connor
Day 3
There’s a pay phone in the hall by the nurse’s office that accepts incoming calls. There’s a lady named Jane who sits by the phone all day, like she’s the psych ward secretary. She says she’s waiting for a call, but she won’t say from whom. Her face lights up when the phone rings, but it falls just as fast as she listens to the person on the other line ask for someone else. She won’t say anything, won’t yell out who the call is for. She’ll just drop the receiver, let it hang there on its curly cord with the person on the line saying, “Hello? Hello?” She’ll wander off, so you have to just hope that someone else is there to direct the abandoned calls. When you’re done talking, Jane materializes out of nowhere so she can take back her perch and wait by the phone again. The call is never for her.
The usual crew is wailing for pain meds again. Yesterday, they seemed to all have sprained ankles. Today it is migraines. Half of the people in here are drug addicts or alcoholics, in addition to being crazy. I try to picture my brother here, but I can’t remember what he looks like.
I can’t stop puking and my hands are shaking like the alcoholic schizophrenic’s down the hall. The doctor says it’s probably the medication, but he made me take a pregnancy test just in case. What kind of horrible god would even think of putting a life inside me? Who’s crazy now?
Top Ten Lamest Things About the Psych Ward:
10. The food
9. The way people get discharged and just leave without saying good-bye
8. Family visits
7. The lack of decorations
6. No reading after lights-out at 10:00 every night
5. The people who can’t even remember how many times they’ve been here
4. The brown socks
3. The padded room
2. The loneliness
1. The absence of you
From: condorboy
To: yikes!izzy
Date: Sunday, March 18—3:47 PM
Subject: thawing
Dear Isabel,
It’s starting to warm up finally. We’ve had three nights in a row with no frost, and my mom swore she saw some tulips sprouting on the way to work. I wonder if they let you outside where you are. Do they make you wear those paper hospital gowns? Well, it’s definitely not warm enough outside for that kind of attire.
Your sister says all you’ve been doing is apologizing for freaking everybody out. Mom says that’s a good sign, that you’re seeing how your behavior has affected others. Gennifer says you’ve been promising to never do anything like that ever again, and I can hear her hope getting a little stronger. I wish I could see this new proof too. All I have is the image of you on your bedroom floor with a tube up your nose. You on the stretcher. This is all I can see, even when I try not to, and it scares me.
Love,
Connor
Day 4
There are gradations of crazy. There are types, classifications, just like anything else. There are a couple first-timers here like me. We try not to take up too much space, try to prove with our silence that we don’t belong here. There are some who have been to treatment for addiction, alcoholism, and eating disorders, and they unanimously see this as a step down the recovery institution ladder. The rest seem strangely comfortable. They have visited here or somewhere like here before. Two or three came in properly crazy, talking to themselves and smelling of urine. But now they’re cleaned up and look just like the smiling housewife who says she just needs to “reset her medications.” There are a lot of those. People who were doing fine and leading normal lives, and then they got caught up in the illusion, started believing they were indeed as normal as they looked. Janice the swimming instructor stopped taking her meds and decided to go diving while wearing a winter coat full of bricks. Steve the publicist quit drinking, got some bad advice from an AA fundamentalist who said his psych meds were drugs and needed quitting too, then Steve ended up painting his windows black and telling his wife she had to abort their baby because it was not human.
But nobody says the word “suicide.” Even the girl with bandages on her wrists doesn’t mention anything about trying to kill herself. They say thing
s like they’re in here getting “recalibrated” or “reset,” like they’re just some malfunctioning machine that needs a reboot. Maybe it’s that simple. Someone just needs to unplug me, let me cool down for a little bit, then plug me back in, good as new. Maybe I never really wanted to die. Maybe I just needed to power off. Maybe we’re just robots who are only ever off or on, but we’re not the ones who are supposed to decide when to flip the switch.
How do I apologize to my family for trying to kill myself? How do I sit with them on my psych ward bed and convince them I won’t do it again? Every soft sound they make, every slow, deliberate movement makes me want to slap myself in the face over and over, because I can tell how hard they’re trying not to startle me, like I’m some fragile, erratic thing they can’t trust. And there are so many feelings I could be feeling, but the only one that makes any sense is embarrassment, and there is nothing glamorous about that. I am not the sexy genius whose brain is too big for this world. I am not the brilliant artist who speaks to angels. I am just a girl with a chemical imbalance and a family who’s a little scared of me, and I can’t look them in the eyes, I can’t say anything better than I’m sorry. All I can do is let my sister hold my hand like she’s been doing my whole life, and as she squeezes my fingers it is only those small bones that break, and nothing else feels anything close to what alive is supposed to feel like.
From: condorboy
To: yikes!izzy
Date: Monday, March 19—6:17 PM
Subject: whales
Dear Isabel,
There’s been a bunch of Orca whale sightings around the island the last couple of days. Jeremy says they usually don’t come this far down the Sound, so it’s probably because of global warming, and they’re going to get stuck in the mud flats in Olympia and die. But Mom says they’ve come to cheer me up. I like her explanation better.