by Yvonne Prinz
I couldn’t remember when I’d last been home. Was it yesterday? My brain didn’t offer me the information. Maybe it had been longer. Maybe they thought I was dead. But Sharona had called them. When was that?
I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the glass window. With my glasses and my swollen eye and my hair hacked off I could be mistaken for homeless, yet I was standing five feet from my home. Fin lifted his head and slowly turned toward the window. I froze. He sensed me. His eyes came to rest on me. I stumbled back through the gate and started along the path that led up the hill above our house.
Thirty Two
I stopped several times on the path up to the shed. There was a terrible pressure on my lungs. Every breath I took was painful and my temples pounded. I felt feverish and clammy, and then I felt so cold that my teeth chattered. I stumbled and fell down once, tearing Sharona’s jeans and scraping my knee. A trickle of blood started down my leg. I contemplated staying there on the ground like that but then I slowly, painfully, got myself back up and carried on. When I finally arrived at the top I was so light-headed I felt I might pass out. I stood there for a moment, trying to catch my breath. My nose had started to bleed, and I wiped at it. An angry smudge of blood appeared on my forearm. I looked down at my house. Fin’s truck wasn’t parked next to my mom’s in the driveway anymore. I continued up a path that led through some trees and then into the old pasture.
The dilapidated equipment shed was still there. I walked as quickly as I could toward it and staggered through the wide doorway. Hundreds of pigeons were perched high in the rafters. Except for a couple of empty beer cans in the corner, it looked abandoned. I dropped my backpack and fell to the dirt floor. I lay on my back, looking up at the sky through the missing boards on the roof. My head was spinning. Would Lucky remember this place? I would wait here for him. My eyes started to close and I was sure that I would die in this spot. I fought to stay conscious. I wanted to be awake if Lucky was coming. This was a good place to wait for him. Maybe he could tell me what to do next. I drifted off for a bit. I don’t know how long. When I opened my eyes, the voices started again, whispering at first and then mumbling something. The voices were coming from the pigeons above me. I tried to understand what they were saying, but I could only make out some of the words: Dead, water, black, water, neck? Fire, Fire, Fire! They watched me with their beady red eyes.
I smelled woodsmoke. Something near me was burning. I lifted my head painfully. After a moment I saw it. One tiny flame curling lazily up the walls of the shed. A few more danced along the ground, then a few more. Then flames leapt angrily up all four walls. The pigeons flapped their wings and took off in a flock, rushing the door. I watched the fire take over. I heard a loud creak and a piece of a rafter, alive with flames, came crashing down, landing inches from my feet. I dug my heels in and pushed myself back as another piece fell. I raised my hands to protect myself and tried to stand but the wood knocked me back down to the dirt floor. I started to cough. The smoke was black and thick now. I struggled to get up but I had nothing left. Someone was moving along the side of the shed, coming toward me, through the flames. Fin.
I dragged myself pathetically away from him.
“Where ya going?” he stood on my hand with his boot. I screamed out in pain.
“You’re such a confounding girl, George. And I’ve got to hand it to you, you don’t give up so easy.”
I grimaced in pain.
“Aaah, there’s the face. You know, Lucky had exactly the same series of expressions on his face when I held him under: confusion, and then panic, followed by understanding, and finally, acceptance. He fought hard too, but in the end he went quietly, one bubble at a time, smaller and smaller and then . . . well . . . you know the rest, don’t you?”
The flames were approaching him from behind. I tried to move again but I couldn’t.
“You won’t get away with this,” I croaked.
“I’ve already gotten away with it. When are you going to get it? I’m not leaving. You are. I’ve worked hard for what I have now. Not like Lucky. Everything came to him so damn easy that he took it all for granted. Not anymore.”
“Please . . . don’t.”
“It’s your doing, George. If you would have shut the hell up, we could have all been so happy together. Couldn’t you have just played along? You ruined everything. And there’s nothing you could have done that would bring Lucky back. And now you’ve thrown away your own life too. What a waste.” He shook his head.
There was another loud crack. Another rafter beam fell, hitting Fin on the right shoulder. He fell to the ground, disappearing into the thick black smoke. Then, from behind me I felt arms gathering me up. I was off the ground now. I was moving. I saw the taut tendons in Lucky’s neck as he strained to carry me out of there to safety. I coughed and gasped for breath.
“Wait here,” he said. “I’ll be right back.” But it wasn’t his voice. It was Sonia’s. I heard footsteps running away from me. Everything went dark.
I woke up on the ground outside the shed, coughing. My lungs burned. I held my hands out in front of my face. Blisters were starting to appear on my palms. My skin curled up like tissue paper. Over my shoulder, the shed blazed. I looked around for Fin, but I couldn’t see him. I called out for Lucky. My voice was a dry rasp. I curled up in the dirt, coughing, and squeezed my eyes shut. I would stay here like this, listening to sirens off in the distance, until Lucky came back. I hoped it would be soon.
A few moments later there were loud voices everywhere, but someone was right next to me, speaking quietly to me and touching me carefully. I was lifted onto a stretcher. I turned my head and I saw a police car and a policeman. I saw the back of Fin. He was handcuffed and he was being led, limping, to the police car. Sonia was talking to another policeman. She was pointing at the shed and then at Fin and then at me. She was crying. They put Fin in the back of the car and shut the door. He watched me out the window as the car drove away.
Thirty Three
I remember hearing voices around my head, saying things I didn’t understand, and the sound of a siren and the feeling of speed, but I kept my eyes squeezed shut. Much later my eyes fluttered open in a small room. The walls were painted swimming-pool turquoise. I felt a peaceful floating-on-water feeling, like when you go to a public aquarium and you stand in those darkened rooms and watch the fish glide by slowly on the other side of the glass. Bubbles and ripples of light reflected onto the walls. My head was quiet. The voices seemed to be gone. My wrists were tethered to the bed with restraints. My right hand was heavily bandaged and my left hand had bandages around a couple of fingers. I felt drugged. I lifted my head with effort and looked around. Lucky dozed in a plastic chair next to my bed.
“Lucky,” I whispered.
His eyes opened and he smiled. “There you are, George. I was so worried.”
“Am I dead?”
“ ’Course not.”
“What happened?”
“You fell down a hole.”
“I did?”
“Yes. But you’re back now.” He stood up and bent over to kiss the top of my head.
“Where’re my glasses?” I asked.
“What glasses? You don’t wear glasses.”
I looked down at my hair. It lay in long strands against my hospital gown. It looked silky and smooth and fell around me like I was Sleeping Beauty.
“My hair,” I said.
“It was all tangled so I brushed it. You want to see?”
“Yes.”
He produced a hand mirror and held it up to my face. “See? Beautiful.”
I smiled. I did look beautiful. My face was full and round and my eyes were bright. I was back to my old self—I was better than my old self.
“Why are my hands tied up?”
“Because you bit me,” he said, but he wasn’t Lucky anymore; he was a dark-skinned man in a white doctor’s jacket.
I tried to focus my eyes to look around. The room was beige in every
way. A bag hung on a metal thing with a tube that was attached to my hand with tape. The man in the jacket smiled warmly. “Welcome back, Georgia. How do you feel?” He had an English accent.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Richard. You’re at UCSF. I’m an intern here. We’re going to help you get well.”
“Where’s Lucky?”
“Is Lucky your dog?”
“No, he’s my brother.”
“Well, maybe he’s waiting outside with your parents.”
“Maybe.”
“I’ll take the restraints off if you promise to behave.”
“Okay.”
He unbuckled one and then the other.
“There you are. Free as a bird.”
I felt my hair. It was cut close to my scalp. It felt ragged and horrible. There were painful raised pink welts on my arms. I touched my right eye. It was still swollen shut.
“Poison oak,” said Richard.
A tear rolled down my cheek.
Richard grabbed a tissue and touched it to my cheek. “Aw, hey, don’t do that. You’re going to be okay. I promise.”
“Do you know where my glasses are?”
“I do, actually.” He pulled open a drawer next to my bed and handed them to me. “I want you to get some rest. We’re going to get you hydrated and get you eating again and you’ll feel a lot better, okay?”
I nodded. I wanted him to leave. I wanted to cry in peace.
“I’ll send your mom and dad in.”
I remembered something important. “Hey, Richard?”
“Yes?”
“Did you see my T-shirt? I need my T-shirt.”
He opened the little door on my bedside table and pulled out a plastic bag. He showed me the filthy, tattered Bugs Bunny T-shirt. It was cut open, right down the middle.
“Sorry. Looks like it didn’t make it. We were trying to get you hooked up quickly. Maybe your parents can get you a new one? Or maybe your brother?”
“Thanks,” I said.
“Not too long. She’s been sedated,” I heard him tell my parents as he passed them in the doorway. I put my glasses on.
My mom started to cry when she saw me. She awkwardly tried to hug me without hurting me. My dad put his hand gently on my arm. My eyes were too heavy. I couldn’t keep them open. I slipped into a deep sleep.
Thirty Four
Over the next few days I drifted in and out of consciousness. I started to feel better. Whatever meds they gave me seemed to be working. I did a lot of sleeping and the committee in my brain diminished and then disappeared. It was like I’d been listening to speed metal at full volume on my stereo and then someone suddenly yanked the cord out of the wall. I hadn’t realized just how loud they’d become. It felt luxurious to just lie there and think one thought at a time, one logical thought at a time.
My mom brought me some new clothes and gave me a haircut. A sort of terrible pixie was the best she could do with the hack job I’d done in Sharona’s bathroom. I felt it with my one good hand, but I put a towel over the mirror in the bathroom so I wouldn’t see what I looked like. The welts on my arms and legs were disappearing, and soon my eye opened up again.
My mom sat by my bed one afternoon. “George, I have to talk to you about something,” she said.
“Okay.”
“When we lost Lucky, it was the end of the world for me. I didn’t know how I was going to go on. I lost myself in my grief.”
She stroked my choppy hair.
“But when I saw you lying on the ground outside that shed, burned and bleeding and wasted away to nothing”—tears started to spill down her cheeks—“I thought you were dead and I felt like dying myself because I finally realized that all this time I never really understood how much you were suffering. I was so impatient with you.” She put her head in my lap. “I’m so sorry. Please forgive me. I can’t imagine how much pain you must have been in.”
I patted her head gently with my bandaged hand. “It’s okay, Mom.”
She lifted her head. “No, it’s not, it’s really not. I love you, Georgia.”
“I know. I love you too.”
She grabbed a tissue from the box next to the bed and dabbed her eyes.
“But things will be different now. We’re going to get you well.” She kissed my cheek. “Okay?”
“Okay. Hey, Mom?”
“Yes?”
“You don’t think Lucky kept leaving because of me, do you?”
“No, Honey. Lucky loved you very much.”
“I was awful.”
She smiled. “He didn’t care.”
The next day a doctor cut the bandage off my right hand. My palm was shiny and pink and swollen. The skin was tight and I had trouble opening my fingers.
“It will get better,” she said, examining it carefully. “Every day it will get a little bit better.” She smiled kindly at me. She had an accent and she told me she was from Argentina. “What does your necklace mean?” she asked, touching the silver charm at my neck.
“Fearlessness,” I said. “It’s Sanskrit.”
“I like that.”
I started physical therapy for my hand and daily ninety-minute sessions with Dr. Lundgren, my new psychiatrist, in his office on the sixth floor. Dr. Lundgren seemed too young and too tall to be a psychiatrist. He was nothing at all like Dr. Saul. He had big feet and hands and large thick ears that stayed pink. His hair shot comically up off his head like broom bristles. His gait was a bit Herman Munsterish. He had a picture of his daughter on his desk, next to a spider plant. I was envious of her. She looked like a nice, normal, happy girl.
“Is that your daughter?” I asked.
“Yes. Her name is Holly,” he said.
“Does she have big feet too?”
He laughed. “Yes. We buy her clown shoes.”
I smiled.
The sessions were difficult. Sometimes I would stop talking for minutes at a time. Dr. Lundgren didn’t seem bothered by this. He was very patient.
After each session Dr. Lundgren walked me to the door. “To be continued,” he’d say.
It took several sessions to tell my story. I told him about the time when I was eight and I wrapped my entire body in tinfoil and duct tape to stop the radiation from getting to my body. I also told him about the time I was ten and I dug up our dead cat, Nugget, three days after we’d buried her in the backyard because I was convinced we’d buried her alive. I told him how I stopped eating, certain I was being poisoned, and how I stopped going anywhere because I was definitely being followed, and how, when I did finally leave the house, I would have to take everything that meant anything to me with me because I thought the house wouldn’t be there when I returned. It took me hours to get out of the house.
Every session was exhausting.
“Are you going to make me go back on my meds?” I asked.
“Not the same ones. We’re going to try something new. I’ve already given you an injection. So far you seem to be responding to it very well. If it keeps working, you’ll only have to get an injection once a month. I’ll give you some literature on it so you’ll understand it better. We’ll wait and see now. We’ll keep a close eye on how you’re feeling.”
“So, I won’t see Lucky anymore,” I said wistfully.
Dr. Lundgren looked at me solemnly. “Georgia, you have a mental illness. There isn’t any way for you to live anything even close to a normal life without meds. You deserve a chance at happiness. Lucky would want that for you, don’t you think?”
I nodded. He was right.
“We’re kicking you out of here,” said Dr. Lundgren at the end of our fourth session. “I’d like to keep seeing you, though, if you can manage to get to the city for appointments.”
I didn’t want to stop seeing him. I would have to talk to my mom and dad. I had to figure out a way to make it work.
The prospect of going back out into the real world scared me to death. I hadn’t been in the hospital long, but I felt safe t
here.
When I left Dr. Lundgren’s office that day there was a boy slouched in a chair in the waiting area. He drummed his palms against his legs. He wore a knit beanie and tinted glasses. Dyed blond hair sprouted out from underneath the hat. He looked up at me and nodded. Dr. Lundgren came out of his office.
“How are you today, Mr. Black?” he said.
The boy got up and followed Dr. Lundgren into his office.
I went to the cafeteria and loaded a tray with fish sticks and corn. I sat down at a table. I said hi to Douglas, a really nice guy who thinks he’s from the future. I looked around the room. I was ready to go home.
Thirty Five
Home was hard for me. I felt so vastly different from the girl who left False Bay in an ambulance. People spoke to me in simple sentences with the volume turned up as though I’d become mentally disabled and deaf somewhere along the way. I could tell by the way they kept their distance that they’d all heard the stories. My mom and dad treated me like a fragile, unstable child. They smiled way too much and watched me carefully, constantly asking me if I was hungry or tired. Even Rocket looked at me tentatively. My room was different too. They’d tidied it up and lunatic-proofed it. They took out all the matches, lighters, razors, and scissors.
Every day I felt a bit better. When I looked at myself in the mirror I still saw someone who scared me a bit, but at least I was looking in the mirror again. I had scars all over my body that only I could see. It occurred to me that I looked more like Lucky now.
I went over to Sonia’s as soon as I could muster up the confidence to face her. She looked pale and drawn.
Things were awkward between us at first. She laughed nervously. “I missed you,” she said.
“I wasn’t gone that long.”
“I think I started missing you before that. I’m so glad you’re you again.”
“Thank you for rescuing me. How did you know I was up there?” I asked.
“I looked out my window—you know, we were all looking for you—and I saw you on the path heading up to the bluff. You were close to the top. I was about to run after you when I saw Fin leave your mom’s studio and jump in his truck. He was in a huge hurry. He was looking up at the hill. I was going to flag him down so I could go with him but he zoomed right past my house, which I found strange. I knew I could get to you pretty fast if I hiked up on the path. When I got there, the shed was already on fire. I was going to run inside, but I heard Fin talking to you, so I stayed by the door, listening.” She shook her head sadly. “You tried to warn me. I should have listened. I still can’t believe it.”