Since September

by Noelle MacLeod

  Before I knew it, Uncle Paul and three men I recognized but couldn’t put a name to were carrying Mother’s coffin out the door. People were crying and wiping their eyes with tattered tissues. My father and I were taken to the hearse that now held my mother’s coffin, ushered through the crowd and into the back seat of a big, black car like a couple of rock stars. We sat stiff and silent on the short drive to the cemetery. When we reached the gravesite, the car stopped and we stepped out onto freshly cut grass, near a small pile of raked leaves hidden behind an old oak. I looked around for Cyndi, afraid to attempt walking in heels on such shaky legs without her help. As I turned to see which cars were now making their way slowly down the little dirt road to the cemetery I saw Uncle Paul and the other three men from before, now lifting Mother’s casket out of the back of the hearse and heading towards the big oak tree where the leaves had been raked into a pile. That’s when I noticed that it wasn’t just a little pile of fallen leaves behind that tree, but there was a rather large mound of fresh dirt as well. And next to the dirt was a hole. Mother’s grave. It was then that my legs finally gave out. My father grabbed my right arm as I started to go down, and appearing out of nowhere just in time, Cyndi grabbed my left.

  “Baby steps, Sher,” Cyndi told me.

  “Need some help?” Ralph was suddenly there as well, and Matt, both of them looking helpless and lost.

  “I’ve got her,” Cyndi answered, slowly leading me to the front of the crowd where the coffin was now waiting for us. My father, still silent, followed Cyndi’s lead, no doubt grateful to have someone step in and take on the maternal role.

  The minister gave some more comforting words that I did not hear, but this time I was focused on the giant hole that waited to swallow Mother up, its fresh earth pungent and wet. And then Mother’s coffin, her stilled body inside that dark, wooden box, was lowered slowly into that hole. The minister bent to get a handful of dirt, and then, as he wrapped up his soliloquy, he held his hand, palm side up, over the gaping hole, spreading his fingers so that the dirt fell through the cracks.

  “Ashes to Ashes,” he recited. “Dust to Dust…” My whole body shook as I heard that dirt hit Mother’s coffin.

  “No!” I yelled. Cyndi reached out for me, but it was too late. I ran to the grave, throwing myself into the hole, landing on top of Mother’s coffin with a thud, crushing her perfect white rose beneath me.

  “Sheridan!” I heard my father cry out, heartbreak in his ragged voice.

  “Oh my God,” sobbed Cyndi. “Sher!”

  “No!” I screamed again. “No, no, no! This isn’t real! It isn’t!”

  “Sheridan, please come out of there,” my father begged. He was crouching at the edge of the grave now, accidentally pushing dirt in on top of Mother and I with his polished black dress shoes. “Please, Sheridan.”

  People gasped as Uncle Paul, and Matt jumped into the grave with me then. I was on my hands and knees, and I could see their footprints in the dirt… on Mother’s casket…

  I felt ill, ashamed, horrified. What had I done? Mother would never forgive me!

  Matt and Uncle Paul hoisted me up into the air so that Ralph and my father could grab me and pull me out. I collapsed on the ground, sobbing hysterically, a fistful of fresh earth from Mother’s grave in each of my hands.

  “Please,” prayed the minister, “Almighty God in Heaven, have mercy on this young girl and forgive her for her sins, for she is overcome with grief.”

  My father cried into his handkerchief, and far in the distance I heard one gritty voice call out, “Amen!”

  * * *

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “Take off your shirt and pants,” demanded a middle-aged, slightly overweight woman in blue scrubs that had little cartoon animals scattered all over them. “Shoes, too.” Her tone was so matter-of-fact she may as well have been asking me to pass the salt.

  “My clothes?” I asked. My mouth was dry and my eyes burned.

  “Yes,” the nurse said, stone-faced. She peered at me over silver-framed glasses that were much too small for her face. “We need to make sure you don’t have anything hidden in them.” She glanced at her pink Mickey Mouse watch and sighed. I was taking up too much of her time.

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “Like anything.” She gave me the kind of look you get from the librarian when you talk too loud and I knew I better just do what she said. I didn’t understand why they’d brought me here but I could see that being resistant and argumentative wasn’t going to win me any points towards getting out.

  I took off my heels and stockings and stood barefoot on the cool, tiled floor. My toes throbbed. I rubbed them for a minute and then took off my pants and sweater, folded them neatly, and put them on a plastic chair in the corner.

  “Your bra and panties, too,” she said. The other nurse, dressed in a very traditional, very plain, white uniform, with a white headband in her dark hair, sat silently, but she never took her eyes off me.

  “My underwear?” I asked.

  “We need to make sure there’s nothing tucked inside. And if there’s a wire in your bra we’ll need to keep it.”

  “A wire?”

  “Is it an under-wire bra?”

  “I… I don’t know,” I stammered, stalling.

  “I think it is.” The nurse in white finally spoke, offering a gentle contrast to her partner’s insensitive gruffness. “We’ll keep it safe for you.” She smiled.

  I reluctantly started to pull down my black bikini panties, the silk ones Mother had given me in my Christmas stocking last year. It had embarrassed me, pulling them out of the stocking Christmas morning in front of my father. But having to strip them off in front of two total strangers, well, that just added to the total humiliation of the rest of the day. What I’d done at Mother’s funeral, what I’d done to her grave, in front of everyone…I’d completely lost control of myself, and as embarrassing and mortifying as it all was, it didn’t seem so unreasonable under the circumstances. After all, my mother had been decapitated and I’d just gotten out of the hospital that morning after suffering some sort of stress-induced seizure. And then there were the horrifying nightmares, and the voice, not that anyone else knew about that. Still, the murder - wasn’t that enough on its own to warrant some out-of-character behavior from loved ones? At least one person didn’t think so. Someone had called 911 and I was taken to the local hospital, given a tranquillizer, stuck in a room with a cop standing guard outside the door, and left there for several hours. Finally (around three according to the giant, loudly-ticking clock on the wall) a nurse came in to tell me that I was being transferred to the psychiatric hospital in the city.

  The psychiatric hospital! I might have protested if I’d had any fight left in me. Physically, I was exhausted. Emotionally, I was numb. It was another few hours before two cops came into the room, accompanied by the nurse, and led me outside to their cruiser. Getting into the back seat, seeing the black netting that separated the officers from me, it was all a little surreal, which fit right in with the rest of my life lately. The radio played country music the whole way back into the city - some sort of torture technique, like in Silence of the Lambs when they pumped that gospel program into Hannibal Lecter’s cell. I was being punished for my unruly behavior. I cried, quietly, the whole way, wiping my nose and eyes on my pretty black sweater that was now smeared with mucus. And dirt from my mother’s grave. As I stared at the dirt that almost completely covered my clothing, I realized that if I didn’t wash the outfit I would always have a part of Mother with me. Not a part of her in the literal sense, but a part of her final resting place, a connection to her. Like when a teenage girl gets a kiss on the hand from a boy she likes and says she’s never going to wash that hand again.

  Now, in this room with two nurses staring at me, I slid my underwear to the floor and stepped out of them. Then I reached around my back and undid the hooks in my black bra, wiggling my shoulders until the bra slid to the floor, too. The nur
se in the cartoon scrubs bent to retrieve it, stuffing it into a manila envelope and then walking swiftly out the door as the nurse in white strapped an ID bracelet around my wrist. Then I was permitted to put my dirty clothes back on, braless. My nipples poked through the thin sweater. I shivered and crossed my arms over my chest.

  “I need to take some blood,” the nurse in white told me. I saw a tray set out with empty vials sitting on the desk. “Have a seat.” She wrapped a rubber band around my upper arm and flicked the inside of my elbow. “Ah,” she smiled. “You have good veins.” She took my blood, and for the first time in my life it didn’t bother me. My mind was too numb to feel much of anything. It was a blessing that didn’t go unnoticed.

  “Okay, now,” she said. “We need to do some intake paperwork.” She pulled some forms out of a file and wrote my name at the top. “Tell me your birthday.” I told her. And then I told her everything else she wanted to know for her forms, none of which had anything to do with why I was here. I still hadn’t been given so much as a glass of water, and my stomach had started to growl. I caught a glimpse of her white nurse’s watch and was surprised to see that it was after nine o’clock at night. “All right then, that’s done.” She put the forms into the file with my name on it. “Are you hungry?” She must have heard my stomach.

  “I don’t know,” I answered. “I don’t really feel much like eating but my stomach’s growling, so I guess I am.”

  “Follow me.” She led me down the hallway to a much larger room with tables and chairs set up and a TV in one corner. “Here,” she said, grabbing a sandwich and small carton of milk out of a box on one of the tables. “Leftover from tonight’s bedtime snack.”

  I sat at the table and unwrapped the sandwich, which turned out to be peanut butter and grape jelly on flimsy white bread. The milk was warm, almost sour tasting, but I was so thirsty I didn’t care. It was wet, and it soothed my parched throat. I managed to choke down the sandwich, my stomach rumbling with each bite. When I finished, the nurse took me on a little tour of the wing. The doors leading into the rest of the hospital were locked, all the windows had bars on them, and there was a tiny room off the bigger one with the tables and chairs. This tiny room, empty except for a couple of hard benches and a big ashtray, was where the residents went to smoke. It, too, was locked, opened only at designated times, but the nurse let me peek through the window in the door. Even with the door closed, and nobody in there smoking, I could smell the stench of stale cigarette smoke when I got too close.

  “We have lights out at ten, so most everyone’s either getting ready for bed or already asleep. You’ll meet everyone tomorrow. Come now and let me show you to your room.”

  She led me down a long hallway to a darkened room with three little beds in it, all lined up against the wall. There was a small cabinet at the foot of each. The first bed had a snoring bundle of blankets in it.

  “There’s your bathroom,” she said, pushing open the door of a room within the bedroom that consisted of only a toilet and bathtub. The sink was around the corner, next to the bed with the noisy bump in it. The nice nurse in white left the room then, leaving the bedroom door open. I moved to the third bed in the row, next to the barred window, and crawled under the covers, dirty clothes and all. The lump in the first bed tossed and turned, groaning.

  I closed my eyes, willing sleep to take me away, and somewhere far in the distance, I heard singing. It was an old Sarah McLachlan song, being sung by a voice so unlike Sarah’s smooth angelic tone. A voice so deep-throated and husky…

  “Hold on…hold on to yourself…

  For this is gonna hurt like hell…”

  * * *

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “Wake up, Sleepy Head!” Someone was shaking me and yelling in my ear. I opened my eyes and rolled over to find a chunky woman with gray hair and gray-blue eyes. “Finally! You’re awake!” I sat up and pulled the covers up to my chin. “I’m Marge,” she held out her hand and I shook it.

  “Hi,” I said. My voice was groggy from lack of sleep. I cleared it and told her my name. “I got here last night. You were asleep.”

  “I know!” She cried, way too enthusiastically. “I was just telling Hilda how I went to bed in a room alone and woke up with two roommates!”

  I was hoping Hilda wasn’t my new roommate’s imaginary friend when I saw a too-thin woman with dark hair come out of the bathroom.

  “I’m Hilda,” she said. She smiled broadly, exposing a mouthful of brown teeth. Everything about Hilda was brown. Her hair, skin, eyes and teeth – all brown. It made it impossible to guess her age. “I got here real late last night. The boys in blue brought me in.” She giggled.

  “I’m Sheridan.” I tried to force a smile.

  “Well,” Marge said. “I must’ve been out like a light ‘cause I didn’t hear a thing. I like having my own room, but that never lasts too long.”

  “Have you been here a while?” Hilda asked her.

  “Long enough. This is my second time here. My son thinks I’m on crack.” Marge took a package of chewing tobacco out of her cabinet and stuck a chunk of it in her mouth.

  “Are you?” Hilda asked. She certainly wasn’t shy.

  “No. Well,” Marge spit brown goo into a Styrofoam cup on the side of the sink. “I was, but it wasn’t my fault. I was living in a hotel and this guy came over and gave me some.” She looked sad then, the chipper mood in which she’d awakened gone. “He got me all fucked up and raped me, then left the hotel. My son doesn’t believe me. He just thinks I’m a crack-head.”

  “That sucks,” Hilda said. It seemed like a bit of an understatement but I couldn’t think of anything more profound to say myself. “I’m here ‘cause my husband – he’s my ex-husband but I still call him my husband – well, I went to his apartment last night and he made me take off my wedding ring. He told me I needed to get over him.” Hilda paused for a breath. “So the boys in blue brought me here.”

  “The bastard called the cops on you?” Marge asked, spitting more goo into her cup.

  “No. I went home and got drunk and called my social worker. I told her I was gonna off myself and she called the cops. Next thing I knew there were four squad cars in my front yard.”

  “Wow,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say.

  “Yeah, assholes handcuffed me and everything. In front of my kids.”

  “You have kids?”

  “Two. One from my first husband and one from my last.” She had tears in her eyes now. “I just can’t accept that we’re through, you know? I’m thirty-four and my life is over.” Thirty-four. And already she’d been divorced twice and all her teeth were rotting in her mouth.

  “Well, are you girls ready for breakfast?” Marge asked, her interest in Hilda’s story quickly fading. “I’m starved.”

  “I think I’m going to try to go back to sleep for a little while,” I told them. “I’m not really hungry.”

  “I need some coffee,” Hilda answered.

  “You can’t go back to sleep,” Marge said. “They won’t let you. Everyone has to go to breakfast at eight, lunch at noon and supper at six. No exceptions.”

  “Shit,” Hilda said. “Rules.”

  “Tons,” Marge told us. “You’re not allowed to wear make-up, you have designated smoke breaks, and there’s no lock on the bathroom door.”

  “But, I…” I stammered. “I don’t have anything to wear. They took my bra and…” I reluctantly lowered the blankets to show them what I was talking about. My nipples poked proudly through the thin weave of the sweater.

  “Damn,” Hilda giggled again. “They took mine, too. I’m glad I was wearing a sweatshirt!” She wiped the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand.

  “Oh, they’ll get you guys a change of clothes, don’t worry. In the meantime,” Marge said as she opened her cabinet again, this time pulling out a big purple sweatshirt. “Wear this. You’ll be more comfortable.”

  “Oh, God, thank you.” I turned arou
nd to change my top, grateful for the soft thickness of the sweatshirt against my bare skin. “Do I have to walk around in these heels or are bare feet okay?” More giggles from Hilda. I noticed she was wearing sneakers.

  “Bare feet are okay but you’ll be cold.” Marge tossed me a pair of socks. I pulled them on and Hilda and I followed Marge down the hallway into a big room with a bunch of tables and chairs. It looked like the room where I’d eaten my sandwich last night only this time the chairs were filled with people, talking and laughing. Marge sat in what she said was her usual spot, at a table with four other women. Hilda grabbed my hand and led me to a table in the back with a guy sitting alone. He had stringy dark blonde hair and blue eyes.

  “Newbies!” He cried, loudly enough for everyone to hear. He grinned and I saw that he was missing a front tooth. The one next to it was yellow.

  “Can we sit with you?” Hilda asked him, already sitting down. I sat in the chair beside her.

  “Absolutely! I’m Mark,” he said, extending his hand to shake each of ours.

  “I’m Hilda and this is Sheridan. We got in last night.”

  “Together?”

  “Naw, but we’re roommates.”

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Well, you are two cute little things.” Mark took a drink of some blue liquid in a plastic cup.

  “What are you drinking?” asked my inquisitive new roommate.

  “Warm Kool-Aid,” Mark grinned. “There’s always some over there on that counter.” It was turning his lips blue.

  “No ice?”

  “No ice. This ain’t the Hilton, Princess.”

  “Well have they at least got coffee?”

  “They’ll bring some with breakfast. But don’t expect it to be good. So, what brings you gals to our fine joint here, anyway?”