by Amy M. Reade
But reality intruded when my mobile rang. It was Neill, angry again, wondering where we had gone. I told him he could find us at the café in the village, and he promised to be there to “bring us home” in a short while. I hoped “home” referred to Dumfries, but I had a sinking feeling he meant Janet and Alistair’s house.
When he was arrived, he parked the car directly in front of the window where I sat feeding Ellie the remainder of my egg. I knew he saw me, because instead of getting out of the car and coming into the restaurant, he honked the horn and made angry gestures for me to hurry and come out.
I took my time paying the bill and getting Ellie strapped into her stroller, though she would be getting right into the car when we went outside. I wasn’t deliberately trying to ruffle Neill, but I didn’t mind making him wait, either.
I knew I would pay for it, though. And when I got in the car, he lit into me with a long string of epithets I was thankful Ellie didn’t understand. She did understand, however, that Neill and I were very upset with each other, and she started crying almost immediately.
We both knew our marriage had taken a dramatic turn for the worse, and as far as I was concerned, it was the fault of him and his family. As far as he was concerned, it was entirely my fault. Why couldn’t he see how manipulative, how dangerous, his mother and sister were?
When we got back to the farm, Neill pulled the car to a stop but didn’t turn off the engine. When he turned to me to speak, his tone was low and measured.
“Greer, please try to behave while we’re with Mum and Dad. For some reason you have convinced yourself that they hate you, but you’re not giving them a chance.” He hesitated. I thought he might apologize for hitting me.
“I just don’t know what to do with you anymore,” he said with a sigh. “It’s like you’re a stranger.”
“Me?” I demanded. “If anyone has become a stranger, it’s you. And it’s happened just since we got to this Godforsaken house.”
“Don’t talk like that, Greer, I’m warning you.”
“Neill, don’t you see what your mother is doing? She’s trying to prove to me that she has you wrapped around her finger, that you’ll believe anything she says, and that she can do no wrong as far as you’re concerned. It’s sick!”
“Just go in the house,” he commanded. “It’s nearly time for lunch.”
“I’m not hungry. I just ate.” I know I sounded petulant, but I wasn’t about to sit down to a meal with Neill or his parents.
We were still glaring at each other as we walked through the front door, Ellie asleep in my arms. I guess she had tired of the fighting in the car and decided her own dreams were a better place to be.
Janet met us in the front hall. “Neill, we have to discuss something,” she said, ignoring me. Neill’s eyebrows furrowed.
“What’s the matter, Mum?”
She tilted her eyes in my direction, jerking her head toward the kitchen. I knew I wasn’t invited. I didn’t care what she had to say to Neill, anyway.
As I put Ellie down in her crib upstairs, though, I began to wonder what Janet wanted. She obviously hadn’t wanted me to hear their conversation, so it seemed logical that they were discussing me. I crept down the main stairs and stood outside the kitchen door listening, straining my ears to hear my husband and my mother-in-law.
“…worried about her,” Janet was saying in a low voice.
Who’s worried? About whom?
“I am, too. I just don’t know where this is coming from,” Neill replied.
“Do you think you should make an appointment for her to see a doctor?”
“Yes, I suppose I should. For Ellie’s sake.”
They were talking about me. It sounded like they were discussing my mental health. How dare they?
“I’d just like to know where she went yesterday with Ellie,” Neill continued.
I was torn—should I storm in there and confront them? Should I go back upstairs where I knew I would fume and speculate?
Beatrice solved my dilemma for me. I hadn’t heard her come up behind me. “Hi, Greer,” she said in a loud voice, loud enough for Neill and Janet to hear and come out of the kitchen.
“You see?” Janet asked Neill, pointing at me. “Listening behind doors, disappearing with the child, refusing to eat the food I make just because I made it? It’s alarming.”
Neill nodded, his fingers raking through his thinning hair. “Greer, Mum is right. You’ve not been yourself the past few days. Maybe you should take a rest. Maybe you should see a doctor.”
“She’s not going to see a doctor just because you suggest it to her,” Janet chided him. “You need to make the appointment. You need to go with her to make sure she gets the help she needs.”
I looked at Neill in horror. Was this really happening? Was Janet trying to get him to believe I was mentally ill? Was he actually going along with it?
“This is absolutely ridiculous,” I said a little too loudly. “There is nothing wrong with me that can’t be solved by leaving this place. Neill, your mother is trying to sabotage our marriage and my relationship with Ellie. How can you let her do this?”
“Hush. You’re being very rude, Greer. My mother only has your best interests at heart. Don’t you, Mum?”
She smiled sweetly at him. “You know I do, Neill.” She avoided looking at me. I turned suddenly and fled upstairs, locking the bedroom door behind me. I didn’t stop to think how such actions would look to Neill. If I had thought it over, I wouldn’t have done it.
Hands trembling, I fumbled around looking for my mobile phone, trying to be quiet so Ellie wouldn’t wake from her nap. As soon as I found it, I called my mother.
“What is it, Greer?”
“Mum,” I whispered, “please, please come get me and Ellie. Things have gotten very bad up here and we need to leave right away.”
Now I had her attention.
“What happened?” she asked, her voice rising.
“I can’t get into it now, but I need you as quickly as you can get here. Please come. I don’t think it’s safe for us here anymore.”
“I’ll leave in five minutes.”
All I had to do was pack up a few of Ellie’s things and wait for Mum to arrive. I could do that with the door locked, then I could leave quickly once she arrived. I would only have to speak to Neill long enough to tell him where he could find me when he was ready to leave his family and their insane ideas behind.
It wasn’t long, though, before I heard a knock at the door.
“Greer? Let me in. We have to talk.”
I had nothing to say to Neill. Let him talk through the door until his throat ran dry.
“Greer, please answer me. I’m worried about you. There’s someone out here who would like to speak to you.”
What!? How could he have gotten someone here so quickly?
In spite of myself, I answered him. “Neill, you and I both know this is crazy. Who’s out there with you?”
Neill cleared his throat. “Dr. MacDonald is here. He just wants to talk to you. Please come out now.”
“I’m not coming out to talk to some stranger about problems that do not exist. So you may as well tell him to leave.”
I could hear murmuring on the other side of the door and then a voice. Not Neill’s.
“Dr. Dobbins, I am Dr. MacDonald. Dr. Iain MacDonald. I’m here to help you.”
“I don’t need your help.”
“Your family is very concerned about you and feel you might need someone to talk to.”
“Ha! My real family is on its way here right now to pick me up. All I need is to get away from this house.” Sod it. I hadn’t meant to tell anyone Mum was coming.
“Greer? You called your mother?” Neill asked.
“I certainly did. You don’t expect me to stay here, do you?”
“I was hoping you would, since we brought Ellie here to visit my parents and Beatrice and Gerard.�
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“I’m leaving. And if you think I’m going to let Ellie stay here with these people, you’re the crazy one, Neill. I’m taking her with me.”
Dr. MacDonald spoke again. “Greer, what I’m hearing is a resistance to interact with your in-laws. Is that a fair assessment?”
“I would say they have a failure to interact with me. To the point where they locked me and the baby in an upstairs room yesterday without food or bathroom facilities.”
Silence on the other side of the door, then Neill again.
“Greer, we’ve been through this. You and I both know my parents would never let that happen to you or to Ellie. Nor would Beatrice or Gerard. Wherever you went yesterday, we can discuss that another time. What’s important right now is that you are mentally healthy enough to take care of Ellie. And, frankly, I don’t think you are. Please come out.”
I rubbed my face repeatedly, almost clawing my eyes as my hands raked down my cheeks. They’re trying to get me to think I’m going mad.
“Neill, I’m not coming out.”
I could hear heated whispering on the other side of the door. Ellie was starting to fuss. It was funny how babies could sleep through all kinds of noise, then wake up in the silence following the noise. I picked her up, cooing to her, making her smile in her groggy way, and we sat down in the rocking chair to wait for my mother to text me that she was waiting for us outside. It would be a couple hours before she would arrive.
I sang to Ellie, quietly so I could hear anything—or anyone—outside the door, but there was no sound for a while. After about an hour of singing and playing, during which I nursed Ellie, I sat up straight, startled to hear a key sliding into the door. I thought the only key to this bedroom door was safely in the nightstand.
But I was wrong. The door swung open and Neill and a man I didn’t recognize stood in the doorway. Dr. MacDonald. Neill’s mother stood behind Neill, craning her neck so she wouldn’t miss the show.
“I thought there was only one key to this room,” I informed Neill, looking down at Ellie. I wanted to avoid looking at his face for as long as possible.
“Mum found another one. It was on a shelf in the cellar.”
The doctor cleared his throat. “Greer—” he began.
“It’s Dr. Dobbins,” I interrupted.
“Dr. Dobbins, what happened to your face?”
I put a hand up to my face, where there must have been marks remaining because I had rubbed my face so hard earlier. I suppressed a groan. How must that look to him? Not good, I’m sure.
“Dr. Dobbins?” He was waiting for an answer.
“Ellie reached up and clawed at my face,” I answered, realizing as I spoke how pathetic I sounded. Dr. MacDonald nodded, his calm demeanor doing nothing to soothe my nerves. I wanted him to stop judging me, to go away. I wanted him to turn to Neill and his interfering, miserable mother and tell them I was nothing but a harried wife and mother who was being mistreated by her in-laws.
But he didn’t say any of those things. In his quiet voice he started to talk again. “May I come in, Dr. Dobbins?”
“I’d rather you didn’t.”
“Please? I just want to talk.” I began to relent. Maybe if I talked to him, I could get him to understand the lunacy of what was happening.
I waved my hand toward the bed, where he sat down lightly, folding his long, slim fingers together in his lap. Neill and his mother watched from the doorway, but Dr. MacDonald nodded at them and said, “We’ll be fine in here. If you could just close the door? Thank you.”
I could see the reluctance on their faces as Neill turned and pulled the door shut behind him. I wondered if they were standing on the other side of the door, listening.
“Why don’t you tell me what’s been going on?” Dr. MacDonald asked, tilting his head and nodding toward me, encouraging me to let down my guard.
When I related the events of the previous day and overnight, the doctor raised his eyebrows several times and nodded often, but remained silent. I couldn’t tell if I was persuading him of Janet’s madness or mine.
Mine, as it turned out. When the story had tumbled out, I sat rocking Ellie in silence, watching her look around the room. She was such a good, quiet baby.
Dr. MacDonald cleared his throat. “What you’ve told me is extraordinary.”
“Yes, I know that. It’s almost too much to believe, and I understand if you have a hard time accepting it as the truth. But you have to believe me. I have to leave, and I have to take Ellie with me, so Janet cannot imprison us in this house again.”
“I’ve known the Gramercy family for many years, and it just doesn’t seem like the type of behavior they’d engage in,” he said, his eyes searching mine.
I cursed myself for not asking him if he knew the Gramercy family before I started talking to him. Of course he knew them—how else could they get a doctor to the house on such short notice? I wondered how he knew them. I wondered if any of them were his patients.
But it didn’t matter, because I was alone with him now, having told him my whole story. It was too late to retract it, to tell him it was a joke or I was mistaken. I could tell by looking at his erect bearing, his steady dark gaze, that he didn’t believe a word I said and that he was going to take it upon himself to see that I was treated for my mental illness.
There was a slight noise at the door, and my earlier question was answered. Of course Neill and Janet, and God only knew who else, was standing on the other side of the door, listening to my ramblings.
My breath started to quicken and my palms were sweaty. I hugged Ellie closer to me, realizing as I did so that these things all made me look anxious and irritated. I could practically see the wheels turning in Dr. MacDonald’s brain, debating where and how I would best be treated.
A soft knock at the door. “Greer?” It was Neill’s voice. I didn’t answer.
“I’ve just called your mother and told her you’re sick. I advised her to turn around and head back to Dumfries until you feel better. She’s worried about you, too. I just didn’t want you thinking she was coming for you.”
He sounded so reasonable, so rational. But everything was spinning completely out of control.
“Please, Neill, call her back. I need to leave. Ellie and I need to leave,” I said. I hated myself for the begging tone in my voice.
“We’ll go back when you feel better.”
I looked at the doctor, who was staring at me with pity. “Don’t look at me like that,” I growled. “I’m not sick. Why won’t anyone believe me? I’m perfectly healthy. I just want to leave, that’s all.”
“If you’re not sick, then why the marks on your face? I don’t think your daughter put them there. People don’t scratch themselves like that. And look at your fingernails,” he continued. I curled my hands into balls so he couldn’t look at them again. I had tried so many times to stop biting my nails, but they were bitten right down to the quicks. “It’s clear you’re very anxious about something, and I’d like to help you figure out what that is.”
“I know what it is. I’ve been trying to tell you. My in-laws hate me and they imprisoned us. What more can I do to get you to believe me?”
He stood up and held out a hand to me. “Come with me and we’ll have you feeling better in no time.”
Ellie started to cry, and I stood up and walked around the room with her under the doctor’s watchful eye. I tried giving her toy after toy to play with, but nothing seemed to satisfy her. Finally I asked the doctor if I could have some privacy to nurse her and he agreed to wait in the hallway.
I thought furiously while I fed Ellie. How was I going to get myself out of this? I tried calling my mother’s mobile, but there was no answer. There was a knock at the door. “Dr. Dobbins? Are you done yet?” asked Dr. MacDonald.
“Yes.”
Without waiting for permission, he came back into the room, Neill fast on his heels. Neill came toward me and reached for E
llie. “Would you like to come play with Daddy, darling?”
“No, Neill. Please leave her here with me.” I was begging again. I realized with a sinking dread how this was going to end. He was going to take Ellie away and I would be alone with the doctor, helpless to get him to believe me.
“You can have her back as soon as you’re better,” the doctor said. Though his tone might have sounded soothing to anyone listening, to me it sounded patronizing, grating, and terrifying.
“You’re not taking me anywhere,” I told him.
“You’re going to come back with me to the place where I work, and we’ll have you all checked out there.”
“You can’t do that!” I cried, my voice cracking as it rose higher.
“Neill has already given his permission, and that’s all we need at the moment to get the process started.”
“What process?” I asked, my eyes darting from the doctor to the window. Could I jump out? I was only two floors off the ground.
But the doctor saw my eyes and read my thoughts. He put his hand on my arm. “Don’t do it, Dr. Dobbins. You’ll hurt yourself, and it’ll only result in you being away from Ellie longer.”
And in that moment, I knew Neill and his family had me trapped. My only choice was to accompany the doctor wherever he was going and do my best to behave just like any normal person in order to get my daughter back. I couldn’t bear the thought of her staying in this house without me. I was terrified of what Neill’s family would do to her. I began to wonder if Ellie was old enough to be poisoned against me by hateful things she heard. My heart started beating faster, and I couldn’t seem to hear anything.
Please, God, do not let me faint in front of this man. I sat down on the edge of the bed and took several deep, slow breaths. My vision, which had become dark and blurry around the edges, began to clear.
I stood up and faced Dr. MacDonald. “Where are we going?”
“A facility where I can help you get better quickly.”