But Inside I'm Screaming

by Elizabeth Flock

  “It’s weird how nervous I am. I feel like I’ve been in a cave or something.”

  “Yeah. I know the feeling.”

  Isabel signs herself out so that she can await her parents’ arrival. Around the corner, at the edge of the small parking lot, she positions herself on the low rock wall so that she can see both points of entry. She checks her watch every thirty seconds.

  I bet they’re turning into the hospital grounds right…about…now.

  Isabel stands as the black Range Rover turns into the lot.

  “Mom.” Isabel nervously and woodenly hugs her mother. Over her shoulder she looks for her father.

  “Oh, honey.”

  “Where’s Dad?” Isabel knows the answer before it is spoken.

  Forty-Three

  “Honey, he wanted to come.” Isabel flinches as her mother runs her hand through Isabel’s hair. “I can’t get over how much better you look. Rested.”

  “Mom, don’t. Okay?” Her voice cracks as she gulps back tears.

  “Oh, Isabel. Your father would have been here if he could have, you know that.”

  “Don’t make excuses for him, okay?” Isabel’s voice is raised. “Why are you always making excuses for him? He ‘would have been here if he could have’? What? Something came up that was more important than visiting his daughter in a mental institution? Do you hear how absurd that sounds?”

  Katherine is nervously motioning to Isabel, moving her hands in a downward signal, universal for “lower the volume.”

  “Isabel, please keep your voice down. I know this is upsetting.”

  “No. No you don’t.” Isabel waves her mother off and starts heading for the unit. Katherine hurries behind her. “All my life this has happened.” Isabel spins around and faces her mother. “For years I’ve heard ‘your father would have been here if he could have.’ Years. And you know what I’ve realized? It’s bullshit! He’s probably too hungover to come. This whole ‘he wanted to come’ thing is bullshit!”

  “Language,” her mother warns. “Watch your language, young lady.”

  “Oh, give it up, Mom. Look around you. You think anyone here cares about language?” She mimics her mother’s tone.

  “Isabel, I’m still your mother and I am saying it bothers me, okay? So please refrain from using bad language around me.”

  “Oh, please.” Isabel pauses and then her words are deliberate, her tone measured. “You know what? Stop. Don’t. No more excuses for Dad. No more trying to make it okay that he has missed out on my entire life. No more dancing around his drinking. Don’t shake your head, Mom, I’m sick of it. Is he on the wagon? Is he off the wagon? I can’t ask you because you just will not talk about it. I want us to talk about it. Can’t you do that?”

  “I didn’t realize I was always making excuses for your father. I…I will try not to do that from now on.”

  “He’s had one big long hangover for the past thirty years! It’s bad enough that he hasn’t been there for anything that’s been important in my life….”

  “Now, I will say this and don’t interrupt me. I’m not making excuses for him, but I will say that your father has always been there for the important things in your life—”

  “Mother, I will interrupt you. I know exactly what you’re going to say next. He’s been there for the plays and the graduations and the dances. Right? That’s what you were going to say, right?”

  Her mother nods, not sure where Isabel is leading her.

  “But, Mom, you know what I’ve realized? The important things are what happens in between the plays and the graduations. On the way to the dances. That’s real life. The rest is all for show. This—” Isabel extends her arms in a Julie-Andrews-on-top-of-the-mountain gesture “—this is real life. Three Breezes is real life. It doesn’t have a pretty set design or offer me a diploma or have a great band, but it’s real. That’s why I don’t want to hear excuses anymore. Do you understand?”

  After waiting for what Isabel has said to absorb, waiting for it to make sense, Katherine nods and answers truthfully.

  Isabel takes a deep breath and then exhales. “What’d you bring me for lunch?”

  Katherine looks relieved. “Chinese chicken salad.”

  “From Ella’s?”

  “From Ella’s.”

  Isabel leads her mother over to the nurses’ station, knowing she has to sign her in as a guest.

  “Julie? Where’s the sign-in sheet?”

  “Oh, hello, Mrs. Murphy!” Julie beams. Of course chipper Julie is going to be insufferably chipper in front of mom. “Nice to meet you! We’re all so fond of Isabel.” Yeah, right.

  As Katherine signs in on a clipboard Julie adds, “I’m going to need to go through those bags you brought.”

  Isabel had forgotten.

  Shit. The bag check. Damn. Nothing says “picnic” like a nice little security check for deadly weapons.

  “Smells great,” Julie says. “This is fine. I’ll have to hold on to this Snapple, though. Otherwise, no problems. Enjoy your lunch!”

  The Snapple is in a glass bottle.

  Isabel leads her mother back outside.

  “Let’s sit over here, away from the building a little.” Isabel points to two Adirondack chairs several yards away under a maple tree.

  “Can we do that?” Katherine looks around nervously. “Is it okay?”

  “Mom, I can go anywhere on the grounds so long as I sign out and check in at the nurses’ station every half hour, okay?”

  “That’s great!” Katherine tries to sound super enthusiastic.

  “The food looks great.” Isabel, too, is trying to smooth out the tension between them.

  “Now, Isabel,” Katherine begins in a tone that only mothers can effect, “don’t get mad at me, but I brought a lot extra in case anyone else is hungry. Maybe your friends…” She trails off, looking at Isabel hopefully.

  “My friends? The other patients, you mean?”

  “The other patients, yes. Do you think that’d be okay?”

  She thinks I’m the old Isabel…making friends…running for class president…being team captain…anchoring the evening news. She doesn’t see I’m a nobody. A nobody in a mental institution. These people…these people aren’t my friends. These people are other failures. Other nobodies. Just let me go, Mom. It’d be much easier for all of us.

  “Isabel? Where’s Lark—she go to the bathroom or something?” Julie is consulting her clipboard in front of the Adirondack chairs.

  “How should I know?”

  “She’s not having lunch with you and your mother?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Could she join us?” Katherine looks eagerly at Isabel and then addresses Julie. “Please join us as well, dear, we have more than enough food….”

  “Julie? What’s up?”

  “She signed herself out on the board as having lunch with you two and I’m a little late on my checks.” Julie wheels around before finishing her sentence and runs back into the unit.

  “I’ll be right back,” Isabel tells her mother as she heads toward the unit.

  “Okay!” Katherine calls after her. “But please invite your friends to come join us for lunch if they can! It’s good Chinese chicken salad!”

  Back in the unit the nurses have scattered and are simultaneously going door to door, calling out names louder than usual. Isabel stands to the side of the nurses’ station.

  “I’ll call central.” “We need to fan.” “Who did the last check?” The nurses and orderlies are talking all at once. Within a minute, security is on the premises.

  “Isabel? Can we help you?” Julie asks distractedly, knowing Isabel is there for voyeuristic reasons.

  “No, I’m fine.”

  “Well, then, we’ll need you to clear out of this area for now, to make some room.”

  “I’m worried about Lark,” Isabel says.

  “Lark? What’s wrong with Lark this time?” Ben stumbles around the corner so quickly that Isabel al
most tumbles backward.

  “Nothing’s wrong with Lark,” the nurses answer in unison while trying to usher Isabel and Ben and Melanie, who has walked up with an inquisitive look on her face, out of the way. But trying to shoo Ben away is like trying to move an elephant with a fly swatter.

  Isabel remembers her mother and turns to go back outside. Melanie evaporates as quickly as she materialized and Ben lumbers back into the living room.

  “Sorry about that, Mom,” Isabel says as she drops back into the chair a minute later. “Lark’s a patient. A…friend of mine. They can’t find her. I’m sure they will, though. Anyway…”

  Katherine looks alarmed. “Does that happen often? People wandering off?”

  “No. They’re pretty strict about checking our whereabouts all the time. This is the weekend, though, so that’s probably why it lapsed. They’ll find her.”

  “Ah.”

  So, where were we? Ah, yes.

  “Mom? Remember how you were asking me on the phone this week about my treatment and I told you I’d tell you when you came to visit?”

  “I’ve thought of little else.” Katherine gives up her attempt at nonchalance and is now perched daintily on the edge of her seat.

  “There’s no easy way to answer that question except to just spit it out. So here goes—I had electroshock treatment.”

  Katherine is quiet.

  “Mom? Say something. Say anything.”

  Katherine is looking out to the woods beyond the unit. She clears her throat. “I must say I never thought I’d have a daughter who would have to have something like that done to her.” She says the word that as though it smells.

  “They made me do it.” Isabel is defensive. “My doctors said it is the best thing for me.”

  “Is it? Is it the best thing?”

  Maybe it is. Maybe it is.

  “I…I don’t know.” Isabel is trying to find words.

  “Doesn’t this all go on your record? Oh, my Lord, anyone can access your medical records, Isabel. Anyone.”

  “It’s not like I’ve committed some crime, Mom.” Isabel shakes her head.

  Katherine looks at her daughter. “I just never thought my little girl—”

  Isabel speaks up before her mother finishes: “I’m not your little girl anymore, Mom,” she says. Katherine looks away again. “I’m not this happy little girl who does everything that’s expected of her.”

  Silence.

  “Look at me, Mom!” Isabel pleads with Katherine. “I’ve screwed everything up. My marriage is over….”

  Katherine winces. “Don’t say that…you two could still work things out….”

  “It’s over. And maybe that’s for the best. My job’s on the line—in fact I’d be surprised if I still have a job after that whole—”

  “They’d be lucky to have you!” Katherine interrupts again.

  “Mom! Listen to me. I’m trying to tell you…I’m trying to show you who I am. You can’t seem to see me for who I really am. You want me to be perfect.”

  “Is that so bad? For a mother to want a perfect life for her daughter? Do the doctors here program you to blame everything on your parents? Talk about your clichés, darling.”

  “Oh, give me a break, Mom. I’m not blaming you for anything and you know that. It’s just that I wanted to be perfect for you. But I’m not perfect. And here I am.” Isabel opens her arms across like a hostess on The Price is Right. “This is where it got me.”

  Katherine looks hard at Isabel. Then she looks at her own hands. “What do you want me to say?”

  “Just tell me why.”

  “Why?”

  “Why is it so important for me to be perfect? What’s in it for you?”

  “I don’t think I like your tone, Isabel Murphy.”

  “Just tell me—” she pushes harder “—why does my success mean so much to you?”

  “That’s bad syntax, dear,” Katherine says, adjusting her Hermès scarf. “Honestly, I don’t know what they taught you in college.”

  “Mother! Are you even listening to me?”

  “There’s no need to raise your voice, Isabel. I’m not hard of hearing yet.”

  “Then why aren’t you answering my question? I’ll ask you one more time. Why do you need me to be perfect?”

  With nothing left for Katherine to fiddle with, her hands flutter back to her lap and she looks out to the field below. Isabel waits for her answer.

  “All your life you’ve craved him.” Katherine speaks softly at first. “‘Is Dad going to be there? Where’s Dad? Why can’t Dad take me to camp?’ It’s been a bottomless pit. You’ve always wanted him, needed him so much….”

  Katherine trails off. After waiting a few seconds Isabel gently encourages her mother to say more. To solve the riddle for her.

  “And?”

  When Katherine turns back to Isabel her eyes are full of tears. “What about me? I was never enough for you, apparently.”

  “Mother! That’s not true.” Isabel, astounded, moves closer to her mother, to soothe her, comfort her.

  “You don’t know what it’s like to see your child completely deflate when she turns the corner and sees that it’s only you picking her up. To watch as she scans the crowd for the person she really wants to see,” Katherine dabs at her mascara with her linen handkerchief. “You don’t know what it’s like to be there day in and day out for your children, knowing they don’t care about you; they only want their father to be there.”

  “But why has this made you want me to be perfect? Why have you expected me to be this happy little achiever?”

  “Don’t you see?” Katherine looks at Isabel. “I wanted you the way you want your father.”

  Isabel is breathless with the revelation.

  “I guess I’ve been hard on you because it’s killed me so to be rejected by you over and over, year after year, while you wait by the window for your father to come home from work. I know I’ve expected a lot of you and your brothers. But it was that or become a wreck hoping for your love.”

  Mother and daughter are both looking out across the grounds.

  Katherine is first to break the thick silence. “I don’t know what else to say, really.” She straightens her posture and carefully folds her handkerchief, smoothing out the wrinkles, and puts it back into her purse.

  “Say that you’ll love me if I’m not perfect. Say that you’ll still love me if I’m a failure at everything…because I pretty much am.”

  “Oh, Isabel. I do love you. I may not have heard you when you said you weren’t perfect…that may be true. But you haven’t heard me when I’ve told you that, no matter what, I love you. I always have. I always will. But Isabel…and this is important…this may be the most important thing I’ve ever said to you. It shouldn’t matter what I think. It doesn’t matter what I think. You have to love yourself. Even if you’re a failure. You have to love yourself.”

  Isabel feels the goose bumps of recognition tingling up her arms. She thinks of Dorothy at the end of The Wizard of Oz when Glinda the Good Witch tells her she hadn’t needed to make the trek to the Emerald City—she had had the power to return to Kansas all along: she simply had to click her heels together.

  There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.

  Forty-Four

  It is the first thing Isabel and her mother notice when they open the door to her room: a single sheet of paper placed neatly in the center of her hospital bed.

  “This is weird.” Isabel picks up the paper. “It’s four poems.”

  Katherine reads the titles over her shoulder. “‘Loneliness,’ ‘Sleep,’ ‘Death.’ They’re so sad.”

  The fourth is a short poem titled “Lark’s Song.”

  My song is not easy to hear.

  Melody.

  Music, not.

  My song is my voice.

  My voice is not easy to hear.

  Perhaps that is why no one listened.

  The poem is followed by five
words in tiny writing: “Don’t be afraid of laundry.”

  “What on earth does that mean?” Katherine asks.

  Isabel drops the paper and, without a word, hurries out of her room and down the hall of the unit.

  It’s too late. I know it. It’s too late.

  Isabel turns the corner just as the orderly is slamming up against the locked door. It moves but is not quite open. The orderly stands back and then hurls himself up against it once more, pushing it wide enough to slip in. Isabel is directly behind him. She hears nurses coming in their direction.

  “Where’s the light switch?” His voice, full of urgent frustration, is close to her in the darkened laundry room.

  “It’s on the right, I think. Not the left,” Isabel answers as she tries to reach around the door. There is something blocking her way.

  The light comes on and Isabel screams.

  Lark is hanging from the metal air duct. Her face is purple, her eyes bulging and bright red with broken blood vessels. She had tied her sheets together and moved the dryer directly underneath the pipe so she could step off it into oblivion.

  Forty-Five

  “Isabel? I was wondering if you would like to read my journal.” Ben is standing in front of Isabel, who is sitting in the Adirondack chair looking out over the grounds.

  Maybe if I don’t answer him he’ll leave me alone.

  But Ben is not adept at interpreting subtleties. “I know you can hear me, Isabel. Here’s my journal.” He shoves the notebook at her. “Read it and get back to me.”

  Ben walks back to the unit. Both his arms hang down at his sides. Isabel watches him go.

  Fundamentalists should look at Ben and then try to argue that we did not descend from apes.

  Dear Diary:

  Herein lies my journal, which I will revisit at least once a day for the duration of my life…

  She turns the page.

  I would like to begin by addressing the nature of wild animals. They make me very angry. They do not even attempt to adapt to the man’s world. They don’t even care about you. When you break your arm, they don’t care. When your feelings are hurt, they don’t care about you. If you miss a train, they don’t care about you. In short, they don’t care about you….