None of the other patients had bothered to introduce themselves to the woman, but she seemed quite content to stare at the board, her chin resting on one hand, as if contemplating a strategic move.
Since Cissy was good at chess and longed for someone to play with other than Martha, she made her way over to the table and sat down.
“My name is—”
“Cissy. Yes, I know. Nice to meet you.” The woman, her smile wide and toothy, stared so deeply into her eyes that Cissy became uncomfortable. How had she known Cissy’s name? Had one of the nurses pointed her out?
“What’s your name?” Cissy asked, trying to control the agitation in her arms and legs. She’d never felt so nervous before. It was like when she’d wanted someone at school to be her friend especially bad, but she didn’t want to risk scaring away the possible friend by being too needy.
“You may call me anything you like.”
“Well, I’d like to call you by your given name.”
“That’s a little complicated.”
The woman had smiled at Cissy with more sincerity than she’d ever seen before. Nervousness left her, and her whole body sank into a hot bath of love and goodness. She no longer felt ice cold from her temperature regulation problem.
“Shall we play a game of chess?” the woman asked. “I understand you’re quite accomplished at the game.”
Someone at the hospital must have told her. Maybe Dr. Guttman or Martha?
“I wouldn’t say accomplished.” Cissy blushed but felt a great sense of pride stir in her belly. “I like games that challenge my mind.”
The woman set up the pieces on the board, giving Cissy the white pieces even though she hadn’t asked. “It’s important to keep your mind sharp,” she said. “Especially here. Be sure to always stay in control of your thoughts. Don’t let things get muddled. That’s why your lists are so important.”
“Who told you about my lists?”
Cissy’s mind latched on to probably the most outrageous thought she ever had, but fear kept her from speaking it aloud.
“Yes,” the woman said. “I am.”
It was almost too much to fathom: having your mind read, meeting your God in person, and finding out He’s a She. And yet, here was God, looking just like Cissy’s favorite movie actress. She wondered why her first thought wasn’t that she’d truly gone crazy. Honestly, she didn’t have a first thought—just pure wonderment. Cissy didn’t want to figure out the how and why of it all. She just surrendered to accepting maybe God could choose to take a form that human pea brains could understand.
Cissy’s brain told her She was real. To think otherwise would mean she’d have to admit to seeing things that weren’t really there, like the fairies that Olivia says land on her window sill those nights she spits out her medications. It could be awfully hard to keep this from Dr. Guttman and Martha. Would they believe that God Almighty could just appear at will? No, it seemed best to just keep this to herself, at least until she was absolutely sure she wasn’t just going crazy.
“I’m not afraid,” Cissy said.
“I knew you wouldn’t be.”
Cissy wondered why She decided to talk to her, of all people, but she didn’t want to ask. Maybe She thought it was safer to talk to crazy people if She wanted to keep Her visits on the down low. Appearing in the Vatican or on The Carol Burnett Show could upset the world order. Sitting in a game room at the Greater Mississippi State Hospital in Meridian wasn’t going to cause much of a stir as they were all a bit out of the ordinary there.
“Will you tell me why you’re here?” Cissy asked.
“There doesn’t have to be a reason.”
When She assured Cissy others couldn’t see Her, she was grateful to have another special thing all to herself. Cissy’s head began to fill with a thousand questions she could ask God, but not one question found its way to her tongue.
She considered contacting the nuns at St. John’s to tell them they were right about there being a God, but wrong about Him being a He. But they’d never believe Cissy, and it might just give them a reason to say they suspected she was troubled from a very early age. The last thing Cissy wanted to do was give those nuns the upper hand.
“How about that game of chess?” Cissy asked. She hoped God wouldn’t let her win just to be nice.
Chapter 13
Cissy knew it didn’t take a whole lot of smarts to notice Dr. Guttman was different from the rest of the staff at the hospital. He was from New York City, which, according to the orderlies, was about as far away as you could get from Mississippi in terms of how people think and act.
The nurses and orderlies talked about him—sometimes joking and sometimes angry about the newfangled way he did things. Cissy wondered if New Yorkers in general were newfangled and made a note to ask Dr. Guttman for his thoughts on the matter.
He was the one person in the whole facility who didn’t treat patients like inmates. Her lawyer said the hospital was better than prison, but some days, she pictured them exactly the same. Both patients and criminals were put away for doing something society didn’t approve of, they lived in cramped quarters, people told them what to eat and when to sleep, and television privileges could be taken away.
It didn’t help that Dr. Guttman looked so different. If a person wanted to introduce modern-day notions into a backward place, he should at least try to look like everyone else. Instead, he dressed in short-sleeved dress shirts that needed pressing and pants so short, you could see his threadbare socks where the shoe back rubbed. His thick, unruly black curls and his large-framed glasses perched on the end of his crooked nose gave him a mad scientist look. Cissy didn’t mind Dr. Guttman’s appearance because she appreciated people who were peculiar. To her, they were a lot more interesting than boring folks, like the orderlies and nurses who wore the same clothes and expressions every day.
Since her admission to the hospital a month ago, he’d been nicer to her than anyone else except Martha, which was more important than his looks. She found it curious in a good way that she trusted Dr. Guttman, because she didn’t trust most folks until getting to know them better.
Today, when she was reading in the recreation room, she noticed Dr. Guttman moving his arms about wildly as he talked to Nurse Possum Eyes. She heard snatches of the conversation, including his rant about the patients being “over-medicated zombies.” Nurse Brown yelled back that he was too young to know what he was doing and that he should have taken a job at an East Coast institution willing to try out his asinine ideas. Cissy wrote asinine in her notebook with a reminder to look it up in the dictionary. She figured it wasn’t a compliment, though, by the way Nurse Brown’s face flushed when she said it and the way Dr. Guttman’s eyes popped out of his head.
Cissy wished he hadn’t called them zombies. They took medicine to feel better, and it sometimes made them so tired they didn’t want to paint or play chess or do anything but watch TV. But to Cissy, zombies had a horror movie quality about them. Still, the pills had made her feel less like herself. It was just a week ago that she decided not to take her medication. Other patients required so much supervision that the staff left Cissy alone for the most part—and her sweater had deep pockets that held the pills until she could hide them in a sock in her room.
As much as Cissy trusted Dr. Guttman, she didn’t tell him about skipping her medication. Even though he seemed angry with the nurses about medicating patients, he was still a paid employee, and she suspected he had to obey some rules or he’d be fired. God wasn’t too pleased about Cissy hiding her medication, either, and asked her to think about whether that was the best decision. Cissy had politely told God to mind Her own business.
After Dr. Guttman’s earlier altercation with Nurse Brown, his mood seemed to permeate their session, which only made Cissy cranky.
“We’re not zombies.” She felt bold. Recently, he’d taken to questioning her relentlessly without giving her the option of ending their sessions early. She wanted to put h
im on the spot.
“I didn’t mean for you to hear that,” he said. “It was figurative. I just think patients benefit more from talking and sharing their feelings.”
Cissy disagreed. At least talking with him didn’t seem to make her feel better. But talking with God did.
It was the first part of September when they first talked about cornbread. She figured God wasn’t from the South because She didn’t like sweet cornbread. Cissy didn’t feel she could argue with God, but she disagreed with Her strongly. She asked why God would give someone the idea to add sugar or molasses if She didn’t prefer it that way herself? Couldn’t She control people’s actions? She laughed at Cissy, and it was the type of laugh that told her God was worn down by her assumptions about what She could and could not do.
“Do you think cornbread should be sweet or ordinary?” Cissy asked Dr. Guttman.
He took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Why does it have to be one or the other?”
“That’s a good point,” she said. “Maybe people can feel anything they want about a particular thing without necessarily being right or wrong.”
Cissy liked this line of thinking because she usually classified things as good or bad, right or wrong, when sometimes they just were what they were. “I’m going to start a List of Things That Just Are because that might make me feel a little better than keeping a List of Very Sad Things,” she said.
“That’s a good idea. Now back to what we started talking about in our last session. It’s important.”
She had important things to discuss, but wanted to talk to God about them. She wanted to ask if She really wrote the Bible, but maybe it was best to wait a while. It was one of the more important questions Cissy had, and she didn’t want to spoil their visits with something that big yet. Perhaps she’d just ask God about New York City. God would know even more than Dr. Guttman.
“Tell me again about your Sunday mornings,” Cissy pleaded. “First, you’d buy a copy of the New York Times on the corner, then walk ten blocks to the deli with the best onion bagels. Then you’d walk all the way to Central Park if the weather was warm.”
“I had a favorite bench,” he admitted, smiling.
“And sometimes it’d take all morning to finish the paper, right?”
“Cissy, we were talking about what makes you lovable,” he said.
“I think most folks are lovable in some way,” she said.
“What makes you lovable?”
“Is that a trick question?”
“What makes you think it’s a trick question?” he asked.
“Because I’ve created a situation where my mama and daddy can’t love me anymore, my Mimi doesn’t love me anymore, and I don’t know if my sisters love me because I shot our daddy. That doesn’t leave anyone to love me except Grandmother.”
“I asked what makes you lovable, not who loved you,” Dr. Guttman said. “We can be lovable without anyone loving us. Do you understand that?”
Cissy struggled to stay present because that question made her brain hurt the way contemplating the boundary of the universe did. “Are you saying that there are things about me that could be lovable even if no one noticed them?” she asked.
“Exactly.”
“Is this going to be another list?”
“It can be if you like,” he said.
“I never lie. Well, almost never,” Cissy said. “That makes me a good person.”
“What else?”
“I appreciate little things other people don’t, like smells and how they tie memories tightly to our hearts.”
“Cissy, do you think you could be lovable for no reason at all?”
“That doesn’t make sense to me.”
“Do you think you could believe that you are deserving of love no matter who you are or what you do?” Dr. Guttman asked.
“I’d like to talk about something else,” she said.
“Are you uncomfortable?”
“I’d like to talk about something else.”
“Like what?” he asked.
“I know you don’t wash your hair every day.”
She thought he might bust out laughing, except doctors are probably taught not to do that when they’re trying to get patients to talk about serious stuff.
“No, I don’t. How did you guess that?”
She told him she had personal experience with wiry, curly hair. Washing it often made it straw-like and brittle. Her mama had said she needed to allow the natural oils to coat the hair to make it shiny and healthy looking. Dr. Guttman’s curls had a raven sheen to them, indicating he’d heard the same advice at some point.
“Very astute, Cissy,” he said. “Sherlock Holmes would be proud.”
His praise made her forget his earlier questioning and she relaxed, feeling the worst was over for this session. Instead of returning to their talks on why she was lovable, she decided to discuss about how lonely she felt sometimes at the hospital because no one was her exact kind of peculiar, not even Martha.
“Let’s talk about loneliness, then,” Dr. Guttman said.
“Well, I know I can be in the middle of lots of people and still feel lonely.”
“Many people feel that same way, Cissy,” he said.
“I’ve been lonely all my life because no one knew my secret. And when I told my secret in the courtroom, I didn’t feel so lonely anymore even though I knew I’d lost Mama’s and Mimi’s love.”
“What would make you feel less lonely?” he asked.
She didn’t know whether that was a trick question or just a hard question. She wanted to transport herself back to a time she and Lily and Jessie were playing in their yard in the spring before the damp, heavy air of summer moved in. She wanted to run in the grass in her bare feet without feeling cold. She wanted to hear her sisters howl with laughter.
“I’d like to see Lily and Jessie again,” she said. “But I’ve done things that can’t be undone, which means they’ll never feel the same about me.”
Cissy started to cry.
“What are you feeling right now?”
“Thinking about Lily and Jessie makes me lonelier than I’ve ever felt.”
Dr. Guttman’s face softened. Cissy thought it almost looked like he wanted to cry.
“I think if I ever leave the hospital and live out in the grown-up world, I will still feel lonely,” she continued. “What happened to me has marked me as different. People will sense that even without knowing the whole truth.”
“There are many girls who have been hurt in the same way you’ve been hurt,” he said.
Cissy had always believed Dr. Guttman to be smart, but he’d just said an especially dumb thing. She couldn’t let that pass.
“No one has ever been hurt in the exact same way as I have because they are not me,” Cissy said, her words firm and measured. “Pieces of my body and mind have been changed forever. While other girls may have been hurt in a similar way, their pieces are different than my pieces.”
“You’re correct, Cissy. I’m sorry,” he said. “What I meant was that you might draw some comfort from knowing others have gone through similar experiences. It might make you feel less alone.”
“Actually, that just makes me sad,” she said. “Why would I draw any comfort knowing there are other girls out there whose pieces will never be the same?”
Chapter 14
“How long do you think you’ll have to stay at the hospital?” Cissy tried to distract Martha, who was handing her a whooping at chess. As much as she liked to think she’d mastered the game, Cissy was beginning to feel like an amateur with every game that Martha or God won. And there’d been many lately. Perhaps Dr. Guttman would agree to check out a book on chess strategies for her from the local library.
Martha’s mouth turned down slightly and she eyed the chessboard.
“Well, how long have you been here so far?” Cissy asked when she didn’t answer her first question.
“Five years this Decem
ber.”
The shock on Cissy’s face must have been apparent because Martha told her not to worry; that she was used to the place and it wasn’t so bad. Cissy regretted pushing her, but she’d come to like Martha and wanted to know more about her.
“I killed my daddy,” Cissy blurted out.
Martha’s face remained calm as she took out Cissy’s rook with her knight.
“Aren’t you shocked or upset?” Cissy asked.
“Nope,” Martha said, still looking at the board. “I’m sure you had a good reason.”
“How can you be so calm? Are you used to having people tell you they killed someone?”
Martha smiled. “No, silly. Sometimes you have to sacrifice a knight or rook if it’s the best strategy in the long run.”
“Do you want to know why I did it?” Cissy’s knee popped up and down.
Martha shrugged her shoulders. “Your move.”
Cissy could no longer concentrate on the game. She got up from her chair and hugged Martha with all her might. Cissy was grateful that Martha didn’t pull away after a few seconds the way most folks did.
“I’m glad you’re here.” Cissy sat back down. Her heart almost burst from the love she felt.
“I’m glad you’re here, too,” Martha replied. “It’s been a long time since I made friends with anyone at the hospital.”
Their conversation went on long into the afternoon. When Martha revealed she was twenty-one years old, you’d think she just told Cissy she was Santa Claus. Cissy’s gaping mouth and wide eyes made Martha laugh so suddenly that they both laughed until they held their sides and struggled to catch their breath.
Not many of the secrets they revealed made them laugh, but they didn’t necessarily make them cry either. Cissy felt as if the telling of those secrets loosened the chains that wrapped round and round their hearts.
Martha had no business being at the hospital. The thing that made her crazy in her family’s eyes was loving a black boy and laying with him. Curtis and Martha had decided to elope, which Martha explained was running off and getting married in secret. They were halfway to Florida before the authorities tracked them down at a tiny motel in Gulf Shores, Alabama.
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