Forgiveness Road

by Mandy Mikulencak

  Janelle shook her head no. She’d eaten a few bites of chicken and cucumbers for Ruth’s benefit, but sweets disagreed with her stomach more strongly than other foods.

  “Dr. Guttman called yesterday,” Janelle said, changing the subject.

  “Cissy’s doctor in Meridian? What about?”

  “Seems she’s having hallucinations.”

  “What’s hallucinations mean?” Ruth asked, clearing the plates and stacking them on the tray.

  “Means she’s seeing things that aren’t there. He said she believes she talks to God.”

  “I talk to God,” Ruth said. “Every day, in fact.”

  “Cissy said she sees God and that God is a woman.”

  The noise coming from Ruth started as weak snorts and escalated into brays. Eyes squeezed tight, she pulled her apron up over her face and held it there with both hands.

  “Stop it this instance,” Janelle chastised. “There’s nothing funny about this at all.”

  As soon as it seemed Ruth would stop her ridiculous laughing, another fit took hold and she put up her hand in apology.

  “Ma’am, with all there’s to worry about in this hard world, seeing your God doesn’t rank as a problem in my opinion,” she said, settling down.

  “But she’s claiming God’s a woman. And that they play chess together!”

  Ruth reminded Janelle that the Lord had appeared to humans in many forms, including a burning bush, and that a woman made as much sense as any other form. For a few minutes, she went on like a preacher about God’s mysteries and a person’s duty to keep an open heart and mind, to stand ready to witness miracles.

  “I’m a religious woman, Ruth. You needn’t remind me of God’s wonders. The doctor thinks the hallucinations could be associated with schizophrenia.”

  “Good Lord in Heaven! Please stop using big medical words for a moment and just listen,” Ruth said. “What does your heart tell you? Does fear bubble up first, or is there a bit of relief Cissy has found some comfort in her God?”

  “You’re an infuriating old woman.” Janelle pursed her lips in a tight line.

  “There you go with your big words again.”

  “It means you make me angry and frustrated.”

  “Nothing new about that,” Ruth said, and grabbed her hand. “And I know what infuriating means.”

  They sat without speaking. Ruth remained tethered to Janelle and never loosened her grip. All she’d wanted was for Ruth to share her deep worry. That Ruth had broken it down so simply should have brought some relief, but instead Janelle feared Cissy’s mind had split even further.

  She wanted the child to put aside foolish counting games and make-believe even though they’d brought her some comfort these many years. She had to grow up and learn to take care of herself. Depending on when Cissy would be released from the hospital, Janelle would likely be gone, and she was far from certain Caroline would be able to forgive Cissy and take her in again.

  “I’ll take care of Miss Cissy,” Ruth said, breaking their silence. “I mean, after you’ve passed and all.”

  Janelle let grateful tears run free without bothering to wipe them. Ruth stood and rested her hand on Janelle’s shoulder for a brief second before leaving her to ponder Cissy’s friendship with God.

  Chapter 20

  Art supplies in the recreation area were limited to white butcher paper and crayons most days. On rare occasions, Nurse Brown would waddle out with the glue and construction paper as if she were transporting a delicate plum pudding on Christmas morning, just like Mrs. Cratchit in A Christmas Carol.

  There was no rhyme or reason to her generosity with supplies, so Cissy gave it little thought except to wonder why someone so mean even bothered to be nice on occasion. However, it perplexed her to no end that patients were given construction paper and glue, but denied scissors.

  “Even kids in kindergarten get scissors with the rounded ends,” Cissy argued with Nurse Brown. Martha covered her mouth to conceal a grin.

  When Nurse Brown scolded that they’d hurt themselves with scissors, Cissy asked if she’d consider letting them use pinking shears because no one in their right minds would hurt themselves with pinking shears.

  “That’s the point. You girls are not in your right minds,” the nurse said with an angry scowl.

  Martha and Cissy burst out laughing, which made Nurse Brown’s doughy white face go red. To retaliate, she took away the glue and construction paper for a week. That she saw this as punishment made them laugh harder.

  Somewhere along the way, Cissy’s grandmother had received permission to mail her a pad of thick art paper and a narrow, flat tin of pastels, but she rarely used the supplies outside of her room. She didn’t want the other girls to be jealous or to ask if they could borrow the chalky sticks, especially those colors she’d used so much they were just nubs, like blue, green, and yellow.

  When the light was exceptionally good in the rec room, though, Cissy couldn’t resist dragging a table and chair over to the window. The heavy table legs squawked as she scraped them across the tile, and some of the girls watching TV covered their ears in protest. Morning light cast a golden blanket over most colors, making them appear to seep deeper into the paper. Afternoon shadows sometimes cast a bluish gray tone, making even happy pictures appear somewhat grim.

  That morning, she positioned her chair so she faced away from everyone else in the room. She’d hoped that would keep the nosy nellies away from her supplies. Martha, however, ignored Cissy’s attempts at setting boundaries and dragged her own chair over, ripped a page from the art pad, and borrowed the azure blue pastel without asking. No one had ever tried anything so bold, but it didn’t surprise Cissy that Martha had. Why couldn’t Martha just be a normal, polite friend?

  To her, Martha was like fire, sometimes mesmerizing and sometimes terrifying. Cissy just didn’t know from day to day which type of fire she was walking into.

  “Why do you wear that lumpy old sweater every day?” Martha asked.

  “Because I’m cold every day. You know that.”

  “Why don’t you wear your dresses much?” Martha asked.

  “I like pants better. What’s it to you?”

  “Were you wearing a dress the day you killed your daddy? Do you still have what you wore?”

  She was fishing for something and Cissy refused to take the bait. She tried to ignore Martha and the twisting pain in her gut.

  “Why do you put the chalk to your nose?” Martha asked.

  “I like knowing how things smell. Is that a crime? And why all the questions today?”

  Martha said Cissy was being overly sensitive.

  Giving up on the idea of scissors, Cissy began to tear pieces of red construction paper and glue them together to form the petals of a flower. They had gobs of the red sheets, probably left over from the Fourth of July, so she decided to create a poinsettia.

  “That’s a Christmas flower,” Martha chided. “It’s just September.”

  “I can create any flower I want.”

  “I can create any flower I want,” she mimicked.

  “You’re in a snit,” Cissy said. “Don’t talk to me until you can be nicer. And why don’t you try bathing more often. You smell bad.”

  “Whatever,” she mumbled, and pushed her chair back so that her feet rested on the table. Martha’s white socks were dirty from walking around without slippers. She’d decided the rule against wearing street shoes inside was ridiculous and had worn the same pair of socks for the last week trying to make her point. Nurse Brown had called Martha’s attitude vexing—a spectacular-sounding word Cissy had to look up right away and capture in her notebook. Martha said her habit of jumping up and running over to the dictionary in the library was irritating. “Vexing,” Cissy corrected her.

  She worked on the poinsettia for about half an hour while Martha took the pastel in her fist and scribbled angry circles on the expensive art paper.

  “Please don’t waste my nice paper,”
Cissy asked after Martha had covered five sheets with blue tornadoes.

  “It’s abstract art,” she said, throwing the pages aside. “What are you making?”

  Cissy hadn’t noticed God standing at the edge of the room. She wasn’t supposed to appear if Cissy was busy or talking to someone.

  “It’s a birthday card,” Cissy said.

  God shook Her head from side to side, so Cissy gave Her a look that said, “Go away.”

  “Who’s it for?” Martha asked.

  God put a finger to Her mouth to shush Cissy.

  “Lucien,” she said. God’s eyes went dark and Cissy gulped back a wave of nausea.

  Martha’s chair came crashing down and she slapped both her palms on the table. “Outstanding!” she shouted. “Just outstanding.”

  Cissy flinched when Martha grabbed the poinsettia card.

  “Isn’t this precious? Cissy’s making her dear friend Lucien a birthday card. Let’s see what it says.”

  “You’re crumpling it.” Cissy grabbed for the card that Martha had raised above her head. She stepped on a chair and then onto the table. Martha had the full attention of the room, including Nurse Edna.

  “Martha Spencer!” she called out, running from the nurses’ station. “Get down right this minute.”

  Martha jumped from the table to the floor with a muffled, catlike thud and handed Cissy’s card to Nurse Edna.

  “Look what a sweet card Cissy has made for Lucien,” Martha said. “Did you know they’re good friends?”

  Cissy used the back of her sweater sleeve to wipe her face, but the wool wouldn’t absorb the wetness. “Please stop her,” she begged.

  Nurse Edna took the card and Martha skipped to the other side of the room, plopping down on the couch in front of the TV set. Nurse Edna’s eyes scanned back and forth across the note she had no business reading. Why had Cissy even written it? Lucien had trouble reading and he’d have had to ask his mama for help, that is, if he wasn’t too embarrassed to do so.

  The nurse pulled the poinsettia off the card and laid it on the table. She then folded the note portion in half and put it in her front pocket.

  “Please give it back,” Cissy whispered.

  “That’s a lovely flower,” she said, and placed a bony hand on Cissy’s shoulder. “I just don’t know if it’s appropriate for you to give Mr. Thibodeaux a card.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I didn’t mean to do anything inappropriate.” She swiped at the pastel dust on her slacks.

  “Of course not, child,” Nurse Edna whispered. “Let’s just have a chat about the visits you and Mr. Thibodeaux have been having. Wipe your nose and come with me, please.”

  When Cissy scanned the room, she saw that God had gone and Martha was staring at the TV screen and laughing too loud at a rerun of Gilligan’s Island that wasn’t even funny.

  Cissy put the pastels back in their tin and placed the poinsettia under the front flap of her art pad before following Nurse Edna from the room.

  * * *

  Nurse Edna tried to be gentle when explaining appropriate contact between patients and staff, but Cissy realized no one understood the exact nature of her friendship with Lucien. Cissy nodded often to signal she was listening. When Nurse Edna asked her to promise not to meet with Lucien again, she nodded once more, but kept her fingers crossed against this lie. He was too good a friend to give up in a place where friends were hard to come by.

  After an appropriate period of looking contrite, Cissy asked if she could go back to the library. Nurse Edna patted her shoulder and said, “Scoot.”

  The ward’s library was just a section of the recreation room set apart by the wall of open bookshelves, but it still seemed like a world apart from the rest of the hospital. Depending on the height of the books in any given row, a person could peer into the other part of the room where patients watched TV or played games. Cissy liked being able to keep an eye on things no matter what side she happened to be on.

  The comfiest chair in the room was a black leather arm chair with a low, wide ottoman, its top cracking with age and its edges studded with brass tacks. Despite the hot breezes that blew through the open windows, the chair always felt cool against her skin. She claimed that chair so often, the other patients didn’t sit in it even when Cissy wasn’t in the library.

  She kept a dictionary open on the ottoman next to her legs so she could look up words that seemed particularly interesting and jot them down. Soon, she’d need a new notebook just for all the strange and mysterious new words that leapt off the pages.

  Television couldn’t compete with the thrills that came from the worlds Cissy visited in books. She could forget she was plain old Cissy Pickering and imagine herself a dashing swashbuckler on a pirate ship or a sleeping princess waiting for a kiss or the first woman to fly an airplane across the Atlantic.

  The book she picked today wasn’t technically a reading book but a picture book of paintings by famous artists called the Impressionists. If she squinted her eyes, the colorful spines of the books lining the shelves merged into blurry landscapes like those Monet painted years and years ago in France. It was a technique she hoped to try one day. Maybe she’d ask Grandmother for a set of watercolors for Christmas.

  When Cissy opened her eyes, she caught Martha looking through the bookshelf room divider. Most of her face was obscured, but there was no mistaking those eyes.

  “What’s up?” Cissy asked.

  “You tell me.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she said, but she did know. The more time Cissy spent with God and with Lucien meant less time spent with Martha and she was jealous. Why else would she do something so mean as to tell Nurse Edna about the card for Lucien?

  “Come ’round in here so we can talk privately,” Cissy said.

  Martha marched around the shelf. The fierceness in her little steps made the books shake and bounce.

  “Why don’t you like me anymore?” Martha demanded.

  “I like you more than anyone here. You’re my best friend,” Cissy said.

  Without stopping to take a breath, Martha wailed about the hours Cissy spent playing chess alone, talking and laughing, pretending someone was playing with her. She claimed Cissy had started to ignore everyone and everything except Lucien.

  “You think you’re so special because you’re Lucien’s favorite.” Martha’s face contorted. “He’s nothing but a dumb Cajun who doesn’t know how to speak right. He probably likes young girls. How does he show you he likes you?”

  Her hateful words pelted Cissy like a spray of buckshot.

  “You be quiet. What has Lucien ever done to you? He’s nice to everyone here.”

  Martha stood still for a split second, absorbing the words or maybe just taking a good breath before continuing her lashing. “You were the one person I could count on to be normal in this goddamned insane asylum,” she said. “Now you’re acting just as crazy as every other girl in this joint.”

  “I’m not crazy, Martha. I swear I’m not. And this is a hospital, not an asylum.”

  “Oh yeah? A long time ago, this place used to be called the Mississippi Asylum for the Insane. Just ask any of the nurses.”

  “But it’s not anymore,” Cissy said. “It’s just a hospital now, and people come here to get better.” Although, in Cissy’s case, she still didn’t know what about her needed fixing, or if she was just being punished for shooting her daddy. Yet Martha’s words made it seem like they were loonies, locked away for good, and that made Cissy’s stomach hurt.

  “Some hospital,” Martha snorted. “How many girls do you see getting better? You think Olivia, dribbling spit down her chin, will ever go home?”

  “Dr. Guttman says that we all have the ability to get better if we work hard,” Cissy said.

  “Guttman? That weirdo couldn’t get a job anywhere else,” Martha railed. “He’s just as crazy as you are.”

  “I’m not crazy! Take it back!”

  “Crazy people talk to themselv
es,” Martha yelled.

  “I don’t talk to myself,” Cissy yelled back. “I talk to God.”

  Nurse Edna popped around the corner to check on the noise. She and Martha clammed up instantly, fearing they’d have TV privileges taken away or worse.

  “We’ll be quiet. We promise,” Cissy said, looking down at her feet.

  The nurse eyed them for what seemed an eternity before exiting the rec room and retreating behind the glass wall of the nurses’ station. As soon as she was out of sight, Cissy yanked Martha by the hand and forced her onto the ottoman. Her black hair, left uncombed for a week, stuck out in every direction, and her pupils had gone black and menacing. Everything about her seemed darker.

  Cissy begged her to calm down; that she’d explain everything. Martha wasn’t about to settle down, so Cissy held her wrists. She told her all about God, how beautiful and smart She was, and how She made Cissy think about the world in different ways, at times to the point of making her head hurt. She said she didn’t know why God loved chess so much, but it had become something they enjoyed doing together. Cissy thought Martha of all people would understand, but her body just stiffened.

  She yanked her hands from Cissy’s and scuttled backward to the far corner of the library, putting as much space as possible between them.

  “It’s just you at the chess board. I see you move the pieces for both players. You’re either bat-shit crazy or you’re trying to play a trick on me!”

  “Don’t be scared, Martha.” Cissy put her hands up in surrender. “I’ll prove it to you that I’m telling the truth. I’ll ask God to talk to you, too. One more person knowing shouldn’t hurt.”

  Martha shook her head from side to side, her flushed cheeks shiny and wet.

  “Stay away from me! Don’t touch me!” she shouted when Cissy rose from the chair, arms outstretched.

  Cissy thought if she could just hold her, surely she’d become her Martha again. She took another step, but it was one she’d always regret.

  Martha howled. With wide swipes of her skinny arms, she sent books flying off the shelves. She shoved her shoulder into one of the bookcases, which toppled down onto two girls who were listening to the conversation from the other side. Pinned and yelping under the avalanche of books, they incited a frenzy in Martha. She jumped up and down on the ottoman and continued her howling until two orderlies rushed in and dragged her from the room. Cissy huddled in the opposite corner of what had been her safe place, closing her eyes and sheltering her ears.