One September Morning

by Rosalind Noonan

  “It’s very clean,” he says. “As is the fish tank, which we’ll discuss next session. I’d like to spend part of my time hearing about you, Madison.”

  “What do you want me to say?” She shrugs. “Honestly, my life is boring. School. Homework. Text messaging. Hanging out. Only I’m not allowed to do that anymore because my parents are sure my friends are a bad influence.”

  “Are they?”

  Madison takes a breath, not sure how much of the truth she wants to share. “They don’t influence me,” she says curtly. “Although I wish they did. My life would be so much more interesting.”

  He leans his chin on the back of the chair, a listening posture. “In what ways? How are your friends so outlandish?”

  Now there’s an open question. And the ironic part is that there’s nothing outlandish to reveal. What is she supposed to say, that Sienna likes to be with Ziggy when she’s feeling slutty? That Ziggy has a weakness for weed?

  Boring.

  “If I tell you, it’s confidential, right?” she asks.

  He nods. “Doctor-patient privilege.”

  “You know all those fires that were started in state parks, all around the Seattle area?” She bites her lower lip, improvising. “My friend Ziggy started them. He likes to go out on weekends and play pyro.”

  “Does he? And how do you feel about that?”

  She shrugs. “Sometimes I get nervous that he’s going to get caught. I mean, he’s seventeen. They would try him as an adult now, right?”

  “Probably.”

  Madison turns away and stares into the fish tank, conjuring her next story. “And Sienna? My BFF. She’s got her issues, too.”

  “What’s up with her?”

  “It’s awful.” As an angelfish flutters by she considers telling Doc that Sienna is a nympho who sleeps with all the male teachers at the high school, but that seems so stale. “Sienna has a problem with…”

  Quick! Fill in the blank, she thinks.

  “…cutting,” she says, going on to tell him how Sienna has scars up and down her arms. All self-inflicted cuts from a razor blade. Winging it, she tells him that Sienna carved Ziggy’s name into her arm. But as soon as she says it, she realizes how stupid she sounds. Nobody would ever do that, would they?

  “Cutting is a problem we’re seeing more and more of these days,” Doc says.

  “Not such a big problem in this part of the world,” she says wryly, “since we never get enough sun to wear a short-sleeved shirt.”

  She turns away from the fish tank to catch his eye, but he’s not laughing.

  But at least he’s not pissed off, either.

  “Forget Ziggy and Sienna for now.” He straightens, his pale blue eyes zapping her. “How about Madison? What does Madison like to do for fun?”

  She folds her arms across her chest. “For fun, I send e-mails to my brother,” she says.

  “To Noah? Or John.”

  Madison grins. “Both.”

  Now he smiles, but it’s just a little trickle of a grin, as if he’s trying not to laugh at a funeral.

  But still, it’s a smile, she thinks, letting her gaze slide down his buff body down to the cool green clogs. His scrubs are navy blue, and the color suits him well. You can see the chain of his dog tags at his neck, and he likes to grab hold of this gold medal that also hangs there and run it over the chain. She just bets that medal is hot to the touch, and she can’t help but wonder if he’s wearing boxers or briefs under those scrubs.

  Not that she would ever do anything to find out. She’s in enough trouble without getting into an older man’s pants, especially an older man who’s her therapist. Ick. It’s just that sometimes her mind goes to weird places.

  “Do you miss your brothers?” Doc asks.

  “Well, duh.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” he says casually.

  Madison turns back to the fish and begins to think that therapy might not be so bad after all. In fact, hanging with Doc is going to be okay.

  Chapter 56

  Lakeside Hospital

  Abby

  “Now before we go upstairs for a tour of the psych ward, let’s just go over our expectations of you as a student intern here at Lakeside so’s you don’t overstep your bounds and I don’t get pissed off at you.” When she lectures her new brood, Rhonda Hobart has the wily charm of a grandmother chastising her charges for breaking curfew. The harsh fluorescent lights of the conference room cast a bluish sheen on her dark skin, which is not at all unattractive. With the blue glow, her oversized earrings, and her exotic hairstyle, a complicated weave atop her head crowned by a braid of hair, Rhonda has the makings of a superhero: Rhonda, Queen of Orientation.

  Abby finds Rhonda reassuring. For the time she’s been in this conference room filling out forms and listening to other guest speakers from Human Resources, the college, and the Emergency Room, she’s forgotten her worries about this internship at Lakeside.

  “The focus of your five-month joy ride here will be therapeutic communication,” Rhonda says. “Good ol’ TC. You’re going to get very sick of hearing those two letters, but you will learn how to execute this form of therapy effectively while you’re under my wing. Now, I know you haven’t seen the ward yet, but can anyone tell me where it’s appropriate to meet with a patient to practice therapeutic communication?”

  A girl in the front, with flat dark hair and owlish brown glasses raises her hand. “In the Day Room, or in group, or in the dining hall.”

  “Excellent. And your name is…?”

  “Cilla.”

  “And tell me, Cilla, where is the one place where you will not linger with the patient?”

  “Their room?” For a mousey-looking woman, Cilla possesses a low, gruff voice.

  “Exactly. Our approach is to encourage interaction, and that means getting the patients out of their rooms, drawing them out of themselves. That’s why each patient must attend group therapy at least twice a day, as well as a twelve-step program meeting. Meal and snack times are also a social occasion, an opportunity to get patients talking and sharing. You are going to say ‘How does that make you feel?’ so many times, you’ll be saying it in your sleep.”

  A few student interns chuckle. Rhonda, who paces among the desks as she speaks, grins. Abby senses that Rhonda enjoys playing the hard-ass instructor, but she senses a big heart and a good sense of humor beneath that psychedelic scrub shirt.

  “Now, we are not allowed to post a patient roster on the Web site for reasons of confidentiality, but you will find rosters and case notes available upstairs. It’s your responsibility to apprise yourself of patients’ backgrounds and diagnoses. You must know which patients are flight risks or suicide risks. You must know who is on a special diet and why.

  “Most of our patients upstairs are substance abusers, and that usually means alcoholism. We currently have a young female patient suffering from body dysmorphic disorder. She has a distorted view of herself, thinks she looks hideous.” She wags a finger at the group. “I’m only pointing this out because it’s rare. Something you might never come across again. We also have our share of patients in treatment for chemical dependency, but you’ll see that our overall treatment program is the same. Every patient—bipolar, eating disorder, chemical dependency—must attend group and the twelve-step meeting.

  “I’m assuming you all downloaded the article on therapeutic communication that I posted on the Web site for you. You will need this article. I repeat, keep this article. Since this is your main approach throughout your internship, let’s go over the main points.”

  Although Abby flips her notes open to the article, her gaze slips to the door, her mind wondering what will happen when they go upstairs to the ward. Dr. Charles Jump is one of the directors of psychological services, and it’s inevitable that they will run into each other here in the hospital from time to time. She counts herself lucky that she managed to slip in this morning for her first day without an encounter with him.

/>   Shifting in her chair, she smooths her brand-new purple scrub shirt around her neck and wonders if Jump has gotten over their last encounter. Such an ugly scene.

  She should have been more cautious, more true to herself. She didn’t get it the day that Flint dropped by, found Jump showering at her place, and flipped out. At the time, she thought Flint was overreacting. Granted, Jump was an imposition at times, but she tried to put up with him, keeping in mind that he’d been a friend to John.

  But Abby’s annoyance progressed as Jump pushed and pushed. He made himself comfortable on her couch. He made himself a copy of her key so that he wouldn’t have to bother her to do laundry. A week or so later, when Jump was there showering once again due to lack of hot water in his housing quarters, Abby started to feel that he was invading her personal space. She was choking, feeling strangled by Jump, who didn’t seem to understand personal limits.

  Galvanized by the need to be free, Abby tugged a basket of clean clothes into the living room and started folding. She hadn’t been planning to finish his laundry for him, but while he was in the shower she realized that if she sent the clothes home with him, he would no longer have that excuse to stop by.

  Of course, they would have to have “the talk.” Although they were never really an item, Abby would have to end this relationship that had sort of crept into her house. But for today, she figured getting Jump and his laundry out of her house would be a good start.

  “You can take your laundry with you when you go today,” she called when she heard the bathroom door open. She tucked stacks of clothes into his canvas bag.

  “No rush,” he said, emerging from the bathroom with a towel slung low over his hips. He paused in the hallway, as if modeling Cannon bath towels. “I’ll come back for it tomorrow.”

  “No problem, it’s all ready now.” She leaned into the bag to stuff in a bundle of socks. When she straightened, he was standing so close she could see the beads of water on his neck.

  “Or, we could take the laundry into the bedroom and just unpack,” he said. “Why should I bring it back and forth when I spend all of my time here?”

  “You know, we need to talk about that.” Abby checked her temper as a million angry responses bubbled in her brain. “I think it would be best if we took a break for a while.”

  “You can’t abandon me. I won’t let you.” In one step he swallowed the space between them and slid his arms around her waist.

  She was not going to kiss him. This was going to stop now. “Please, don’t make this difficult. I thought—”

  “Sometimes you think too much,” he said, pressing himself against her, clamping his mouth over hers. She could feel his erection against her pelvis.

  So wrong.

  “No,” she gasped, breaking free of the liplock. Her hands slid over his slick shoulders as she tried to push him away. “Jump, stop it.”

  “You know you want it.” Taking her by surprise, he gripped her by the waist and pushed her until her back was against the wall.

  “No. Get off me.” It was a struggle, but she managed to wriggle away, scraping her elbow in the process. She turned away and tightened the drawstring on his laundry bag, thinking she’d give him a moment to calm down. “I really want you to get dressed and leave. Now.” She expected him to go quietly.

  “You can’t dismiss me just like that. I’ve grown very attached to you, Abby. You know that. And I’m not going to just take my stuff and walk out on what could be something very satisfying between the two of us.”

  She felt his hands on her shoulders again, his pelvis pressing into her backside. “Mutually satisfying.”

  “Okay, that’s the last time you’re going to touch me.” She wheeled, breaking free of his grip. Her hands quivered as she reached for her cell phone on the kitchen counter. “Move toward me again, and I’m calling the Military Police. Their response time is pretty damned good, and I think they’ll be pretty quick to toss you on your face when they hear that you’re trying to assault John Stanton’s widow.”

  “Oh, come on! You’re going to bring John into this now? Play the old celebrity card, like he’s some kind of god. Is that your plan? Well, news flash: that well has run dry. Your celebrity husband is dead. His name and status aren’t going to play around here anymore.”

  “I can’t believe I just heard that.” Abby flipped her cell phone open, finger at the ready. “You’d better go. Right now, or I swear, I’ll call the MP.”

  “Save your cell phone minutes. I’m going.” He went to the bathroom to retrieve his clothes and returned clothed, then dragged the laundry bag to the door and tossed it to the porch, before turning back to scowl at her. “There are lots of other whores out there who’d love to ball a doctor like me.”

  On that sour note he finally walked out, leaving Abby feeling scared and a little cheapened from having known him.

  She wonders why she didn’t cut off their relationship sooner. Maybe if she’d acted differently, told him no a few times when he was creeping into her life, if she’d made so many choices differently, this wouldn’t have happened.

  Maybe if…what if…

  Of course, intellectually, she knows better.

  It wasn’t her fault.

  Abby hasn’t seen Charles Jump since that unpleasant day. When she reported to the hospital this morning and found that Rhonda Hobart would be her adviser, she started to think that she could work through her internship with a minimum of awkwardness. Granted, Jump is one of the head honchos—her boss’s boss—but Abby doesn’t think they’ll ever cross paths professionally. She should be all right here at Lakeside.

  Abby is going to pretend it never happened and hope that it goes away. She is going to be one of the best damned psych interns this hospital has ever seen and hope that she never crosses paths with Dr. Charles Jump once she leaves here.

  That afternoon, she called a locksmith and had the tumblers changed on every door. She checked the window locks, told her new neighbors Ed and Marilyn that Jump was no longer welcome at her home, and so far it hadn’t been a problem.

  Until today.

  The atmosphere in the conference room has changed now; the meeting is winding down. People flip their notes closed, get up, toss empty coffee cups into the trash bin. Half the group heads off to HR, while the other half will go upstairs for the tour of the ward on the thirteenth floor. Rhonda has explained that they cannot bring more than a handful of interns through the ward at one time, as the patients find it intimidating.

  Upstairs, Nurse Hobart shows the five interns how to use their ID cards to unlock the door to the psych ward. The group files into the open nurses’ station, where Rhonda shows them how to access patient files on the computer.

  Standing in the nurses’ station, Abby observes that the Day Room, the largest meeting area, designed to be a combination living room, den, TV room, and craft station, reminds her a lot of the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. An attempt at a cheerful mural of daisies has been painted on the widest wall. The chairs are either plastic or upholstered in vinyl.

  “All the furniture is bolted down,” Rhonda says, “so don’t go trying to be moving a chair around. Most of the patients are in group therapy right now, which is why it’s so quiet out here.”

  Rhonda moves to a patient in the corner, snoring loudly, in what appears to be an easy chair on wheels. “How you doing, honey?” She pats his hands, folded at his waist, and he shivers in reaction but does not open his eyes.

  “That poor man is heavily sedated.” Rhonda shakes her head as she leads the group away from him. “Haven’t seen the whites of his eyes for days.”

  Rhonda shows them one of the empty patient rooms, which is small and bare bones—no mirrors, windows, or art work on the walls. There is no bathroom door, and the doors to the patient rooms are kept locked open unless they’re in lockdown.

  “Not much privacy,” Cilla comments.

  “None at all,” Rhonda agrees. “Patients are here to interact.
They want privacy, they can check into the Ritz. Probably costs the same amount.” They move down the hall, pausing outside a meeting room. “The rooms for the group meetings are equally spartan,” Rhonda says in a lowered voice. “Take a quick look, but don’t interrupt.”

  From her vantage point Abby sees the therapist, a short man with thick blond hair and skinny round glasses. He appears to be listening while a woman with her knees tucked under her chin speaks. There’s a heavyset man with an eyepatch, a woman slumped to the side, a man who has the straight posture and shaved head of a well-trained soldier.

  “Come along, little chicks.” Rhonda calls Abby and the other student away.

  Back at the nurses’ station, Rhonda steps up to the computer. “Each of you has been assigned three or four patients. You can start meeting with them this afternoon, start writing up your notes on how you are drawing them out through TC.”

  The interns take their patient lists and eagerly begin to read.

  “I got the dysmorphic!” Alicia’s eyebrows wiggle.

  “Pyromania…” someone else says.

  “Hush, children,” Rhonda says.

  Abby skims her list and falters on the second name. “Emjay Brown? It can’t be.” She skims through Emjay’s case history, which shows his assignment in Iraq with John’s squad. A chill shivers down her spine when she sees that he is assigned to Dr. Charles Jump.

  Of course, it is the same person. Abby kicks herself. You should have done something for him that day; you saw him suffer through that flashback.

  “You got a problem?” Rhonda asks.

  “I know this man. I never expected to see him here.”

  Rhonda frowns at the list. “Is he a friend?”

  “More like an acquaintance. Shouldn’t I be taken off his case?”

  “Well, with this patient, he wouldn’t recognize you if you were his mama.” She nods toward the Day Room. “He’s the patient snoring out there. I wouldn’t worry about compromising treatment because of a personal connection. He’s not waking up anytime soon.”