by Sandra Block
I forced out a laugh. It was a musty old storage room, dank and windowless, a mound of dust in the corner. You lay down and pulled me next to you. I asked how you found this, and you said you paid off a guard. I said you were smart. And you said, Well, I am a professor, after all, and I laughed, for real this time.
We lay together. My head resting against your chest. The soapy smell of your detergent on your undershirt. The warmth of your body against my cheek. The rise and fall of your every breath.
What’s her story? you asked. I could feel your deep voice vibrating in my ear.
Who? I asked.
The girl, you said.
So I explained what I knew. I heard she was depressed because her daughter just died. Car accident. But I didn’t know much more than that.
Your eyes smiled. You think you can get her to kill herself?
I lifted my head off your chest, not expecting the question. I thought about it a moment, or pretended to, and told you that I don’t think so. That she never said anything about killing herself.
You pursed your lips, those soft lips, thinking. I traced the swell of a vein on your arm, and you shifted away from me. You said you had pills I could give her, medicine you take for headaches. The pharmacist said not to take too many at once or they could stop your heart. You said you Googled it, and it was true. You could give them to her.
I paused. Yeah, but I can’t make her take them.
You could mix them in something.
What? I asked. She’ll know it’s in there.
I don’t know. Orange juice maybe, you said, getting annoyed. I’m sure you can think of something.
I’m not sure. I was stalling. I could tell you were upset but couldn’t bring myself to agree to this. We lay there for a tense moment until finally you stood up in a huff.
Forget it, you said, and I could feel our moment slipping away. I grabbed your arm. Because I couldn’t let you leave. I just couldn’t. So I said I would do it. You looked at me like you weren’t sure. I promised you that I would, as soon as you got me the pills. Then I pulled you back down to the floor with me, and you allowed yourself to be led.
I started undoing your belt, and you pushed my hand away, instead yanking down my pants, my underwear falling away with them. You gave me that wicked grin again and moved your head down to start licking me. But then I saw the moldy mop in the corner, felt the rough, dusty cement floor against my elbows, and tried to get up so I could kiss you or touch you, but you held down my thighs, and I couldn’t move.
No, you said. Stay still.
I started to say something, but your fingers dug into my skin so I let you keep going. I tried to forget about the cold floor and the rust-colored water stain on the ceiling. I laced my fingers through your curly hair, your beautiful curly hair, and focused on your tongue, soft and insistent. It had been so long, and my nerve endings lit up in seconds, a thrumming that was turning into an ache. You were teasing me, keeping up the lightest touch until I was squirming, bucking against your face, and finally you gripped my thighs and drove your tongue inside me, and with an utter, exquisite relief, I could feel my body shaking as I came.
Chapter Twelve
The next morning I meet Sofia.
She is leaning back in the chair, relaxed and expansive, as if she owns the place. Unaware, perhaps, that the place owns her. Sofia looks older, her perpetually youthful Elizabeth Taylor looks wearing down. Her curves shrunken in her orange suit. The finest of crow’s-feet creeping in. Her near-forty years are catching up with her in prison. Prisoners’ shoes squeak down the hallway, along with the crackling cacophony of officers’ two-way radios.
“So,” I say, breaking the fragile silence, “we have a project going on. I assume Dr. Novaire talked to you about that.”
“He did. In laborious detail.”
“Good.” I’ve decided the best way to play this is purely professional. “Then you know that we start with an initial intake, then I’ll give you some homework, also known as CBT. Cognitive behavioral therapy. And then we’ll—”
“Let’s cut the bullshit, shall we?”
I look up from my computer, taken aback at the interruption. She blinks at me with a hint of a smile, and my professional facade starts to crumble.
“You aren’t here to do a project. Though I’m happy to play along with all that rigmarole if we must. You’re only here so you don’t see your name in the newspaper next to mine. You’re here because I played the only card I was dealt.”
I shift my seat over, closer to the red button. “Well, in any case, I’m here,” I say, adopting her no-nonsense tone. “So what is it that you want?”
She drums her fingers on the table. “It’s really quite simple.” She waits a beat, then gives me that all-knowing smile again. “I want your forgiveness.”
“My forgiveness?” I stare at her in shock. “I wouldn’t call that simple, Sofia.”
Her fingers are galloping again. “Did Dr. Novaire tell you how I’ve been working on some things while I’ve been in here?”
“Yes,” I admit. “He said you found religion, supposedly.”
“True. Well, partly true. Actually, religion found me.”
“Of course it did,” I say with plenty of sarcasm at her ham-fisted cliché.
“And as part of my conversion,” she continues, “I’ve been practicing self-reflection.”
“Self-reflection,” I echo.
“Yes. And you can mock me all you want. But I’ll tell you, it’s been quite enlightening.”
“Oh, I’m sure it has been. Highly.” I cross my arms. “And let me ask, did you find yourself…lacking perhaps? In some area?”
She pauses, crossing her arms, too. We stare at each other like children in a schoolyard tiff. “I know you don’t like me.”
I nod. “That’s astute, Sofia. And do you have any idea why that might be?”
She looks down at the table a moment. “I can’t change the past, you know. And neither can you. We can only change the future. The here and now.” She looks back up at me. “And that is what I plan to do.”
“Well, good for you. And I do appreciate all the self-help philosophy you’ve absorbed in here. But I must tell you, in this case, the past defines the future.”
“But you see.” She leans forward, her blue eyes sparkling and alive. “It doesn’t have to.”
“But it does. You killed our mother. You nearly blinded our brother. And lest we forget, you then tried to murder me a second time.”
She looks down at her nails, which I notice have a decent French manicure despite her lack of a nail file. “Things are different now, though. I’m different.”
“The way you got me here, Sofia, doesn’t seem like a sea change to me.”
She shrugs. “It was the only way you’d come.” And I shrug, because she’s right. “I’m not saying we’ll be best friends. But I’m going to do what I can. You can hold on to your anger. That’s your decision.”
“Right. Thank you so much.”
“And whether you accept it or not, as part of my religion, I need to apologize for my wrongdoings.”
“Oh,” I say, as it comes to me at last, “I get it. The religion thing. You need my forgiveness to move to the next step in your Jesus workbook.”
“My Jesus workbook?” Sofia laughs, a low, guttural sound. “Please. Do you think I want to turn into a sanctimonious prick like Jack?”
A flash of the true Sofia shines through.
Jack, our brother who lost his eye when she stabbed him in it. Our brother who was left to fend for himself in a slew of foster homes until he found heroin, and ultimately, and fortunately, religion. Thus a sanctimonious prick.
“I gotta say, Sis. That doesn’t show a hell of a lot of self-awareness right there.”
Sofia straightens herself in her chair. “I’m not becoming a Christian. I have no desire to be part of a religion steeped in hypocrisy and false magic.”
“What, then, your own religion?
Wicca?”
“I’m converting to Judaism,” she says, the eerie Mona Lisa smile back on her face. “So I can get closer to my sister.” I am fully horrified, as she likely intended. “We can all get what we want from this, Tanya. You do your thing with Dr. Novaire, and I can make us a real family again.”
“That’s…” I croak, backing up in my chair. “That’s insane.”
“Guilty as charged,” she purrs, and just then a noise overhead thankfully breaks up our conversation. We both look up at the ceiling.
Code 327. D wing. Code 327.
Sofia reads the look on my face. “What? What does that mean?”
“Nothing,” I tell her. “Don’t worry about it.” But I am worried about it. Code 327. Suicide. Please God, don’t let it be one of my patients. Please, please, don’t let it be one of mine. “I have to go.”
“We will meet again, though,” Sofia says, not as a question.
“Sure,” I say, not even thinking. A text dings out on my phone. It’s from Dr. Novaire.
EMERGENCY MEETING IN 10 MINUTES. WARDEN’S OFFICE.
* * *
I shiver in the freezing room, sitting uncomfortably close to Jason on the little couch in the room. The windows are rimmed with ice. Warden Gardner is crouched on the corner of his desk, like a predator ready to pounce, and Dr. Novaire is in the chair next to him, silent as a mouse trying to avoid becoming his prey.
“I assume you’ve all heard the news by now,” Gardner says. “Another suicide occurred this morning.”
“Yes.” Dr. Novaire nods. “Who was it?”
“Strangely enough, it was one of Dr. Goldman’s patients again. Barbara Donalds.”
My pulse rushes into my ears in waves. “No. No, that’s not possible.”
“Unfortunately,” he returns, “it is. And it was.”
“No. She said she wouldn’t do that. It’s a sin, she told me.” I knock my fists together. “She promised me.” I steal a panicked look over at Jason, who is staring at the carpet. “What happened? How did she do it?”
The warden jets off his desk and starts pacing, his shiny black leather shoes creaking. “It appears to be an overdose of some kind. We’re still checking on a tox screen.”
“How do you know it was a suicide, then?” I ask. “Did she leave a note?”
“We’re still looking for that, Dr. Goldman,” he says, glaring at me. “But in spite of your fine-tuned diagnostic skills, apparently she told several inmates that she wanted to die.”
“But…” I am speechless.
“We need a plan, Novaire,” says Warden Gardner. “And we need it now.”
The doctor puts his pale, waxy hands together in a prayer position. “I was thinking about a small research study—”
“Not good enough.” The warden turns on his heel from his pacing, like a soldier. “That might have been good enough six months ago. But let me tell you, that ain’t gonna do it right now.”
“How about,” Dr. Novaire starts, his pointer finger up to make a point, but then he falters.
“Three deaths. On your watch. Doesn’t that bother you, Dr. Novaire? Just a little bit?”
“Yes,” Dr. Novaire answers, offended. “Of course it does.”
“Good. We are on the same page, then. Now I need to know what you’re going to do about it. Let’s start with—” His phone interrupts him, and he pulls it to his ear, while Dr. Novaire plays with a thread on his lab coat, looking as if he would like to blend into the wall. After a brief conversation, the warden writes something on a yellow sticky pad, then puts the phone back in his pocket. “The toxicology report is back.” He reads off the pad. Ami-tri-p-” he says, struggling, “ami-try-”
“Amitriptyline,” I finish for him. “Or Elavil. QT prolongation, probably.”
Jason nods. “Makes sense.”
“Yes, well,” the warden interrupts us. “That’s not very helpful at this point, is it?”
“No, it isn’t,” I agree. But then, all of a sudden, it hits me. “I never—”
“There will be an inquiry,” Gardner announces over me. “Changes will be made.” He stops pacing and takes a seat in his office chair, like the captain of a ship. “Meanwhile, all of Dr. Goldman’s records will be overseen.”
“I do that already,” Dr. Novaire says, “for both of the fellows.”
“With all due respect,” Warden Gardner says with no due respect, “that doesn’t appear to be working very well. You will be speaking with Dr. Goldman daily, about every single case.”
“We practically do that already,” Dr. Novaire mutters, in weak protest.
“And if we have any more incidents,” Gardner says, “there will be a change in leadership within the fellowship.” Now it’s Dr. Novaire’s turn to glare at me. “And if it’s another one of Dr. Goldman’s patients, we will be talking about suspension.” The warden stretches out his arms with apparent satisfaction. “Dr. Goldman, do you have anything to say to this?”
I pause a moment. “Yes, I do. I have a concern.”
“A concern.” His smile is unkind. “By all means, Dr. Goldman. Do tell.”
“I’m wondering if someone might have manipulated her. Or tricked her into taking the pills or something.”
He crosses his arms. “And do you have any evidence for this pet theory of yours?”
“Yes,” I say. “She wasn’t on Elavil.”
* * *
“We all lose patients, Zoe,” says Sam, who was kind enough to fit me in for an urgent visit after the warden meeting.
“It seems like it’s becoming a habit, though.”
His smile is sad. “We can’t help everyone. We’re only human.”
“But it seems like it’s only my patients. All of Jason’s patients are doing just swimmingly,” I grumble. “I know it’s not a competition, but…”
“It hurts to lose someone. We’ve all been through it. You feel bad for the patient and their family. You feel guilty.”
“Like a failure.”
“Yes,” he agrees. “Like a failure. Doctors are perfectionists, but we can’t be perfect. And this is not grounds for dismissal.” He removes his glasses, the red plastic of the temples glossy and fresh. The switch from tortoiseshell to red was striking, but it works somehow. “You’ll get through this. The warden has a big bark, but you can’t fire someone for losing a patient. Not like this.”
“Patients,” I correct. “Plural.”
He clasps his hands in front of him. “It’s easy to remember the bad cases. Those are always the ones that imprint on our minds and stay with us. But too often we forget the good cases, the people we’ve helped.”
“Candy,” I say, referring to my case from last year.
“And Janita,” he says, referring to her sister.
“The weird thing is,” I say, twisting the buttons of his water toy, which sends the oil blobs down like marching soldiers, “they found Elavil in her system.”
“Hmm. Not a great choice for suicidal patients,” he says carefully.
“Yes, I know that. I always avoid tricyclics in those patients. But that’s the thing, I wasn’t writing her for it.”
He taps his fake Montblanc on his notebook. “Another doctor, maybe? The neurologists use it for headaches.”
I shake my head. “Not on her med list anywhere.”
His expression turns thoughtful. “How did the warden explain that?”
“He didn’t. He blew it off.” The wind picks up outside the office, whistling in the window casing. “Obviously she got it from somewhere. Another inmate, I assume.”
Sam pauses, then changes the subject. “How is everything else going?” he asks. “Impulse control?”
“Fine.” (I didn’t try to strangle the warden, for instance.)
“Doing anything for the holidays?”
“Mike’s family is coming to town.” I yawn. “I’m a little nervous, but it should be okay.” I turn the toy upside down to start with an empty canvas. “I met with Sofia t
oday.”
He looks up from his desk, his usual poker face revealing surprise.
“Just briefly, for something Dr. Novaire wants me to do. Then I found out about the suicide, so…” The meeting was only a few hours ago but feels like years ago right now.
“How did that go?”
But I don’t answer the question. Instead I ask another. “Do you think a sociopath can change?”
His sofa chair creaks as he shifts in it. “Change? As in?”
“Sofia, for instance. Dr. Novaire is having me do this pilot on CBT for sociopathy.”
Sam raises a skeptical eyebrow.
“Right. Probably dead on arrival, but…Novaire seems to think we can get a positive study out of it. Which begs the question. Do you think it’s possible? That someone with sociopathy can change? That they can get better?”
He purses his lips in thought. “I don’t know. I think they can learn to fit in with society, play by the rules, so to speak. But can they actually learn to feel empathy over narcissism? I have my doubts.” He leans in toward me. “Why? Do you think Sofia has changed?”
I tinker with the knobs. “She’s trying to tell me that she has. Said she wants me to forgive her.”
He taps his pen again. “That’s a tall order.”
“You can say that again.” I put the toy down. “And to make matters worse, she’s claiming she wants to convert to Judaism.”
“Judaism?” he asks with another skeptical eyebrow raise. “And what are your thoughts on that one?”
“My thoughts?” I snicker. “That it’s a master manipulation move. And while I’m all for broadening religion, I’d say she’s one person we really don’t need in our tribe.”
And uncharacteristically, Sam renders his opinion, too. “I couldn’t agree more.”
* * *
I’m lying on the couch, my head in Mike’s lap after my third glass of wine. “Maybe I am just a terrible psychiatrist.”
“You’re not a terrible psychiatrist,” Mike reassures me. “It’s not your fault she got a hold of Elavil. Maybe she was trying to get high or something.”