Against the Ruins

by Linda Lightsey Rice

  I’m on the sofa in Uta’s house, shaking all over. You’re sitting on my lap, leaning against me sucking your thumb. I rock back and forth, trying to breathe normally. When I close my eyes, the car’s coming straight at us. He almost killed us. Uta has my foot soaking in a dishpan, it hurts terribly, it’s swollen but I don’t think any bones are broken. I drink the brandy Uta has provided and ease you off my lap, tell you to stretch out. I lean over, my hands to my temples. He could have killed Lyra. He could have killed our child.

  “I going to call a doctor,” I say when Uta walks into the room with a tray of food. “If I can’t get a doctor, I guess it’s the police. Oh dear Lord.”

  I gaze at Uta, say the words I fear: “He’s lost his mind.”

  Eventually I phoned the general practitioner I’d chosen for your vaccinations because his middle name was the same as my mother’s maiden name. Dr. Dumaine—for years he’s asked me to call him Ernie but it’s never felt natural—arrived an hour later. He was heavyset even then; at thirty-five he looked middle-aged, as doctors were supposed to in 1957. He had a lazy left eye, that laconic manner and gruff affability that still endears him to women and children. When he arrived, he couldn’t park in our driveway because of the downed tree, so he left his car at the curb and headed to the front door.

  I called to him from Uta’s sidewalk. “I’m over here, doctor.” I limped forward, shook his hand, thanked him for coming.

  “What’s wrong with your foot, Mrs. Copeland?”

  I pointed at our house. “My husband’s—he’s been—not himself—since—I guess it was—yes, it was—Friday afternoon. He—injured himself—he’s very upset.” My voice broke—“I don’t know what to do—”

  We looked up. William was yelling from inside the garage.

  The doctor said, “You go in your house.” He guided me to our back steps. “I’m going to look at your foot in a few minutes. Go inside and make coffee. Has your husband been drinking?”

  I said no and climbed the steps slowly. At the back door I hesitated, looked down the driveway—I wanted to walk down Lincoln Street until I could take a right onto Elmwood Avenue and get on that new freeway and disappear.

  Inside the kitchen I put the coffeepot on the stove and cleaned up a bit—your untouched cornflakes were still on the table. I heard yelling outside and hobbled to the window. William darted by, followed by the doctor. William stopped and Dr. Dumaine said something, and then the doctor put his arm around William and led him to the back door. When they came in the kitchen, William saw me and turned and ran back to the door, but the doctor grabbed him. He dragged William into the bedroom. William tried to punch him, but Dr. Dumaine was larger; he threw William onto the bed, whipped open his black bag and withdrew a hypodermic needle, and plunged it into William’s thigh. William looked stunned, lay down quietly, and in a moment closed his eyes.

  Dr. Dumaine came in the kitchen. “Let’s look at your foot.” He examined it, fashioned a small splint with gauze and a tongue depressor. I poured us burned coffee and described William’s behavior. We went into the bedroom, and Dr. Dumaine inspected William’s wrist. There were five cuts, three close together, of different sizes, and two others at uneven distances.

  “Two hit veins,” he said, “but—fortunately—only nicked them. You did a good job stopping the blood loss.” He asked about weapons in the house, applied a sterile solution, and sewed across William’s wounds.

  In the kitchen I poured him a second cup of coffee. He asked, “Did something happen Friday, something out of the ordinary? Has he been feeling bad lately? Worried about something?”

  I said I hadn’t noticed anything unusual. “But when this began he talked about God and sin, and he wanted to pray. He prayed most of the night. He’s studying to be a minister, but I never heard him talk like that before.”

  The doctor took off his glasses, polished them with the tail of his tie. “During mental breakdowns people often become very religious. I don’t know why.”

  “Could it have been some kind of accident?”

  “No. I’m sorry, but he meant to do this. A suicide attempt always has a reason, even if we never know what the reason was.”

  He gazed out the window at the encroaching darkness, then looked at the wall clock. “Your husband should sleep through the night.” He gave me a long look, said now he remembered my coming to his office. Where was my daughter? After I told him, he said, “She should stay at your neighbor’s house for now. Has he tried to harm anyone else—you or your daughter?”

  It took me a moment to answer: “William wouldn’t hurt us.”

  “Well then, you try to get some rest, and I’ll be around bright and early tomorrow morning.”

  When I asked about his bill, Dr. Dumaine patted me on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about that right now. You need some rest and to get off that foot. That’s an order.”

  When I walked him to the front door, I could barely keep from crying out: Please don’t leave me here alone.

  He hesitated at the porch door, glanced into the dark driveway, stared at the downed dogwood. “Your husband hasn’t tried to harm anyone else, you’re sure about that?”

  “He did drive the car dangerously. You have to understand—this isn’t like him, this isn’t who he is.” I hesitated. “He could have hit someone.”

  The doctor turned around. “Let me call my wife. I think I should stay here a bit longer.”

  While William slept, I fried a hamburger for the doctor and we talked and drank repeated cups of coffee. I wasn’t hungry, I couldn’t remember eating anytime in the last forty-eight hours—at least I didn’t have to worry about my new diet. Dr. Dumaine and I discovered we were distantly related: his great aunt had been married to my mother’s brother, who died in World War I. As the night wore on, he told me about going to medical school in Charleston; he’d been there about the same time we were living in Summerville. We talked about the differences between Charleston and Columbia; he said he still missed the Low Country, said I spoke with the “beautiful Charleston brogue,” which made me blush. For a moment the world seemed normal, like it was before my husband tried to kill himself.

  Finally I said, “I need to get my daughter from next door.”

  “I don’t think you should. We don’t know what will happen when William wakes up. Can’t she stay with your neighbor?”

  “She’s never spent the night away from me. She’ll be scared, she’s already scared. It’s awful what she’s had to see. She needs her mother.”

  “How about this—I stay here with your husband and you stay over there with her? You need to stay off that foot too.”

  I said he was very kind but I didn’t feel Lyra could stay at Uta’s. Wouldn’t it scare her even more if neither of us could come home?

  The doctor settled onto the living-room sofa with a book, and I limped over to Uta’s house. You were asleep on the hard Victorian sofa; Uta had covered you with an afghan and was dozing in an armchair beside you. I whispered that the doctor was staying the night and knelt down and woke you gently and walked you home. You said it felt “funny” to be out on the street so late, that the world had gone still like it did when it snowed. I told you that in our house there was a doctor, maybe you’d remember him, he gave you your school vaccinations. The doctor was staying with us late because your father was sick. At our house I told Dr. Dumaine I’d sleep in your bed tonight and he said that was a good idea, and you and I tiptoed past your sleeping father. In your room I whispered about Christmas and how your cousins would be coming to visit. I could feel the fear in your clammy skin as I pulled your pajama top down over your head. I almost broke down but forced myself into what I hoped was a reassuring smile.

  I made you sleep by the windows. During the night I awoke over and over again and twice I got up and went into the other room to lean down and look at Willi
am. I wondered whether to call my brothers. I couldn’t call my stepmother; she had no patience for people who didn’t behave correctly. My brother in DC or the one in Florida? So far away, what could either do? If William was having a “breakdown,” he’d hate anyone knowing it. Wasn’t it bad enough that the neighbors knew?

  Was it possible William would wake up okay tomorrow? Maybe tomorrow everything would be better.

  First I felt it. Moving air, breeze—no, breath. Someone’s breath. I opened my eyes. William’s bored into them. I almost smiled. Then I remembered.

  He leered at me, his eyes dilated. Instinctively I pulled back, one hand reaching for you.

  “Are you feeling better,” I whispered.

  He kept breathing on me, studying me. My heart beat a chaotic rhythm. He leaned back and without a word strode into the bathroom.

  I stared at the clock on your orange-crate nightstand. Six-thirty.

  I held my breath as William walked back through the room—he didn’t look at us. I heard him get back in bed, heard him tossing and turning. Heard his breathing even out.

  I should have left Lyra at Uta’s, I must get her out of the house.

  It is Monday, isn’t it? Has to be. I rocked you playfully, whispered that I was going to walk you to school early, you could play in the schoolyard until the doors opened. Hurriedly I got you dressed, threw on a dress myself, and we sped past your sleeping father, though not quickly enough that I didn’t see how you stared at him. I made your lunch and we scrambled out the door—Dr. Dumaine was still asleep on the sofa—and we both ate an apple as we walked, me still limping, through the early morning chill. Several houses now had green wreaths on their front doors. We headed through the Logan gates and over to the swing set, and I said you were to stay in the schoolyard until the doors opened, you were not to go anywhere else. There’d never been any trouble here, but when I looked at you I almost burst into tears—you were so small in your green jumper and plaid jacket, a small child alone in the schoolyard before school opened. You got out a coloring book from your book bag and attacked the outline of a house with a dog and a cat lolling in its front yard. What your home ought to be. I started walking away, calling that I’d see you that afternoon. When I turned around, you’d stopped coloring and were watching me leave.

  I shuffled back down Lincoln Street berating myself, stopped when I was halfway home and turned around and limped back to the schoolyard, pain shooting up my leg. I could see you, you were all right, you’d be fine. When I stumbled into our yard, William was on the porch holding the iron, looking at it oddly. The doctor, tieless now and minus his glasses, was saying he’d like William to come inside. William threw the iron down and ran into the house. As I hobbled onto the porch, I could hear him in the hallway babbling about the farm, how he had to get down there to fix the leak in the roof. He ran into the living room, the doctor following. Dr. Dumaine gave me a troubled look and crossed to his black bag. He caught William and jabbed the needle into his arm. In a few seconds we got William back into bed. I retreated to the kitchen while the doctor talked to William for a while.

  When Dr. Dumaine walked into the kitchen, I cried, “I don’t know what to do, I just don’t know what to do.”

  He sat down. Unshaven and rumpled, he looked as exhausted as I felt. “He needs to go to a hospital, Mrs. Copeland. I’ve tried to talk to him about that but he refuses to consider it—some people fight the idea even when they know they need it. While I was talking to him he suddenly froze, went rigid, stared at the ceiling with one arm in the air. Has he done that before?”

  When I said yes, he looked worried. “How long was he like that? When he came out of it, what happened?”

  “Four hours. He acted wild afterward. That’s when he drove the car dangerously.”

  “He was probably catatonic. A catatonic patient is very dangerous—this isn’t safe for you and your daughter. I don’t have much experience with nervous breakdowns, but I know he needs to be in a hospital.”

  “No one can force William to do something he doesn’t want to do.”

  “Then we get an involuntary commitment. In an emergency, only one relative and one doctor have to sign. Are there mental problems in his family, in his past?”

  “He had shell shock during the war, that’s all I know about.” I put the coffeepot on the stove again. “I can’t send my husband to a hospital against his will. He’ll never forgive me.” I turned around. “If I have to, I’ll send Lyra to her grandmother and take care of William myself.”

  “He needs treatment he can only get in a hospital. This will protect him too. The law says anyone who’s a danger to himself or to others, or who clearly needs treatment he’s not competent enough to agree to, should be committed.”

  “I can’t lock him up. I know what people think about anyone with mental problems. There’s a poor woman in this neighborhood nobody will even speak to. William’s a good man, a sensitive man. I can’t treat him like he has no say in what happens to him.”

  “I know this is hard. But there’s more dignity to commitment now. A public hearing is no longer required, he won’t have to wait in jail for a judge to sign the papers. We’ll get him in a private hospital, and it’ll be very orderly and quiet.”

  Lyra in the schoolyard. Alone in the schoolyard before school opens. Because she can’t be in her own house. Because her own house isn’t safe.

  I got up and stared through the kitchen doorway at William’s rigid body, the arm in the air. “Why is his arm that way?”

  “I don’t know, I wish I did. Come sit down.”

  Dr. Dumaine led me back to the table. “Your husband’s not the only one who needs help. You do too.”

  “What do I have to do?” My voice had no inflection, no tone. My singer’s voice was gone.

  “First we decide on a hospital. A private sanitarium is going to be expensive.”

  A good wife would never do this. A good woman supports and protects her husband and her child.

  “My husband is a student, he’s not been working lately. I’m only a schoolteacher.” I paused. “We have one thing that’s valuable, but it’s not in my name—a farm. William loves that farm to death. I can’t imagine selling it, it’s our daughter’s inheritance.”

  “Anyone involuntarily committed loses certain rights, I’m afraid—I doubt William would be allowed to sign legal papers.” The doctor thought for a moment. “Did you say shell shock? If he’s a veteran, he can go to the VA hospital. It has fine facilities, they learned a lot about treating mental problems in army hospitals. You sit and rest. I’ll call and get things started.”

  He peeked in at William and went to the hallway phone. It sounded like he was arguing with someone. I looked around the room. Cleaning up the dishes from last night seemed pointless. Abruptly I realized—I forgot to call school. I didn’t call and I didn’t show up.

  Dr. Dumaine walked into the kitchen. “The VA hospital doesn’t have a bed available on their psych ward.” He lit a cigarette and smoked in silence.

  “The only thing we can do,” he said slowly, “is call the state hospital.”

  “The state hospital on Bull Street? No. No.”

  I paced across the room, hands shaking, voice taut. “I won’t do that. Everyone knows how people are treated there. I’ve heard that most patients never come home.”

  “There’ve been many improvements in recent years. I’ve seen the progress myself.”

  “But the shame—what will people think about William if he’s sent there? The place looks like a prison. Awful things could happen to him there.”

  Dr. Dumaine ran a hand through his hair. “It’s not ideal, I admit. But he could just stay there until a bed opens up in the VA hospital.”

  I stared into the bedroom at William. “I can’t do that to him. He’s not crazy like those people.”
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  “You know this is serious, Mrs. Copeland. I’m not trying to make you commit him. But if you don’t get him into a hospital, you and Lyra must stay somewhere else until he becomes less agitated. We can try to find someone to look after him, but I don’t think that’s the wisest choice. There’s a new medicine now—chlorpromazine—I’m told it works wonders at calming a patient down. But he can only get it in a hospital. He may not get better without going to one.”

  I stared at Ernest Dumaine but his features were blurred, as though my eyes could no longer focus. I went in and looked at William; he was tossing back and forth, even with his arm in the air. He no longer seemed quite real. I felt his hand on my back, his long tender fingers, as I walked forward at the cemetery to lay roses on my father’s casket. I saw you in the schoolyard alone, saw you running down the driveway as William aimed the car at us—

  I went back to the kitchen and nodded. Why do I feel like I’m deciding whether the man I love will live or die?

  Suddenly time stops and I watch the past, which had been so simple, waltz out of the room. I know that nothing will ever be simple again. Terrible things may happen to William. Terrible things will be said about him. Terrible things will be said about the woman who threw her husband into the lunatic asylum. I go back and gaze at William while his life is compromised in the hallway where Dr. Dumaine talks on the telephone. We’re on the porch that first night. I’m singing to William. It was a week later that he kissed my hand. Soft feathery waves against his forehead, smooth skin like a child’s, long lanky body, my husband, my love, my child’s father. Who does not know us now.

  As I stand there stroking your father’s arm, I recall his story about ring shake, how a hurricane can cause the internal layers of a tree to separate. Even though the tree survives and looks all right on the outside, internally it is forever changed.

  So many decades later and you’re leaning over my hospital bed weeping. You must have been equally anguished when—amid screaming and confusion—someone important to your life disappeared. But no one asks how you feel, or tells you it’s all right to be frightened and sad. Rather like the silence of a brokenhearted father staring at his wife’s paintings night after night after night.