After what seemed like forever, David came to get me. I patted Lizzy on the back and asked her if she needed anything before I left.
“I’m okay,” she said simply, and she turned back to stare at the TV. This was a child who was used to taking care of herself.
David, in doctor mode, walked fast and talked faster, and I struggled to keep up.
“They pumped her stomach and gave her a medication that counteracts the effects of the Valium. Her blood pressure is normal and her kidneys are functioning properly so there was no need for dialysis. All in all, she’s in pretty good shape. They’re pumping her full of fluids and they’re going to give her some IV nutrition, too, to get her blood sugar back to normal.”
“Thanks, Uncle David,” I said through tears of relief. “I’m so sorry I had to get you out in the middle of the night. But I didn’t know what else to do.”
“Stop that, Meg. We’re all okay. Believe it or not, your mom is okay and she’s going to get through this. It’ll only be a memory some day. This happens to people who are dealing with the loss of a child. It’s not unusual at all and it doesn’t mean that she’s beyond hope. It’s time to call your dad, though. I called him when we first got here and he’s waiting to hear something.”
He handed me his cell phone and nodded his head impatiently. I’d been hoping he wouldn’t make me call him.
I took a deep breath. “Okay, but before I call him, did he tell you that he and I spoke earlier and he’s flying in later today? He’d already decided to put her into a psychiatric hospital as soon as he gets here.”
David nodded and sighed. “Well, at least tonight will prove without a doubt that she needs to be given a bed immediately.”
I dialed our home number and Dad answered out of breath. “Dad, everything is okay. They were able to clear the Valium out of her system and she’s going to be fine, and David says this will probably make getting her a bed in a facility easier.”
David held his hand out for the phone so I handed it over without listening to what Dad said.
“Jack, it’s David. Listen, things are okay now. But you’re exactly right, she needs more help than any of us can give her right now. She needs better medication control and therapy. I know the director of the Harrison-Gregg center and he’ll find her a place and take really good care of her.”
David led me toward the parking garage as he talked to my dad, and they hung up as we got on the elevator. “His flight arrives at one-thirty this afternoon. Your mom will be here the rest of the night and then we’ll get her moved to Harrison-Gregg. I’m taking you home because there’s nothing for you to do right now, and she’ll be sedated so she doesn’t get agitated. You need to sleep and then I’ll take you to the airport to pick up your dad.”
I nodded my head quietly and continued staring into space.
I felt David reach for my hand. “And, Meg? I don’t think this is a setback. I think it might be the best thing that could’ve happened. Sometimes we all need a kick in the butt to make the right changes.”
I smiled weakly at him and used my sleeve to wipe tears away. I talked him into letting me stay at my house—where my clothes were. I felt like being alone, anyway.
He looked at me sideways and grinned. “You won’t get me in trouble with your dad, will you?”
“He’ll never know.”
David pulled into my drive, parked, and walked through the house with me to make sure everything was locked up and safe. Then he hugged me and turned to go, quietly. I shuddered when I thought of what had happened in this very house just a few short hours ago. Amazingly, I was able to climb back into my bed and sleep.
David rang the doorbell at twelve-thirty to pick me up for the trip to the airport. I’d only been awake for thirty minutes. We met Dad in baggage claim and he looked exhausted, with shaggy hair and dark circles under his eyes. He hugged me wordlessly, and then we drove straight to the hospital and got there in time to talk with the doctor making rounds. He had already signed referral papers for the Harrison-Gregg Hospital, and David had pulled some strings to secure a bed for her. They planned to transfer her by ambulance, sedated, to make things easier for all of us. She would wake up in a bed in a room that looked much more like a hotel room than a hospital room.
Dad spent thirty minutes signing release papers, and other legal hospital documents. As he signed, her doctor discussed her overdose, assuring us that there would be no long-term effects. Apparently the valium wasn’t in her system more than a couple of hours and, after all the panic, they determined that the dose she’d swallowed wasn’t nearly lethal anyway. He suggested that maybe her intention wasn’t what we initially thought; it could’ve been accidental. But either way, he wanted her in an in-patient facility as soon as possible.
We followed the ambulance to the psychiatric hospital, which looked, from the outside, like a resort where you might like to vacation. I felt sure, though, that once we got inside, we’d find drooling patients wearing robes, slippers, and blank stares. My fear that this would be the case left a burning ache in my stomach and a sour taste in my mouth.
We entered through the pneumatic sliding doors that you see at all hospitals, but they were the absolute last sign that this was a hospital. Once inside, I really felt like I’d entered a spa for a massage appointment. The receptionist’s desk looked more like a hotel check-in area, and the employees wore crisply starched, colorful uniforms. No scrubs anywhere! A player piano in the foyer played Pachelbel’s “Canon in D,” and families sat around on leather couches, and at round mahogany tables. People didn’t look so grim. Most were smiling. Could it have been the amount of lithium they were handing out? Or were they piping happy gas through the air ducts?
Dad took my hand and smiled wanly at me. “Okay, Meg?”
“Yes. Okay. This could work.”
At the front desk, we were greeted warmly by a beautiful girl who looked like a college student—probably a Psychology major working on a study of the way families of crazy people react to committing their loved ones.
“Hi. You must be the Kavanaghs,” she said with a brilliant smile.
Dad stepped up awkwardly. “Yes. We’re checking in my wife, Adele.”
“Of course, Mr. Kavanagh. She’ll be in a private guest room on the third floor. All of her therapy sessions will be on that floor, and she’ll be served her meals in the café on the second floor. We’ve already got everything ready for her.”
“Sounds fine,” Dad said. I could tell he was as unsure about how to act as I was. Were we supposed to be pleased about this fabulous opportunity for Mom, or devastated that we just signed papers to leave her in this place without her knowledge? Hmm…one of those sticky social tangles.
Dear Mrs. Vanderbilt, I’ve just committed my mother to a mental institution, and I’m wondering about the proper way to say goodbye. Should I write a note on lavender-scented stationary and leave it on her bed, or would a phone call several days later suffice? Are gifts expected in these situations? Maybe a drool cloth or some shapeless lounging pajamas?
Uncle David stood off to the side speaking to a man in an expensive navy suit. He motioned us over, and introduced us to Dr. Lindberg, the director of the facility, who turned and spoke directly to my dad.
“Jack, I’m glad we had a bed available for your wife. I think you’ll find that this is the best place for her right now. She’ll be able to rest and let her mind find healing in its own time. I know this wasn’t an easy decision, though, and I’m here to talk whenever you need me. David and I were at Hopkins together, and I want to help out however I can.”
He handed Dad a business card and deftly flipped it over to show that he’d written his cell phone number on the back. “You’ll go from here into a family briefing where they’ll talk about contact rules. For the time being, I’ll warn you, Adele won’t be able to have visitors. She’ll be able to receive one phone call a week and as many letters as you can write. But we feel that face-to-face contact with family
or friends keeps our patients too tethered to the issues that they need to work through on their own. We won’t know how long the ‘no visitor rule’ will last for Adele. That will be up to her psychiatrist once he examines her.”
“I understand,” Dad said. “Meg, does that sound appropriate to you?”
“Yes,” I answered, quietly.
“All right, then. I’ll take you to Miranda’s office. She’ll be your liaison and anything you need, anything at all, she’ll be able to handle.”
He walked us to a suite of offices decorated in muted earth tones and comfortably furnished with leather and mahogany. Miranda asked to speak to Dad alone for a minute, so I waited in a chair next to a fireplace, and David stepped out to take a call about a patient. My phone buzzed with a new text message.
I glanced down at it, hardly interested. Henry never texts, so I figured it was Tennyson. I was right.
She wrote: “What do u call a blonde w half a brain?”
I texted her back: “?”
“Gifted!”
When I didn’t respond, she texted: “Would u freaking come home already? Where r u?”
“Pittsburgh. w my Mom.”
“U should B here. I just saw your man w a blonde in the truck.”
“Really?”
“Are any of his sisters blonde?”
“No.”
I knew immediately who it was. I hadn’t thought this day could get any worse, or my head could pound any harder. Wrong. What was Henry doing? What was Brooke doing in town?
I texted Tennyson again. “Brooke.”
“OMG. I’m sorry Meg. Want me to run them off the road?”
“No. I’ll CU soon, Tennyson.”
“OK. Bye.”
I looked around to see if my dad had come out yet. I didn’t see him or David and I debated what to do. I could call Henry to see if he would admit that he’s with Brooke. Or I could tell him that Tennyson saw him. Or I could just never speak to him again, and move back to Canning Mills and forget Wyoming ever happened. If he breaks my heart, now, after everything….
I ignored the panic attack that, on a hair trigger, threatened to surface and pressed his number. It rang four times and then he answered. Before he said anything, though, I heard Keith Urban singing in the background and Brooke’s soft laugh.
Then Henry’s sweet voice came through the line. “Meg, are you there? What’s going on?”
The lump in my throat wouldn’t let me say anything. I just waited. Waited for him to tell me what was going on. Waited for something in my life to feel right again. Waited for my lungs to fill and my heart to beat.
“Meg? Can you hear me? Are you there? Is everything okay?”
No, nothing, Henry. Nothing is okay.
“Meg, I’m going to hang up and call you right back. I can’t hear you at all. Must be a bad connection.”
Silence.
My phone rang so I turned the ringer down, and I felt it vibrate three more times as Henry kept trying.
Just then Miranda called me back into the conference room. She summarized what she’d been discussing with my dad and went over the communication rules with me. She encouraged me to write to Mom, and to send her books that she would like, but reiterated that Mom wouldn’t be able to have visitors at all, probably for the entire time she was in treatment. She talked through every detail of treatment—her private therapy, group therapy, medication scheduling, nurse contact, facility rules. It sounded like they knew what they were doing, and I relaxed for the first time about my mom. Everything happens for a reason, right?
The whole time Miranda talked to me, my phone vibrated like crazy in my hand.
“Okay,” Miranda said with an air of finality. “Now is the time for you to peek in and say goodbye. She’s still sedated, but she’s in her room and you’ll be able to see where she’ll spend the next couple of months. I know this might be the hardest moment for you both, but you have my word that Mrs. Kavanagh will not be alone when she wakes, and that our patients find that the program here is gentle and calming.”
She walked us to the elevator while she chattered happily like a little bird. She must be used to filling awkward silence. We must have looked crazy ourselves: Dad trembled, I hyperventilated, and David…was David.
Mom’s room looked really cozy because there were no overhead lights, and the walls were painted a comforting butter-yellow. Small table lamps gave the room a softer glow and Mom slept in a bed made up with clean, white sheets. She had a private bathroom and a sitting area with soft chairs and a small television. A colorful rug covered the floor next to her bed and her slippers waited patiently there for her. The only thing that might give this room away for its true purpose was a tiny camera mounted in the corner and aimed directly at my mom. I’m sure there was a desk, hidden from view somewhere, manned by a team of nurses who watched screens looking for any sign of the crazies getting out of hand. Oh, and there were no sharp edges on the furniture, or objects that could be used as weapons.
Dad stepped over to Mom’s bed and sat next to her. He hadn’t seen her since Christmas and my heart broke when I saw how tender he was with her. How softly he stroked her hair. How hard he worked at keeping his emotions steady. His lower lip trembled and his throat worked at trying to swallow. I felt a sob rising in my throat and I couldn’t stop it from coming out. Dad didn’t look back at me, but I know he heard me cry. This man loved this woman so much. They’d been through such joy and such devastation together. He wanted her to get well and come home to him and that about undid me. I watched him bend down and whisper something in her ear, and then he rubbed her hand and stood up. He turned and walked out of the room without looking back.
I went to her and whispered, “I love you, Mom.” I touched her cheek and squeezed her hand and then I walked away, as well. David waited for us in the hall. He nodded when I came out of her room, put his arm around my shoulders and we walked out of the building and drove home to pretend in private that everything would be okay.
Later, I heard Dad ordering a pizza on the phone. I’d locked myself in the bathroom, without my phone. I ran a scalding hot bath and stayed there for a long time. After at least an hour, Dad knocked softly at the door.
“Meg, are you okay?”
I tried to steady my voice so I sounded stronger than I felt. “I’m okay, Dad. Just trying to relax.” I stepped out of the tub and pulled on a tank top and some pajama shorts and slipped into my room. Dad knocked and brought in a couple of slices of pizza and a glass of water.
He opened and closed his mouth, wanting to say something but seemingly unable. Finally, he dropped onto the corner of my bed and patted my leg. “I can tell you’d like to be alone, and that’s okay. But I want you to know that we made the right decision today, Meg. This is going to be the thing we look back on and know that it made all the difference. Wyatt would be proud of us, of you.”
“I know, Dad. I know. Wyatt’s the lucky one who gets to watch all the drama without getting his hands dirty, though, right? So really what does it matter what he would think?”
I heard my dad take a shaky breath and clear his throat. He decided to ignore my clearly irrational anger towards Wyatt. “I changed your flight so we can fly back together tomorrow. Since she can’t have visitors, there’s no reason for us to stay. I can go back to work and you can go to school. We’ll need to leave the house by six-thirty in the morning, so be sure you set an alarm.”
“Okay. See you in the morning.”
“I love you, Meg.”
“I love you, too. Hey, Dad?”
“Yeah, babe.”
Just say it, Meg. “You know how Mom’s family seems knee-deep in mental health issues?”
He turned and hesitated by the door and then returned to my bedside. “Yes?”
“What does that mean for me? And don’t sugar-coat it. I’m sick to death of everyone around me forcing platitudes down my throat.”
He stared at me for a second and his eyes softened. He
reached out to rub my back and that small tenderness almost overwhelmed me.
“Meggie, we’re all a product of our families. Some of us inherit easy things like high cholesterol. Some of us are predisposed to alcoholism, like me because of my dad. You already know these things. Nothing is definite—it’s all too difficult to predict. Your mother has always been fine and strong, but she’s also always been emotional. She thinks a lot about the deeper issues of this life—the whys and wheres and hows of life. It’s why I fell in love with her. It’s why I still love her more than myself.”
His eyes flashed over to mine and I saw such intensity there.
“Having a personality like hers tends to ignite fierce creativity coupled with brilliant flashes of understanding. She’s not depressed because of a defective gene. She’s depressed because she lost her only son and her intricate, beautiful mind is thinking through it all. We’ve got to see her through. She’s going to be fine. Even stronger than before once she’s finished forging through this jungle. And you, Meg, are stronger than your mother. You always have been. I know that Wyatt had that little nickname for you, and to tell you the truth, it always bothered me a little. I know he loved how tender you are, how willing you are to love others, to help others, to cry with others. And that is beautiful…but it’s not fragile, Meg. It’s pure strength that allows you to let yourself go like that, to hold the heart of someone else in your hands and not crush it. That’s strength, Meg. You need to remember that about yourself. No matter what valleys you find yourself walking through, you keep your head up and find comfort in the fact that you’ve already passed the hardest tests life can throw at you. I couldn’t be more proud of how you’ve handled yourself. And if you find yourself struggling with depression one day, you’ll know exactly what it is and you’ll know that help is all around you. No one is perfect, Meg. We’ve all got quirks in our bodies and minds that create the canvas for our lives.”
I hugged him silently and then he stood up to leave. He shut my door and I heard him go into his room and turn on the TV. I took little bites of pizza while I stared at my phone wondering what to do. What I wanted to do was to wallow in self pity and avoid confronting Henry. I could just slip away without ever having to ask him if he went out with Brooke while I was out of town. What I knew I should do—because usually in social entanglements I think the worst and miss the mark by a mile—was call him and ask him to tell me the truth.
Glass Girl Page 24