Asylum (23 page)

            Seth
nodded.  He picked the tickets up off the desk and tucked them into the pocket
of the hooded jacket she wore.  With one finger, he traced the line of her jaw
down to the point of her chin, and held it lightly between his thumb and
forefinger.

            “I…
care
about you.  A lot.  You know that, right?” he asked.

            “Sure,”
she agreed.

            He
looked as if he wanted to say more.  For a moment, she thought he would.  He
opened his mouth as though…
            “Heeeeey,” Sam called in a mock stage whisper.

            She
was peeking around the door at them from out in the hallway.

            “Will
you guys can the mush long enough for me to grab my coat?” She grinned
impishly.

            “Where
you going?” Chloe asked.

            Seth
dropped his hands and gave a resigned sigh.

            “Okay
Sam, mush canned.  I gotta get going anyways.  Don’t forget, Goodge Field
bonfire after the game.  Dress warm, bring a blanket to sit on if you’ve got
one, and Oh! I almost forgot-”

            Seth
reached into his back pocket and yanked out a small folded piece of red
material.  He shook it once to reveal its shape.  It was a knitted beret made
of bright red yarn.  He placed it on Chloe’s head and yanked it gently down on
the side, tilting his head to one side to study the effect.

            “I
know, it’s stupid.  My mom made it.  It’s so I can see where you are at the
game.  I had to guess on the size,” he shrugged.

            “It’s
perfect…I mean…it fits really good.  I love it, thanks,” Chloe blushed.

            “Aw-haw-haw,”
Sam taunted, “that’s sooooo cute!”

            “Alright. 
Take it easy ladies.  Enjoy the game, we’ll see you after the win,” Seth
started to leave, but stopped and turned to wrap an arm around Chloe’s waist. 
“Kiss me for luck?” he asked, already only inches from her face.

            Chloe
nodded. For the first time his kiss was hard…a push… a demand of sorts.  Chloe,
surprised and somewhat embarrassed in front of Sam, staggered back a step.  Sam
made a gagging noise as Seth let her go and, with a wistful smile, left.

            “Good
luck!” Chloe called after him.

            “That
was weird,” Sam observed.

            “Yeah. 
I wish I knew what he was thinking sometimes,” Chloe admitted.

            “Oh,
I know that, he’s a guy, so it’s a fifty-fifty kind of thing.  It’s either
sex…or hockey,” Sam giggled.

            “So
what gives?  Where are you going?  We’ve got to be at the library by five,”
Chloe asked.

            “I
know.  I thought I’d go early.  Maybe finish tagging that box we started
Wednesday.  We don’t have a lot to hand in this time,” Sam rumpled her hair in
front of the mirror.

            Chloe
clutched at her heart and stumbled dramatically forward.

            “What’s
your problem, spaz?” Sam laughed.

            “It’s
just…that…you’re…you’re taking initiative!  I think I just had a heart attack,”
Chloe gasped.

            Sam
aimed a kick at Chloe who dodged it easily and snatched her coat off the hook
by the door.           

            “Alright,
grab a blanket,” Chloe ordered, “we’ll go to the game from the library.”

            “Oh
hey, by the way, I saw the thing that spawned you leaving.  What is her
problem?  She looks like if she smiled, her face would break,” Sam observed.

            “It
probably would,” Chloe agreed, “But don’t worry, she keeps another face with a
pre-affixed smile for important occasions and work functions.”

            The
girls got ready as they talked.  Although Sam had come in claiming that she
just needed to grab a coat to be able to leave, it actually took a half hour’s
worth of make-up application and hair-fussing. 

            “She
drinks,“ Chloe told Sam, with a smug grin on her face as she ran a brush
through her hair.  “In secret.  Keeps a bottle of whiskey in her dresser
drawer.  She drinks alone and thinks we don’t know about it.”

            “Maybe
she should start smoking pot too,” Sam said. “It would chill her out a lot.”

            “And
she doesn’t even have a real degree,” Chloe said in a lower voice, mentally
shooing away a feeling of disloyalty at exposing the family secret.  “She
forged a diploma to get her job.  My sister told me.  Before Dad left, and we
moved to Michigan, the only class she had ever taught was yoga.”

            Sam
chuckled, and let her mouth hang open to paint on a layer of lip gloss over a
muted shade of red.

            “She’s
a fake,” Chloe accused, repeating words she had hurled at the woman herself in
almost every argument they had ever had.  Sam nodded understandingly.

            “At
least she’s hot,” Sam soothed.  “Probably from being a yoga instructor or
something, but she looks pretty good for being old and all.”

            “She’s
had plastic surgery like four times!” Chloe protested.

            “Well
you should see my mom!” Sam laughed.  “She not only wears scrubs to work, she
wears them when she’s not working cause she’s too cheap to buy real clothes! 
And geez, did she let herself go after she had kids.  She used to be skinny
when she was younger, like me, but now she’s got a gut bigger than my Dad’s! 
Which is probably why she wears scrubs all the time, because they’re pretty
forgiving, but God!  I would hate to bring a guy home to meet her!  You know if
a guy is serious, he’s always going to check out your mom to see how well
you’re going to age.”

            Chloe
set down her mascara brush.  She was laughing too hard to keep brushing her
lashes without stabbing herself in the eyeball.

            “Sam!”
she giggled, “Where do you come up with this shit?”

            “I
read magazines,” Sam answered sagely, pursing her lips and studying her
reflection.

            Chloe
finished applying a last layer of mascara and waited for Sam to be ready. They
both donned grey and gold scarves, which, Sam claimed, were essential to their
team winning and took the bus to the library.  By the time they arrived, they
had only forty-five minutes before their meeting with Dr. Willard.

            The
box they had barely started on their last visit was where they had left it, in
the middle of the floor.  Sam suggested that they start from opposite ends and
meet in the middle.  Which actually meant three-fourths on Chloe’s side and
maybe a quarter on Sam‘s.

            They
kept the folder on the floor between them.  All flagged material ended up in
it.  This particular week’s offering was rather slim.  Dr. Willard had seemed
somewhat unimpressed with the previous week’s material and the girls had
planned on spending more time at the library that week to make up for it, but
there is a saying about the best laid plans.

            “What’s
TCSH again?” Sam asked.

            “Traverse
City State,” Chloe shot back.  She pulled out a stack of yellowed papers from
her end and began skimming through them.

            “Oh
yeah,” Sam remembered, biting her lip as she read through the pages of a
nurse’s logbook.  For several minutes, nothing was heard but the rustle of
papers as the girls searched steadily for something to add to the folder.

            “Hey
listen to this!” Sam interrupted Chloe’s scanning.

            “Come
on Sam, focus!” Chloe insisted.  This was the hardest part of working
together.  All too often, Sam would find some patient’s writing or some
hospital document so strange or amusing, that she would just have to break
Chloe’s focus by reading it out loud.

            “I
think I got something!” Sam insisted, “Listen!”

            Chloe
dropped the pile of unread letters in her lap with an aggrieved sigh.  She made
a ‘come on’ motion with her hand.  Sam cleared her throat.

            “
My
dear brother Ernest,”
Sam read, “
Do you remember when we were children? 
Mother once said that everything that befalls us has it’s reason, and it is
God’s reason, unknowable to our pitiful intellects.  She spoke great truth in
this.  For so long have I made petitions to God.  Demanded of him his reasons
for my wrongful tenure in this place.  He has revealed his answer to me at
last.  I am not alone in this place.  So sensitive was I, to my own sufferings,
that I rarely deigned to notice the situations of others.  Ernest, would you
believe me if I told you there were others?  Others who, like us, can find no
explanation for the things they’ve seen, and yet, are completely rational and
sane men?  As children, we often talked of the things we’d seen as signs, as
warnings.  Ernest, I vow to you, these things are true.  The happenings, the
things I know to be true now are a great deal more wretched then anything we
could have imagined as children.  I write to charge you with a grave favor.  Do
not bring the children to see me again.  It is better they remember me as I was,
not as what I am now and for what I must further become.  I am one small
soldier in a large war, dear brother.  For what you may hear of me after this
letter, spare not a thought.  I am as I always have been,

Your
loving and devoted sister, Elizabeth Mathers Decker, July 13
^th
1889.”

           
Sam dropped the
letter into her lap and looked to Chloe for a reaction.

            “Okay…”
Chloe said, hinting for Sam’s point.

           
“It’s a group!”
Sam exclaimed.  “She says ‘others’, she’s joining with others in some kind of
fight, in a large war, she says!”

            “Or
she’s crazy.  What are the chances, I mean, being that she’s writing from an
insane asylum.  What was her name again?” Chloe asked.

            “Elizabeth.
Elizabeth Mathers Decker,” Sam repeated.

            “There’s
something really familiar about…wait.  Who was she writing to?” Chloe wondered.

            “Her
brother, Ernest.”

            “I’ve
read something of hers before.  Back when we first started, another letter.  A
group, huh? I guess you could infer that.  It’d be another paper in the file
anyway.  Make a copy,” Chloe said dismissively.

            “Wait,
if you found another letter, maybe there‘s more, maybe we‘ve got a bunch of
references!” Sam exclaimed.

            “Maybe,”
Chloe soothed, sifting determinedly through a stack of letters and newspaper
clippings.  She could hear Sam rifling through the box, muttering to herself,
making it impossible for Chloe to concentrate.

            “Sssshhh!”
Chloe insisted.  Sam only talked louder.

            “Nothing,
nothing, nothing, no, no, no, no…” Sam stopped rustling papers and was silent.

            “Chloe,”
Sam whispered.

            “Sshhhh,”
Chloe hissed again, forcing herself to focus on a list of new admissions.

            “Clo!”
Sam said louder.  Chloe tossed her papers on top of the box in agitation.

            “What?!”
She demanded. “Seriously, what?  I keep reading the same thing over and over
again because you can’t shut-up!”

            “You’re
not going to believe this,” Sam said in a small shaky voice.  “Just listen…
 Dear
Mr. Mathers, We are writing on behalf of your sister, who is no longer with us
as we knew her.  Whatever you may hear, your sister was a credit to the name of
your family and a martyr.  She spoke of you often and until the very end.  Her
dedication to right and the will of God was unparalleled.  Believe that you
have our sincere regrets and that we are your brothers in loss.  Forgive us our
trespasses.  There is not a man among us who would not have taken her place had
it been possible.
It’s signed… A.M”

            Chloe
balled her hands into fists, and shook her head at the paper Sam offered her.

            “It
doesn’t matter.  It’s…it’s coincidence,” Chloe mumbled.

            “I
don’t think so,” Sam disagreed quietly
. 
“I have this feeling Clo…I just
got this feeling reading it.  So strange…like it’s this certainty that it’s
connected.  That everything is connected.  Like…like we’re supposed to be
here.  Like we’re supposed to have been the ones that found this.  This is it. 
This is A.M.”

            Chloe
and Sam stared at each other over the shaking paper in Sam’s gloved hand.  It
seemed to be another turning point to Chloe.  She could tell Sam to put it
back, she could tell her to forget about it.  She could tell Sam to make a copy
and stick it in the file.  Or…

            “I
think…” Chloe said, never breaking eye contact with Sam, “I think I feel the
same way.  I don’t think this is one for the file.  Let’s...let’s just hang on
to it for right now, okay?  We can always show it to Willard later.  Let’s just
keep this to ourselves, at least for right now.”