But Inside I'm Screaming (16 page)

It is Larry’s turn to look at his lap.

“You’re right,” he says without looking up. “You’re absolutely right. I have no idea what it’s like to be in your shoes.”

Then he looks up, straight into Isabel’s frightened eyes.

“But I think, then, that it’s safe to say that you, Isabel, have no idea what it’s like to be in my shoes.”

Isabel tilts her head ever so slightly.
Touché.

“You probably don’t realize how frustrating my job can be. How tough it can be to see patients suffer, to not be able to reach them, help them. And yes, it is equally difficult to see some patients make significant strides—” he gives Isabel a knowing look “—only to sabotage themselves by refusing the very treatment that is helping them.”

Silence.

“Just give it one more shot, Isabel. Then, if you don’t want to do it anymore you can take it up with Dr. Seidler. One more time.”

T
he knock on the door is loud.

“Time to go, Isabel!” A man’s voice. Isabel sits up in bed, alarmed.

“What?” she scrambles out of bed and jumps to the door. “What is it?”

She opens the door a crack and pokes her head out. An orderly is checking his watch.

“I’m here to take you over to the medical facility,” he says briskly.

Shit.
“Um, I’ll be right there.” She closes the door and frantically scans the room. The window.

I could fit through it…I could climb out the window and run away. Shit. They’d find me. Plus, where would I go? Goddammit.

Reluctantly, she crosses over to the small chest of drawers and pulls on a pair of shorts, looking at the window as she buttons them up. She takes a deep breath to counterbalance the shallow ones.

One more time. One more time.

“Okay.” She closes the door behind her and follows the orderly down the hall and out of the unit. They
walk in silence. Isabel concentrates on synchronizing her steps with the orderly’s.

Left. Left. Left, right, left. Left. Left. Left, right, left.

“The jelly’s cold, remember,” the nurse describes each step of the process. “I just…have…to…fix…the…suction…cups…to…each…side. There! We’re all set.” The nurse backs away and Dr. Edwards moves in to double-check that everything is in place.

Isabel watches Dr. Edwards fiddle with the dial of the electroshock machine.

Who you gonna call? Ghostbusters!

T
he helicopter blades beat so much sound into the air Isabel had to shout into her cell phone.

“Sorry! Can you say that again?! I can barely hear you!” She yelled, hoping the helicopter would pass before John started to talk again.

“This is…so be sure not to…okay?” Goodman’s voice was fading in and out.

Isabel kept moving inland from the beach, trying to
get better cellular service. “John? If you can hear me, I’m going to call you back from inside the car!”

Another news helicopter was coming up the coast.

It had been sixteen hours since Flight 800 went down off the coast of Long Island. As the day wore on, the number of reporters standing awkwardly in the sand, sweating in their blazers and good shoes, increased exponentially.

It had been fourteen hours since a phone call woke Isabel out of a deep sleep.

“Isabel?” The voice was thick with urgency.

“Yes?” Isabel answered, trying to sound awake. It was one-thirty in the morning.

“Ah, Isabel, this is John Goodman from ANN. Sorry to call at this hour.”

John Goodman?

Isabel had interviewed with him the week before, just days after moving from San Francisco to New York.

“That’s fine. What’s up?”

“Isabel, we have a situation here,” he began. She could hear a lot of noise in the background. “A 747 has gone down somewhere off the coast of Long Island.” He sounded exhausted. “It had just taken off from JFK.”

Isabel was wide awake by this time and was scrambling for the TV remote control so she could see what the networks were already reporting.

“Oh, my God” was all she could say when she finally switched on CNN and saw an animated graphic showing a plane nosediving into the water.

“Yeah, it’s pretty bad,” Goodman agreed. “Isabel, we’re gonna need you to do some TV for us. I’m not gonna lie. We’re up the creek staffwise right now. We’ve got someone out on Long Island, but we’re gonna need someone to relieve her in the morning. I’d love to have the luxury of trying you out before something as big as
this but I don’t, so I’m calling you to ask you, can you do it? Can you go live for us?”

“Yes.” Isabel didn’t even pause to think about it.

Fourteen hours later, Isabel knocked on the door of the van the network had rented and shyly asked if she could make a phone call from inside, though the hum of the generator was almost as loud as the helicopters.

“John? It’s Isabel. Sorry about that. There’s such bad service out here on the beach.”

“It’s like this—” he wasted no time “—you’re live at the top of the next hour. I want you to know that we’ve been pumping a source at the NTSB and we’ve got a good lead right now. They won’t go on record, but you can get away with sourcing it as someone high up in the investigation. They’re saying—you there?”

“Yeah.” Isabel licked her dry lips and reminded herself to breathe. “I’m here.”

“They’re saying it might have been linked to the center fuel tank. Apparently they’ve had problems with center fuel tanks on 747s but they haven’t drawn much attention to it. Got it? You can go with the info, just don’t source NTSB.”

“Got it.”

One hour later Isabel’s producer told her she was clear and congratulated her just as Isabel’s cell phone rang.

“Mom?” she answered, knowing her parents were the only ones, besides work, who had the number to the cell phone the network had assigned her.

A man’s voice chuckled. “Nope. It’s not your mommy. But after that live shot I wanna be!”

It was John Goodman again. Isabel tried not to sound disappointed. “Why’s that?”

“You were on fire! White-hot! They were only supposed to stay on you for about forty-five seconds and instead they kept you for double that. Wrightman
never
does that—if anything he dumps out sooner than he says.
Welcome to the network, Murphy. Consider yourself hired.”

Isabel felt the flush of the compliment for a moment, but then went back to the only thing that had been on her mind for the past hour.

“Thanks, John. I appreciate it. Hey, by the way,” she said, trying for nonchalance, “you wouldn’t happen to know if there’s a network affiliate in Trenton, Vermont, would you?”

“Let’s see. Hmm. I just got out my affiliate guide and it looks like the folks of Trenton, Vermont, will be getting their news from NBC and ABC. We don’t service that market. But who the hell cares about Trenton, Vermont? You got the biggest cities in the country scratching their heads asking ‘Who is this Isabel Murphy?’ and you want to know if they saw you in
Trenton, Vermont?
”

“Not all of Trenton, really. Just one person.”

Isabel’s heart felt like it was collapsing.

Goodman was uncharacteristically curious. “Who’s in Trenton?”

Isabel watched her foot draw circles in the sand. “My father.”

“G
ood morning!” Dr. Seidler scrutinizes Isabel on her way into the office. “How are you today?”

Isabel knows this is not an empty question that can go without its inevitable reply just as Dr. Seidler is well aware of all that is riding on the electroshocks to which her patient is being subjected. Isabel ends the suspense with a single word.

“Good,” she says.

“Really?” Dr. Seidler is relieved. “Tell me more.”

“I don’t know how and I don’t know why, exactly, but I feel good. Right this second I feel pretty normal. I don’t want to jinx it, though, so maybe we shouldn’t talk about it.”

Her therapist nods.

“Of course, now, you know why I’m asking you this, but I wonder what you were dreaming of last night?” Dr. Seidler asks. “Do you remember?”

Not only does Isabel remember, her dreams were so vivid, so real, that she is sure that is part of the reason she feels better.

“Work stuff, mostly,” Isabel answers. “I dreamed
about stories I’ve covered and a couple of different places I’ve been. It’s weird, though. I thought dreams were supposed to be kaleidoscopic, maybe based on things from real life but then distorted in sleep.”

“Sometimes. Were yours fairly reality-based?”

“Yes!” Isabel is glad her doctor isn’t surprised by this observation. “Is that normal? These dreams I had last night, after ECT, were exactly as they were in real life.”

“That’s to be expected. Electroshock therapy is meant to treat people who have retreated, for lack of a better word, too far into themselves. That can take on many different characteristics. In some it might be a retreat due to severe depression, in others it could be paranoia or paranoid schizophrenia, although that takes treatment to an entirely different level on the whole. Dreams immediately following the administration of ECT are attempts by the brain to begin functioning in reality again. Think of it as your brain reminding you who you are and where you’ve been. That’s why you’re having these dreams. Or, I should say, that’s probably why your dreams so mimic reality.”

“So here’s the big question. Do I have to keep getting ECT?”

Isabel braces herself for the reply.

C
alm down. Calm down.

Isabel repeats the mantra in the shower.
Calm down.

Back in her room she towel-dries her hair and sifts through her clothes for something that does not smell, something that will cover her unshaven legs.

Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad. Guess what? I’m undergoing electroshock therapy! Aren’t you proud of your baby girl?

Isabel stands in front of her metal mirror. Glass mirrors are not provided at Three Breezes. Waves of acid gnaw at her stomach lining.

Work’s tough these days, Dad? Aw. Poor thing. Sometimes? When the nurse applies the suction cups to the sides of my forehead? They don’t quite stick and she has to apply more cold jelly. I hate it when that happens, don’t you?

Nearly two hours before her parents are supposed to arrive, Isabel has already washed and dried her hair and cleaned her neat room.

I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is the doctors think my treatment is working beautifully. The bad news is the treatment is…drum roll, please…electroshock therapy. How ‘bout them apples?

“Isabel?” Someone is knocking on her door.

“Come in.”

Lark appears in the doorway.

For a moment, Isabel sees her as her parents will see her: a strung-out mental patient in tacky polyester clothes.

“What’s up?”

“Want to smoke?” Lark asks sheepishly.

“Sure.” Isabel is relieved to have a distraction. She has been so anxious about her parents’ visit she had barely slept the night before. Now time seems to be dragging.

It does not occur to Isabel until they are pulling their plastic deck chairs together that Lark is anxious, too.

“How’s it going?” Isabel asks.

“Fine,” Lark grunts, preoccupied with getting some secondhand smoke into her system.

“You doing okay?”

“Yeah, sure, whatever.” Lark leans in for Isabel’s exhale.

Wouldn’t it be funny if Mom and Dad turned the corner right now and saw me practically making out with Lark?

“My parents are coming in a couple of hours.”

“You glad about that?”

“I guess,” Isabel admits.

“You can be happy about seeing your parents, you know,” Lark says, cracking what for her amounted to a smile. “You don’t have to hide it on my account.”

“It’s weird how nervous I am. I feel like I’ve been in a cave or something.”

“Yeah. I know the feeling.”

Isabel signs herself out so that she can await her parents’ arrival. Around the corner, at the edge of the small parking lot, she positions herself on the low rock wall so that she can see both points of entry. She checks her watch every thirty seconds.

I bet they’re turning into the hospital grounds right…about…now.

Isabel stands as the black Range Rover turns into the lot.

“Mom.” Isabel nervously and woodenly hugs her mother. Over her shoulder she looks for her father.

“Oh, honey.”

“Where’s Dad?” Isabel knows the answer before it is spoken.

“H
oney, he wanted to come.” Isabel flinches as her mother runs her hand through Isabel’s hair. “I can’t get over how much better you look. Rested.”

“Mom, don’t. Okay?” Her voice cracks as she gulps back tears.

“Oh, Isabel. Your father would have been here if he could have, you know that.”

“Don’t make excuses for him, okay?” Isabel’s voice is raised. “Why are you always making excuses for him? He ‘would have been here if he could have’? What? Something came up that was more important than visiting his daughter in a mental institution? Do you hear how absurd that sounds?”

Katherine is nervously motioning to Isabel, moving her hands in a downward signal, universal for “lower the volume.”

“Isabel, please keep your voice down. I know this is upsetting.”

“No. No you don’t.” Isabel waves her mother off and starts heading for the unit. Katherine hurries behind her. “All my life this has happened.” Isabel spins around
and faces her mother. “For years I’ve heard ‘your father would have been here if he could have.’ Years. And you know what I’ve realized? It’s bullshit! He’s probably too hungover to come. This whole ‘he wanted to come’ thing is bullshit!”

“Language,” her mother warns. “Watch your language, young lady.”

“Oh, give it up, Mom. Look around you. You think anyone here cares about
language?
” She mimics her mother’s tone.

“Isabel, I’m still your mother and I am saying it bothers me, okay? So please refrain from using bad language around me.”

“Oh, please.” Isabel pauses and then her words are deliberate, her tone measured. “You know what? Stop. Don’t. No more excuses for Dad. No more trying to make it okay that he has missed out on my entire life. No more dancing around his drinking. Don’t shake your head, Mom, I’m sick of it. Is he on the wagon? Is he off the wagon? I can’t ask you because you just will not talk about it. I want us to talk about it. Can’t you do that?”

“I didn’t realize I was always making excuses for your father. I…I will try not to do that from now on.”

“He’s had one big long hangover for the past thirty years! It’s bad enough that he hasn’t been there for anything that’s been important in my life….”

“Now, I will say this and don’t interrupt me. I’m not making excuses for him, but I will say that your father has always been there for the important things in your life—”

“Mother, I
will
interrupt you. I know exactly what you’re going to say next. He’s been there for the plays and the graduations and the dances. Right? That’s what you were going to say, right?”

Her mother nods, not sure where Isabel is leading her.

“But, Mom, you know what I’ve realized? The im
portant things are what happens in between the plays and the graduations. On the way to the dances. That’s real life. The rest is all for show. This—” Isabel extends her arms in a Julie-Andrews-on-top-of-the-mountain gesture “—this is real life. Three Breezes is real life. It doesn’t have a pretty set design or offer me a diploma or have a great band, but it’s real. That’s why I don’t want to hear excuses anymore. Do you understand?”

After waiting for what Isabel has said to absorb, waiting for it to make sense, Katherine nods and answers truthfully.

Isabel takes a deep breath and then exhales. “What’d you bring me for lunch?”

Katherine looks relieved. “Chinese chicken salad.”

“From Ella’s?”

“From Ella’s.”

Isabel leads her mother over to the nurses’ station, knowing she has to sign her in as a guest.

“Julie? Where’s the sign-in sheet?”

“Oh, hello, Mrs. Murphy!” Julie beams.
Of course chipper Julie is going to be insufferably chipper in front of mom.
“Nice to meet you! We’re all so fond of Isabel.”
Yeah, right.

As Katherine signs in on a clipboard Julie adds, “I’m going to need to go through those bags you brought.”

Isabel had forgotten.

Shit. The bag check. Damn. Nothing says “picnic” like a nice little security check for deadly weapons.

“Smells great,” Julie says. “This is fine. I’ll have to hold on to this Snapple, though. Otherwise, no problems. Enjoy your lunch!”

The Snapple is in a glass bottle.

Isabel leads her mother back outside.

“Let’s sit over here, away from the building a little.” Isabel points to two Adirondack chairs several yards away under a maple tree.

“Can we do that?” Katherine looks around nervously. “Is it okay?”

“Mom, I can go anywhere on the grounds so long as I sign out and check in at the nurses’ station every half hour, okay?”

“That’s great!” Katherine tries to sound super enthusiastic.

“The food looks great.” Isabel, too, is trying to smooth out the tension between them.

“Now, Isabel,” Katherine begins in a tone that only mothers can effect, “don’t get mad at me, but I brought a lot extra in case anyone else is hungry. Maybe your friends…” She trails off, looking at Isabel hopefully.

“My friends? The other patients, you mean?”

“The other patients, yes. Do you think that’d be okay?”

She thinks I’m the old Isabel…making friends…running for class president…being team captain…anchoring the evening news. She doesn’t see I’m a nobody. A nobody in a mental institution. These people…these people aren’t my friends. These people are other failures. Other nobodies. Just let me go, Mom. It’d be much easier for all of us.

“Isabel? Where’s Lark—she go to the bathroom or something?” Julie is consulting her clipboard in front of the Adirondack chairs.

“How should I know?”

“She’s not having lunch with you and your mother?”

“No. Why?”

“Could she join us?” Katherine looks eagerly at Isabel and then addresses Julie. “Please join us as well, dear, we have more than enough food….”

“Julie? What’s up?”

“She signed herself out on the board as having lunch with you two and I’m a little late on my checks.” Julie wheels around before finishing her sentence and runs back into the unit.

“I’ll be right back,” Isabel tells her mother as she heads toward the unit.

“Okay!” Katherine calls after her. “But please invite your friends to come join us for lunch if they can! It’s good Chinese chicken salad!”

Back in the unit the nurses have scattered and are simultaneously going door to door, calling out names louder than usual. Isabel stands to the side of the nurses’ station.

“I’ll call central.” “We need to fan.” “Who did the last check?” The nurses and orderlies are talking all at once. Within a minute, security is on the premises.

“Isabel? Can we help you?” Julie asks distractedly, knowing Isabel is there for voyeuristic reasons.

“No, I’m fine.”

“Well, then, we’ll need you to clear out of this area for now, to make some room.”

“I’m worried about Lark,” Isabel says.

“Lark? What’s wrong with Lark this time?” Ben stumbles around the corner so quickly that Isabel almost tumbles backward.

“Nothing’s wrong with Lark,” the nurses answer in unison while trying to usher Isabel and Ben and Melanie, who has walked up with an inquisitive look on her face, out of the way. But trying to shoo Ben away is like trying to move an elephant with a fly swatter.

Isabel remembers her mother and turns to go back outside. Melanie evaporates as quickly as she materialized and Ben lumbers back into the living room.

“Sorry about that, Mom,” Isabel says as she drops back into the chair a minute later. “Lark’s a patient. A…
friend
of mine. They can’t find her. I’m sure they will, though. Anyway…”

Katherine looks alarmed. “Does that happen often? People wandering off?”

“No. They’re pretty strict about checking our where
abouts all the time. This is the weekend, though, so that’s probably why it lapsed. They’ll find her.”

“Ah.”

So, where were we? Ah, yes.

“Mom? Remember how you were asking me on the phone this week about my treatment and I told you I’d tell you when you came to visit?”

“I’ve thought of little else.” Katherine gives up her attempt at nonchalance and is now perched daintily on the edge of her seat.

“There’s no easy way to answer that question except to just spit it out. So here goes—I had electroshock treatment.”

Katherine is quiet.

“Mom? Say something. Say anything.”

Katherine is looking out to the woods beyond the unit. She clears her throat. “I must say I never thought I’d have a daughter who would have to have something like that done to her.” She says the word
that
as though it smells.

“They made me do it.” Isabel is defensive. “My doctors said it is the best thing for me.”

“Is it? Is it the best thing?”

Maybe it is. Maybe it is.

“I…I don’t know.” Isabel is trying to find words.

“Doesn’t this all go on your record? Oh, my Lord, anyone can access your medical records, Isabel. Anyone.”

“It’s not like I’ve committed some crime, Mom.” Isabel shakes her head.

Katherine looks at her daughter. “I just never thought my little girl—”

Isabel speaks up before her mother finishes: “I’m not your little girl anymore, Mom,” she says. Katherine looks away again. “I’m not this happy little girl who does everything that’s expected of her.”

Silence.

“Look at me, Mom!” Isabel pleads with Katherine. “I’ve screwed everything up. My marriage is over….”

Katherine winces. “Don’t say that…you two could still work things out….”

“It’s over. And maybe that’s for the best. My job’s on the line—in fact I’d be surprised if I still have a job after that whole—”

“They’d be lucky to have you!” Katherine interrupts again.

“Mom! Listen to me. I’m trying to tell you…I’m trying to show you who I am. You can’t seem to see me for who I really am. You want me to be perfect.”

“Is that so bad? For a mother to want a perfect life for her daughter? Do the doctors here program you to blame everything on your parents? Talk about your clichés, darling.”

“Oh, give me a break, Mom. I’m not blaming you for anything and you know that. It’s just that I wanted to be perfect for you. But I’m not perfect. And here I am.” Isabel opens her arms across like a hostess on
The Price is Right.
“This is where it got me.”

Katherine looks hard at Isabel. Then she looks at her own hands. “What do you want me to say?”

“Just tell me why.”

“Why?”

“Why is it so important for me to be perfect? What’s in it for you?”

“I don’t think I like your tone, Isabel Murphy.”

“Just tell me—” she pushes harder “—why does my success mean so much to you?”

“That’s bad syntax, dear,” Katherine says, adjusting her Hermès scarf. “Honestly, I don’t know what they taught you in college.”

“Mother! Are you even listening to me?”

“There’s no need to raise your voice, Isabel. I’m not hard of hearing yet.”

“Then why aren’t you answering my question? I’ll ask you one more time. Why do you need me to be perfect?”

With nothing left for Katherine to fiddle with, her hands flutter back to her lap and she looks out to the field below. Isabel waits for her answer.

“All your life you’ve craved him.” Katherine speaks softly at first. “‘Is
Dad
going to be there? Where’s Dad? Why can’t
Dad
take me to camp?’ It’s been a bottomless pit. You’ve always wanted him, needed him so much….”

Katherine trails off. After waiting a few seconds Isabel gently encourages her mother to say more. To solve the riddle for her.

“And?”

When Katherine turns back to Isabel her eyes are full of tears. “What about
me?
I was never enough for you, apparently.”

“Mother! That’s not true.” Isabel, astounded, moves closer to her mother, to soothe her, comfort her.

“You don’t know what it’s like to see your child completely
deflate
when she turns the corner and sees that it’s only you picking her up. To watch as she scans the crowd for the person she really wants to see,” Katherine dabs at her mascara with her linen handkerchief. “You don’t know what it’s like to be there day in and day out for your children, knowing they don’t care about you; they only want their
father
to be there.”

“But why has this made you want me to be perfect? Why have you expected me to be this happy little achiever?”

“Don’t you see?” Katherine looks at Isabel. “I wanted you the way you want your father.”

Isabel is breathless with the revelation.

“I guess I’ve been hard on you because it’s killed me so to be rejected by you over and over, year after year, while you wait by the window for your father to come
home from work. I know I’ve expected a lot of you and your brothers. But it was that or become a wreck hoping for your love.”

Mother and daughter are both looking out across the grounds.

Katherine is first to break the thick silence. “I don’t know what else to say, really.” She straightens her posture and carefully folds her handkerchief, smoothing out the wrinkles, and puts it back into her purse.

“Say that you’ll love me if I’m not perfect. Say that you’ll still love me if I’m a failure at everything…because I pretty much am.”

“Oh, Isabel. I do love you. I may not have heard you when you said you weren’t perfect…that may be true. But you haven’t heard me when I’ve told you that, no matter what, I love you. I always have. I always will. But Isabel…and this is important…this may be the most important thing I’ve ever said to you. It shouldn’t matter what I think. It doesn’t matter what I think.
You
have to love
yourself.
Even if you’re a failure. You have to love yourself.”

Isabel feels the goose bumps of recognition tingling up her arms. She thinks of Dorothy at the end of
The Wizard of Oz
when Glinda the Good Witch tells her she hadn’t needed to make the trek to the Emerald City—she had had the power to return to Kansas all along: she simply had to click her heels together.