Kaleidoscope (16 page)

Another person there, a teenage boy bordering on manhood, was there because he'd tried to strangle his sister with a scarf after she told her family that was pregnant at the age of fifteen. Can you imagine being so young and having life within your belly, and then piling a crazy sibling on top of that? I only knew because I'd asked one of the other patients as I sat in the lobby waiting for my paperwork to be processed. The gangly teenager, his dark brown eyes large and hollowed in a face stretched tight with sallow skin, had been so haunting to me that I couldn't help myself. I was warned to stay away from him. The thought that I was among potential murderers was scary—but not as scary as knowing I was here among them for a reason.

I'd blocked out my emotions for months before I'd made the decision to die until I was in a vast plane of empty existence that had made the thought of not existing seem welcoming. Even still, I felt kind of bad for some of those that I'd seen here. I pitied them, using it to mask my own fear that I might end up like them one day.

But that could never happen—I knew what I was doing when I tried to commit suicide. I was in a completely different category than most humans because I saw the sadness, fear, and terror that this world generated, and I just couldn't accept it. I didn't feel like I was one of them.

Because I had trouble identifying with people in general, it was impossible for me to believe I was on the same level as some of the very clinically insane people that I'd encountered here already on just the first day of my 3-day evaluation stay.

The attendant opened a thick wooden door embedded with a small glass pane and stood aside so I could enter it. I studied what would be my room: a small, 8x9 foot room with a single person bed, framed in hollow aluminum and covered with clean-looking, but very plain sheets and a blanket. They were as plain and void of expression as the rest of everything had been. Attached was a small bathroom with only a toilet and a wavy, plastic mirror poised over a freestanding sink.

No, I couldn't possibly belong here.

***

My eyelids spasmed and twitched as I faded back into my current reality. The murmuring of institutionalized patients arguing with their caretakers merged seamlessly into the quieted conversation between the two nurses, who still stood behind their counter. Had they been having a very long talk, or was it just that no time had passed at all? My eyes snapped open, my head unmoving—it was still pointed towards the ceiling. To anyone who saw me, it would seem that nothing had happened at all.

However, my entire body was cold and shaking. I sat up from my slumped position and carefully took in the scenery around me.

Yes, this was just the normal hospital, with its normal chairs in the normal waiting room. I sighed and tried to tell myself that things were alright.
It was just another dream.
My fingers still shook and my mind still reeled from the powerful scene that had played out in my mind.

Or...was it a memory?

Was it...was it possible that I was actually institutionalized—and for trying to commit suicide?

Of course it was possible
, I reasoned with myself.
Look at me.
I was far, far more broken than I thought, and not just because of what I'd just seen. While I wrapped my mind around the event, the worst part was that, though I could remember every detail of the institution as if I'd just seen it...I had no idea what would have made me want to kill myself.

In my memory, I had believed it appropriate to have used pills that belonged to “him”...but why? Who was he?

There were so many questions with no answers in sight.

I clutched at my temples, bending over slightly. It felt like my mind was breaking apart, splitting like the mountains in an earthquake. It shook my very foundation. I wanted to cry, I wanted to scream, I wanted desperately to figure out what was going on inside of my head, but I had no idea how to do any of those things. The thought of going any further than sitting in this chair seemed like it would send my head into two completely separate pieces.

For the next few minutes, I did my best to pay attention to my breathing—it was an anti-anxiety technique that some therapist had taught me. Breathe in, breathe out, and focus on each breath. I did this until Mom finally emerged from the room, following behind a somewhat handsome-looking older man whose graying hair was coiffed back into a professional sweep. Judging from his outfit, I could only guess that this was Dr. Rupp. They ambled slowly over, laughing like old friends and completely oblivious to the train wreck I'd just witnessed of my own past.

“Alright Miss Lauderdale,” the doctor said. His voice was just as rich as it sounded like it should be; he could possibly be the Clark Kent of doctors. “If you have any problems with your new medication, you let me know, and I'll see you in another four months for a follow-up, alright?”

Mom chuckled airily, turning to bid him farewell with a hearty handshake. “I will, Doctor. Thanks for making this so easy for me. Have a lovely afternoon!”

She turned her attention to me. “Alright, Jade, we're all set to go...are you alright?” She tilted her head to the side with some concern. “You look a little pale...”

“I'm fine,” I said, hoping that if I said it and believed it enough, it might be true—at least until we got home. I shrugged out of the chair with an anxious sigh, grabbing my phone lest I forget it, and trusted my legs to carry me alongside my mother to the car. “I'm definitely ready to go though.”

We walked through those desolate, sterile halls back to the main door—but this time, it was different. The tiles beneath my feet were familiar to me now in a completely different way. Each one was begging one last question of me, one which I'd pushed out of my mind for fear of what the answer might be.

If I was crazy enough to be institutionalized, if I'm crazy enough now to not even remember why I wanted to commit suicide...then can I really ever hope to be the kind of person that Austin, or anyone else, deserves?

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

While my mood remained solemn and contemplative on the way home, my head throbbing and aching with new fears as it rested against the cold passenger window of the car, Mom's attitude couldn't be more different. It was clear she was quite relieved to be done with doctor visits for a few months, and that she was eager to spend the rest of her day off doing whatever it was she normally did when she had spare time. She might immerse in another one of her books while sipping a cup of tea, or some other 'mom' activity.

Right now, she spoke animatedly about something that had happened to her at work—something about her coworker Cathy renewing her vows with her husband. Something about how lucky they were to be going to Hawaii, and how she'd always wanted to go there with someone special. They were things that ordinarily would have given me some deeper insight into how lonely Mom really was sometimes, but it was hard to pay attention. Instead, I still walked the halls of an institution, remembering a small, half-emptied orange pill bottle with a blurry label that looked like it might read
oxycodone hydrochloride.

“Jade, honey? Are you sure you're alright?”

I was silent for a moment longer. Of course I'd have to ask Mom about this, about why she never told me. Maybe she just assumed that, of all my missing memories, this was one I could never forget. Or perhaps she herself was pretending it never happened in a desperate effort to put it behind her.

Whatever her reasons, I knew that now, trapped in this car on a winding suburban road on this relatively calm almost-winter day, was not the right time to ask her. I'd have to wait until we were at home.

“Yeah, I'm alright,” I told her. “Really.”

“Well...” Mom hesitated. “Alright, I suppose. But I'm keeping at least one eye on you.”

I feigned a smile and continued staring into the void of space outside the window, which was now fogged from my breath and the warmth of my face. I felt like I belonged with some of the zombies I usually saw on the bus as they disappeared into their own empty thoughts, and I wondered if some of them were the way they were because of their own darkness. Mom and I were both very quiet for the short remainder of the ride home.

***

I had been so shaken up by my earlier experiences that I didn't even remember I'd texted Austin as I waited at the clinic. My phone vibrated, signaling Austin's response to my message, and I pulled it out of my back pocket in alarm.

My heart raced as his face infiltrated my mind. It was far too painful imagining how his view of me might change if he knew the truth about me.

I wrestled the black journal from my other jeans pocket, flopping on my bed as I vigorously scribbled as much of the memory as I could onto the pages, in broken sentences, while it was still fresh in my mind:

I was...I think I was in a mental hospital when I was younger...14 or 15. 3-day eval., and I tried to commit suicide? I can hardly even understand, I don't remember at all why I would want to. Memory seemed like a dream, but in it I knew why. I wish I knew now...it doesn't make any sense at all. Remembered everything clear as day waiting at the doctor with mom for her appt.. I tried to overdose on some pills...can't remember the tub, but remembered the pills. Oxycodone hydrochloride... OxyContin. Mom has never taken those I don't think, in the dream—in the memory, they belonged to someone else. Someone I just remembered as “him,” but...I don't know who HE is! Frustrating, confused...

As I continued to scrawl the words into my journal, a thought dawned on me, and I slowly flipped back to the last journal entry.  It detailed the dream I'd had about the lanky, intimidating and slightly upsetting man who had been smoking the cigarette. I couldn't explain how I had concluded that, but I knew it felt right. Whoever the man in that dream was, those pills had been
his
pills.

Carefully setting the small book in its place within my room, I glanced at Phillip the gnome as he rested on my windowsill, looking at peace with the world. I looked to him for strength—he was, after all, a testament to my ability to have been able to put two and two together in the past.

I sat up with determination and decided that now was the time. I  made my way downstairs and hoped that I was ready for the answers I knew I was about to receive.

“Mom?” I hollered, my body following just behind my reverberating yell.

My feet thudded on the wooden floor beneath me as I landed on it from the staircase. Glancing around, I could see that my mother hadn't yet devoted herself to getting through the rest of her novel. Instead she sat at the dining room table, patiently waiting for a cup of this morning's coffee to reheat in the microwave.

“Oh, there you are,” I said, coming to a half in front of her with my hands at my sides.

She looked at me, both amused and puzzled at the same time. “Why yes, yes I am,” she said with a youthful smirk. “How can I help you darling?”

I sat down in the chair closest to her. “Well...I need to talk to you about something.”

My voice wavered with some anxiety, but it still carried enough weight within it to make Mom's eyes grow serious and hesitant. “Of course...what is it?”

I looked down at my hands as I twiddled them in my lap, like I always did when I was uncomfortable. My words were murmured, but they were forceful—to be truthful, it felt like they were coming from someone else, but that made it easier for them to come out. Distancing myself from this would make the answers less painful, and my brain knew it. Again, it seemed as though I were watching the scene before me instead of experiencing it.

“Was I institutionalized when I was younger?”

The room became so silent that I swore I could hear the blood as it pumped through my veins. Even the birds outside, singing their songs in the hazy afternoon, seemed to have reached a pause. I looked up at Mom as my head remained hung low.

Mom's voice had caught in her throat, and her hand flitted up to it as if it had ensnared her thoughts. Her eyes were wide. They were scared...probably of how I might react, or that I'd successfully (I suppose you could say) uncovered what seemed to be a pretty traumatizing part of my past. She was scared to say any of it out loud, to remind herself that it was true. I could see it written across her face.

Within moments, her fear gave way to a radiating sadness that penetrated her hazel irises, turning them a darker shade of brown than they normally were. Her bright face had turned sallow and, within seconds, she seemed to have aged years. She glanced towards the small, white paper bag of her anxiety medication that sat in front of her on the table. I knew what she was thinking, and guilt once again surged through my stomach.
She needs those because of this...because of me.
Nonetheless I pressed on, imploring her with my own eyes to provide an answer to my question.

“I...yes, Jade, you were,” Mom relented. She hung her own head into her lap, ashamed.

I waited. I hadn't really planned this far, or at all.

“How did...did you remember that, by yourself?” She interrupted my thoughts before I could put together a plan.

“Yes. When I was waiting for you at the clinic.” I waited for a second, watching realization dawn on her face before I continued. “I remembered enough of it, but not everything. I'm just wondering, I guess...I mean, why wouldn't you tell me something like that had happened? Especially since you put me in therapy to remember these kinds of things...but you knew, because you were there. Why didn't you just say something?”

My voice shrank as I continued, and I sounded more like I was pleading than someone who wanted firm answers. Mom, in the meantime, was looking more defeated by the second. I felt very small in this room with her.

“It's very complicated, sweetheart.” She sighed, her bosom heaving as she summoned the strength needed for this conversation. Her face, though ashen, had become just as determined to tell the story as I had been to demand it from her.

I just hoped I was ready.

“For one, your therapist suggested you should remember things on your own. I could help, if you asked—like you did last time about the thrift store, for instance—but I was told that I can't just give you a history lesson about yourself because it would never hold. You needed to be your own detective in order for them to truly be
your
memories..”

Of course Ms. Orowitz was behind this somehow.
“And? That's it?” My eyes glittered with anger.

“No,” she continued, straightening in the chair. “I was informed by more than one of your past therapists that if I tried to convince you of something you had trouble remembering, and that—well, that if it was something you didn't want to believe, then you might resist it even more. It might set back your progress and make you less willing to recover on your own, even if you never realized it. Ms. Orowitz described it as putting an extra padlock on that door.

And then of course...” Mom's voice faltered. “It was very hard for me to deal with too.”

My tried and true irritability was back again, creeping around the surface of my brain like a prowling panther. I had no time for sympathy, and I banished it away. “Well, I'm sure it must have been,” I said flatly. “But now I remember, and I need to know more about it.”

Mom hesitated. I knew she would hate talking about it. I knew she might break down and cry, and I knew that a small part of her had hoped she and I could just put things like this behind us. That was impossible though. This experience lined up perfectly with when I began having problems and told me that it was why I'd begun therapy initially—not because of my memory. How could she not tell me?

I did my best to quell the anger within me and remind myself to be patient with my mother. She sniffled as if her sinuses were already anticipating the wave of emotion to come. She inhaled deeply, exhaled just as deeply, and met my gaze.

“Okay. What do you want to know?”

Alright, this is it.

“I want to know why. Why would you have put me there, and more importantly, why would I do that? Why would I try to kill--”

She interrupted me, not wanting to hear the rest of the sentence. “Jade...that's a question that I can't answer for you. That's something you'll have to figure out for yourself...I mean, I didn't even know you'd felt that way at the time. There were no signs...”

Her eyes shone with tears that threatened to spill over her cheeks. I hated to see her cry. “You'd been acting a little bit more quiet and reserved, but that had been for months. I equated it to typical teenage angst...I asked you all the time if everything was okay at school, with your friends, but you didn't...didn't want to talk about anything. Then after it happened, I was a mess. I had no idea what to do, and so I thought that a mental evaluation was the best thing I could do for you...”

Here they were. Salty tears cascaded through the corners of her eyes as though the dam of determination holding them back had broken. I stood up to get her a paper towel from the kitchen; I couldn't stand the sniffling sounds, for one, and for another, at least some remote part of me still felt guilty. I'm the one that put her through this pain, even if it was true that I didn't remember why.

As I handed the paper towel to my mother and she dabbed daintily at her eyes and cheeks, I racked my brain for any memory of what she had told me.  I'd been acting quiet for months, and I gave no one a single reason for it--why? I sifted through my mind like a wayward gold miner praying for just a glint of fortune.

It was a hopeless endeavor, as it always was.

I pressed on, choosing my words carefully. “I can't think of any reason at all why I would have wanted to do that. I sort of remember how I tried--”

Mom waved her hand in front of her face; words had escaped her, and this gesture was as if to say “no more.” I sighed and gently grasped it in my own, and she clutched mine back.

“Please...I know this is hard, but it's important,” I pleaded with her. There I was, pleading again. “I remember that someone in the house had OxyContin, and...” I gestured with my other hand as I attempted to connect the thoughts in my mind. “Was...was Eric a smoker?”

Suddenly, that was it. Two weak wires had finally joined together to make a full circuit. I recalled what Mom had said last time he was brought up—I was fourteen or fifteen when they were together. The time period fit this incident. The man who I didn't like at all, the one who I thought Mom had been wrong about when she chose to get back together with him before they ended it for good...it just seemed to make sense.

Her answer only confirmed this in my mind. “Um..Eric? You mean my last ex? Why...yes, he was...why? What does that have to do with anything?”

“Well, he took OxyContin, didn't he?”

“I...” Mom's eyes glazed over as she flitted into the recesses of her memory. “I don't know, actually. He, he did have some kind of prescription, but I'd never asked what for because I didn't think it was any of my business. But I...I suppose it could have...been...”

Her voice trailed off, and her already pale face contorted into the purest form of grief. It froze there; she was probably reliving the experience, having put the pieces together herself. I tightened my grip on her hand and shook it lightly to bring her back to reality, and she focused her gaze back on me. For once, I was the calm one, the one who was in the present moment.