My Soul to Keep (29 page)

He held out his hand and helped me up. “Where are you parked?”

“Pool.”

“I’m downstairs in the parking garage.”

“So. See you later?”

“I’ll call you.”

He drew me in for a long, close hug. I breathed in his cologne, wishing I could stand there with my head on his chest and his arms around me forever. Instead, I stepped back and smiled at him.

“Thanks for meeting me,” he said.

“You’re welcome.”

“Time well spent.”

“Let’s hope so.”

“Bye, Dylan.”

“Take care, David.”

“Don’t you mean, ‘Take care, you’?”

I smirked at him. “Funny. You’re very funny.”

I sat back down on the steps of the museum, enjoying the breeze and the feeling of sun on my face, and went back over the entire conversation in my mind. I thought it had gone pretty well, considering the fact that groveling is clearly not my strength. We’d had some nice connection.
Plenty of mutual respect. A fair measure of mutual honesty. Not too brutal, but honest nonetheless. David had been reasonably receptive. More receptive than I’d anticipated, certainly.

I scored myself fairly highly, considering I was working against my natural weaknesses. I’d been reasonably polite and self-effacing without sinking into pathos. I’d limited the whining. Avoided begging altogether. I’d resisted the urge to go for it when I saw him weakening. Played it soft. Given him plenty of space. Even the dismount had been pretty clean.

I gave myself an extra half point for resisting the urge to grab him around the neck and burst into tears. All in all, a solid performance—seven-point-five on a ten-point scale, with an extra bonus point for degree of difficulty. Final score: eight-point-five. I decided to take advantage of the beautiful day and walk up the tree-lined avenue to my office. I needed to pick up mail and check messages. I was also hoping Harold might be in today. I’d already gotten a head start on my groveling. I figured I might as well complete the cycle of misery while I was warmed up.

Harold was indeed in his office. I knocked tentatively, knowing that the closed door meant he didn’t want to be disturbed. I was already on his blacklist. I figured I had nothing to lose.

The door flew open. “What?” he said. Then, realizing it was me, “Oh. My dear Dr. Foster. What an”—he looked up, searching for a word—”surprise.”

“Go on. Pick an adjective.
Unpleasant? Unfortunate?
”

“Unexpected,” he said, stepping back and inviting me in. “That’s redundant, though, isn’t it? All surprises are unexpected. Nevertheless, it’s always a delight to see you.”

“Liar.” I sat in the “student” chair across from his desk, not my usual “colleague” perch on the puffy leather couch in the seating area.

He obliged and seated himself behind his desk, picking up a pen and twirling it between his fingers like a baton.

“Where’d you learn to do that?” I asked.

“The pen? A nine-year-old taught me.”

“A patient?”

“My big sister. I was seven.” He shrugged. “My mom worked. I learned to smoke cigarettes that year too.”

“And you still remember?”

“I never forget anything. It’s a curse.”

“Does that mean you can’t forget my transgression?”

He winced. “Weak transition, Dylan. I expect better from you.”

“I’m so sorry, Harold. I truly am. I can’t believe I did that. I just … thought it was Wednesday.”

I resisted the urge to blather and waited for the upbraiding I deserved. But he merely nodded, pope-like. “You’re forgiven, my dear.”

I waited for him to say more. He didn’t.

“It’s that simple?” I asked.

“Not quite. There’s still the matter of your review.”

“You’re not going to hold this against me, are you?”

“Of course not. That would be improper. Unethical. And mean.”

I exhaled, finally. “Thank you.”

“But the review looms nonetheless. Are you prepared?”

“I will be.”

He flipped open his calendar. “A week from today. Today is Friday, I believe.” He looked up at me mischievously. “Correct?”

“Correct.”

“Can you make four o’clock? Here in my office.”

“You’re still willing to help me?”

He looked at me over his glasses. “I believe it’s called grace, isn’t it? Isn’t that the theological concept?”

I nodded. “Unmerited favor.”

“We want you to succeed, Dylan. In spite of your many faults, you do bring a certain
joie de vivre
to an otherwise lackluster department.” He looked me up and down. “The purple shoes, for instance.”

I looked down at my flip-flops. Purple with daisies on them. “Thank you, Harold. I think.”

“You’re quite welcome.” He stood and ushered me out. “I’ll see you on Friday, my dear.”

“Friday. Four o’clock. And Harold?”

“Yes, Dylan?”

“I owe you one.”

He winked. “Indeed you do.”

I
T SEEMED AGES SINCE
I’d been at the hospital—a relief I could barely allow myself to enjoy, knowing Liz had hardly seen daylight all week. As I walked through the double doors, steeling myself against the cold, I realized I’d grown accustomed to the sour smell of disinfectant—a fact I took to be a very bad sign. Hospital disinfectant doesn’t exactly exude that fresh-as-a-summer-day smell I shoot for in my house. I inhaled and grimaced. You’d think with all that emphasis on cleanliness, they’d pick better cleaning products.

Christine’s room was empty when I arrived. No Liz, no Christine, no flowers, no balloons, no crayons. I asked at the nurses’ station where they’d moved her. A nurse informed me Christine had been released. I put in a quick call to Liz. She and Christine had just arrived at the hotel. She’d convinced Christine to stay there tonight, but Christine had insisted on coming to the house this evening for a bunny visit. We agreed on a time and hung up.

I longed to leave the hospital, but my conscience tugged at me. After a few moments of thumb wrestling with myself, I relented and made the hike to the psych unit and pushed the button beside the heavy steel door. A loud click and an orderly stuck his head out.

“I’m Dr. Foster. I’d like to speak to John Mulvaney. He came in Wednesday night.”

“You his shrink?”

“Yep.” How many lies was that today?

“ID?”

I handed him my driver’s license. He disappeared for a minute, then swung the door open and let me in. I knew the drill. The orderly had already checked my name against the list to verify my hospital
privileges. He handed my ID to the person behind the sign-in desk. I watched as she wrote down my vitals and handed the ID back to me. She pointed to a blank line on the sign-in sheet. “First initial and last name only, please.”

“Mine?”

“Patient’s.”

I dutifully wrote “J. Mulvaney,” then handed over my bag to the security guard, passed through the metal detector, and followed the orderly across squeaky floors all the way down to the end of the hall. The man was slim and dignified, with skin so black it was almost blue and an accent I couldn’t identify.

“He’s in isolation,” the orderly said over his shoulder.

“Because he’s a prisoner?”

“And the suicide watch.”

“Still?”

“He tried again this morning, or he would be back in jail by now.” He glanced back at me. “You used to work here, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. A while ago. There’s so much turnover here, I’m surprised you remember me.”

“You bought me a Coke one day.”

“Me?”

“I was out of quarters.”

I followed behind him in silence.

“What did he do?” I said at last.

“Mulvaney? Cut his wrists.”

“With what?”

“Paper clip. Found it on the floor.”

“Superficial, then?”

He nodded. “Couple of deep ones. Took a few stitches.”

“Is he being medicated?”

He shrugged.

“You think I could take a look at his chart?”

“Of course. I’ll bring it down to you.”

He took out a set of keys, opened another metal door to another
hallway, and led me down the corridor, stopping midway down and showing me into a little room on the left furnished only with a table and two chairs. I raised my eyebrows with the silent question.

He shook his head. “No civilians allowed in the prisoners’ rooms.”

“Oh. I’ve never dealt with prisoners before. So I should …”

“Wait here. I’ll be right back.” His keys jangled as he left. Keys are the ultimate sign of power in a psych hospital.

I tapped my fingers on the desk. The fluorescents buzzed overhead, reminding me of flies and rattlesnakes and light bulbs.

A few minutes passed before I heard the jangling again. The key slid into the lock, the door swung open, and in stepped the orderly, a uniformed guard, and someone who looked a little like John Mulvaney.

The patient wore pink scrubs, his scraggly blond chest hair peeking out from the V in the shirt. The shirt wasn’t quite long enough to obscure the puffy white belly that hung over the elastic waistband of the scrubs—no drawstrings allowed on suicide watch. No shoestrings, either. Instead, he wore dirty socks and his prison loafers—orange canvas Keds that were a tiny bit too big for him and flapped on the floor as he shuffled in with his hands cuffed in front of him.

His thin, brownish-blond hair was matted and sticking out in all directions. His face was gray, his beard showing several days’ neglect. An ugly purple bruise circled his neck, and his wrists were bandaged underneath the cuffs. A nickel-sized blot of blood showed on the underside of his right wrist.

I stood to greet him. No hug, of course. But a measure of some familiarity and respect seemed in order.

“Hi, John. It’s, um, good to see you.”

He mumbled something unintelligible.

The guard looked at me. “You want him cuffed or uncuffed?”

“Take them off. Please.”

He stuck his key in the lock and freed John’s hands. John looked sideways with vague contempt in his eyes.

I pulled out a chair. “Here, John. Have a seat. You look like you might be tired.”

John glanced at me dully and sat down. The chair squeaked under his weight. I pulled out the other chair and sat across from him.

The orderly left. The guard parked himself beside the door, just inside the room, and left the door open a few inches.

“Would it be possible for us to have some privacy?” I asked.

He pointed at a camera hanging in one corner. “No such thing.”

“Do you need to stay inside the room?”

“Yes ma’am. It’s for your safety.”

I looked at John and then dropped my eyes, embarrassed for him. He seemed unruffled. He had obviously become accustomed to the indignities of life in jail.

The guard stepped back and assumed a stance that indicated he intended to tune us out. He gazed at the ceiling, hands crossed in front of him.

“Well,” I said to John. “I’m not sure where to start. How are you?”

He looked up at me, meeting my eyes with a steady gaze—perhaps for the first time ever in the years I’d known him.

“How do you think I am?”

“Not great. That would be my guess. Not great.”

He slouched in his chair, looking down at the bandages on his wrists.

There was a knock, and the orderly walked in the door with a file under one arm and a cold Coke in his hand. He popped it open for me, set the file on the table, winked, and left.

I pulled up the chart. “Do you mind?” I asked John. He shook his head no.

I pushed the Coke across the table to him. He stared at it hungrily, clearly debating whether to accept the gesture, then reached for it, tipped it back, and took a long drink.

I flipped open the chart and found a detailed intake describing his condition on admission. He’d arrived at the hospital unconscious and unclothed, the bruise already purpling on his neck. They’d revived him, pumped his stomach just in case, put him in a set of scrubs, and locked him in a room. As far as I could see, they’d run no tests to determine
the extent, if any, of brain injury which might have occurred while he was depriving himself of oxygen. No medications were listed.

“Are they giving you anything, John?”

He shrugged. “Dunno.”

“They haven’t given you any pills to swallow?”

“Dunno.”

I studied him, sizing up the grim expression, the hunched shoulders, the apathy.

“John, do you know who I am?”

“Dr. Foster.”

“Do you know what day it is?”

“Dunno.”

“Do you know where you are?”

“Parkland, I guess.”

Two for three. I could understand the miss on the time question. There were no windows in here. I saw no clock in the room, and I figured he didn’t have one in his room either. He’d arrived at the hospital unconscious. He couldn’t possibly know what day it was.

“Do you remember how we know each other?”

“SMU.” He mumbled something else.

“Pardon?” I leaned toward him. “I didn’t hear you.”

“Why are you here?”

“I heard you were having a rough time.” I gestured toward his neck. “Helene called me.”

“How did she know?”

“I guess you listed her as next of kin.”