Something Wicked (25 page)

The pregnant lady makes me play cards with her. We play a mindless game called Skip-bo. And then she teaches me crazy eights. At some point, two staffers enter with a girl about my age. She looks like a wreck. It’s as if she was normal a while ago and then something really terrible happened. Anyway, they all take a seat and the staff talk to her like she’s a baby. They have
a plate full of food on the table and they actually spoon-feed her. “Come on,Anna, just one more bite? Yeah! Atta girl. Great job!”

I can’t help but stare. It freaks me out how weird it is, how she can’t even feed herself. What the hell happened to her?

“Your turn,” the pregnant lady says, drawing me back to the game of crazy eights, which I suppose is a funny name for a game to play in a mental ward.

I slap down my last card, winning the game.

“Hey! You won!” she exclaims, but I really couldn’t give a shit.

Fifty-Three

I
have a busy morning the next day. First I see the psychiatrist one more time. She asks me more questions about my mom and about living at home. And then we talk about Michael and Fortune and everything else, but I still don’t say anything about what happened with Giovanni. It’s an okay conversation, but really, what can she solve in one hour? At the end of the session she tells me about a psychiatrist appointment she’s set up for me once I’m out. I thank her, for what I don’t know, and then leave. Alexis is outside the door when I open it and escorts me to another office by the nurses’ station, where we wait for a “family meeting” with the ice queen social worker.

I lean up against the cold wall, far away from Alexis so that I can think. I know I should have told the shrink about Giovanni since what happened is probably what fucked me up so badly. But what I did was so absolutely shameful I can never tell anyone. Not even Ally or Jessica. I can’t bring myself to think about it, let alone talk about it. Does everyone need therapy over one mistake? One moment?

Icchh.
I shudder each time the memory creeps into my head. I just can’t believe what I did, even if I was high. Of all
the things to remember about that night, this has to be the most clear?

I decide I will do my own therapy. I will chase the image from my mind each time it arises, until finally, one day, it just won’t come. Like a call-forward command on a phone, the thought will eventually be redirected without me being aware of it. If there’s a scratch in my brain causing the memory of my hands on Giovanni to repeat over and over again, why can’t I record over it with another memory to be stuck on?

So each time the image pops up, I will chase it away with something beautiful. I will think of Bradley sitting on our old kitchen linoleum floor. In his hand is a string I tied around a plastic yellow duck. He is madly snapping the string, making the duck fly spastically around, until it hits him in the face, but instead of crying, he just looks up at me and laughs at the shock of it.

The door of the office opens and I’m surprised to see that my mom is already inside. She looks at me and smiles, but it’s just a fake smile. I can tell she’s not okay. The Ice Queen greets me and asks me to sit down. She tells us that she has an update from the crisis management team. Apparently they say there are several options from this point forward. She explains all of this to my mom, as if I’m not even in the room. I don’t know what has happened. It’s like suddenly the two of them are a team against me.

When she’s done, Ice Queen finally looks over at me. “Your mother really cares about you, Melissa. She’s been doing some hard work here with us. We have gone over all the options, one of which is you being placed in a temporary care facility, such as a group home. If you are refusing treatment and your mom is unable to control your behaviour, it’s really our only option. But your mom feels that if you are co-operative, it’s possible
she could have you back at home with some community support …”

“I can’t do it anymore, Melissa. Especially not now,” my mom interjects, and puts her hand on her belly. Her voice starts to quiver. “You almost died … I can’t live with all this stress. You not coming home. The drugs. Your temper. I just can’t do it.”

“Then don’t,” I say matter-of-factly, staring down at my lap. My words aren’t angry, just tired. “I know where I’ll live.”

“Where’s that?” the social worker asks.

“At a friend’s place. Allison’s friend. This guy. He has a room he’ll rent out.”

“Oh, God …” My mom buries her head in her hands.

“Melissa, I’m afraid that’s not an option at this time. It wouldn’t be a good decision, especially when you’re in this state of mind. We want you to be safe. Your mom, if she wants, can sign something to make sure you go directly into care. Now, I don’t think that’s what either one of you wants. So if we can take this time to work something out practically, I think you both can find common ground. Shall we try?”

I nod my head.

I trail my mom down the corridor, taking my time. There’s nowhere to go but my room, so why hurry? My mom keeps ahead of me, and I feel like she’s mad or something. It’s not like her to be so strict.

Inside my room, her mood picks up a bit. She unwraps a bouquet of flowers that is sitting on my bedside table and shows them to me, pointing at the little attached teddy bear. “Crystal bought these for you. Just to cheer things up a bit,” she says, bringing the bouquet to her nose and deeply inhaling.
“She’s real worried about you.” She takes a small glass vase out of her bag and heads toward the washroom.

“Are we being kicked out?” I ask her, seemingly randomly, once she’s out of sight. I’m thinking about Giovanni and wondering if he’d tell anyone. Part of me hopes we are kicked out, because I don’t ever want to see him again.

“Of what?”

“The apartment.”

“No.” She peeks her head around the door frame and looks at me as if I’ve just asked if she’s from the moon. “Why would we be kicked out?”

I shrug my shoulders. “I don’t know. No money to pay the rent?”

She disappears back into the washroom and starts to run the tap to fill the vase.

“I got a job!” she shouts over the rush of water. “Assistant to a tax guy. Not bad pay. Totally flexible hours. I can probably even do some work on the sly when I’m on my maternity leave.”

My mom returns to the room holding the vase and puts it on my windowsill. I instantly smell the fragrance. About two seconds later, Alexis appears, her hands clasped together like she’s praying for forgiveness. “I’m sorry, Ms. Sullivan, Melissa can’t receive any gifts while she’s here. And she can’t have the vase—it’s glass.”

“Oh … okay.” My mom fumbles and quickly picks up the vase. I’ve never seen her so obedient.

“She can keep the teddy bear, but we have to lock it up.”

“A teddy bear?” my mom questions, then immediately backs off. “Okay. I’ll put it in her room at home.” She looks a little hurt. She was already told yesterday by Alexis that she couldn’t put up all the holiday decorations she had brought with her. A big bagful, that I’m sure cost her a lot.

For a second, I get a flash of Bradley. His hospital room. Full of flowers and Christmas ornaments and cookie boxes and Cellophane-wrapped gift baskets. It’s funny, I haven’t thought once about the fact that it’s my first time in a hospital since he died. And about how all this must be weird on a whole other level for my mom.

Alexis goes back to her guard chair at the doorway and my mom sits awkwardly on the plastic cushioned bench for a bit. I sit on the edge of my bed and stare at the wall. I feel my mom staring at me for some time, and then I hear her pick up a magazine and flip through it.

I’m thinking about Michael. I imagine what he’d say if he saw me now. He’d probably be relieved he dumped me when he did. But then I shake my head to lose him from my mind, because now, thinking of him makes me feel a little sick to my stomach. I’m embarrassed at how pathetic I’ve been over losing him. And there’s this faint, faint whisper inside my head that’s saying maybe my overdose was also about him.

“Well, I guess I’ll get going,” my mom says, interrupting my thoughts.

“Bye,” I say blankly, not lifting my gaze from the wall.

She gets up, kisses me on the forehead, stops at the doorway to talk to Alexis for a bit, and then leaves.

Later, Alexis convinces me to go eat my dinner in the common room with the others. I do it for her really, ’cause I prefer to just eat alone in my room. There are four other patients in there: the two younger boys and one new girl, older than me, with her blue gown halfway down her shoulders, almost showing her whole boobs. At the end of the table, looking totally nuts, is the pimply, skinny guy I saw yesterday. I can tell
he’s been here a long time because the two staff around him look exhausted and are barely containing their annoyance.

Alexis gets my cardboard plate off the trolley. She opens the Styrofoam container and unveils my gourmet meal: macaroni and cheese and dessert. “It’s been opened,” I remark, referring to the cutlery package.

“Oh, it’s okay. They just take out the knives,” she answers.

Whatever. I eat red Jell-O dessert first. It’s like swallowing live
kid-ness
. I can see why children like it so much, all jiggly on the spoon and smooth down your throat. I think of Bradley and me eating it for dessert, and then Bradley squeezing it out between his teeth like he was bleeding, and our mom yelling at him.

“Yaah … yeahh … heeahhh …” This loud, ugly voice trips me on my warm and fuzzy stroll down memory lane. Psycho boy is flinging his food onto the floor. Not in a silly way, but in an angry way. Instead of yelling at him, the staff just ask him to stop and then pick up the food. But of course he keeps going and going until everyone in the room is paying attention to him. I try to return to my Jell-O eating, but he does it again. “Yahhhh … oooohhhiiii … ha … ha … ha!”

“Fuckin’ crazy,” I mutter under my breath, and put down my Jell-O bowl. I push away my chair, get up, put my hands on my waist, and stare him down, the words filling my mouth like the Jell-O I just shoved in it.
Hey, cuckoo bird, why don’t you shut the fuck up so we can eat our shit food in peace, will ya?
But I don’t say it, because they’d probably put me in a straitjacket or something, so instead I head toward the room, my shadow Alexis following me.

As we walk down the hall, Alexis speaks to me in a bitchy tone that sounds strange coming from her. “Listen, I know you’re upset, but next time you can’t just pick up and leave like that. You need to tell me where you’re going.”

“He should be responsible for his own behaviour. He can’t poison the whole room like that.” I raise my voice as we pass the nurses’ station so they can all hear me. “You should not let him in there. It’s so selfish. I mean, if you’re nuts, you shouldn’t impose it on others.”

“I see your point,” Alexis says calmly, “but this is a hospital. This is where he should be to get help. It’s not like he’s in a restaurant and interrupting a fine meal. This is where he belongs, Melissa.”

I stop outside my door and turn to her. “If
that
belongs here, then
I
don’t belong here.”

And I realize right then that I’m coming back—that angry, agitated, unrested me has returned from the dead like one of those psycho killers in movies who keep getting up after being stabbed a thousand times. It’s as if someone has turned the tap and released the hot water that’s now filling me back up. I feel the heat inside. I feel the pressure. I feel something creaking and groaning.

And for some reason, I get all scared, because part of me wants to remain a zombie. I go into my room, lie down on my bed, and stare blankly at the ceiling, trying to dumb down my mood and return to my coma state. But it’s like that whispery, smoky ghost is slipping away and I can’t reach out and grab her—my fingers just run right through.

Fifty-Four

My
mom and I meet again with the social worker in her nondescript, spacious office on the fifth floor. She sits behind her big, empty desk while we swivel on black upholstered chairs that look like ice cream cones. Perfect for an ice queen, I suppose. The walls are painted a sedating eggplant purple, and a large painting of an ocean sunset threatens to put us all into hypnotic sleep.