The Ruining (20 page)

ZOE ANd JACksON wERE sTRAppEd into their car seats, and my overnight bag was packed with the essentials. To hide the scratches on my body, I’d chosen to wear a longsleeved black T-shirt. At the last minute, I’d grabbed the gorgeous, sea-green-and-blue scarf I’d found in the garage and wound it around my neck. I figured Libby wouldn’t notice; she had so many clothes and accessories that it would be impossible to remember them all. The Valium still hadn’t worn off, so I was foggy and shaky as Libby led me from the yellow room out to the car. I felt a brief sense of ecstasy when I left the yellow room, followed immediately by a gaping emptiness. Once you’ve gotten past the thing that’s plaguing you, then what? It occurred to me that I’d gotten so used to being unhappy that I didn’t know how to be happy anymore. Or how not to be alone.
As I climbed into the car, I looked up toward Owen’s room.

Owen had briefly made me happy. He had infused me with hope. I thought I saw a shadow dart behind the window, and then the curtain drew back slightly. I turned away; I didn’t want to see the girl’s mocking profile again. I slid all the way into the back seat next to Zoe and shut the door behind me, refusing to look back. I wanted to be as close to Zoe as possible before I had to give her up.

“Everybody ready?” Libby asked cheerfully. I looked at Zoe, and she stared at me with eyes pensive as she hummed around her pruny thumb. I put my own thumb in my mouth and stared back in solidarity. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Libby wince, so I laid my hand on my lap and clasped it in my other.

Zoe popped her thumb out of her mouth and appraised me seriously. “Thas Mommy’s,” she said with her baby lisp, reaching over to tug at the scarf I’d draped around my neck.

“I know, sweetie,” I said, glancing at Libby for her reaction. “It was for throwaway, so I borrowed it. I hope you don’t mind,” I said. “It was in all those old boxes, and I forgot to ask.”

Zoe screwed her face up and began to cry—long, gasping sobs similar to the ones that accompanied her nightmares.
“Quiet, Zoe,” Libby snapped. “She’s just upset that you’re leaving,” she explained. “It’s making her fussy.”
“No,” Zoe cried out. “No, NO!”
“Zoe, darling, be quiet.” Libby smiled through gritted teeth, looking back at us through the rearview mirror and offering Nanny a reassuring smile.
But Nanny wasn’t reassured. Nanny was afraid of going to the hospital and staying there forever. What if Libby never picked her up? She will pick me up, I reassured myself. She loves me. She said we were like sisters. That is what people said when they felt love and care. Nanny had to learn it, the actions that are associated with love—but Libby was teaching her. But what about the scariest thing? What if Nanny never got better?
I shook my head violently to clear my thoughts. I was increasingly thinking of the two voices in my head, more and more unable to merge them into one again, one whole person that was me. It was getting harder and harder to remember who was Annie and who was Nanny and which one spoke the loudest.
We reached the big hospital and I climbed out of the car, gripping my bag tightly. The gray cement building was large and imposing. Libby had explained on the way there that Richmond-Fost, the ward where I would be staying, was only part of a bigger hospital. I saw a patient being wheeled into the hospital in a wheelchair. He was gnarled and filthy-looking with scabs on his scalp. I hadn’t thought about that—the kinds of people I would meet. I felt terror reach its hungry claws into me, burrowing deep.
“Wait,” I said as Libby pulled Jackson from his car seat and locked the car behind her. “What about Zoe?”
“She’ll be fine there,” she said dismissively. “We’ll only be gone a few minutes. I left the windows in the back cracked, if you’re worried about that.”
“No,” I said, though I was. “I only want to say goodbye.”
“I’m not sure a mental hospital is the best place for a little girl,” Libby told me. It felt like a punch in the gut. The words “mental hospital” threatened to rip me apart. Before, I’d pictured it as a happy place to convalesce. Nanny thought it was like a meditation retreat, where the focus would be on clearing our mind. If it was a mental hospital, that meant . . .
“There will be a lot of very troubled people here, won’t there?” I asked. I felt my body begin to shudder.
“Don’t worry, darling,” Libby said, popping her sunglasses on and striding toward the building. “You’ll fit right in, I’m sure.”
“Please,” I called out after her. “Please just let me say goodbye to Zoes.”
“Of course,” she said finally. She strode over to where I was leaning up against the car and pressed the unlock button. “But please make it fast.”
“Sweetheart,” I said, looking in at my girl. “I’m going to miss you very much.” Zoe’s face was tear-stained. She turned away from me, putting her thumb in her mouth and humming loudly.
“Nanny, we need to go,” called Libby. “They’re expecting us. And afterward I have a four o’clock meeting with a client that I can’t be late for.”
“Okay, Zo, we’ve gotta make this quick,” I said. “This is the deal. You’re going to give me a kiss and cut out that humming for a second, and we’ll promise to see each other soon.”
“Cwadle will fall, down will come baby!” She yelled the last part angrily, her faced flushed. “You’we going to leave me,” she accused. “You won’t come back.”
“No,” I said softly. “No, sweetheart. I’ll be back, I promise.” But I wasn’t sure. It was starting to feel like it might take me a long time to get well again.
I felt a hand on my shoulder, nails digging into my shoulder blades.
“Nanny,” Libby said. “I thought I made myself clear. You’ve had plenty of time for goodbyes. Come with me now.” She pulled me away from the car with more strength than I realized she possessed in her thin body. I looked back at the car as we walked away. Zoe’s eyes barely peeked out over the side where the titanium stopped and the glass of the windows began. She looked so small, so vulnerable.

“yOu NEEd TO sIgN HERE, miss,” said a tired-looking receptionist in the lobby of the fourth floor, which was where I’d be staying.

“Can’t I have a look around first?” Beyond reception was a locked steel door with a narrow window. Through the window I saw an old woman walking slowly down the hall with the help of a metal walker, a trail of something wet oozing from beneath her left foot.

“I’m afraid we don’t have time for that, Annie.” Libby smiled broadly at the receptionist. “Just sign on the dotted line, and this will all be over.”

“It’ll all be over,” I repeated faintly. I accepted the pen and watched its tip hover above the line I was about to sign. Phrases leaped out at me from the page: “legal recourse,” “self-harm.” I couldn’t make sense of any of it; the Valium had rendered my brain useless. It was something thick and cloudy. It felt more like matter and less like neural impulses. I tried to read the first few lines in a systematic way, but I could feel Libby’s impatient gaze bearing down on me, and so I signed.

“I can leave whenever I want, right?” I asked the nurse. She just smiled back as if she felt sorry for me.
“Can you please let Dr. Clarkson know we’re here?” asked Libby with a broad smile. “He’s expecting us.”
“You know him?” I asked. “You know one of the doctors?”
“Only a little,” Libby said. “I decorated his home. I knew enough to contact him to ask about the quality of this hospital. He was very kind. He’s offered to keep an eye on you.”
“First door on your left,” the receptionist called out, hitting a button next to her glass-encased desk. “But drop your overnight bag in the tray next to the door. We’ll need your scarf, jacket, shoes, and anything in your pockets, too, please. I did as she asked, unwinding the scarf from my neck with regret. It was the one thing that was making me feel normal and beautiful. As I lay it in the tray, carefully folding it next to my other belongings, I heard Libby sigh behind me.
“Hurry, Annie,” she said with a note of barely concealed impatience in her voice. “What is it with you and that thing? It’s not even that pretty.” As I tucked it next to my overnight bag, I noticed a delicate purple embroidery near the hem of one end: ACE. Adele something—maybe Elizabeth—Cohen. The scarf wasn’t Libby’s at all. That explained a lot. I ran my thumb over the embroidery, feeling more unwilling than ever to part

“For god’s sake,” she said. “Come on, Annie.” And then the metal doors swung open in front of us. Libby ushered me to the room the receptionist had indicated.

Dr. Clarkson was a short, slight man with pale skin, only a little older-looking than Libby but already starting to go bald. He looked like the kind of man whose ambitions had never been connected to this reality he now lived. He had a permanent frown-face that lit up only slightly at the sight of Libby. Libby gave him a tense hug.

“So this is the girl,” he said, appraising me. “Did you give her the Valium?”
“I did,” she told him, nodding quickly. Dr. Clarkson opened his mouth as if about to say something further, but Libby cut him off. “I should really be going now,” she said. “I have an appointment.”
“Won’t you stay to talk a moment once she gets settled?” he asked plaintively. “To discuss her case, I mean.”
“I really can’t,” Libby told him. “But feel free to call Walker if you have any questions.”
Dr. Clarkson’s face fell. “Very good,” he said, clearing his throat. He finally turned to me and pressed a button on a panel to his left in one smooth motion. “Your name is Nanny, is it?” I looked at Libby, who nodded slightly toward me.
“Annie,” I said, confused. “My name is Annie.”
“Very good,” he said again. “Miranda will escort you to your room.” He nodded toward the door, where a woman in pink scrubs was waiting.
“Well, come on,” she said without smiling.
“Goodbye, Nanny,” Libby said, giving my shoulder a quick squeeze as I passed. “Everything will be fine, I promise.”
“But I can leave when I’m better, right? And then I can come back?”
“We can talk about it when you’re better,” Libby said. “But that won’t be for a long while. You’re in a safe place now. As long as you stay here, everything will be okay.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “Everything will be okay.” I was so tired. Maybe it wouldn’t be bad to be taken care of for a while.

wHATCHOO sTARINg AT?” my roommate, Millie, asked for the dozenth time. “Whatchoo staring at?” I’d tried looking away, facing the opposite wall, but I’d learned quickly that it didn’t matter where I was really looking. Millie thought I was staring at her all the time. “Don’t tell me you ain’t staring,” she insisted. “I see you stare. I see you stare, girl. You lookin’ like you want something, I don’t have somethin’ for you.”

The first day, I tried to talk to Dr. Clarkson about it. Libby hadn’t mentioned a roommate, I’d explained. I didn’t think I should have a roommate. I valued my privacy. I liked to be alone. I didn’t like having people in my room at night. When Dr. Clarkson asked me why, I’d told him. I’d told him about Dean and how Dean almost came in my room a few times when I was a teenager, and how now it was hard to sleep if I thought I wasn’t alone. And then Dr. Clarkson said, “I know all about your fears, Nanny.” And, “Don’t you think, Nanny, that it’s better to confront your fears?”

But I wasn’t like the rest of the patients at Richmond-Fost. Some of them didn’t know where they were, couldn’t tell the difference between the dog they used to love and the dirty hand towel in the washroom. I started thinking I didn’t belong with these people. I was tired, sick, confused. But I wasn’t crazy. All of it—Libby, the long hours, the lack of sleep—had switched around my brain so everything overlapped and nothing was clear and in its right drawers. I just had to have some time to rest, and I would sort it out.

I’d asked for my belongings, and they told me they were being held until I was released. In the meantime, they said, I’d be fine in the standard cotton uniform. There were only women on this ward. But a man snuck into the room the first night, maybe a male orderly, and I could hear him and Millie giggling and kissing and panting all night. I ran out of the room and told the night nurse and she sent me back in, said, “Stop causing trouble. Just go to sleep.” But she did check to make sure both our doors were locked. The man was gone by the time she came to check. The next day, Millie scratched me so hard with her fingernails that I bled. I was sent to Dr. Clarkson. I told Dr. Clarkson the whole thing and he suggested that I hurt myself, that I’d made up the story of the night visitor as a manifestation of Dean and I’d scratched myself out of self-loathing. Because the hospital would never allow men in the ladies’ rooms at night. He said I had a long way to go and I’d be better off making friends with Millie than alienating her. He gave me some medicine and told me I’d had enough settling in and I’d have to go to group classes the next day. I told him I was feeling better, asked him if I could leave, and Dr. Clarkson asked where I’d like to go. Would I go back with Libby? Would she take me back without me giving the program a real try? I realized then that I had to do it, to make myself stay. I had no other choice. And I was still so tired.

The medicine made me sick to my stomach and hazy in my head. Worse than the Valium. That just mostly made me sleepy, but the other medicine, the cluster of yellow and white pills, it made me somebody else. It made my tongue swell up like cotton balls and made me jittery. I started having thoughts I didn’t normally have. I started wanting to smack Millie when she pointed and laughed, even though I knew she couldn’t help herself and she would point and laugh at a blank wall if that’s what happened to be in front of her. But all I felt was foggy with these bursts of violence. I wanted to tape Millie’s mouth closed so she’d quit her hacking laughter. It was the medicine. The medicine was changing me, rewiring my brain. But what if I couldn’t get back to normal? What if I stopped taking it and I stayed in an angry fog always?

I wanted to eat a lot, too. I wound up chewing on my fingernails a lot. That’s what I did, sat and chewed on my fingernails and tried not to listen to Millie accuse me of looking at her and hearing her thoughts.