Turn of Mind (27 page)

It is somewhat later that I realize my icon is missing. I keep my own counsel, for now.

They are telling me something, pointing to their heads. Pointing to my head. Tugging at my hair. I push their hands away.

The hairdresser. The hairdresser is here. It is your turn.

What is a hairdresser, I say.

Just come on, you'll look and feel so much better!

I allow myself to be pulled to my feet, guided step-by-step down the hall, passing stuffed armchairs positioned strategically in little groups, as if conversing with one another. Tables laden with fresh flowers. What kind of place is this.

We enter a large room with shiny tile floors. Along one wall, tall cupboards containing plastic bins filled with yarns, colored paper, markers. A long counter along the opposite wall with a sink in the middle. Tables and chairs have been pushed to one side, and a clear plastic tarp has been laid out on the floor, a single molded plastic chair on the middle of it. A woman dressed in white, standing by.

Would you like to wash your hair before your cut?
she asks, then answers herself.
Yes, I see that would be a good idea.

I am turned around, and propelled gently but firmly over to the sink, and bent over. My hair and neck are ignominiously scrubbed, rinsed, then scrubbed and rinsed again. Led back and pushed into the chair, where the woman tugs a comb through my hair.

And what shall we do today?
Another woman's voice breaks in.
Short, I
think. Very short. We're having some problems with grooming.

The woman in white agrees cheerfully.
Very well! Short it is!

I try to protest. I've always been complimented on my hair, its thickness, color. James calls me “Red” when he's feeling especially affectionate.

No, I say, but no one responds. I feel the pressure and coldness of steel against my scalp, hear the clip clip clip of the shears. Shorn like a sheep.

Other people are gathering around, looking.
She looks like a man,
one woman says loudly and is shushed. I wonder about that. Man. Woman. Man. Woman. The words have no meaning. Which one am I really?

I look down at my body. It is thin and spare. Androgynous. Sunken chest, chicken legs, I can see the femoral condyles and patellas through the material of my slacks. My malleoli without socks translucent and delicate, ready to snap if I put too much weight on them.

You look beautiful,
says the woman doing the cutting.
Like Joan of Arc.
She holds up a hand mirror.
See. Much better.

I don't recognize the face. Gaunt, with too-prominent cheekbones and eyes a little too large, too otherworldly. The pupils dilated. As if used to seeing strange visions. And then, a secret satisfied smile. As if welcoming them.

Something is worrying at my ankles. A small furry thing. Dog. This is Dog. What is that joke. About the dyslexic atheist insomniac. I have turned into that joke.

I have managed not to swallow my pills this morning, so I am alert. Alive. Before depositing them under my mattress, I examine them. Two hundred milligrams of Wellbutrin. One hundred fifty milligrams of Seroquel. Hydrochlorothiazide, a diuretic. And one I do not recognize, oblong and pale beige. I make a point of crushing that one between my fingers and letting the dust fall onto the rug.

I do three laps around the great room, deliberately ignoring the brown line. I step over it, around it, never on it.
Step on a crack
. Around and around. I count the doors. One. Two. Three. Four. Only twenty in total, and four are unoccupied.

On my third pass I pause at the heavy metal doors at the far end of the long hallway. I can feel hot air wafting in through the crack, see the relentless sunshine beating onto the cement walkway outside through the small, thick windows. I remember those Chicago summers, heavy, oppressive, and stultifying, keeping you a prisoner in your house and your office as much as the bitter winters did.

James and I talked about escaping when we retired. Fantasized about a Mediterranean climate. Moderate temperatures, somewhere near the sea. Northern California. San Francisco. Or farther down the coast, Santa Cruz, San Luis Obispo. Lotus land. Or perhaps even the Mediterranean itself. James and I spent a month on the island of Mallorca after Fiona left for college. To forestall the empty nest blues that never came.

After that, there was idle talk of an eighteenth-century finca with a large garden. Growing our own tomatoes, peppers, beans. Living off the land. Solar panels on the roof, our own well. Out of sight. Our own desert island. Who were we fooling? We were going off the grid in any case, each in our own way.

A hand touches my elbow.

Hey, young lady!
A man's voice. He has a pleasant enough smile, but his face is marred by an eggplant-colored hemangioma in his right upper quadrant. Inoperable.

I am finishing up my lunch when someone pulls out the chair next to mine, sits down heavily. A face I recognize, but I am in a stubborn frame of mind today. I will not ask. I will not. This woman seems to understand that.

Detective Luton,
she says.
Just here for a short visit.

I am not going to make it easy for her. So I take my napkin off my lap, fold it, and place it across my empty plate. Push my chair back to rise.

No, wait. I won't be here very long. Just sit with me for a moment.
A young man in scrubs approaches, offers her the coffeepot, and she nods. He puts a cup in front of her and pours. She raises it to her lips and gulps it, neat, as if it were water.

I was on my way somewhere. My annual pilgrimage. And suddenly found
myself driving here. One of those urges. I used to have more of them. I used
to be more spontaneous.
Here she smiles.
One of the hazards of growing
older.

I nod. I don't understand, but my impatience is ebbing. This is someone in pain. A state I can recognize.

So how are you doing today?
the woman asks.

We seem to have taken a step backward, I say. From words that mattered to socially appropriate but meaningless questions.

Instead of appearing upset by my rudeness, the woman looks pleased.

In good form, I see. Glad to see that.

So why are you here? I ask.

As I said, I was on a pilgrimage. I guess you could say this is part of it.

In what way?

I was on my way to the cemetery.

Anyone I knew?

No, not at all. You and I aren't connected in that way. Our relationship is
a
. . .
professional one.
She motions for more coffee.
Well, mostly.

Are you my doctor?

No, no. A member of the police. An investigator.

She stares at her hands, pressed tightly against her coffee cup. Seconds tick by. I find I am now curious rather than annoyed or impatient. So I wait.

She finally speaks, slowly.

My life partner had Alzheimer's. Early onset. She was a lot younger than
you—only forty-five.

I am having trouble following her now. But I sense the emotion and nod.

People think it's just forgetting your keys
, she says
. Or the words for things.
But there are the personality changes. The mood swings. The hostility and even
violence. Even from the gentlest person in the world. You lose the person you love.
And you are left with the shell.

She stops and pauses.
Do you know what I'm talking about?

I nod. My mother.

The woman nods back.
And you are expected to go on loving them even
when they are no longer there. You are supposed to be loyal. It's not that other
people expect it. It's that you expect it of yourself. And you long for it to be over
soon.

She reaches over and takes hold of my wrist, gently raises my arm into the air a little. It is a sorry spectacle, no muscle tone, as thin and desiccated as a chicken's leg. We both gaze at it for a moment, then, just as gently, she lowers it down into my lap again.

It broke my heart,
she says.
And, somehow, you're breaking it again.
Another pause.

Then, as suddenly as she had arrived, she is gone.

A dark night. Figures emerging and diverging from shadows, moving just out of my range of vision. A very dark night and I need to get up, to
move,
but I am restrained, my arms and legs tied down tightly to the bed.

I retreat into myself. I use all my will to get myself away from here to somewhere else. A dial spins in my head and I hold my breath and wait for what might happen. The pleasures and risks of a time traveler.

And so I find myself walking in the door to my house, greeted by the shrieks of a young infant in pain. I know immediately when and where I am. I am a mother for the second time. I am forty-one, she is one month old. She has been crying for half her life. Every day from 3 pm until midnight. Colic. The unexplainable screaming of a young child. The Chinese call it one hundred days of crying, and I have eighty-five days left.

A particularly bad case, the pediatrician says. The noise assaults me every night after a long day of surgeries. When I come home, the nanny, Ana, hands me the child and literally runs from the room. James and Mark are already hiding behind closed doors.