Chapter 27
CHAPTER 27
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12
A different nurse came in, clutching something, just as the first rays of sun peeked through the slats in the partially open blinds. She tipped the contents of a small cup into my outstretched hand. I eagerly shoved the pills into my mouth. The meds made me sleep.
“A half a pill for you and a half for me,” I murmured, taking a swig of water from a glass I’d snatched from my bedside table.
“What was that?” asked the nurse, her large brown eyes looking into mine, reminding me of the woman at the window at... where was it?
“In Deer Crossing,” I mumbled.
“A half a pill for you in deer crossing?” Her fingertips brushed my arm as gently as a feather touching down. “What does that mean, dear?”
“It means, well, it means a couple of things,” I said, unable to form a coherent thought about the disparate topics. “The half a pill, well, that was a game my mother and I used to play. A way to get me to eat food I didn’t like or take my medicine. She’d share it with me. The woman in Deer Crossing.” I paused, thinking about her. “Annie Connolly. She was in a bad way. An awfully bad way.”
The nurse tilted her head slightly. “How so?” I watched her hand caress my forearm, her rich, dark skin making my pale arm look stark and sickly.
“I think she died,” I whispered.
Her beautiful brown eyes widened, and her brows shot up. “You do? Why is that?”
“Because I couldn’t get to her in time.”
“Really?”
“Really good or really bad?” asked Dr. Ellison playfully, overhearing the nurse’s question as he entered the room. He smiled at us both and scratched his head, sending his salt-and-pepper hair sticking up at an odd angle.
“Really bad.” I wanted to reach out and smooth down his hair.
“Caroline was telling me about a woman named Annie Connolly at a deer crossing who was in trouble—” began the nurse.
“Deer Crossing is a neighborhood,” I clarified.
“Oh yes, I’m familiar with it,” said Dr. Ellison, sitting in my bedside chair. “Beautiful place. There was trouble there?”
I explained what I’d seen at 21 Pine Hill Road while they both nodded slowly, neither taking their eyes off me. I also told them that nobody—not even the police—believed my story, since the house was empty. Annie and Ray Connolly had moved out.
“Is that why you were given half a pill?” asked the nurse.
“No.” I shook my head.
“Half a pill?” Dr. Ellison reached for the clipboard attached to the foot of my bed and unhooked it. Scanning the papers attached, he added, “I never prescribe half a pill. Even if a medication is too strong, I’ll prescribe the lowest dosage and advise patients to manually divide it in half. I don’t recall that being the case for you.”
“No, I was telling this kind nurse that my mother used to do that: give me half a pill.”
“I see.” His voice sounded concerned. I heard the pages in his hands fluttering. “And this also happened in the Deer Crossing neighborhood?”
“No, when I was a child.” I shook my head. “I’m sorry, I’m getting confused.”
He rubbed his chin. “So, you took half a pill more than once? Maybe even on a regular basis as a child?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Do you recall what medication it was?”
“No.” I rubbed my face. “Maybe I made it up.” I didn’t trust anything I said or did—or even thought—anymore.
“Okay.” He placed his hand over mine. “We’ll get to the bottom of this and get you well.”
I doubted I’d ever be well. I wondered if I ever had been.
* * *
I napped a lot, thankful the drugs knocked me out. When I woke this time, the sun was slanting bronze rays through the slats in the blinds, the gilt glaze of late afternoon. My stomach rumbled and I couldn’t recall if I’d eaten lunch.
“Good afternoon, Caroline. I’m glad you’re finally awake.”
“Tasha.” I looked toward the voice to see her lounging in the bedside chair. I recalled her in Tim’s arms. “Why are you here?”
She smiled, white teeth complemented by full lips glossed in a dusky burgundy. “Why wouldn’t I be? You’re one of my clients, Caroline. Didn’t Dr. Ellison tell you we’re still working together?”
I thought about that. “Yes, he mentioned you wanted to...” I let my voice trail.
“Good. I hope you want to continue this partnership too.” She crossed her legs toward me and leaned in. She made it sound like we were job sharing, or setting off on a grand new adventure, just the two of us.
“But you and Tim...”
“We are not having an affair, Caroline,” she said gently. “We were talking about you in Tim’s parking lot that evening.”
I looked down. “I think I told your husband?—”
“Don’t worry about that, Caroline. You were confused, that’s all.”
“You were hugging Tim.” I watched her face closely.
“He was upset. It was a hug of encouragement. I’ve given you hugs as well, haven’t I?” Her eyes met mine.
“Yeah, I... guess.” I’d hated the forced intimacy.
“I’m a happily married woman,” she said. “Nelson is a wonderful and understanding man. I think calling him was your way of reaching out to me. Your issues were becoming overwhelming, and you were looking for outlets.”
“I don’t recall placing that call,” I said, my face pinking. I couldn’t tell her about the other gaps in my memory. I’d never get out of the hospital if I admitted them.
“Instinctively you knew Nelson would tell me, right?”
“I guess so.”
“Remember we talked about this, upon your release from the institute? About how problems are like potholes in your path? As they get bigger, they deepen into ruts. If you don’t solve a problem, merely drag it around with you, you wear down that rut until it becomes a bottomless trench. One you can’t escape from.”
I shook my head. “I don’t recall that conversation. I don’t even remember being institutionalized.” I could admit this because it had happened a long time ago. I’d already served my time for the events far back in the past.
“I believe that’s a pattern you’ve established, Caroline, over many years. We’ve discussed this pattern before. It’s your coping mechanism, and a form of protection. If you block something out, it can’t harm you. How could it? You don’t even recall what happened.”
I thought of the bleeding woman pressed up against the window. My body shuddered. “But what if the bad things that occurred were only in my mind?” My voice quivered.
Tasha placed her fingers on my forearm. “Bad things happen to everyone, Caroline. Horrific things, sometimes.” She paused, pressing her lips together, looking unsure for a second before continuing. “When you take away the bad, you also take away the good. Do you understand?”
I narrowed my eyes. “No, I don’t follow.”
“Emmy is gone now, but she was here. In your life. That was a good thing.”
A sharp pain sliced through my chest, and I couldn’t get air into my lungs. “I don’t want to talk about Emmy,” I gasped with whatever breath I had left.
“I know that, but pretending she’s still with you only deepens your rut.” Tasha sat back, her eyes locked on mine.
“You were complicit,” I said, feeling my eyes sting. I looked away from her. “When you came to the house, and I left you alone while I tended to Emmy...”
“Come now, Caroline, we both know I confronted you. Remember the day I advised you to let the baby cry?”
I looked back at her. “That’s quite different from telling me I’m imagining my baby?—”
“Your health-care team—namely Dr. Ellison and I—felt it would be too jarring for you to confront your mental-health issues head-on without us fully knowing the root cause of your disconnect to reality. And in the nearly two years you’d been at the institute we’d been unable to unearth your underlying problems. Hypnosis was the only method we hadn’t tried, and we were hesitant. Hypnotherapy is risky.” Tasha nibbled on her lower lip.
“Risky? How so?”
“We aren’t sure if the memories a subject dredges up under hypnosis are real or imagined.” She rubbed her hands together in front of her, as though warming them. “The patient may be manufacturing new thoughts rather than recalling events that actually occurred.”
A jolt of electricity raced up my spine. I once again pictured the bleeding woman at 21 Pine Hill Road. Had I witnessed her suffering or caused the event in my own mind?
“But we felt we were making progress,” continued Tasha. “We also determined you were at minimal risk for dangerous behavior, based on our observations of you while you were in the psych unit. We thought we could speed up your recovery by continuing therapy through weekly counseling sessions at your home and quarterly reviews of your medications?—”
“But I didn’t play by the rules.” I looked down at my hands, which had formed into tight fists in my lap. “I went back to the life I’d had before everything happened.” I pictured the bleeding woman’s pleading eyes. She had seemed so real, and so desperate. I thought about Jeffrey Trembly, the reporter searching desperately for her. Had I made him up too?
“I was getting worse.”
“It seems that way, yes.”
“Why did I do that? Go back to the way things were before?”
“Wishful thinking,” said Tasha. “I think your mind was rejecting Tim’s leaving. That was the catalyst for the deviation. When you got out of the hospital, you expected everything to go back to normal, but that’s not what happened. After Tim left, your subconscious mind reasoned that if you still had Emmy, there was a chance of getting him back. Of course, that’s just my hypothesis.”
“Does Dr. Ellison agree?”
Tasha tilted her head, thinking for a few beats before answering. “Dr. Ellison hasn’t seen much of you. I’ve kept him in the loop, but without seeing you himself, he hesitated to change medication or make a new diagnosis. We were operating under a status quo until you had your next visit. But you were digressing. Every time I tried to steer our conversations to the root of your troubles—your childhood, specifically your father’s drowning—you’d hear Emmy crying. That was your mind protecting you.”
I looked at her. “So, what do I do now?”
“When you want to leave one room and enter another, you walk through a doorway,” said Tasha, smoothing her thick hair away from her finely chiseled face. “The only way out is to go through it. Like it or not, you are finally going to have to cross that threshold between your present and your past.”
I looked back at my lap, at the white knuckles of my clasped fists. Something told me I wouldn’t survive the events of my past. Not this time. But... that was okay. I had no desire to persevere. My fists unclenched, fingers splayed out gently on my lap.