Chapter 31 Peggy
Fatima does not believe it is Christmas Eve. She says it is, in fact, February. She claims the doctors and nurses are trying to confuse her. A friendly nurse brings over a copy of the TV Guide to explain, but Fatima says it is from Christmas, isn’t it, two months ago.
There are eleven of us here.
The rest have gone home for the festive period.
They looked excited and scared, packing up their belongings, saying their goodbyes.
Some will be back in a day or two. Eleven of us remain on the ward and it is quiet and dull.
They try to make us feel at home with decorations and a tree and music, and one of the male nurses wears tinsel in his hair.
The thing is: we do not want to feel at home.
Why don’t Drew and Sammy visit? The others receive visitors; some of them have visits every week.
Did Drew spike my coffee with pills and now he is afraid to look me in the eye?
Or is it that he is ashamed of what they say I did?
I don’t know what to think. Have he and Sammy agreed they will not visit me until I am better?
Is Drew trying to shield our son from this place?
I would give anything for them to come here. Twenty minutes. I do not need gifts or letters. I just need to see them. To hold Sammy’s perfect hand. The mole on his wrist that emerged when he was three and a half. I need to see that he is coping.
We watch church carols on the television. Tom is facing the other way, looking at the wall, muttering. He does not like the picture, only the sound. The singing. Fatima is working through her calendar with a highlighter pen, double-checking something.
Later we stand in the meds line. They give us our medication in a small paper cup.
Two cups. The other one has water. They administer through a hatch from the drugs room.
We have to open our mouths to show we have swallowed everything.
Am I repeating myself? It has become routine now, like making Sammy’s breakfast or sorting laundry.
The meds line.
Mary-Elizabeth cleans and I stand with her and we talk.
“People doing their shopping, so many people out today, the roads are dangerous.”
“Last-minute shoppers,” I say.
“What are they all buying?” she says. “Piling up trash under a dying tree just to have to spend the whole of next year paying it off. It’s madness.” She looks at me. “Sorry, I didn’t mean…”
I can’t help smiling.
“What are you thinking about?” she asks.
“Me?”
She cleans the floor and nods.
“I was thinking how I never expected them to take away our bras. That’s what I was thinking.”
“They can have mine,” she says. “Damn thing. I don’t want it.”
“I wasn’t wearing one when I came in. But I thought I’d have one here. I didn’t think we’d all be left like this. They took out the drawstring from my pajamas. From my sweatpants too.”
“They have to.”
“I know.”
“I feel bad some days that I can walk out the door at the end of my shift. Some of the people in here need to stay for a long time, to receive help, I get that, but some of you.” She stares at me, her eyes sad. “I don’t know, I’m not an MD, but I feel guilty I can walk home and you can’t.”
A nurse looks over at us. I don’t think they like me talking to Mary-Elizabeth. I smile at the nurse and he looks away.
“Strange thing is,” I say, “I’ve had nothing go missing since I was put here.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I lose things constantly back home. Jewelry, hair clips, all sorts. They just go missing one by one. My messy head.”
She stops cleaning and looks directly at me again. “How long has this gone on for?”
“Months. Years, maybe.”
She nods, knowingly.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing.”
“Please.”
“I had something like that happen to me when I was younger.”
“You were forgetful?”
“No, Peggy. I was not forgetful.”
“No?”
She looks pained. “I was living with a bad man.”
I frown.
“Colter, his name was. He’d move my belongings around, Peggy.
He’d move them to screw with me. Sometimes it was my keys.
He’d take things or hide them, especially my socks.
Colter would leave me with one of each pair.
He’d take one and leave one. He liked how I reacted, I guess, how I was never quite sure of anything. ”
“Horrible.”
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“Your man, Peggy. You think he could be moving your things?”
“Drew? No, he’s too busy with his work.”
She starts cleaning again but she looks serious.
“Your husband strict on you, is he?”
I don’t say anything.
“He like to tell you what to do? Order you around? He wants things done his way?”
“Aren’t all men like that?”
“No, Peggy Jenkins. No, they’re not all like that.”
“I don’t know.”
She wipes down the floor and we move along a little way down the corridor.
“Next time you talk to the doctor tell him all about this. That doctor’s forgotten more than I ever knew.”
I’m not so sure about that.
“I don’t think Drew would move my things.”
“How long have you two been together?”
“Since I was nineteen.”
“Your whole adult life. He tell you how to do things? How to dress? Treat you like a child?”
I freeze up.
My mind whirring. Looking back.
“Because there’s more than one way a man can beat down on his woman, you know. Colter, my boyfriend back when I was living in Pennsylvania, years ago this was, he beat me on a daily basis without ever laying a finger. Made me feel about two inches tall.”
I start to heat up, to sweat. It’s difficult to take a proper breath.
“You left him?” I ask.
“He tried to persuade me that my own mama was out to hurt me. He made me cut ties with my uncles and aunties, with my friends. He wanted to see me every day but for me to never go see anybody else. I was fading away, Peggy. I stopped trusting myself. He’d beat on me every day with his words and it wore me down. ”
They switch on the Christmas tree lights and one woman starts to cry.
“I’m sorry he did that to you.”
My mind is racing.
Jigsaw pieces slotting into place.
“Talk to the doctors and the nurses, Peggy. They can help, I’m telling you, they can help you.
It was my neighbor who told me what was happening in my own life, in my own mind.
She was a social worker, nice lady. She told me straight out.
I was being controlled. Us women need to stick together.
My boyfriend at the time was cutting me off from the world. He was making me question my own self.”