Chapter 38 Mother May I
Sapphire
There are so many gaps. Too many to keep track of. But there are two things I’m certain of.
I have lost a significant amount of weight in the last two weeks.
Between the laxatives and eggs yolks, I’m merely a husk of the woman I was.
It can’t be healthy to lose weight this quickly.
In fact, I can tell a difference in the weight of my bones, the thickness of my hair, and the glow to my skin.
Everything is dull. Cloudy. Grim and gray.
We’ve endured the electroconvulsive therapy two more times. I can’t recall anything. If it’s morning or night, if I’ve had my raw eggs or not. It’s all a terrifying blur of information.
The wall next to my head bangs once. I knock back.
Niklaus started doing this after his first escape attempt, I think.
They had to start sedating him. Not me though.
The malnutrition, seizures, and frequent fainting spells keep me from having any energy at all to be a problem for them.
In fact, and I don’t know this for sure, the combination of these symptoms has left me feeling detached from the Nightlung.
Not that I necessarily felt connected to it before this, but there’s a loss there.
It used to feel like I was able to run my fingers along the windowsill, the glass panes, I just couldn’t figure out how to undo the latch.
Now, there’s no window. No exit. No seeping darkness that lingers, dragging behind me like a long cloak.
I bet my father would laugh in my face. Oh, how disappointed he would be in my inability to be like him at all. To escape whenever he pleased.
“Up you go,” Meridei instructs, lifting her eyes from the clipboard to study the scale I’m stepping onto. “Oh. Look at you.”
I look down at the number. A visceral sickness purges from my stomach into my throat. My god, I’d have to be missing actual organs to lose this much weight.
“I am very impressed,” Meridei says, though she jots on her clipboard with a flat, bored expression. “Are you famished? I have seen women perish from losing this much weight… Maybe an extra bowl of oats this morning?”
I am obscenely hungry. But the thought of shoveling food in my mouth makes me want to gag. The bland oats with their lumpy texture, the runny yolks, the sour aftertaste of vomit that has singed the back of my throat. I never want to eat anything again.
I step off the scale with shaky knees. Each movement feels like I’m dragging chains. Like I’m wading through tubs of oil.
Meridei examines my wilted stance with clinical eyes. “We’ll skip the enema today as well.”
Thank goodness.
I’ve been violated, cleansed until I’m raw and empty.
The enemas now have the ability to send me spiraling into panic attacks before they’re inserted.
It’s the anticipation—the burn, the humiliating position of being on all fours with my gown lifted and my panties at my ankles.
And, of course, after it’s removed—I’m drained of the fluids that kept me moving at all.
“Would you like to rest today?” Meridei asks, a rare sensitivity to her voice.
I nod. “Yes.”
I’d like to rest for days. I’d like an extra blanket because I’m so cold all the time. I’d like more water. I’d like music to drown out the sounds of the screaming and sobbing coming from the other rooms.
I want to know if my mother and father are here.
I want to scream for Patient Thirteen to free me. To save me. I want to call out for my dad and tell him who I am. Tell him what they’ve done to me in here. I want to know that he’ll avenge me the way he’d avenge my mother.
“Maybe tomorrow.” Meridei brushes my hair away from my face. “Today is your next dual treatment.”
“No.” The air deflates from my lungs. “Please. No more shock therapy…”
Sometimes my body still convulses when I’m alone.
Right before I fall asleep, the phantom of an aftershock hits me before I can escape to my dreams. My memory already comes in pieces lately.
I’ve lost entire days. Conversations end before I even realize they’ve begun.
It’s as if someone has taken a blade to my thoughts, poking holes and tearing them to unrecognizable shreds.
I’m not myself anymore. I’m all alone. I don’t even remember the last time I saw Niklaus.
“And what will you give me if I postpone your electroconvulsive therapy for a while?” She tilts her head curiously.
“Anything.” I have to keep whatever is left of my memories.
“Hmm.” Meridei shrugs, knocking on the asylum door to let in the orderlies. “Today is your Matrimony Method therapy. I’m rather excited for it.”
My shoulders sag, and I let the orderlies guide me away from the scale and out of the room. With my elbows pointed outwards, they’re practically carrying me to the treatment room as I have no strength to walk myself on my quivering legs for too long.
“Also, have I told you we’ll have a special guest observing today?” Meridei asks me as she smooths the shiny black hair on top of her head.
“No,” I say.
“I don’t allow guests to observe often, but I trust you and your husband implicitly,” she replies with a smile that only effects the bottom half of her face.
And I really don’t care.
But the energy I have to tell her that is nonexistent.
The orderlies set me down on a metal chair located in the center of the white treatment room. My shackles cuffed to the metal arms, which is silly. Do they not know that I’m not even close to being strong enough to fight back?
I glance to my right at the tall pole next to me. A skinny needle connected to a tube is poked into the inside of my elbow. Meridei tsk-tsks. “Oof. I almost couldn’t find a vein. You’re quite dehydrated.”
Something clean and cold flushes past my nose and face, internally.
“A bit of saline,” Meridei narrates.
The door opens again, and her head pops up. “Did you lower his dose of sedation to what I added in his chart?”
The orderlies nod.
“Good. I want him a little more alert for this, but still not strong enough to attempt another escape.”
I lock eyes with those deep, bottomless blue irises I’ve spent my entire life hating. Though this ward reeks of despair, loneliness, and antiseptic—his eyes cut through it all. He’s clouded and sleepy, but still sharp and aware.
The orderlies cuff him to his chair, though there are extensions to give him extra slack and room to move.
There’s a beat of silence as he adjusts in his seat.
And we’ve never locked eyes this long. Something shakes loose in my chest. A sense of relief.
Familiarity. Comfort. A flicker of hope at the way he looks pained to see me this way.
I know it can’t be a pretty sight. I looked into my own reflection once, yesterday, I think…
and I was horrorstruck by the sight of my hollowed cheeks, pale skin, and brittle hair.
I was witnessing my body transform from healthy to a corpse.
There’s something dehumanizing about it. Letting someone control my nutritional intake, dangling me right over the brink of death.
“I am so glad we have finally made it to this treatment,” Meridei announces proudly.
But he’s still looking at me. There’s an apology in his gaze. A message for me to unravel. That he tried to escape. He tried to break me out before it got this bad.
I breathe through the blinding emotion that he’s triggering in my soul. It’s forming a lump in my throat and burning my eyes.
“Hey!” Meridei snaps her fingers in front of Niklaus’s face.
He blinks, then drags his focus to her scolding expression. If looks could kill…
“When I speak, I want all eyes on me. I know you’re impressed with my work now that your wife is suddenly so thin, but we still have an unreasonable amount of work to do. Understood?”
Niklaus glares at Meridei long enough to make her shift on her feet.
“Continue,” he says coldly.
Meridei crosses her arms. “Before we begin this special exposure therapy, I have a special guest that I want you both to be on your best behavior for.”
A woman steps into the room wearing not only a white patient gown, but a robe and slippers to match.
My eyes fixate on her hair before her face.
It’s the most gorgeous head of hair I’ve ever seen.
Thick, long, blue-black hair down to her lower back.
Large, wavy curls that unwind in loose spirals down past her ribs.
“My mother will be released from the female ward in a few days. It’s been really more of a retreat and a lady-doll refresher for her since being checked-in. I thought this would be the perfect way to cheer her up!” Meridei holds her hand out to her mother, waving for her to stand by her side.
The woman strides over to her daughter, short, bony, and so pale I can see her blue veins as if her skin is see-through. She has Meridei’s face too.
The mother grabs her daughter’s hand lovingly, eyeing Niklaus a little too long.
“Hello, I’m Meridei’s mother!” She gives me a disgusted glance, then gazes adoringly back at Niklaus, tapping her finger to his bicep.
I sag in my chair and roll my eyes.
“My name is Apple May.”