Get Me Out of Here (12 page)

It was an embarrassing reunion.

I took my bags to my room, placed the gold-framed picture of Tim, Jeffrey, and Melissa on the nightstand, and said my tearful good-byes to Tim and the kids. I ambled down the hallway to the smoking lounge.

Scary. I knew this place all too well.

Joe, a second-shift nurse in his midforties, was standing behind the nurses' station counter, sifting through paperwork. When he looked up, he did a classic double take. Joe, who had a quick wit and crooked grin, had been my favorite nurse the first two stays, not exactly a compliment as all the male nurses tended to be my favorites.

“Rachel! So you've come back to join us in Happy Hotel for another visit. What happened to your butt, milady? It's gone.”

My God, it's that obvious, isn't it? Hey, he noticed, how wonderful
. The battle continued within.

“Umm, yeah. I kind of went on a diet. Sort of went overboard, I guess. So you've got me back again.”

Back again for the third time in a year. Did I really need to do this, or was Dr. Padgett just appeasing me?
I want to go home. I want to stay here forever. I don't know what I want
.

“Well, if you behave yourself and don't stir up too much trouble, I might just let you share one of my peanut butter cups. You're practically invisible, ya know.”

Not as invisible as I wish I could be right now, I thought to myself.

“No! I won't!”

Howls from the other bed shook me out of my sleep. The sun was just barely shining through the window. What the hell time was it?

Writhing on the bed next to me was a wisp of an elderly woman, her white hair peeking out from under the covers, clumps of it together, some of it obviously missing—a tiny mess of wrinkles with a voice like a police siren. Two of the graveyard shift nurses were standing over her bed.

“Come on, Alice,” one of them said. “You know better than to scream like that. You're going to scare this poor girl out of her wits. Let's change your bedpan, okay?”

Bedpan? God, this is depressing
.

“Go away! No! No!”

“That's it, easy does it. We're just going to roll you over. Easy does it. Now see, was that so bad?”

Why are they talking to her like she's three years old?

With the bedpan changed, the small figure in the neighboring bed rolled over and went back to sleep. By then I was far too awake and disturbed to even think about it.

“You have to excuse Alice,” the younger nurse said from the door. “She's not always conscious of what she's doing, and she can be a handful. Let us know if she bothers you. We'll see what we can do.”

A handful. Like me. Misunderstood. Like me
. Giving up on sleep, I pulled my book off the nightstand and began to read.

“You're a very pretty girl, you know.” A voice emerged from the rumpled mound of sheets and blankets a few feet away.

“Excuse me?”

“I said you are a very pretty girl. Pretty eyes, such pretty eyes. I'll bet they just drive the men crazy. So pretty.”

What could I say to that? I just sat and listened.

“You know, I used to be very pretty. Just like you. Men. All kinds of men. My sailor boy, oh, he was so handsome! Almost pretty in a way too. Knocked me out of my socks, looking at him in that blue uniform. He used to tell me I was the most beautiful woman in the world. And you know what, honey? I believed him.”

Alice was smiling now, the shriveled smile of a woman whose dentures were still sitting on the bathroom sink. Despite her thinning white hair and sagging wrinkled skin, I could still see the wide brown eyes now coming to life. She had the marks of a faded beauty.

“My son put me in here, you know. I loved my high-rise, my condo. And the men, oh honey, the men were everywhere. But he decided I was too old, couldn't handle it anymore, and tried to shove me in one of those old folks' homes. What's your name? Why is such a pretty girl like you in a place like this?”

I told her my name and why I was in the hospital.

“Oh, honey, that's just terrible. You're so pretty, and you've got your whole life ahead of you. And you're so sweet, sitting here listening to this old lady ramble. That picture over there—is that your family?”

“Yes, the little boy is Jeffrey. He's four. And Melissa is two. And the big guy is Tim. He's my husband.”

“Oh, honey, they're absolutely beautiful. I'll bet they just love their pretty mommy.”

“I guess so.”

“And your husband. Wow! What a looker. Just like my sailor. If I were five years younger, honey, you'd have to watch out, 'cause I'd be going right after him. You got a man like that, you better hold on tight.”

I couldn't help but grin. “I will, Alice; I will. Tim is a great guy.”

“Well, whatever's wrong, I hope it gets better. You're way too sweet and you've got too beautiful of a family to be stuck in a place like this.”

I found out later that my conversation with Alice was the first time the woman had communicated with anyone in the hospital except in monosyllabic screams. Even when I was moved down the hall to another section with younger patients, I still made it a point to visit Alice every day. I helped her put on her makeup, and I brushed out her hair. She had fascinating stories: a living history of World War II, the trainloads of soldiers pulling into the station, the glamour of the fifties, her life with the “sailor boy” who'd passed away more than a decade ago.

I watched her slowly come back to life. And with her rebirth, a part of me came to life too. She'd called me sweet, and for once, I had actually been that way. We were the two misfits of the east wing, helping each other.

The flashing lights of the fire truck light up the suburban landscape. The smell of the diesel fumes makes me feel sick
.

Daddy's enraged. He's taking charge, demanding to know what happened
.

Grandma's looking down, her face through the clouds, a horrible scowl on her usually smiling face. She shakes her head and finger to the earth below and yells, “You are a horrible mother! Shame on you!”

Mommy's crying, her face buried in shame. Daddy and Grandma and the firemen are scolding her relentlessly. She's the center, the martyr of the scene
.

And off in the distance stand two little boxes. They look like coffins, no, little wooden figures, immobile, stranded there, masklike, frozen in horror. No one pays any attention to them
.

It's my older brother. And me
.

The drill sergeant was standing over my bed. For once I was happy to see her. It was two in the morning, and I was sweat-drenched, still shaking and hyperventilating.

“Come on now, Rachel. You're awake now. It was just a dream. You need to calm down.”

“It was horrible!” I shrieked through my tears, “Horrible! The fire trucks, and Dad was yelling, and Mom was crying, and Grandma was looking down from the dead shaking her finger. And everyone just left us there. What happened? What did she do? Why were we lying there? What happened?
What did she do to me?
”

“I can't make sense of what you're talking about. It's a nightmare, Rachel, a nightmare. You can tell your doctor about it in the morning. You really need to get some rest.”

She let me go into the smoking lounge and have a cigarette. I tried to go back to sleep, but the same nightmare roused me again. I finally gave up and stayed awake, waiting for morning distractions to take over.

During this hospital visit I couldn't believe the amount of emotional pain I was in. I hadn't remembered that from the first two visits. This time I was saw the anguish in the faces of the other patients on the floor. This wasn't a retreat. Each person was going through his or her own form of personal hell, as was I. It was a hell so furious that it wouldn't leave me alone. I couldn't distract myself. The pain was so piercing I could feel it physically pressing upon my chest. I knew the isolation had been by design, and I knew it was working. I was feeling, intensely feeling, and wondering just how much of it I could take.

The little oak crib with the duckling painted on the side. My crib. Jeffrey's crib. Melissa's crib. Unmistakable
.

Mommy's frantic. Mommy's mad. She's screaming. “Shut up! Quit crying!”

I'm hungry, very hungry. So hungry it hurts
.

“I can't feed you. It's not time yet. Stop crying! Shut up!”

Angry eyes, reaching hands. I see them. I reach back
.

I'm flying! I see the wall. I'm flying!

Everything goes black
.

I was hyperventilating and screaming again. The sweat and horror had become a nightly ritual. I'd endured over a week of this. I was so exhausted I could barely stay awake, yet too horrified to sleep. When exhaustion overtook me and I closed my eyes, the nightmares invaded with fierce intensity, the subconscious mind seizing control. It was a hell on earth with no escape, not even through sleep. Numb by day, possessed by night, an unending sequence of nightmares, pummeling me with their fury. I speculated on what happened but could never come to any certain conclusions. What was symbolic, and what was a real memory? One thing was certain: if my parents had actually done any of these things, they would never, not even in their dying days, admit to it.

Most of the nurses, even those whom I'd aggravated before, were supportive through this. They could tell I was sincerely trying this time. In the grips of these nightmares and the anguished tears, the nurses would try their best to comfort and calm me, but only Dr. Padgett and I truly understood the intensity of our therapy and what these dreams might be saying.