My Lost Daughter (27 page)

Peggy let out a loud snort and returned to her task, lining up tiny paper cups across the counter. She then turned around and unlocked the medicine cabinet. Shana wondered how they kept from giving people the wrong drugs as there were no names on the cups. Returning to her position next to Alex, she quizzed him, “How do they keep the pills straight? Someone could pick up the wrong cup. With the type of stuff they give people, the wrongs meds could kill them.”

“Follow me,” Alex said, walking casually to the counter with Shana trailing behind him. “Peggy darling, I'll take my Prozac now.” She smiled and handed him two cups, one with the pill and one with water. Shana had to step aside as the other patients lined up behind Alex, each asking for their medication by name and receiving the same treatment.

Shana grabbed the edge of Alex's jacket and pulled him aside. “My God, are the patients treating themselves? I don't even know what they're giving me. All I know is I don't want any more of it. I'm beginning to feel halfway normal. I mean, not normal . . .” She stopped speaking, placing her palm on her forehead. “If I don't go up there, will they come and force me?”

“Eventually,” Alex answered. “First, they'll tell your shrink and he'll punish you by increasing the dose until you can't keep your eyes open. And that's the best-case scenario. The end result could be even worse.”

Her eyes widened. “What could possibly be worse?”

“Take a look at poor Wanda over there.” Alex tilted his head in
the woman's direction. Wanda was sitting in a wheelchair with her head slumped to one side, a trickle of drool running down her chin. “Electric shock,” Alex added. “Definitely, unequivocally worse. Get the picture?”

“Say no more.” Shana took her place in line. Nice place, she thought facetiously. They probably did frontal lobotomies in the back room. There had to be a way to get out. This was the United States, for God's sake. People weren't confined to institutions without a legitimate cause. Actually, it wasn't easy to get any kind of treatment today. Tons of mentally ill people roamed the streets.

Snorting not once but twice, Peggy placed a pill in a cup and handed Shana another paper cup which she assumed contained water. She glared at Shana until she saw her place the pill in her mouth.

When Shana tried to swallow, she found only a drop of water in the cup. Peggy's mouth puckered in satisfaction. Shana faced her in defiance, tilting her head up and forcing the pill down. She then leaned over and pretended to gag, acting as if the pill had been as large as a golf ball. “Satisfied?” She opened her mouth and stuck her tongue out to show Peggy the pill wasn't still in her mouth. “Am I at least allowed to ask what type of medication I just took, or is that against the rules?”

“Valium.”

“Valium?”

“Move aside, please,” Peggy told her. “You're not the only patient in this hospital.”

The situation was mind-boggling. Shana was incarcerated against her will so she could be treated with a drug as common as Valium. A regular doctor would give her a prescription for Valium in a heartbeat, and she was allegedly going through detox for a meth addiction. One of her friends at school popped Valium like candy, and she wasn't walking around in green pajamas with rubber thongs on her feet. Shit, she could buy Valium on the Internet. She had managed to get a decent night's sleep, though, so she reminded herself to
get a prescription for the stuff in case she developed another bout of insomnia.

Her mother used to pop Valium. She even recalled Lily giving her one after they were assaulted. Such a mom, she thought, preparing her daughter for a lifetime of drug addiction. Lily should be in this place, not her.

If they were treating her only with Valium, Shana decided, then they must know that she wasn't going through meth withdrawal. She had assumed her diagnosis had been a mistake, that the hospital had confused her with another patient. Either that or her mother had reached the conclusion that she was on some type of stimulant because she had told her she wasn't sleeping. If the hospital knew the truth that she wasn't on drugs of any kind, other than an occasional hit of pot, then they must have intentionally manufactured her drug addiction in order to have a legitimate reason to commit her.

She pushed Norman aside, failing to notice that she'd touched his charred flesh and caused his little fan to topple onto the floor. He just smiled at her with what was left of his mouth. “I'm sorry,” she told him, bending down and retrieving his fan. “I didn't hurt you, did I?”

“Not at all,” he said. “Give them hell.”

Shana flipped her hair to one side, thrust her chest out, and planted herself directly in front of the nursing station. “I demand to see the hospital administrator. Someone has to be legally responsible for what goes on inside this hospital.”

This time Peggy did more than lean over the counter. She stood and the floor moved under her enormous weight. Then she did something unexpected; she stomped her feet like a spoiled child. Shana was sure she was going to summon George and have her carted off to the shock treatment room, but instead Peggy only said one word: “Lunch.”

Shana's jaw dropped in surprise. For a moment, she was possessed with a wild interpretation of the woman's words—that
Peggy was going to have
her
for lunch. She had to get control over herself immediately. Using her tongue, she dislodged the Valium from the corner of her mouth and promptly swallowed it.

Eyeing the pay phone on the back wall, she decided it was time to cry uncle and call her mother. The problem was she couldn't call long distance, even collect. She had to either get her hands on her iPhone, or call Brett again. His parents had gone broke in the stock market crash and she'd been paying his tuition with the extra money she got from her mother. Whether he wanted to be with her or not, the asshole owed her some big favors.

Everyone was walking toward her in the direction of the double doors near the nursing station. Shana felt as if she was part of a school of minnows swimming upstream. It dawned on her that there would be no food trays now that she'd been released into the general population. Once the attendant walked them back from wherever they served lunch, the doors would be locked until dinner.

The people passing her were chatting and smiling. She was now faced with an actual decision for the first time since she'd been admitted. If she stayed and called Brett, she would miss lunch, no doubt one of the highlights of the day, right up there with medication time. She had barely touched food for the past three days and her body was weak from hunger. Besides, she didn't have any recourse. She couldn't handle the stress of calling Brett on an empty stomach.

Shana decided that she would rather remain at Whitehall than beg her mother to get her out. And she refused to call Brett, knowing his new girlfriend would probably answer the phone again.

Actually, the Whitehall thing might work out well for her. She would now have a reason for falling so far behind on her work, and Brett would be hit with a shitload of guilt once he found out he had caused her to have a nervous breakdown.

As she walked through the double doors to the outside courtyard, she saw Alex waiting for her beside a sycamore tree. He fell into step alongside her as they walked toward the cafeteria.

Alex's entourage selected a table, probably the same table they ate at every day. Then they all got in the food line.

“Regular little drones,” Shana whispered to him.

He picked up both their trays, balancing them on one hand like a waiter. “Do you want me to get our drinks?” she asked, thinking it was the polite thing to do.

“I'll take some of that red stuff,” he said, pointing to the fruit punch.

With two glasses in hand, Shana claimed the empty seat next to Alex. Were they already an item? She felt as if she was married to the man and she had only just met him. Shana stared out over the now familiar faces. What did she generally do in the morning? She went to her nine o'clock class and then came back to the apartment to study. In the same amount of time, she'd discovered an entirely new social scene.

Alex removed her plate from the tray and placed it in front of her. She set their fruit punch down and then returned for napkins. Norman was at the table, as well as Karen and May. The woman's nails were so long she had to hold her fork like a chopstick.

“May,” Shana said, “will you do a reading for me sometime?” God, she thought, why did she say that? She didn't put much stock in the supernatural. Her environment was contagious.

“Sure, baby girl,” May said. “Let me see your hand.”

The woman started laughing, a wonderful sound like silver bells. Once Shana placed her slender hand in May's palm, she experienced a surge of energy, a distinct connection of some kind. Moving a few inches closer, she inhaled May's aroma and wondered if it was cologne. She smelled like apple cider, rich and delicious.

“I see a new man in your life, a dark man.” May chuckled again and Shana's hand moved up and down. She quickly trapped it and held it like a tiny bird. “Not a black man . . . a dark-haired man . . . a prince of a man . . . a highly unusual man.” May paused and stared out into space, her eyes glassy and fixed.

Shana thought it was a joke. She obviously meant Alex, but no one was laughing. Karen barked a few times but everyone else
remained silent. May began rocking, moving her lips without speaking. When she finally said something, she appeared to be in a trance state.

“Woe is me.” May spoke in a deep resonant voice. “Woe is me, child. You've gotten yourself into one fine mess. You want Della to make you a grilled cheese sandwich?”

Shana jerked her hand away and stood straight up, almost knocking her chair over. May seemed to snap out of it, gazing pleasantly over the table as if nothing strange had happened. She picked up her fork, loading it down with mashed potatoes.

“How did you know about Della?” Shana asked, her temper flaring. “You must have tricked me somehow.” Then she remembered the grilled cheese sandwich. “I'm sorry, May. I'm only trying to assimilate what I just heard.”

“I told you May was a psychic,” Alex interjected. “What she really does is called channeling. You must have heard about people who channel spirits.”

Shana dropped back into her chair, glancing warily at May. “Della was my grandmother's housekeeper. She's been dead for almost twenty years. I know because I went to her funeral. Whenever I went to stay at my grandmother's and got sick, Della always made me a grilled cheese sandwich.” Not even her mother knew much about Della. The woman had been so different from Lily, so relaxed and folksy. She remembered asking Della if she could live with her one time when her parents had been fighting. “It was like Della was here, in this very room. You even spoke with her voice, May.”

“Everything that ever was still is in the mind of God,” May explained, the wisdom of the sages reflected in her eyes. “Don't you know that yet, baby girl? People die but they come back, just like flowers die, only to bloom again in the spring. Right now you may not be able to see this woman who spoke to you through me. She loves you, though, and she knows you're in trouble. One day you'll meet her again.”

“Eat,” Alex said in a firm voice. “That was the message. Eat your
food. If you don't eat fast, it will be time to leave. You're thin enough.”

Shana looked at Alex and then grabbed her fork and began shoving food into her mouth. She was traveling in uncharted territory, experiencing things beyond her comprehension. For the time being, the most logical way to proceed was to keep her mouth shut and go along with the program.

 

On the walk back from lunch, Shana fell in step behind the others, relishing the feel of the warm sun on her body. Inside the hospital, it was freezing. She had no idea what the temperature was, but she felt as if she were inside a meat locker.

May's performance at lunch had unnerved her. Shana had heard about people who could channel spirits, but she'd always assumed they were charlatans. To the best of her knowledge, there was no way on earth May could have known about Della. The fact that someone might have spoken to her from the grave was mind-boggling. Maybe May could channel her father. She felt the hairs prick on the back of her neck and hurried to catch up to the others. No matter how much she loved her father, some things were better left alone.

Inside the great room, she noticed Peggy was no longer at the nursing station. “Lee,” she said in excitement. “Can you find out what happened to my stuff? I asked Peggy but she was too busy.”

“Sure,” Lee said with a kind smile. “Just give me a few minutes to go to the outside office and review your file.”

David had returned and was jostling with Alex. “Where's Jimmy?” he asked, glancing around the room. “Did he go home?”

Alex didn't answer. May was engrossed in a novel and Karen was writing in a spiral notebook. Norman had moved to a grouping of people on the opposite side of the room. Milton, the “Walking Man,” was asleep on one of the sofas.

Shana dropped down onto the nearest sofa, burying her head in her hands. A short time later, Alex appeared beside her.

“Want to talk about it?”

Shana didn't, but she knew she would. “I have to get out of here, Alex. I have things I have to do.”

“Like scoring drugs?” he asked, reaching for a cigarette.

“I told you I don't use drugs. I've smoked pot every now and then, but that's it. I'm in Stanford Law. Before they tossed me in here, I was only a few months away from graduating. How could I possibly handle the work if I was strung out on drugs?” Shana's eyes drifted to the floor, ashamed that he thought she was an addict.

“Interesting,” he said, glancing at the television. Some of the patients were watching a rerun of
Charmed.
“Let me ask you something. Do you have decent insurance?”