My Lost Daughter (34 page)

She felt guilty for the lies she had told her mother. One of Lily's best traits was her generosity. She had given her the money without questioning her. Abusing her trust wasn't right. As a county employee, her mother was far from rich, which made taking advantage of her even worse.

With her father, nothing she ever did was wrong. A good parent would teach their child the right thing to do and punish them when they did wrong. Her father didn't care if she stole things or lied. The only person who'd ever punished her was her mother, and she'd only done so to make certain Shana would become a responsible law-abiding adult.

Her eyes closed and she fell into a deep sleep.

She saw Brett's face floating in front of her. He was kissing her
breasts, her stomach, stroking her between her legs. Her mouth fell open in pleasure.

“Oh, Brett,” she panted. She reached out to bring him to her body, to feel him inside her, to smell him, taste him. She suddenly found herself sitting upright in the bed. Michaela was wheezing now and the sound was so irritating, she got out of bed, got dressed, and staggered out into the great room.

Betsy was performing her nightly duties, checking to make certain the patients were in their rooms and accounted for. No one was at the nursing station. Shana ducked back into her room, peeking around the corner of her doorway until she saw Betsy enter one of the patients' rooms. She then rushed to the nursing station, entering through the side door, and snatched the phone out of the cradle.

Squatting down so Betsy couldn't see her, she dialed her mother's number in California. Instead, she was connected to the hospital switchboard. Even the employees were not allowed to call long distance. Depressing the button to end the call, she dialed nine and finally reached an outside line.

“Brett,” she said in a hushed tone.

“Shana,” he exclaimed. “God, what time is it?” He yawned and then continued, “Everyone's been looking for you. Julie called me when you didn't show up for class today. I guess that would be yesterday now. She went by your apartment but no one was there. Where the hell are you?”

Shana clasped the receiver with both hands. “I had a dream that we were making love. It was so real. I was certain you were here with me.”

“I'm sorry I hurt you. I felt like you were suffocating me, dragging me down. It's not what you think about Trudy. We're just friends. My parents couldn't pay the rent on my apartment and she offered to let me live with her for free.”

“You really expect me to believe that you're not sleeping with her? Give me a break, Brett. I paid your tuition. Don't you think I'd let you stay with me?” As she spoke, the suppressed anger replaced
the longing. “You're a damn leech, that's what. When I told you I wasn't going to ask my mother for more money, you decided to find someone else to support you. I'm sorry your father lost all his money in the stock market, but my mother is a county employee and can't afford to pay your damn tuition. I demand you pay back every dime or—”

Betsy appeared at Shana's side, wrestling the phone out of her hands. “Get back to your room this minute.”

“No!” Shana shouted. “You can't keep me here without contact with the outside world. All I want is five minutes.”

Betsy seized her from behind, placing her arm around her chest.

Without thinking, Shana spun around and slugged her.

Betsy took several steps backward, rubbing her chin. Then she shook her finger. “You're going to pay for this, young lady.”

“I didn't mean to hit you. I was talking to my fiancé and he said something that upset me.”

Alex and some of the other patients had heard the commotion and came out of their rooms. “Go on,” Betsy said, waving them away. “There's nothing to see here. Everything is under control. Go back to sleep.”

Alex motioned for Shana. As soon as Shana left the nursing station, Betsy picked up the phone to make a call.

“Sit down,” Alex said, patting a place beside him on the sofa. “Fold your hands in your lap and act like nothing happened.”

A short time later, two male guards came walking out. One was carrying something large and white.

Alex stuck two cigarettes in his mouth and lit them both at the same time, handing one to Shana. He leaned back on the sofa and crossed his legs. “What's the job market like in Los Angeles?”

Shana inhaled the smoke, wondering if Alex was trying to prepare her or protect her. “Great,” she said. “Everything's wonderful.” She'd never been that much of an actress, particularly under duress. Her hand was shaking so badly, the cigarette almost fell out.

“I see,” Alex replied. “Unemployment is high around here,
especially if a person isn't educated. There's a shortage of registered nurses, but most of the employees here at Whitehall aren't accredited. They're lucky to have a job, if you know what I mean.”

Shana tried not to look at the two attendants or the dreaded straitjacket, but her feet were tapping involuntarily against the floor. Alex squeezed her hand even tighter, locking eyes with the two attendants. “I know people who have lost their jobs over a simple error in judgment. All they need to do is to stop and think about what they're doing.”

One attendant nudged the other one, ignoring Alex's attempts to intimidate them. “Let's go,” he said, striding toward Shana. When he got to the sofa, he planted his feet and placed his hands on his hips. “No one, and I mean no one, strikes a staff member. You're either going to spend time in the jacket or in the Quiet Room. It's your choice.”

“The room,” Shana said quickly, knowing she couldn't stand being restrained in the jacket. She assumed she would be placed back in the isolation section of the hospital for the night. Slipping her hand out of Alex's, she stood and walked off with the attendants.

In the corridor leading from the great room to the isolation unit, the taller guard took a key off the ring attached to his belt and unlocked a door. Once he had shoved Shana inside, she heard the key turning in the lock.

The Quiet Room was a padded cell!

Nothing she had experienced could compare to the fear she now felt as she stood in the center of the small room and turned slowly around, looking at the white padded walls. She began hyperventilating, certain she was going to suffocate. Her eyes searched for the air-conditioning vent. She saw a small opening on the ceiling with rusted metal slats. There was air, not much, not moving, but nonetheless air.

She sat down on the floor and inched her way into the corner, thinking that in the corner, the walls would seem farther away.

The whiteness was marred in various places, in what appeared
to be rips in the vinyl padding. These became like her wall decorations, her paintings. She stared at a silver patch, trying to see her reflection.

Shana had finally hit bottom. Only a week ago, the whole world had been accessible. Now it had shrunk to an eight-by-six padded box, an oversized coffin without so much as a mattress. What kind of country would allow this to happen? People could commit heinous crimes and be released on bail. There were no bail hearings at Whitehall. No one cared because they never thought they'd end up inside a mental hospital.

Punching Betsy in the face might go down as the dumbest thing Shana had ever done. By hitting a staff member, she'd given substance to the premise that she was mentally ill. Even if she managed to get a court hearing, the court could determine that she was not only disturbed but dangerous, and her life as she had known it would cease to exist.

They could lock her away for years, and she would sink deeper into the quicksand. With every pill-filled cup, every injection, another piece of reality would fall away.

Her mind turned to Alex. He was now interwoven into her new abbreviated existence, whereas Brett and her mother seemed far removed—a voice, a face, a few memories. Among the comforting sights and sounds of what had once been her life, with freedom to come and go as she pleased, Lily had become an outsider with no possible comprehension of the degradation her daughter was being forced to endure.

Shana had read stories about prisoners of war, and how they were subjected to brainwashing and behavior modification. Now she was experiencing it firsthand. Once she walked out of the Quiet Room, she would never break the rules again.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 19
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

Whiteness, everywhere she looked. Her eyes strained against the glaring white walls of the so-called Quiet Room. She tried to swallow, choking and coughing until she managed to push the saliva down her constricted throat. She beat the cushioned walls with her fists and then kicked them with her feet. “Let me out!” she screamed. “Please . . . I'll do anything, sign anything, say anything. I can't take it anymore.”

Shana knew she had to stop sucking up oxygen. Her cries for help were futile. The room was soundproof. She curled up in a fetal position. If she let her mind roam, she would crack. She had to focus on something.

Recalling the erotic dream, tears streaked down her cheeks. She had believed Brett when he'd told her she was too uptight when they had sex. She should have never told him she'd been raped. From that point on, he had pushed her to do things he must have known would upset her. He wanted to pin her arms over her head, but it made her panic. And there were other things, things too offensive to remember. She knew now that he'd become aroused by the thought of her being raped. They had talked about it for hours,
Brett insisting on knowing every sick detail. Everything had happened so fast; there wasn't much to tell. Shana started making things up just to satisfy him.

The one thing she had never told anyone, the unspeakable truth she had lived with all these years, was that her mother had killed the man she believed was the rapist. Lily had risked her life driving to the most dangerous area of Oxnard to end the reign of a violent criminal. Instead of being a judge today, her mother could be sitting in a prison cell. She knew Lily hadn't wanted to kill the rapist simply for revenge. Even though she'd killed the wrong man, she had done it to protect her child, and for that alone, she would always be Shana's hero.

Her thoughts turned to Norman and his awful injuries. Then there was May and her ability to channel dead spirits. Karen suffered from a tragic disease, yet in some ways, she appeared more normal than some of the others. Her roommate, Michaela, was like a rotting, wheezing corpse. For all practical purposes, Alex was her only anchor on reality.

Her muscles began cramping from sitting. Shana stood and began peeling off the silver duct tape. She then proceeded to pluck out the stuffing. She wasn't certain what it was, but it was white and fluffy and drifted on pockets of air to the floor. She tried to block everything out but the task—to peel off the masking tape from the rips in the vinyl and see how much stuffing she could get out.

The floor was soon covered in downy whiteness. If she could just get enough of it out, it could serve as her mattress. She made the holes bigger by holding the torn edge and pulling until the rips were enormous. The more she thought of her predicament, the more she dug her fingernails into the padded walls.

Shana felt a pressing urge to urinate. “I have to go to the bathroom!” she shouted. “You can't lock me up without a toilet, you barbaric monsters.”

She was now standing midcalf in fluff. Betsy and the others may have forgotten to tell anyone they'd placed a patient in the padded
cell. Without a clock or a watch, she had no idea how much time had elapsed.

The fullness in her bladder was unbearable. Shana was repulsed by the fact that she had no choice but to pee on the floor like a dog. Finally she gave in, squatting on the floor and relieving herself. Then she went to the wall and furiously plucked out more padding to cover the spot on the floor.

 

Keys were rattling outside the door. Shana was crouched in the corner, her arms wrapped around her chest. The door flung open and the space was instantly filled with Peggy's enormous body. Stuffing rose off the floor and floated on air from the open door.

“You insufferable little brat,” Peggy said, turning and yelling. “Lee, come here. You've got to see this to believe it.”

Shana's hair and clothing were covered in white fluff. Peggy shook her head as she stepped through the doorway. “I told you about this one,” she told Lee. “No one ever listens to me.”

Shana was so thrilled to see a human being, she grabbed Peggy and kissed her on the cheek. The woman briefly smiled in surprise, then pushed her away. “Get out of here now, you hear?”

When Shana entered the great room and saw the clock, she was shocked. It was a few minutes past eleven and since it was daylight, she knew it had to be morning. She'd been in the room almost twelve hours without food, water, or a toilet. Even the most heinous criminals would not be forced to endure such treatment.

Alex saw her and rushed over, hugging her tight to his body. “Thank God, you're okay. What did you do to yourself? You look like you've been tarred and feathered.”

“I guess you could say I had a run-in with the Quiet Room,” Shana told him. “In case you don't know, the Quiet Room is a padded cell. At least it used to be padded.”

She looked around the now familiar room. She waved at Karen and May at the smoking table, then she walked right up to Norman and kissed him on his scarred cheek. “That didn't hurt, did it?”

“Nah,” he said. “You can kiss me anytime you want.”

White fluff was falling from her body and drifting across the floor. “Milton,” she called out as he circled the room. “Come here, I want to kiss you.” Milton gave her a perplexed look and picked up his pace. As he reached the Ping-Pong table, Shana caught up with him and planted one on his forehead. “Let's run off together, Milty. We can go to the animal shelter and have a blast. I hear they have a surplus of cats.”