"You want to leave though, don't you?"
"Yes. I'm trying. I really am now. I wasn't trying so much in the beginning. I didn't care as much."
"Did you always have this . . . panic disorder?" "No," he said.
The whole time he spoke to me, he kept squeezing his right hand with his left and nibbling on his cheek.
"Why don't you sit here for a while," I suggested. "Relax. Tell me what it's like here. I've only been here one night," I explained.
He looked at the space beside me on the bench as if it were a high hurdle he could never reach.
"I don't bite," I said. "Or, at least I don't think I do. I don't remember biting people, but maybe I did," I added, tilting my head and pretending to think about it. "Since I can't remember, I can't swear I didn't. I might even be a killer." He smiled. "See, I have a sense of humor," I told him.
He widened his smile and then, with a sudden, abrupt, and definite move, like someone charging into a fire, he sat beside me.
"You really can't remember anything? Nothing?" he asked. When he spoke, he avoided looking directly at me for more than a fleeting second.
When he did look at me, I could see the sensitivity in his dark eyes. His pupils looked like two shiny black pearls. They made me think of another face, but I saw only the eyes in my memory, and then, when I saw the mouth, the eyes faded.
"I have these flashes, pictures, sounds, but as soon as I try to understand them, to trace them back to something, they disappear," I complained.
"What's an example? What do you see, hear?" he asked with interest.
"Water, the beach, boats, but little boats, toy boats."
"You mean like model boats?"
"Yes, yes, model boats, but it makes me shiver, even now, even in the sunlight, to think about boats," I said and lull led myself. My teeth actually chattered.
Very tentatively, inches at a time, he reached out to touch my hand.
"You are cold," he said, impressed.
I nodded and he wrapped his hand around mine.
"That feels good," I said, smiling. He smiled and held on to my hand. The longer he held on to it, the more confident he became.
"Well, what do we have going on here?" we heard, and Lawrence let go as if my hand had shocked him.
We turned to see Megan coming toward us. She marched stiffly with her hands clenched at her sides and her arms unbending.
"Hi, Megan," I said.
"I wondered where you were when I came back. Lulu said you had asked to go outside. Isn't this cozy?" she added, looking from Lawrence to me and back to Lawrence. "You don't know each other five minutes and you rendezvous in the garden and 1 find you holding hands."
Lawrence moved away from me quickly.
"We just bumped into each other out here," I said. "I didn't know Lawrence was outside."
"Really?" she said, her eyes narrow with suspicion. "How'd he get you to let him hold your hand?"
"He didn't get me to let him, Megan. I told him I was cold and he was just trying to warm me up," I said.
"Sure. That's how it starts," she said. "I'm surprised at you, Lawrence Taylor. You haven't touched another person here since I've known you. You must be someone special," she said to me.
Lawrence's face was crimson, but his lips were white with fear. He shook his head.
"I just--"
"The male in you has woken," Megan declared like a doctor diagnosing a terminal illness. "I'll warn the girls and the female attendants and the rest of the world. Everyone should know to be on guard. Lawrence Taylor's lusts have been miraculously resurrected. His hormones are raging. Beware!"
"No . . . I--"
"Oh, stop it," she snapped and then looked around. When she turned back to us, her expression was completely different. "I have a private, secret place I'll show you later," she told me, "if you're good. However, I hope you're not like Lydia and forget everything every day. I really don't like wasting my time on people."
"I don't think that's my problem, forgetting things I learn," I said.
"You don't know what your problem is.
That's
your problem," she replied. "Look at him," she continued, nodding at Lawrence. "Pathetic."
I turned and saw he was trembling and that sweat had broken out on his brow.
"Lawrence," I said, reaching out to touch him.
"I'm okay. I'm okay. I think it's time to go in for dinner." He stood up. "I didn't mean anything. I just . ."
"It's all right, Lawrence. Really," I said. "Please stay with us."
He looked at Megan.
"Yeah, Lawrence. We're hungry for your wonderful company," she said.
"I'll see you inside." He glanced at me and turned away. "I've got to do something before dinner," he added and walked toward the building.
"I wonder what that could be, Lawrence," Megan called after him. "What could you do alone in your room? I hope it's not what I think it is. I hope it's not what other boys your age do with themselves."
Her words and laughter made him walk faster.
"Why do you pick on him like that?" I demanded. "He was doing so well."
She looked at me as if I spoke another language.
"I don't pick on him. I don't pick on anybody." She paused, making her eyes smaller. "Are you siding with them already? You just got here and you're siding with them?" she accused.
"With whom?"
"With whom?" she mimicked. "You'd better be careful," she warned. "You just better be careful. First they win your trust and then . . . then . . ." Her lips trembled and her chin quivered. She had her hands clenched into fists and her arms extended and against her sides again. She looked like a soldier frozen in place.
"Megan? Are you all right?"
Her eyelids fluttered. Then she looked at me and relaxed.
"Of course I'm all right. I have to be all right. I have to be sharp, aware. I'm . . . going back inside. I've got to get Lulu. She doesn't know enough to get herself to dinner. She keeps waiting for her daddy. Her daddy. Daddies," she spit, as if it were a profanity. "She should be happy
he
never comes around."
She turned and walked after Lawrence. Why did she hate daddies?
12
Shadows of My Mind
.
Everyone seemed more subdued at dinner.
Their voices were low and there was very little laughter. Those who were unable to feed themselves were seated together and served by the attendants. The rest of us moved through the cafeteria line. There were two choices for an entree, turkey or halibut. Everything smelled and looked good. Mrs. Anderson supervised with pride. If I closed my eyes and listened, I couldn't tell I was in a clinic.
"Does this cafeteria remind you of your school?" Lawrence whispered from behind me.
"It's familiar," I said, "but I can't recall anything specific."
"I went to a private school," he said. "I always did. The food was pretty good there, too, and it didn't have many more students than there are patients here," he added, but he sounded like it wasn't a happy experience.
"Some of us back here are hungry," Megan said to prompt us to stop talking, take our food, and move down the line.
I hurried along, noticing how Mary Beth skipped taking bread or dessert and then pushed her food apart, as if to let anything touch would contaminate everything.
This time Megan, Mary Beth, Lulu, Lawrence, and I all sat at the same table. No one else seemed to want to join us.
"What are you waiting for?" Megan asked me. "Eat before it gets cold."
I hadn't realized I was sitting there, not touching any silverware, while everyone else, even Mary Beth, had begun.
"I don't know," I said, sensing a blank that wanted to be filled in desperately, "but you're right. I feel like I am waiting for something before we eat, something that should happen first . . ."
"My daddy used to tell us all about his day at work at dinner," Lulu said. "And then he would tell us stories about when he and my mother were young."
"He was probably never there for dinner. Didn't your parents get divorced when you were a baby?" Megan reminded her.
"I still remember," Lulu said and glanced at me to see if I believed her. I smiled at her and she smiled back.
"Maybe you said a prayer first," Lawrence suggested. "Al my private school, the headmaster led us in saying Grace before every dinner."
"Yes," I said. "Maybe . . ." I nodded. "I think that's it," I added excitedly.
"Okay. I'll say it. Everyone wait. Hold your fork, Lulu." Megan stared ahead and raised her arms slowly toward the ceiling. "Grace," she declared, clapping her hands. Then she dug into her potatoes, laughing.
"Yes," I said, nodding. "Yes, that's it. You're right, Lawrence. I can remember that. I think I can remember . . . the Bible. We read from the Bible," I continued. Lawrence smiled, his eyes happy for me as he nodded softly.
"This is good," he said. "If everything comes back to you this fast, you can leave before you know it."
"Goody, goody for her," Megan said. She started to eat again and then paused to consider me. "Do you really remember something?"
"Just vaguely, someone reading. . . it's like I'm remembering myself reading." I shook my head. "It doesn't make any sense. I hear a different voice, but I see a face so similar to my own, it's like. . I'm looking at myself."
"That doesn't sound like anything," Megan said after a moment of thought.
"Sure it does," Lawrence said, suddenly assertive. Megan widened her eyes and he turned back to me. "You better have something to eat," he suggested softly. "You'd be surprised at how much strength all this mental work takes."
"Yes," I said and started. Even that tiny bit of memory returning filled me with encouragement and stimulated my appetite. I really am going to get better, I thought.
Halfway through the meal, I glanced at Mary Beth and saw she was eating, but after every bite, she wiped her mouth with her napkin and put the napkin on her lap. I caught sight of it after she took another mouthful of fish and saw that the napkin was filled with the food she had spit back into it. Actually, she was barely eating anything.
The attendant named Billy, who had greeted Clara and me at the door when I first arrived, had been standing on the side with another attendant watching our table. Suddenly, he rushed over and pounced.
"Mary Beth, you're spitting out your food," he accused, his hands on his hips. He nodded at her plate. "No, I'm not!"
"Let me see your napkin," he demanded. "Come on. We've got strict orders from Doctor Thomas about you."
"I'm eating!" she cried, on the verge of tears.
"Leave her alone," Megan said. He turned to her. "Mind your own business, Megan. There's plenty to mind there," he said. He turned back to Mary Beth.
Mary Beth's panic had flushed her neck and face. She looked like she was trembling in her seat. I felt sorry for her. Her eyes were darting about, searching for some avenue of escape.
"You're scaring the hell out of her!" Megan cried. Billy ignored her and continued to hover over Mary Beth.
"The doctor said if we see you spitting out your food, we've got to tell him and then they'll put you upstairs and force-feed you," Billy reminded her.
"The Tower!" Megan declared. "Don't even think of trying it," she told Billy. She even poked him in the rear with her fork. He spun on her again.
"Look," he said, "if you interfere with our work with other patients, you'll end up there, too. And don't you ever poke me with anything. That's an exhibition of violence," he chastised with a smile that revealed his row of glitteringly white teeth. "And you know what
that
means," he threatened.
While he glared with fury at Megan, I reached under the table, took Mary Beth's full napkin off her lap and dropped mine in its place. She glanced at me gratefully. Billy turned back to her.
"Well? Hand up that napkin. Come on," he said, gesturing with both hands.
She reached into her lap and gave it to him slowly. He seized it. The disappointment registered on his face when he opened it and nothing fell out. Megan roared and then clapped.
"Billy Screwball screws up again!" she cried, clapping her hands over her head. Conversations throughout the cafeteria stopped and everyone looked our way.
"Cut that out," he told her.
Megan continued to clap, which caused one of the boys I had seen playing chess earlier to start clapping, too. His friend followed and then the whole table joined in. Soon, everyone in the cafeteria who could clap was clapping.
Billy's face took on a look of rage and he threw the napkin back at Mary Beth. Then he marched back to his position in the cafeteria, shouting at the patients to quiet down. Megan finally stopped clapping and soon everyone followed. One boy, however, kept breaking out into applause and laughter for no reason every once in a while during the remainder of the meal.
"Thanks," Mary Beth whispered to me.
"That was pretty smart," Megan told me. "You saved her butt with quick thinking."
Lawrence smiled at me, too, his gaze steadier now and full of pride and admiration.
"You better eat something, Mary Beth, or I'll feel responsible and guilty if you get sick," I told her.
She took a forkful of fish and put it in her mouth, chewing demonstrably and turning toward Billy as she did so. He looked away with disgust.
"Billy's such a dork," Megan said. She glared back at him until he turned his back to her and kept his eye on the other patients. "He doesn't scare me with his threats. He knows if he so much as put a finger on me . ."
She turned back to me and stopped talking and eating. "What's wrong with you?" she asked.
"That girl," I said, nodding to a girl who sat across the cafeteria from us, "what is she doing?"
Megan looked.
"Oh, that's Tamatha Stuart. She's mute, She won't talk, so she does that sign language to communicate, It's so stupid. She's not deaf. I don't know why they pamper her. She should have been given shock treatment. I---what?" she asked me when she saw the expression on my face get more emphatic.
"I know what she's saying with her hands. I understand it!" I said, even surprised myself.
"Really?"
"That's awesome," Lawrence said. "Someone you know must be deaf," he added.
I looked at him. It was as if a thick, heavy door had been opened just an inch or so, and there was light streaming through. I thought I saw a face peeking out at me through the darkness. But who was it?
My eyes began to blink rapidly, uncontrollably. I wanted to see who was behind that door. I felt as if I were struggling to tug that door open just a little bit more, pulling, pulling. . I couldn't stand the effort.
"Laura?" he said. "Are you all right?"
"You're upsetting her," Megan said.
"What am I doing? I'm not doing anything," he moaned. "Laura?" he said, turning back to me.
Suddenly, it just came over me. I heard a cry, the cry that had been haunting me ever since I arrived, someone was desperately crying out for my help.
I spun around in my seat and looked behind me and to the sides.
"What is it?" Lawrence asked. "Laura?"
"Someone. . . is crying .....
The noise in the cafeteria became the roar of the sea. There was water everywhere. The wind itself was calling my name:
Laura! Laura!
My heart started to pound. I felt the whole room turn. It was as if I were in a boat and not a chair, and the boat was being tossed violently. I grasped the table.
"No!" I cried. I closed my eyes and felt myself swaying.
"What's the matter with her?" I heard Lulu say. Lawrence reached over and touched my hand tentatively.
"Are you all right?" he asked. "Laura?" His voice merged with the voice in my mind, especially when he repeated, "Laura?"
I felt nauseated. I started to shake my head and then my whole body began to tremble. I was holding the table so firmly that the dishes began to clank. A glass fell over.
Megan shouted to Lawrence because I was tipping over backward. He seized my chair, but I started to slide off it. My body felt as if it had turned to liquid, all my bones melted. I was pouring toward the floor. Lawrence held me, but I slipped from his grip and fell down, down, down, waving my arms about me. Billy and a female attendant came rushing over to us.
"What's wrong with her? Does she have epilepsy or something?" someone asked. It sounded like Megan.
My tongue was swelling and I couldn't get any air. I felt myself drooling and then I started to scream, or at least I thought I did. Then, all went black.
When I woke this time, I was back in my room. A man in a white lab coat was taking my pulse and one of the night nurses was beside him.
"She's stabilizing," he said. "Laura? How are you doing?"
I blinked rapidly.
His voice echoed.
"Laura, how are you?"
"Laura . . Laura . . ."
"NO!" I screamed, or at least I thought I did. My whole body began to tremble terribly. It was as if the bed were coming apart beneath me. "I'm sinking!"
"Hold her!" the man said. "Easy. . ."
There was a pinprick in my arm and then, after a few moments, a wave of darkness washed over me. My body sank deeper and deeper into the bed. I felt like I was going underwater. I tried desperately to stay conscious, but wave after wave of blackness was rushing in, pushing me farther and farther down. The sound of my name drifted off, and then, I was asleep.
When I woke again, there was sunlight streaming through the curtains. I heard the sound of water being run in a sink and then a nurse emerged from the bathroom with a washcloth and a pan. She put the cloth on my face as I blinked and blinked, trying to focus in on something that made sense to me.
"So you're finally awake. Good," she said, twisting her mouth. "You gave everybody a bad time again, I heard."
She lifted the cloth from my forehead and gazed down at me. I opened my mouth, but my voice wouldn't work.
"So, let's hear about it. How are you now? Do you have any pain? Any nausea? Well?" she demanded when I was silent. I shook my head. "Are you hungry?"
I thought about it. I was a little hungry, but when I went to say yes, nothing happened.
"Well?" she asked. "Can't you talk this morning?"
Talk? I thought. Could I ever talk? I tried to speak and only a deep guttural sound emerged. The nurse looked surprised.
"What is it?" she asked.
I lifted my hands and as naturally as people speak, I began to sign.
"What the . . ." She stepped back and watched as I spoke through my hands.
"Yes, I am hungry," I told her, "but where am I?" I asked. She shook her head.
"This is a surprising turn of events," she said, looking quite impressed. "The doctor will be here in an hour. If you want to eat any breakfast, you should get up now," she said.
I signed okay and rose from the bed. I felt groggy, but strong enough to stand.
"Some more clothes were brought here for you last night," she told me. "They're all brand-new apparently. Everything still has a tag on it. Some of it is in the closet and some is in the dresser. Choose what you want to wear, get dressed, and come out to breakfast," she said. "Well?"
I signed okay.
"So you can't talk now, is that it? Fine. I could use a little more quiet around here," she said. "I'll see you in the cafeteria. Get dressed," she ordered and left the room before I could ask her where the cafeteria was.
Confusion resembled a great cloud of smoke circling me. I moved slowly, unsure of myself, making discoveries about the room and the bathroom as if I had never been here before. How long had I been here? And where was here?
I paused in the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. The face I saw seemed to change right before my eyes, and for a moment, I thought I was looking at a boy. It only lasted a second or two, but it made my heart pound and took my breath away.
After I dressed, I poked my head out of the room and looked up and down the corridor. The floors gleamed under the rays of sunshine that came through the windows. Suddenly, the door across from me opened and a girl about my age stepped out. She looked sickeningly thin.
"How are you?" she asked softly. "We were all worried sick about you last night."
"I don't know," I said with my hands. She started to smile and stopped.
"Why are you doing that?" she asked.
"Doing what?" I signed. She seemed to understand.
"Why are you doing that stuff with your hands, sign language?" she asked. "Has something happened to your voice? Can't you talk?"
I shook my head. She just stared at me, her face so thin her eyes looked like they were floating in their sockets. I could even see the bones in her jaw and cheeks through her thin skin. A thought brought a strange, soft smile to her thin lips.
"You look like you don't remember me," she said and then asked, "Do you?" I shook my head again. "I'm Mary Beth."
"Who am I?" I asked her, pointing to myself and then raising my hands and shaking my head to make her understand my question.
"You don't know who you are?" After I shook my head emphatically, she said, "You're Laura Logan. I don't know anything else about you because you didn't remember anything to tell us when you first came here," she said. "This is terrible," she added, gazing down the hall and looking for someone, as if I were hurt and bleeding.
I rubbed my stomach and indicated my mouth.
"You're hungry?"