Chapter 10
I sat on the edge of my bed as my thumbnail dug into the soft flesh of my hand. I looked at the indentations my nail made on my pale skin. Little red crescent shapes from each dig into my flesh. It didn’t hurt. It was a soothing pierce and I sucked in my breath with each push into myself as it revitalized me. Soon my skin was littered with red marks. I let my index finger graze over them as they began to fade away.
I took in another deep breath and felt my heart rapidly pulsate inside of me. I was sure I had developed an arrhythmia while I sat there because my heart felt unsteady and I figured it had been skipping beats. My heart felt like it was jumping and every few moments, I swear it jumped out of sequence. Either way, it was pounding on my chest like a set of drums being hammered on by emotional human fists. And then it stopped altogether, along with my breathing, and the light went dark in my room as the presence of others stood in the doorway. I gasped for air and as I found my breath, I turned to them and instantly my head fell to my hands with an exasperation of weeping tears.
"Mom," I cried. My body threw itself up and down with each sob.
"Oh, Annalyn!" She threw her arms around me and pulled me into a tight hug. "Oh, my girl, my baby. Oh!"
Our body soon became in sync as we sobbed together, enmeshed in each other’s arms. My heart began to beat again, my breathing came back, and I just let myself fall into her embrace.
"I’m sorry," I sobbed into her soft white sweater. "I’m so sorry, mommy."
"Shh... There’s no need to apologize. We’ve been so worried about you,” she said as she began to trail kisses on my forehead as she held my head in her hands, my hair entangled in her fingers.
“I screwed up, mommy. I’m so sorry. You have to save me from these people. Take me home, please.” I let the last word stretch out as a child begging would.
She kissed my forehead one last time and I felt her breath sigh on my skin for a moment before she pulled away and held my face in her soft hands. She smiled, tears streaming down her face, her eyes serious and her forehead wrinkled with concern. She blinked away her tears and then spoke.
“We can’t take you home, baby. Not today. But soon. I promise. Soon.”
“No, mommy. I’m sorry. I’ll be good. Please take me home. Please.” I sobbed into her hands.
“The doctors are making you stay here. They say they can do that because you need treatment. I’m so sorry, I want to take you home, I really do, my precious little girl.”
“Oh mom, please please! Don’t make me stay here.” My voice grew shrill as my heart began skipping beats again, this time more furiously.
“I’m sorry,” her voice broke as the tears flowed down her face.
“We can get lawyers. We can fight this.” His loud thundering voice echoed into my head as I shuddered. I had forgotten his presence in the midst of my mother’s love.
“No, Neil. We can’t. You know she needs to stay here,” my mom said turning to him, pleading with him to understand what I knew she didn’t want to say.
“Maggie, she can’t stay here. We can’t ensure her safety if she is here. We can’t trust these people!”
“Mommy, please!” I cried.
“No. Annalyn, my sweet girl. You know I love you very much, but you need to stay here.” My mom let her finger graze over my tearstained face.
“No, mommy! I love you. Please don’t make me stay here. Mommy please!” My throat grew scratchy with my thrill pleads.
“Annalyn, I will call our lawyer. We’ll have you out within a day.”
“Neil! She has to stay here," she snapped.
“Maggie!” My father stamped his foot.
“No. I am not going to just sit by while you take her out of here. She needs treatment.” She turned to me. “You are not well, Annalyn. You need to see that. Please don’t see this as punishment. You are sick. You need doctors and nurses to make you better. Please see that.” Her voice was firm.
“Mommy, no.” I whimpered.
“I’m so sorry. I love you so much. Please see that you need help.” I shook my head as she tried to cup my face in her hands.
“Maggie, let’s go. I’m calling a lawyer. Annalyn, I’ll be in touch.” He headed out the door, the door to which he never fully entered, and waved at her to follow.
“No! No, please! Please don’t leave me here!” I screamed as I rushed to him and pulled him by the arm.
“Annalyn, you will be out by tomorrow. Just trust me,” my dad spoke insistently.
“No. Dad, please. You don’t know what they do to me. They lock me in a dark room and drug me. Please. They might kill me. You have to take me with you. Please!” I pulled on his arm, trying to drag his solid body to my room.
“I can’t very well call the lawyer if I am here, now can I? Be rational. I’ll have you out in a day. You can survive until then. They won’t hurt you because they know if they screw around with you, I’ll have their heads. I wouldn’t rest until their bodies were ground into pulp.”
I nodded as I cried and let go of his strong arm. I felt my mom’s touch on my shaking hands.
“You will be okay. I will be back tomorrow to see you,” she said with a broken smile. She brushed the hair out of my face and let her thumbs wipe away my tears.
I couldn’t speak as they walked away from me. I stood there in the hallway as the salty tears streamed down my face and stung the chapped skin of my lips. I watched them disappear through the locked doors.
It was a rare thing to hear my mom stand up to my dad like she did that afternoon. As I sat on my bed, I wondered what the consequences would be for her. Would he scream at her while she repeated “I’m sorry” over and over again? Would he stew in quiet anger while the intensity of the house grew to a thickness only a butcher’s knife could cut? Would he suddenly snap? Break her in half like a twig. Or shatter her spirit like he did time and time again. Crumble her into fear, fear of speaking the truth, or angering the beast, fear of being anything other than that happy façade. My mother breathed fear.
I remember the first time I realized she was afraid of my father. I was six.
“I’m tired. I don’t want to walk back,” Lydia complained as she stamped her feet and shuffled behind. Her bratty eyes rolled as she crossed her arms.
“Let’s take a short cut then, sweetheart. We can walk along the train tracks,” Mom told her.
“No, I don’t wanna. Trains are scary!” I whimpered as I pulled my mom’s arm towards the trail.
“Don’t be a baby, stupid head,” Lydia said as she stuck out her tongue and then ran off ahead towards the tracks.
I looked back at the woods with the trail covered in bark mulch. I lingered there, staring at it in protest of going ahead. Her soft hand took my little one as she led me towards the tracks. I looked up at my mother as my bottom lip puckered out.
“It will be okay, sweetie. Come along.”
The tracks looked daunting as the parallel lines drew ahead, appearing to merge into each other.
“I can’t see our car. It’s too far this way. Let’s go back, mommy.”
“Come along, Annalyn. This way is shorter.” Mom pointed ahead to a group of bushy green trees. “Look over there. The parking lot is just behind those trees.”
She held my hand as my sister skipped ahead of us by several metres, waving her arms in the air. Soon she began to walk along the track, balancing on it as she kept falling off.
I glanced at my mom nervously and held her hand tight, my palm pushing into hers. I let go as I saw a creek up ahead. The train tracks turned into a bridge over top of it. My heart pounded as my guts felt like they were crushing inside of me. I walked faster towards the bridge, getting ahead of my sister. The other side was freedom, a trail at end of it leading back into the woods.
“Train!” Lydia screeched.
I looked. I panicked. My heart leapt inside my chest and I screamed “Train!”
Ahead was
a train coming towards us.
Mom came up behind us and grabbed both of our hands, yanking us along as she ran across the train bridge. I screamed inside my head but no words would come out my mouth as I breathed heavily. We got to the gravel path and ran down it as the roaring of the tracks shook beside us. Shearing of metal on metal, sharp wheels tearing ahead, wind passing us, my hair blowing in my face as I looked back at the brown rusty cars speeding by. Ahead there was a chain-link fence and mom helped Lydia climb it. She lifted me over it as my heart jumped five paces ahead of me.
“Come on!” Lydia yelled as she grabbed my hand and led me away from the fence. Mom climbed over and hurried towards us, pulling us towards her as she huddled onto us.
“We’re okay,” she said breathlessly. “We’re okay.” She breathed heavily for a moment and then bent down to me, brushing the piece of hair that was sticking to my lips aside. She held onto both my hands and smiled at me as tears streamed down my hot face and the salt tickled the tip of my tongue as I licked my lips.
“It’s okay, sweetie.” Her eyes were glossing over but she never let the tears fall as she kept on smiling, her forehead wrinkled as her eyebrows scrunched together. “Lydia, come here.” She let go of one of my hands as she pulled Lydia close to us. Lydia didn’t speak. Her wide eyes were glossed over too. She turned around and showed Mom a rip in the seat of her purple sweatpants from climbing over the fence. My mouth rounded as I mouthed the words “uh oh”.
“Don’t worry about it, okay,” Mom said as she graced her hand over Lydia’s flush face. Mom looked at me and then again at Lydia, her eyes grave but a smile was forcing itself onto her face. “Let’s not tell your father this,” she said in a quivering voice that tried to sound positive and happy. We both nodded. She tightened her grip on my hand as she swung our arms back and forth for a moment. Mom smiled and got up, guiding us both down the path towards the parking lot.
I never told. Whenever a train screeches by me, I shudder and my heart jumps inside my chest. As they go by, I’m screaming inside.
I remember rumbles through the floor that night as I stuck my ear down to the scratchy carpet. I listened to the muffled voices that yelled and screamed and cried from downstairs. Garbled sounds like grumbles that quaked the ground. It felt like quakes even if voices can’t do that. My stomach churned inside like on a topsy-turvy ride. Lydia turned to me with her index finger at her mouth. Shhh. She held her ear to the carpet.
“They’re coming!” she cried in a whisper. Tugging onto me, she raced to her bed and jumped under the covers. I looked at her wide eyed and frozen. “Come on!”
I jumped up as my heart leapt and zoomed to my bed, slipping under the purple butterfly quilt Mom had made me. I shook as I lay there, breath held, my eyes hidden behind tightly squished eyelids.
Footsteps. Stomping. Soon the yelling started up again. I could hear what they were saying now.
“Maggie, I just don’t understand why her pants got ripped. How irresponsible are you?” My dad’s voice growled on the other side of the door.
“Neil, they are just pants. Let it go.” She was crying.
“My mother bought her those pants for her birthday. They aren’t just pants.”
“Let it go, please.” She pleaded with him. I could imagine her now, red faced with tears streaming down as she whimpered for forgiveness.
My heart thumped inside me as the beating echoed inside my ears.
“Do you think they’ll get divorced?” I asked in a cringing whisper to Lydia whose bed was parallel to mine. I poked my head out from under the covers.
“Shhh, they might hear you!”
“I don’t want them to get divorced!” I cried as the tears spilled down my face.
I heard a sigh and soon my sister was climbing under the covers next to me. I felt her warm body squish against me as she took my hand.
“It’ll be okay,” she whispered. “I promise.”
I blinked away the tears as I heard the snarls of my father when they passed by our room. Then I heard a faint slap. Then “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry...” from her quivering voice. I huddled closer to my sister as our hands gripped tighter in sweaty palms. I could feel her shivering body.
“It will be okay. I promise,” Lydia said in a broken squeaky whisper. “I promise.”
I woke up the next morning to a smashed vase in the living room and fresh flowers on the table. Smiling faces on parents, and hugs and kisses. Janey cuddled in her basinet as my parents gushed over all three of us. They would say none of the night before had happened, it was all bad dreams, but I knew the truth. I knew his lies and my mother’s fear.
“Do you feel you have any unusual powers?”
I rolled my eyes. It wasn’t the first time I had been asked that question since I arrived in the hospital five or six days ago. I tilted my head and crossed my arms as I stared past the psychiatrist’s balding head.
“Annalyn, can you answer my question?” he asked.
“It’s a stupid question that I answered a few days ago. I also said I don’t answer stupid questions.” My voice was sharp and detesting.
There was a window behind him and the sky was white-grey with cloud coverage. I couldn’t tell if it was raining from where I sat. It rained a lot though. The October rain was setting in. It would likely be another ten months before the sunshine became a regular part of our lives again. I stared out and noticed that the clouds were bright.
“I can tell that you are frustrated by these questions but they are standard questions we ask everyone in order to assess them,” he told me.
I didn’t want to look directly into his eyes but I could tell they were dark with circles around them and a bit red too. I wondered if he worked a lot. His voice was rather monotone, lacking in any sort of warmth. It was a tired and strained voice. I think he was more frustrated with me than I was with him. I had given him the same resistance the first time I saw him (which was the only time until now).
“I can fly to the moon,” I answered in a piercing tone, my eyes narrowing at him. He wrote down something in his notes, chicken scratch in black ink on blue lined paper.
“Have you felt suspicious around people?”
“I don’t trust anyone here. How can I? Your damn nurses drug me, drag me into seclusion rooms, turn the lights off and make me sleep on a vinyl mattress with only a crappy heavy blanket that is completely lacking in softness or comfort!” I yelled at him until my breath ran out.
He kept writing. I realized later I was probably giving him a lot of fuel to keep me here.
“I understand that has happened once since you came to the ward. The nurses informed me that you were screaming at them and resisting their attempts to calm you down.”
“So that’s what happens when you don’t obey them? That’s how it’s going to be?”
“Are you feeling angry, Annalyn?” His voice never changed from the dull tone it started off as.
“You, with all your education, your medical degree, can’t figure out that I’m furious just by looking at me?” I stared into his eyes with a hard glare.
"We are trying to help you, Annalyn. It is hard to do that when you maintain a hostile attitude towards us.” He glanced at me for only a second before scribbling down some more illegible notes.
“You want to know the truth, Doctor… whatever the hell your name is?!”
“Dr. Sewick—”
“Well, Dr. Sewick, I’d like to tell you that I am absolutely miserable,” I said in a rapid voice. “I’ve never been so miserable in my life and I owe it all to you and your team of depraved nurses!”
“What issues do you have with the nurses? Maybe we can solve your problem with them,” he said in a suddenly uplifted voice, full of spark and motivation. I wondered if he was somehow mocking me.
“Sir,” I said callously, “they come at me with a cup of pills every morning and night. Sometimes needles too. They jab them in my butt
while they hold me down and then drag me off to hell in that dark room. That is one of my problems,” I emphasized, “with them. Also, they pretend to be nice but really they want to imprison me in here, just like you. Oh and by the way, I also have a problem with you.”
He gave a little sigh before adjusting his glasses which looked like they came off Clark Kent’s face. “Everything the nurses do is for your own benefit. When you make more progress in your recovery, you will likely see that. I do hear from them that you are making some progress. They tell me that you have been taking the medications and have not been in seclusion since the first day you got here. You should feel good about that.”
“I do it out of fear.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” He went back to his notes. “I’m going to keep you on level one right now. I am concerned that you might try to leave the hospital and I’m not sure that you aren’t a risk of hurting yourself or anyone else at this point."
“Fine.”
“Thank you for talking to me, Annalyn. If you have any concerns, you may bring them to your nurse.” I turned away quickly, rushing out the door and heaving a big sigh as I got away from him and the nurse (whom I didn’t know but supposedly she would be ‘taking care of me’ that day). I walked back to my room and moped in bed for the rest of the day.
I had been in contact with my parents several times on the phone since I saw them a few days ago. But they hadn’t been by to see me and I was beginning to feel rather suspicious of this. Mom showered me with love each phone call. Lots of “I love you so much, sweetie,” and “it will be okay, I promise.” My dad’s phone calls were business. He would talk about how he had spoken with the lawyer again that day. He never told me what the lawyer actually said though. At the end of each phone call, full of unemotional and stern business talk, he would tell me "I promise." "I promise to get you out of there." "I promise I won’t let them hurt you. I’ll break their heads off if they do. I’ll have their jobs if they do." "I promise..." It was their promises I hated. Life was full of broken promises and it seemed futile to bother with promises anymore. It had been four days since he first promised to get me out of here and I was beginning to wonder if it would ever happen.
My heart ached with dejection at being imprisoned behind these windows. Though there were no bars on the windows, I could not breath the air on the other side, I could not taste the freedom that I feared I would never have again.
My father finally came that afternoon. He walked into my room to find me laying in bed under the covers, my hair greasy and messed up, wearing a thin blue polka dotted hospital gown and stubbly legs.
“How are you feeling?” he asked in a grim voice as he pulled up a maroon plastic chair that had been sitting in the corner.
I sighed. What was I supposed to say? “Dad, I want to go home. Please tell me I am going home today.” I kept my voice even and calm, never forgetting that this was my father I was talking to.
He looked down. Sighed heavily. Then looked up at me with deep eyes filled with an empathy I never knew from him.
“I never told your mother this. Certainly never told you girls." His eyes drooped to the ground. "But I’ve been in your situation before.”
My eyes bulged with shock. “What?” I crinkled up my forehead in disbelief.
He spoke slowly and steadily as the shame spilled out of his mouth. “Yes. I have been in a psychiatric ward. I was seventeen and living in Calgary at the time, as you know I grew up there.”
“But Dad, I mean, I just... can’t believe it. You never said anything. You never even told Mom.” I stuttered through words with incredulity seeping out of my eyes.
“I was ashamed. I imagine you must be feeling the same thing. Or you will at some point. It is not something I ever wanted to speak about. After I was discharged, I spent the remaining months of my youth in my parents’ house and then moved west. I left behind that life, those people that thought of me as sick. I packed up and left and started a new life. I didn’t bother with their treatments or their medications. I didn’t bother with the notion that I was an ill person. I moved on and so will you.” His eyes glistened with tears he was refusing to let fall. He stared past me at the wall, never once making eye contact, as he spoke.
“Dad. I doubt you want me to ask this,” I hesitated as I felt a twinge in my guts, “but what was wrong with you?”
“Nothing.” He fiddled with his thumbs in his lap and then got up and stood at the window, looking out.
“I mean why did they think there was something wrong with you? I mean what did they think it was?” My hands trembled a little, the skin around my eyes crinkling as I looked at him.
He shook his head and sighed. He kept staring out of the window. There was silence for a few minutes. I waited for him to speak as my own eyes began to water.
“Annalyn, I’ve spoken with the lawyer. There is enough evidence to hold you here. They claim you attacked a police officer. Your mother, Lexie,” he sighed, shaking his head, and glanced at me for a second and looked back at the window, “They disagree with me on your health. They insist that you are not well. Your mother,” I saw him swallow hard as he blinked away the tears. “She will not let me pursue this matter. She has stood up to me on this. She has threatened to leave and take you somewhere for treatment where I cannot interfere.”
“Mom did that?” My voice squeaked.
He sighed and nodded. “I have not always been a good husband to her but she and you girls are my life and I cannot risk losing you.” He was awkward, refusing to look my way. He continued to stare out the window. I watched him, my eyes wide and my forehead wrinkled. My face only grew more crinkled as I looked into the corner of his eye as it avoided me.
“I understand. You don’t need to rescue me, Dad. I mean, I understand that you can’t save me.” I choked back the tears, fighting them with all my will for he was my father, the stern man, the man you didn’t cry to. But I cried. The tears spilled out of my eyes like a river down my cheeks. “Dad, I’m sorry. I never meant to disappoint you and that is all I have been. I’ve never been what you wanted.”
“No!” He turned and look straight into my eyes for the first time that day. “You are mine. My life. My princess. The little girl I had tea parties with.” He turned away as a tear fell down his cheek. Sniffled and wiped it away. His voice became calm and rational once more. “I won’t let this unfortunate turn of events come between our family.”
“I won’t either.” I let a meager smile creep out on my wet face. I wiped away my tears and took in a deep breath, nodding to myself.
“I have some business to attend to. I must leave,” he said hastily.
He looked at me, nodding goodbye, and turned towards the door. One last glance, his face full of fear and heartache. I nodded to him as he left. Then I rushed to the door as he disappeared down the hallway and the nurse let him out the locked door, swiping it with her key card. I went to my window and looked out at the rain as it beat on the glass. Seeing my reflection in the window, seeing my father’s eyes in my face, I smiled. He was my father.
It had been a week since I came to the ward and though I spent most of my days lying in bed feeling the weight of my sorrow in my chest. I decided to do something different this morning. It was all because of something fuzzy and warm. She had come up to me, her golden fur shining in the light from the window, and poked her wet slimy nose into my hand. I instantly smiled and stroked the fur around her ears.
"I think she’s found a new friend," the woman with her said with a warm smile.
"What’s her name?" My voice perked up.
"Lucy. She’s a therapy dog. She goes around the hospital and brings smiles to people’s faces. I can tell she likes you. You have a way with her. My name is Pat by the way." The woman had sparkling brown eyes with warm brown skin and black hair.
I bent down and reached my arms around Lucy’s neck, giving her a big hug. "I always wanted a dog but my older sister
was afraid of dogs. How could you be afraid of something as precious as her though?" I said as I eagerly ran my hands through her luscious fur.
"Lucy and I are trying to find some people for art therapy today. Would you like to come?"
I hesitated but then the dog nudged me and my heart thudded happily. "Well, if Lucy wants me to, then I guess I better." I smiled and followed them to a room at the other end of the hallway.
"There’s lots of different art supplies here that you can work on for the next hour. Have a look around. You’re allowed to come and go as you please while the room is open." I nodded and bent down to Lucy, rubbing her ears.
"Well, what should I do, Lucy?" I looked around the room and noticed an easel. "I think I’ll draw a picture."
I set up a piece of white fresh paper on the easel and got a sharpened art pencil. I sketched the head of a dog, each stroke diligently placed the way I remembered her as she first brought that smile to my face. I let my hand ease across the paper with the pencil, shading in parts. I pushed the pencil harder into the paper as I drew in her expressive dark eyes and then her slimy nose. I felt a tickle on my hand as I thought of it against my skin. Her gentle white teeth glimmered on the paper as her tongue stuck out and I shaded it in lightly. Her smile was radiant. After about a half an hour it was almost complete.
"That’s nice." A girl came up behind me.
"Thanks," I let a small smile creep on my face.
"I really like dogs," she said. I looked at her, seeing her sad blue and red eyes brighten up. She looked like she wanted to smile but it was as if she couldn’t.
"I’m finished it." I took the picture of the easel and handed it to the girl who was about my age but shorter and thinner. She was pale and scraggly but I could tell she was probably very pretty. I smiled at her as her eyes glistened when she looked at the picture.
"Thank you." Her voice was very quiet, very meek.
"You’re welcome. I’m gonna go find the real Lucy."
I walked around the brightly lit room with yellow, green, and pink painted walls, patient-made sketches and paintings decorating it. Lucy was gone as my heart dropped inside my chest. Suddenly she came jaunting back into the room with the same radiant smile, panting with her tongue out as she greeted everyone.
“Lucy!” I smiled as I hugged her closely. She started licking my hand with her warm wet tongue. “You’re so sweet, you know that.” I let go and began scratching her ears. “Such a pretty girl.”
“We’re scheduled somewhere else now but perhaps she’ll see you later in the week.”
I patted the dog goodbye and felt my heart flutter as I watched her leave. I waved goodbye longing to have her warm body cuddled up against me in this cold place.