“Yes,” I whispered. “That would be great.” Really great. Because when he woke up from his nap, he’d start bugging me about the first chapter. And I had my own first chapter to deal with. First chapter? I still hadn’t come up with the story. Untitled Work in Progress was not a catchy title for a book.
“Then I’ll take care of it. I’ll call Archibald over at the law office and ask him what we should do. If one of the lawyers he works for can deal with this, then we can avoid an uncomfortable confrontation.”
Like getting knocked off your feet? Should I tell her about that? She’d call the police and then there’d be a huge scene. And what evidence did I have? “Thanks,” I told her.
There was no shortage of hugs in my world, because Mrs. Bobot tended to deliver them throughout the day at regular intervals. As she hugged me then and there, I felt so much better. She’d make things right, I knew, as she hurried to her apartment, her steps determined, her gray hair swinging. Mrs. Bobot would make the whole Errol thing go away.
I started down the stairs. The front entry to the apartment building was still propped open, sunshine streaming in. Tony Lee had skated past earlier. According to Realm, he’d asked about me. After my fall at the library, he’d felt the back of my head and had looked into my eyes. He’d make a great doctor one day. Tony was probably the nicest, cutest boy in the world. He was a stroke of normal in the surrealist painting that was my life.
“Watch it,” one of the moving guys said as the pair headed up the stairs, carrying a grandfather clock. I flattened myself against the railing as they squeezed past.
That’s when I noticed it—a reddish haze that floated around the second man’s head. It wasn’t a shadow from the stained glass window because it clung to the man, moving where he moved. As he passed by, I reached out to touch the haze, then changed my mind. Squeezing my eyes closed, I told the haze to go away. When I opened my eyes, the man had reached the top step and the haze had disappeared. An illusion. Nothing more.
I tossed the melted flip-flops into the garbage. Archibald had scrubbed the lipstick love notes from the bathroom walls. Most had come clean, except for a few stubborn pink stains. He’d left a bottle of cleaner with a note, “Wash that man right off of your walls.” I showered, then brushed my teeth and gargled, chasing away the lingering aftertaste of the lovesickness antidote. What would Craig, the clam juice manufacturer, think about this unique use of his product?
Dressed in a clean pair of shorts and purple tank top, and having eaten a couple of bowls of Archibald’s leftover chow mein, I cleared the papers from my mother’s desk, including Death Cat, which Realm had once again removed from the junk mailbox. She’d also left a note: “Read this! You promised!”
I never promised. Never. I’d lied, but that’s different from a promise. I sneered at Realm’s name, written on the title page of her manuscript. Who would want to read a book about a cat that murders people? But what really bugged me was the fact that Realm had written a book. An entire book from beginning to end. Well, if she could do it, then so could I.
The editorial assistant from Heartstrings Publishers had left a phone message. Everyone at the publishing house was very excited about the new book. Was there a title? They’d love to know the title as soon as possible.
I collected the writing guidebooks and propped them on the desk. I got out my pen and notebook, then sat in the swivel chair. I sat very still, trying to clear my mind of everything that had happened that morning. What, what, what would the story be about? Love, of course. True love. I tapped the pen on the desk. But who is the hero? What’s her name? What does she do? Where does she live? I chewed on the pen. Who is her true love? What’s his name? What does he do? I tore little pieces off the edge of the paper, creating a pile of snow.
I looked over at my mother’s books. She always started her stories with the heroine and hero meeting. In Love’s Like a Bit of Heaven, Trixie Everlast was eating a pomegranate and she choked and Van Diamond saved her. In Love Is a Mountain, Felicity Fairweather was skiing in the Alps and she tumbled into a ravine and Baron Hans Helmeister rescued her. And in Love on the Savannah, Phillipa Willowsby was almost crushed by a rampaging black rhino when Maximus Steele, big game hunter, shot the rhino with a tranquilizer dart.
What should my girl be doing? Should she be standing at her window, watching her fantasy boyfriend skate by—too scared to talk to him? Should she go to the library because she’s got this crazy idea that she can be a writer and then she runs into her fantasy boyfriend at the library? And just when he’s about to ask her out, should some freak shoot her with an arrow?
Yeah. Right. What kind of story was that? Not a romance novel, that’s for sure.
The paper snow pile grew. Sweat broke out on the back of my neck. I turned on the air conditioner.
It made perfect sense that Realm had written a horror novel, because she had the personality of a vicious troll. But who was I kidding? It was one thing to know the rules of romance, another thing entirely to understand romance. I didn’t have a clue. Me, the girl who spent most every night watching TV or hanging out with old people. What did I know about love? What did I know about writing? I couldn’t even write the first line, for God’s sake. Anyone Can Write a Romance Novel was a big fat lie. Somebody should sue that publisher.
As I tapped my pen on the desk, my thoughts drifted, and I soon found myself not thinking about Untitled Work in Progress but about the undeniably freaky stuff that I’d just been through. I’d kissed Errol. What was wrong with me? Sure, he was handsome, but the creepiness factor outweighed the handsome factor. My behavior had been totally irrational—as irrational as anything my mother had ever done. And I couldn’t deny that I’d heard Errol’s voice in my head. Hearing voices wasn’t normally listed as a symptom of bipolar disorder, but extreme forms of mania and depression, which my mother suffered from, could bring about hallucinations, both visual and vocal.
Had my mother ever heard voices? I could ask but she wouldn’t answer. She hadn’t spoken a word to me in weeks. But there was one other person who might know. And I hadn’t yet made my morning call to the hospital.
“Hello, can I speak to Dr. Diesel?”
Dr. Diesel was on rounds and not available to come to the phone. I rested my head on the desk, which was cold against my cheek. My disappointed sigh scattered the snow pile. “It’s really important. Would you tell him I called?”
The receptionist then forwarded my call to the cafeteria where my mother was having a late breakfast. “She’s got some orange juice and a banana muffin,” the nurse told me, setting the scene as she probably did for other families. “And she’s wearing her periwinkle bathrobe and her hair is pulled back into that lovely new hair clip that Mrs. Bobot gave her. She’s looking at me right now. She knows you’re on the phone. Here she is.”
I didn’t know if my mother was actually holding the phone or if the assistant was pressing it to her ear. “Hi, Mom,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm. I wouldn’t mention Velvet or Errol, or the spider bite, or the publisher’s deadline. Or the possibility that I would soon be admitted to the hospital and we could sit side by side, staring into oblivion together. “I just wanted to say hi,” I said.
“Alice.”
I bolted upright. The voice had been barely audible, but it was her voice, no doubt about it. “Mom? Oh, Mom, hi. Hi.” My lower lids filled with tears. This was a good sign. A very good sign. “How are you feeling?”
She said nothing, but it didn’t matter. That one word, with its two consonants and three vowels had meant everything to me.
I didn’t want to put any pressure on her, so I filled the rest of the call with small talk. “It’s another hot day. We’re having a heat wave. Archibald made chow mein yesterday. The reverend’s been busy with his church meetings. Realm came for her visit. Mrs. Bobot’s taking good care of me. There’s a new antique store called Lee’s Antiquities. I think you’ll like it. It’s different.” I pushed aside the questi
ons I desperately wanted to ask. Mom, did you ever hear voices? Did you ever see colors floating around people’s heads? Instead I said, “I love you. I miss you. Hope you can come home soon.”
Please come home soon.
“This is wonderful,” the nurse told me. “She nodded and listened to everything you said. I think it was your voice, Alice. Your voice managed to break through to her.”
I closed the phone and grabbed my backpack purse. Mom had spoken. She’d listened. My voice had cut through the darkness. If she saw me in person, she might wake up even more.
Thursday was grocery shopping day for Mrs. Bobot. Archibald was at work and Reverend Ruttles would soon be off to one of his meetings. They couldn’t get angry at me for not asking for a ride. My voice had broken through! I wanted to see my mother, alone. Just the two of us. I needed to hear her voice again. And I’d get through to her again. I knew I would.
So I slipped a note into Mrs. Bobot’s mailbox and left the building.
The bus dropped me off at the Mukilteo ferry terminal. “Bye,” I said to the little boy who’d been sitting across the aisle from me. He smelled like peanut butter and fabric softener, which was kind of nice. He’d spent the entire ride killing robots on a tiny screen while his mom had read a magazine. I’d spent the entire ride staring at a blank notebook page and chewing on my pen.
It was too hot for clam chowder at Ivar’s fish and chip stand. Besides, I’d lost my taste for clams, so I grabbed lemonade instead. Sunlight glistened on calm water as I sat on the ferry’s upper deck. When the boat picked up speed, a nice breeze blew through my hair. The other passengers were putting on sunblock, taking photos, sipping from water bottles. How many of them had scrawled things on their bathroom walls yesterday? How many had thrown themselves at a guy they didn’t even know? How many had to write an entire novel by the end of the summer?
At one o’clock on that Thursday afternoon, after getting off the ferry, I caught the Whidbey Island shuttle bus. During the ride, the driver pointed out the island’s tallest tree and a honey farm. Then he dropped me at the end of Harmony Hospital’s driveway. After the bus’s exhaust cleared, I took a long breath. My mother had said my name. She’d listened to my voice. The new medication was doing its job and was changing her brain’s chemistry. I’d come to help wake her up—to rescue her. But I’d also come to rescue myself.
Up the winding, single-lane road I walked. I imagined the lumber baron stumbling around, desperate with grief, trying to replant the trees. He’d done a good job, because the sun was having trouble breaking through the dense, leafy canopy. Trunks stood at silent attention as deep as the eye could see. Not a car passed by. The birds fell silent as my tennis shoes beat an anxious rhythm. The eagerness of the forest was palpable, its undergrowth pressing against the sides of the road. If people disappeared, how long would it take nature to reclaim the pavement, roots crumbling the cement like dried clay?
“I’m here to visit my mother, Belinda Amorous,” I told the receptionist, a woman I didn’t know, since Thursday wasn’t my normal visiting day. I had to show her my old Welmer Girls Academy ID.
“She’s probably at the concert. Over in the conservatory.”
I pinned the plastic visitor tag to my tank top. What if I lost it? Young lady, we’ve been looking for you. It’s time for your medication. I made sure the word “visitor” faced the right direction.
A local quartet had come to perform a selection of Baroque music that afternoon for the patients. Music soothes the savage beast, so they say. It soothes other beasts as well—stress, fear, self-doubt, you name it. Which is why much of the staff had gathered, too, to close their eyes and absorb the clear notes as they soared from the instruments like welcome raindrops on that searing day.
My mother wasn’t in the conservatory. “She’s taking a nap,” a nursing aide told me. I started down the hallway. “No, not that way. She’s been moved to a different room.”
“What? Why?”
The aide shrugged. “All I know is that they moved her from a private room to a shared room.”
I tucked my sunglasses into my purse. Everything always came down to money. You had it or you didn’t have it. Didn’t matter that my mother had written thirty novels, that she’d entertained countless readers on airplanes, in waiting rooms, and alongside resort pools—a private room in a private mental health facility was reserved for those who could pay the monthly bill. End of story.
“I sure liked her book Love on the Savannah,” the aide told me as she led the way. “That Maximus Steele was a total jerk, but he ended up being such a nice guy.”
A security guard sat outside a private room. Some big celebrity had just been admitted and had come with his own entourage. The curtains were drawn in my mother’s new room. Her roommate was apparently enjoying the concert. Family photos of a bald husband and five well-fed kids sat on the dresser. My mother was asleep in the bed by the window. I wanted to shake her awake. I’m here. Talk to me. You’re getting better, right? Tell me you’re getting better.
“Alice?” Dr. Diesel stepped into the room. “I’m surprised to see you today,” he whispered.
“I want to see my mom,” I whispered back.
“Well …” He tucked the chart under his arm and thought for a moment. “Her sleep schedule is a bit messed up. Drowsiness is one of the new medication’s side effects. I understand she was a bit agitated last night. I think it’s best we let her sleep. Do you want to get something to eat in the dining room and then come back?”
“She said my name this morning,” I told him.
“Yes, that’s what I heard. Such good news.” Then he frowned. “I spoke to the hospital’s director. I’m afraid I wasn’t able to convince him to give your mother more time to pay her bill. But I had her moved to this room to help lower your costs. She didn’t seem to mind.”
“Oh.” I fiddled with my visitor tag. “Dr. Diesel? Can we talk?”
“Yes, of course.”
A pair of nurses stood within earshot. “Could we go somewhere … private?”
“Certainly. Let’s go to my office.”
I’d never paid much attention to the framed diplomas in Dr. Diesel’s office. I’d always been too freaked out to notice much of anything in there. But I was glad to see they weren’t just paper rectangles with fancy gold seals—they were proof that he’d gone to school for a very long time, proof that he knew stuff I didn’t know. Hope had propelled me to Harmony Hospital on that Thursday afternoon, but fear led me to the doctor’s leather couch, which squeaked when I sat.
Dr. Diesel settled into a high-backed chair and folded his hands on his desk. A bust of Sigmund Freud watched from the corner. “What’s on your mind?”
I crossed my legs, then crossed them the other way. Just ask the question. Ask it! “Dr. Diesel, did my mother ever hear voices?”
He raised his graying eyebrows. “Why do you want to know this?”
“Because I just want to know.”
He tapped his index finger on the desk. Once. Twice. “Well, I don’t think it would breech doctor-patient confidentiality to tell you that vocal hallucinations are not part of your mother’s illness.” He leaned forward and stared at me with such intensity that I wouldn’t have been surprised if he could actually see past my skull and into my brain. “Are you hearing voices?”
I shifted my legs again. Why couldn’t I get comfortable? “No. Why would I be hearing voices?”
He widened his eyes.
“I’m not,” I said. “I’m just wondering.” Then I looked away, focusing on the smoothness of Sigmund Freud’s plaster head. The two shrinks stared at me, willing me to spill my deepest, darkest fear. What was worse—not knowing or knowing? Hiding from the truth or facing it? “Maybe I heard something.”
Dr. Diesel picked up a pen. “Tell me about this voice.”
Fully aware that I was going to sound like a lunatic, and more than a bit worried that the visitor badge might be replaced by a patient bad
ge, I took the plunge. “It’s this weird guy who moved into my building. His name is Errol and he wants me to help him write a book. He thinks he’s Cupid. Isn’t that idiotic?”
Dr. Diesel said nothing.
“Anyway, it was his voice I heard, saying ‘Find me’ over and over.”
“When was this?”
“Yesterday.”
“Had anything unusual happened yesterday?”
“Yeah. A brown recluse spider bit me and the poison made me act weird. That’s what my doctor said. But Errol says that he shot me with an invisible arrow and that’s why I heard his voice. He expects me to believe that.”
“Errol sounds confused.”
“Totally.” I paused. “Why do you think I heard the voice?”
“The question is, why do you think you heard the voice?”
“Because …” I took a long breath. “I think I’ve inherited my mother’s illness.” My eyes welled with tears and before I could fight them, they streamed down my cheeks and my shoulders started to shake. I was a complete wreck. Dr. Diesel pulled a tissue from a box, then walked around the desk and handed it to me. As I wiped my eyes, he sat in the couch’s matching armchair.
“Do you hear his voice now?”
“No. It’s gone.”
“And this was the first time you’d heard a voice in your head?”
“Yes.” I crumpled the tissue and waited for the diagnosis as one waits for a guillotine’s blade to fall—the result being equally permanent. The life I’d known would abruptly end. Alice Amorous, daughter of Belinda Amorous, you are doomed.
Dr. Diesel tucked the pen back into his pocket and propped his elbows on the chair’s armrests. Then he smiled gently. “Alice, I’ve been diagnosing and treating mental illness for most of my adult life and there’s one thing I know with absolute certainty. Families of severely ill patients go through as much stress, sometimes more stress, than the patients themselves. One of the common offshoots of this stress is to focus on the various symptoms of the illness, then to convince oneself to be suffering the same affliction. First-year medical students do the exact same thing. They read about a horrific disease and they worry that they have the exact same disease.”