30
Five weeks later
It’s amazinghow fast I grow accustomed to the humiliation that accompanies having a useless body. For instance, right now I’m watching in disinterest as the nice orderly changes my diapers.
His name is Ernest. Ah, the irony.
He’s quick and efficient, whistling as he does his work. My pale, scrawny form is just another widget to him, one of dozens he cares for daily in this facility. His large hands protected by blue latex gloves, he cheerfully cleans my ass with a baby wipe as I lay on my side in the hospital bed.
“We gotta watch this pressure sore,” he says, tapping a spot on my butt. “Gettin’ bigger. I’ll need to start shifting your weight around more during the night.”
“Hmm.” I turn my attention to the poster of Frank Sinatra tacked on the wall by the closet door. Ol’ Blue Eyes grins at me from beneath the brim of a fedora, those famous peepers of his the color of a tropical summer sky.
Or, you know, an artist/contract killer’s.
Apparently, Ernest put up the Sinatra poster, though it was Kelly who brought the one of the lavender fields of Provence. I understand the urge to decorate: this place is so sterile it would instantly kill any bug who accidentally wandered in.
“Do I have to go to the lounge today? That place is totally depressing.”
Ernest chuckles. “Ha ha. Depressing. I get it.” Removing a fresh adult diaper from a box underneath the bed, he snaps it open and starts the tedious process of getting me into it, one wasted leg at a time.
“Is that a yes?”
“I don’t make the rules around here, sweetheart. Doc says it’s good for you to socialize with others.”
Others. Thinking of the variety of human misery that word encompasses, I shudder.
“But if it makes you feel better, I’ll take you for a spin around the garden before community group. Deal?”
“If either of us doesn’t want to get into the details of something, we’ll just say, ‘touchy subject.’ It’ll be our safe word. Safe phrase, technically. Deal?”
Remembering James’s words, I have to squeeze my eyes shut and breathe deeply for a moment. His imaginary words live on like beautiful ghosts inside my head.
Every moment with him, in fact, still lives in my head. All our conversations are so vivid. I still feel the warmth of his kisses on my lips. The time I spent with him seems so much more real than this, actual reality.
Cold, horrible, actual reality, in which not only did I accidentally kill my child and I’m married to a man who likes beer way more than me, but also—wait for it—I’m dying.
From what, you ask?
Can’t you guess?
Finished pulling the diapers up around my hips, Ernest drags me upright and props me against his chest as he reaches for the fresh set of pale blue scrubs he laid on the bedside table. I rest my head against his shoulder, marveling that this disease that’s robbed all my muscles of their power has the audacity to leave all my senses intact.
I still see, hear, taste, smell, and feel touch, like the warmth of Ernest’s shoulder against my cheek and his tap on my bottom. And aside from some leftover fuzziness around long-term memories caused by my catatonia that I’m told will go away, my mind is working perfectly.
Which means that when the muscles that control my lungs become paralyzed in the final stages of this disease, I’ll be completely aware that I’m suffocating to death.
With practiced ease, Ernest arranges my limbs and moves me this way and that so I’m quickly dressed in the soft cotton scrubs that have no pesky buttons, zippers, or strings on which the patients might hurt themselves. Then he lifts me from the bed and carefully places me into my waiting wheelchair, propping my feet up on the metal footrests and arranging my hands in my lap. He covers me with the knitted patchwork afghan, tucks it around my thighs, then assesses his work.
When he purses his lips in dissatisfaction, I say, “Don’t tell me—my lipstick’s all over my teeth, isn’t it?”
I’m not wearing makeup, but he plays along, nodding somberly. “You look like you ate a crayon.”
“A crayon would taste better than what they served for dinner last night. Do you think the chef knows that green beans are called green beans for a reason? I’ve never seen that shade of gray in a vegetable before.”
Ernest guffaws. “Chef? That’s generous.” He grabs a wide-toothed comb from the nightstand and begins to run it through my hair, gently working out the tangles.
He’s the one who showers me, too. Soaps me up and rinses me off with brisk impersonality, like I’m a car going through a car wash at the strip mall down the street.
There’s a different wheelchair for the showers. A special waterproof one, with a hole in the middle of the seat so Ernest can reach all the nitty-gritty places that need to be cleaned.
Yeah, good times. I keep praying for another psychotic break to come and save me, but so far I’m shit outta luck.
Once he’s satisfied my hair looks presentable, Ernest wheels me to the main congregating area for the patients, a dayroom ironically called the “lounge” in an effort to make it sound relaxing. The noise level is anything but relaxing, however. People in the throes of mental illness are not a quiet bunch. And whoever decorated it obviously watched the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest for inspiration, because it looks exactly like a room of which the evil Nurse Ratched would approve.
It’s amazing how a space so bare can also manage to be so ugly.
First up, it’s medication time. Ernest wheels me to the dispensary window. It’s reminiscent of a bank teller’s window, complete with a person in uniform sitting behind a thick plexiglass safety shield trying too hard to smile.
“Mornin’, Bernadette.” Ernest salutes the lady with the bad perm behind the plexiglass.
“Howdeedoo, Ernest!” Smiling like mad, she turns her sparkling green eyes to me. “And a grand good morning to you, too, Miss Olivia!”
The woman is always as chipper as a fucking chipmunk. I’d like to reach through the small opening in the window where the medicine is placed and grab her around her throat.
“Your hair looks nice today,” I tell her. “Did you just have it done?”