What She Found in the Woods

‘How the hell should I know? I got clean,’ she says. ‘I know he had a son about seventeen, eighteen years ago, and so he had to be more careful. Then he disappeared. Twelve or thirteen years later, everyone’s talking about Dr Goodnight out in the woods.’ She looks down. ‘Same guy, though. He liked it when people would nod out and not wake up. He used to laugh.’

All the air rushes out of me. In the sub-zero, it looks like a ghost.

‘I said nothing,’ Gina says, fierce now, pointing a finger at me.

‘Where is he?’ I say, grabbing her arm before she can walk away. ‘Gina. Who is he? What’s his real name?’

‘We’re done,’ she says, shaking me off roughly and going for the door. But she’s not angry. She’s scared.

Gina pulls the door open and stops. She sighs and turns back round. ‘Come on. You don’t need to talk in circle time, but you should listen.’

When I don’t immediately follow her, she comes back and puts an arm around me and brings me out with her.

She holds my hand all the way through circle time. Gina is a good person. And she thinks I’m a good person. That’s why she’s trying to protect me, and maybe herself a little, too, by not telling me his real name. She thinks I’m the type who’ll go running to the police, get caught up in the witness thing, and end up dead. And she’d end up dead for telling me.

But I’m not a good person. And I’m not going to the police.

I’m going into the woods.

I knew something was wrong the next morning. They wouldn’t give me my journal back.

The deal was I would give them my journal right before I went to sleep, and it would be returned to me first thing at morning check-in.

But that morning, they gave me a new notebook and told me to keep writing. But I couldn’t. I hadn’t finished all the pages in my last one. You can’t start a new book of your journal with a ton of blank pages left in your old book. You just can’t.

I stood at the door of my r

oom, dangling the foreign object out in front of me like it was a wet cat. I held it towards the door for I don’t know how long, waiting for someone to come and take it away and give me my journal back.

I remember my arms aching, but in an offhand way. Finally, one of the doctors came and took it. He said that it was going to take a little bit longer for them to return my journal to me, and they didn’t want to leave me with nothing to write in.

I still couldn’t talk. I remember thinking that I should say something, that I should demand my journal, but nothing came out of my mouth. So I stood at the door. Again, I’m not sure how long I stood there.

Someone came to take me to my individual therapy session. I stood in the middle of the room, unable to sit. Three doctors came in and tried together to talk to me. Until now, I had shown no signs of disobedience. I ate, slept, peed, and walked when they told me to. The only thing I hadn’t done when asked was speak. This was different.

I stood through the whole hour of my therapy session with Dr Jacobi. She sighed a lot. Frustrated with me, or my silence, or my sudden disobedience – I’m not sure which, really. Dr Jacobi was an extremely astute psychiatrist, probably the smartest person in that hospital, but she didn’t have a lot of compassion for the patients. Made me wonder why she did it all.

When an orderly led me back to my room, I stood at the door of my room until it was time for group therapy.

It wasn’t stubbornness. I wasn’t making a statement. Without my journal, I couldn’t write. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t rest. Standing was, simply, the only thing I could do.

Someone brought me to group therapy. Dr Holt wasn’t sitting in the leader’s chair. I stopped a few steps in the door, knowing this change had something to do with my journal somehow. I did not come in any further, even though the new doctor, Dr Weinbach, waved, then coaxed, then urged, and then finally allowed me to stay where I was as if my standing was his idea.

Dr Weinbach explained to all of us that he would be the new group leader and that Dr Holt had been moved to another floor.

David demanded to know why. The doctor sidestepped this question. Then David wanted to know how long before Dr Holt returned to our floor. When the doctor dodged this question as well, David started yelling, and swearing, and setting off the more easily agitated members of our group.

Everyone started hurling questions at the doctor. Insisting that we don’t hold back in group. That none of us would ever tell him anything if he wasn’t straight with us first.

Once we cobbled together all the half-answers the doctor reluctantly gave us, it became clear that it was very likely none of us would ever see Dr Holt again, due to an emotional dependence that had developed between her and a certain member of our group.

That’s when David attacked Dr Weinbach.

Gina spends the rest of the day hovering. She asks me what my plan is for after work. She invites me to hang out with her, which is totally awkward for both of us, but I appreciate it. She’s worried about me.

At the end of my shift at the shelter, I go to the office to figure out my upcoming schedule with Maria. The door is shut. Which is unusual if someone is in there.

I hear voices inside, so I lean up against the wall and wait for the door to open rather than disturb what must be an important conversation. When the door swings open, Maria and her companion jump at the sight of me. Like I’ve caught them doing something wrong.