“Let’s go see Neil and get you home,” Mom said, squeezing my arm as she led me toward the room he was being held in. She said “we”, but she didn’t follow me in as I pushed back the sliding glass and slipped through the curtain.
A heart monitor beeped steadily, and an IV pump clicked and whirred as I approached the bed. The lights beneath the cupboards on the wall were on, but not the overheads, and in the dimness, I couldn’t tell if Neil was asleep or not.
I had hoped to never see him like this, again. The medical equipment around him, the oxygen cannula in his nostrils and the plastic bracelet on his wrist brought me right back to every hospital visit for chemo, every night spent in rooms that smelled like antiseptic. With those memories came the same old fear: that he would die, that I would be left alone, that there was nothing I could do to stop it. Once again, Neil was fighting a battle against his own body. This time, it was his brain chemistry instead of cancer cells, but somehow, the latter seemed less scary.
“Would you like me to leave, ma’am?”
The voice startled me. I hadn’t noticed the dark-haired woman in the navy scrubs sitting in the corner. A patient sitter. I remembered when Mom used to pick up those shifts for extra money.
“Yes, thank you,” I told her. “And thank you for staying in here with him.”
She nodded. It was her job. She probably wanted to be at home, right now, or doing anything but guarding a suicidal man in the emergency room.
I got suddenly angry on her behalf. Probably because it just didn’t feel right to be angry with Neil myself. I was sure that would come later.
“Sophie?” Neil asked. He sounded groggy and tired. Maybe they didn’t get everything out of his system as f
ast as they thought.
I didn’t say anything.
“I’m so sorry,” he said as I came closer. “I’m so sorry I did this to you.”
“You’re sorry because I stopped you,” I corrected him. “I don’t want you to apologize to me, yet. I want you apologize once you realize what you’ve done.”
“I know what I’ve done. I wasn’t in my right mind. I made a rash decision—”
I held up my hand. “No. Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not—”
“You planned this, Neil.” I wasn’t going to coddle him. I’d done enough enabling. Look where it had gotten us. “You sat down and wrote a note. You took all of those pills. And you…”
I had to stop to keep my voice from quivering. Or full-on screaming at him. I didn’t know which.
“I didn’t realize how bad I’d gotten,” he tried again. “Not until now. There’s a startling amount of clarity that comes with being held down while someone forcibly threads a tube up your nose.”
My stomach turned over. They’d done that to him in the ICU once, when he’d come out of the sedation long enough to pull out his NG tube in his confusion. I don’t know if he remembered that; I hoped he didn’t.
“Not enough clarity.” I took a deep breath. “Neil, you’re going to a hospital where they can help you.”
He pushed himself up. “I most certainly am not.”
“You are. Doctor Harris is getting an order for an involuntary psychiatric hold.” I’d expected my heart to break at the look of disbelieving despair on his face, but I felt nothing. Nothing but a sense of satisfaction that I was finally in control of him enough to help him. “I just signed the papers as your power of attorney.”
The way he looked at me… I never wanted him to look at me that way, again. In that moment, he hated me. “How dare you? How dare you presume—”
“I’m doing this for us. For you, for me, for Olivia… You can’t desert this family, and I know that deep down, the person you are, who you really are when your brain isn’t swimming in shitty sadness chemicals? You wouldn’t want to do this.” It was easy for me to stand strong when I knew I was right. No argument he could throw at me would make me back down.
“Get Doctor Harris in here. Right now!” Neil barked, throwing back the thin hospital blanket as though he would get out of bed.
“Lay back down! You’re hooked up to a bunch of shit. Do you want them to come in and put you in restraints?”
He glared at me and rested against the raised head of the cart, again. “Sophie, you are going to go out there and tell Doctor Harris that you’ve changed your mind, and you want me released, do you understand me?” Neil ordered.
But this wasn’t a scene, and I didn’t have to obey him. “No. This is happening, Neil.”
“So help me, Sophie, I will call my lawyer, and I will fight this,” he threatened.