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As I head back toward the day room, my hands folded, gloved palm pressing against gloved palm, I let my thoughts return to Dr. Gillespie. Young guy, eager to prove himself.
I give him six weeks.
Art therapy is underway by the time I rejoin my group.
Because we need more space to get creative, we don’t have art therapy in any of the smaller group rooms. We take over the day room, spreading out on the sofas and the chairs, using plastic tray tables and the kind of art supplies you see in pre-schools.
I’m gonna be twenty-one, and I still spend my weekends drawing with crayon.
Lucky, lucky me.
When I was younger, back when I was grouped in on some of the other floors, it was a little different. Black Pine has a program that works with the true juveniles, putting them through school, helping us prepare for real life when we’re finally released. I got my GED by the time I was seventeen, and I went through all the prep courses. I know how to balance a checkbook, use a program to fill out my taxes, and I’ve even done mock interviews to prepare me for getting a job. When they let me out, I should be fine on my own.
There are more prep courses when you get moved to the final ward. Our group—nineteen through twenty-one—is all about getting prepared for release. One way or another, you age out of Black Pine at twenty-one. With a good report, they put you into a halfway house, help you transition on the outside. A bad one means moving on to another facility.
Yeah. No, thanks.
Like sessions and meetings with our counselors and social workers, those courses are scheduled on weekdays only. Weekends are considered downtime. Art therapy is a definite, just like extra television time if our ward’s been good.
Because it’s technically considered a group session, the television is off. With everyone hard at work, all I can hear is the muffled rubbing of crayons against paper, Dean’s occasional muttering, and the therapist’s constant stream of half-hearted encouragement.
After what happened this morning, I make sure to take one of the few open seats by the closed window. Water streams down the frosted glass; it’s still raining hard out there. The therapist—a slender Asian man with short black hair and a kind smile—brings me a tray table, a few sheets of paper, and a handful of crayons.
He’s been here before and he knows better. Instead of handing the supplies to me, he places them on an empty seat not too far from where I’m sitting.
“Thanks.”
“We just started, Riley. Today’s session is an easy one. I want you to draw something that’s been on your mind lately. Turn your paper over when you’re done, then we’ll discuss your feelings at the close of today’s session.” He nods when I reach out, grabbing the tray table, slapping my hand on top of the crayons so that they don’t roll right off. “Any questions before you begin?”
I shake my head. This is pretty common for art therapy. I know what to do.
Same rules as normal. Nothing morbid or gory. Nothing violent. Nothing that gives away the truth that some of us are kinda disturbed. Art therapy is supposed to be productive, yet positive.
We save our demons for the psychologists.
My drawing is a repeat, too. Choosing a grey crayon over white paper, I begin to draw the stone angel that watches over Madelaine’s grave. She’s never too far from my thoughts but, since my dream last night, she’s been constantly on my mind. The meeting with Dr. Gillespie didn’t help me even a little.
I don’t plan on doing the whole end-of-session sharing time, though. No point. Most of the other patients have seen this same drawing before. Even if I refuse to talk about my sister, they all know what the stone angel means.
Oh, well. I gave up trying to convince them of the truth, too. Either they think I’m responsible for her death or they simply don’t give a crap. It’s not like it’s their business, anyway.
I’m just adding the small chip that marks the stone angel’s right wing when the quiet is broken up by the sound of someone crying. And not just cry, with sniffles and whimpers and barely-there tears. Nope. These are sobs. Big, wet, wracking sobs that start as a groan and end with a choking gasp for air.
My crayon slips from my hand. Like everyone else in the room, my head shoots up, searching for the sobber. I feel a twinge deep in my gut. I recognize it. It sounds like someone is in the middle of a panic attack—except, for once, it isn’t me.
It’s Carolina, the girl from the meds line this morning.
She’s not too far from me, sitting on one of the sofas. Her tray table was perched on her lap. As I watch her sob, her body shakes and the table somehow falls. I could almost swear I saw her shove it away from her the instant before it dropped but, honestly, I’m not even thinking about that since the tray table bounces and her artwork flutters and lands a few inches away from my feet.
Not gonna lie. Since it’s Carolina, I’m expecting to see like a mirror or a supermodel or something like that drawn on her paper. I remember, last time the therapist told us to draw up something that we wished for, she drew a plate of food.
I’m not wrong. In the center of the page, Carolina used the black crayon to draw a very tall, very skinny figure with long hair. Two dots—grey—must be her eyes. A red blob is attached to the figure’s hand. An apple? Maybe. It does have a thin brown line drawn on the top, almost like a stem.
I don’t know why the drawing would set her off. It seems innocent enough to me. But the rest of the paper is blank and Carolina is still crying.
The therapist rushes over, swooping the paper off of the floor as if he also figures this drawing is the reason behind her outburst. Folding it into quarters, he hides it from sight before settling next to Carolina, talking softly, trying to calm her down.
Good luck.
