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Chapter Twenty-Six
Grace
Four days pass by, and it seems war is imminent.That’s all anyone can talk about.When the nurses and the orderlies and most of the patients aren’t parked in front of the TV, we have drills.Duck and cover, they call it, and everyone thinks it’s a game.Everyone but me.
It sort of freaks a lot of the patients out, all this talk of war.One thing about patients in an asylum is it doesn’t take much to tip their paranoia over the edge.Any sort of deviation from the norm only adds fuel to the fire.
So most of them get put on tranquilizers until eventually the supply of tranquilizers ran out.That’s when the orderlies started to carry the straitjackets around.
It’s a very strange time.
While they’re all running around like chickens with their heads cut off, I keep to myself.This is the first time I learn Elizabeth is right about Dr.Branson’s intentions to perform the lobotomy.This, or it’s simply a threat, I’m not sure.
Either way, I take no consolation in the outcome.This may be the first time that I realize I am truly trapped.It brings with it a bittersweet sadness.I hadn’t realized before now that a person’s freedoms can be slowly drained away from them.I thought finding myself in here was as bad as it could get.Now I can see I was very, very wrong.
Not long after President Kennedy’s speech, there is a power outage, and the generators don’t kick in.The whole place goes dark and everyone is quiet.Everything in the building stops, and all you can hear is the gentle hum of the ventilation, and the shuffle of sneakers on linoleum.The radio, the TV, the refrigeration in the cafeteria—which they’re always fighting to keep at a constant temperature, because the food goes off quickly in our climate—all the machines, everything, just die.It goes completely silent.I sit with my back against the wall of my room, listening.The darkness seems to envelope everything around me.I can feel it in my lungs, the way it would be if I were swimming underwater.It is so quiet.Like in my nightmares.Then I hear it, coming from outside my room.Our door inches open, just a few centimeters.Then it stops.I can hear someone breathing on the other side of the door, and I wonder if this is my chance.Should I run?Am I ever going to get a better shot?
I hear the familiar voice say, “Checks.”
It’s Wagnon, my most formidable opponent.She shines a flashlight around the room and I think,I can take her, can’t I?I will myself to get out of bed,but my brain and my body seem to have different ideas.They refuse to connect with one another.What one wants, the other doesn’t.I am frozen in place.And then just as soon as Wagnon comes, she goes, and my chance is gone.
Later, I’m lying there in the dark, staring at the ceiling.I assume Elizabeth is sleeping until her voice cuts through the silence like a razor blade.“Grace,” she huffs.“You have to stop.I can hear your thoughts from here.”
“Good,” I say, tossing myself about.“Maybe now we can call it even for all the long nights I’ve laid here listening to you breathing.”
She was quiet for a long beat.“Once upon a time, you sang lullabies.I’d prefer that.”
I’d never sang in front of Elizabeth.Then it hit me what she was saying.“Wait?That was you next door?”
“Yeah, and you’re a terrible singer.I feel for your children.But strangely, I almost prefer it to all this huffing and puffing you’re doing.”
I realize then what has happened, what she has done.“You must have liked my voice well enough to request to room with me.”
“You’re hemming and hawing, makes me think it was a mistake.Which is sad because you have no idea what I had to do for the privilege.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why would you want a roommate?”
“Closed mouths don’t get fed.You have children, you should know that.”
“Sometimes you make no sense.”
“You have to tell people up front what you want.You have to say: if this is gonna work, if I’m gonna play this game with you, if we’re gonna dance, this is what I’ve got to get out of it.You’ve gotta take care of your needs.That’s why.”
“How’s that working out for you?”
She flips over on her side so that she’s facing me.“Your logic is going to get you nowhere.That’s not how you’re going to get out of here.If you want out—what you have to do is completely illogical.You see, Grace, it’s logic that stops most people.”
“I can’t think of a scenario in which you’re right.”
“Really?Logic stopped most people from being willing to fly.The Wright brothers were being totally illogical.And look what happened.They flew.”
Part of me understands what she is saying, while the other part of me is terribly lost.
“You will never be perfect, Grace.You’re human.You’ve made a lot of mistakes.”
