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Chapter Four
Grace
My room is nine feet by six feet.I don’t mean this literally, I mean that’s the number of steps it takes me to get from one side of the room to the other.I’ve had plenty of time to count.Maybe I should’ve been counting the days instead of my steps, so I’d know how long I’ve been here, but it’s hard to keep track when every day is almost exactly like the one that came before.The only furniture is the small bed where I sleep and another bed on the opposite wall.I don’t know if the bedpan counts, but there’s that, too.
The only light, other than the fluorescent lamps overhead, comes from a tiny, square-shaped window in the door.Just large enough for someone to see through.They’re always watching, even when it looks like they’re not.I can feel their eyes on me.Especially at night.
A tiny sliver of light filters in under the door, because the lights in the hallway stay on all the time.The overhead lights in my room, like most things here, are beyond my control.I don’t know exactly what time they go on and off, only that they let me know when to wake in the morning and when to go to sleep at night.The walls are painted a pale eggshell color.I assume the color was meant to be soothing to the senses, but it is as if something in it cried out for another color to exist—any other color.It’s almost like someone thought the room would look less institutional that way, as though it would help whoever was locked in this room forget what kind of place this is.
Such a thing would be impossible to forget unless onewastruly a lunatic.I may be locked away in this room, but it is easy to remember that I am not alone.There are others.
The others, they all have their terrors.To pass the time, I give them made up names to go along with their afflictions.The newest patient believes she has bugs embedded in her skin.They crawl up her arms and burrow themselves in her veins.At night, her screams slice through the darkness, passing effortlessly through the thick walls, filling my mind with her misery, as though I don’t have enough of my own.
I do my best to drown the others out.I pull the pillow tight over my ears, not that it is much of a pillow.It makes me long for home, for my own bed, for the plush bedding that was a wedding gift from Charles’s mother.
It might be my imagination conjuring things up, but I swear I can hear someone on the other side of the wall shifting in her bed, sleep stolen from both of us by the screaming lady, who hasn’t yet learned that screaming doesn’t bring help.Quite the contrary.
I listen as the ward door opens and thick-soled shoes scuffle down the hallway, bringing either cries or dead silence as patients cower in their rooms, some worried, while others are pleased by whatever fresh hell Nurse Wagnon will bring.
Nurse Wagnon is my least favorite among the staff, which is probably why I can always tell her footsteps apart from the others.It’s something in her gait, or possibly the pace at which she storms up and down the ward.
I have to get out of here.When I say the words out loud, they echo off the walls like a signal, bringing Dr.Branson along with them.
He isn’t usually here at night, at least I don’t think.Maybe it’s on account of the new patient, though I can’t say for sure.It’s tough to understand the inner workings of a place when you’re in solitary confinement.So far, I’ve only accomplished recognizing the sound of footsteps and memorizing which terrors belong to which patient.
Eventually, I tire of staring at the ceiling, so I roll onto my side and pull the thin gray blanket up over my shoulders.I have not slept in ages, but my body will not let me rest.The sudden release of the lock on my door startles me into sitting upright.
The lights overhead flicker on, and two men wearing white scrubs and thick-soled shoes enter my room, followed by Dr.Branson.We’ve only met once, the doctor and me, but he does not have the kind of face you forget.
“Mrs.Solomon,” Dr.Branson nods before consulting the chart in his hand.“You’re having the night terrors again, I see.”
I stare at him for what feels like a long time.I want to tell him it wasn’t me screaming, that it was the new patient, but I figure, what’s the use?There’s a part of me that suspects he already knows this, that this is just another of his tests.They like those here.This place is nothing but a sea of endless tests.
“Me?”I fold my arms, covering my chest.The gowns they provide are paper thin, like the pillows.“Night terrors?No, I don’t think so.Unless,” I say, motioning to the two orderlies in my room.“You count this…this intrusion.”
“My apologies for that,” Dr.Branson says sincerely.As I eye the syringe in his hand, his gaze follows mine.“I’m going to help you get some rest now.You would like that, yes?”
I would like that very much.But this is not what I say.I do not want to be medicated.If I’m going to get out of here, I’m going to need to keep my wits, so I choose my words carefully.“I don’t need help sleeping.I am fine.Thank you.”
I expect him to nod to the two men the way he did before.That or step closer and shine his fancy light in my eyes.But perhaps it’s my politeness that causes Dr.Branson to take another approach.He stands firm, and he digs his heels in.
“Would you like to talk more, Mrs.Solomon?About the men you say your husband was helping?Is that what’s got you so riled up tonight?”
I shake my head because I’m aware he is mocking me.He is speaking in the same tone I used to reserve for my children whenever they told a tall tale.
Patient believes her husband was somehow involved in a critical, but risky mission, working to absolve the United States government from an altercation with the Soviets.Dr.Branson recorded these very words in my chart, which was a dangerous thing to do.I know because when I asked what he was writing, he turned the clipboard around and showed me.He had a very skeptical look on his face, which was fine, because what he’d written, this is not really what I said.Not exactly, anyway.
“Mrs.Solomon?”
“I am tired,” I tell him, because this is what he wants to hear.I do not want to talk.What is there to say?How can I tell the truth when I don’t know what the truth is?
“Good,” he quips.“This,” he tells me, palming the syringe, “will help.”
He is pleased that I have seemingly decided for him.I bite my tongue to avoid asking about Phillip, or for news of the investigation.Doing so only seems to get me into more trouble, and I’m not sure I can take another round of what happened the last time.It wasn’t his fault; he wasn’t here.The order came from Nurse Wagnon, but if I’ve learned anything in here, it’s not to repeat the same mistake twice.
Just as Dr.Branson is about to administer the injection, there is a loud commotion down the hallway.Everyone’s heads snap in the direction of the door.It seems they can’t place the sound; they can’t make sense of the noise they just heard.But I can.
