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Mitch shoots him aWhat the hell?look, and Amy says, “Oh, boy, here we go,” like Jordan’s gone off the deep end or something.
He feels his cheeks go hot. “What I mean is,” he says, “could there be some truth to it in the here and now?”
Dr. Klein doesn’t laugh at him the way he was afraid she might.“It could be real in some sense, in that its image has something to do with Hannah’s past. But is it the hospital? Or is it something she saw in a horror movie? We don’t know.” She runs her hand through her silvery hair. “There are geneticandenvironmental components to schizophrenia, but we know nothing about Hannah’s background or family. Whether she’s unwilling to tell us, or frankly incapable of it, I’m not sure. I can’t emphasize this enough, though: whatever we do, we must not reinforce her belief that she time-travels to an actual medieval castle.”
“She has to understand that it’scompletely impossible,” Amy agrees. “That’s the only hope she has of getting better. She accepts that we’re right, and she takes her damn medicines.”
“Which she’s never really liked to do,” Mitch says.
For understandable reasons, Jordan thinks.They make her feel like a zombie.
“How old was she when she first came here?” he asks.
“Thirteen.”
“And her parents didn’t bring her?”
“An ambulance did,” Amy says. She sighs. “An ambulance always does.”
“And lucky for her, there’s always been room here,” Mitch adds.
“How doesthatwork?” Jordan asks. It’s notoriously difficult to find beds in psychiatric wards—everyone knows that.
“When Hannah was first admitted,” Dr. Klein says, “the granddaughter of Delia Belman, the hospital’s namesake, was visiting. She saw Hannah—a helpless, scrawny, dark-haired child, stuck in an agonizing delusion—and she said to me, ‘I want you to do whatever it takes to care for her.’ So we have.”
“Hannah’s very lucky, like Mitch said,” Amy says resolutely.
Jordan’s mouth almost falls open. By all accounts, Hannah suffers from a brain disease that torments her, that’s capable of completely disconnecting her from reality. She’s spent a good portion of her teenage years in a locked hospital ward. How the hell is that lucky?
CHAPTER 47
On Friday, Jordan gets permission to take Hannah outside. It’s not on her list of ward privileges—she hasn’t earned any this time around—but Dr. Klein thinks that going for a walk could be good for her. “Maybe it will remind her of the real world,” she says, “in which she is a present-day psychiatric patient whose sole job it is to get better.”
After lunch (eggplant parmesan), Jordan gets Hannah a spare coat (a bright red parka three sizes too big for her) and signs her out. Hannah’s friend Michaela and her roommate, Sophie, who aren’t supposed to have outside privileges, either, grumble about how no one takesthemanywhere, but Nurse Amy guides them away to the TV room before they can get too worked up about it.
Hannah doesn’t say anything as she and Jordan go through the double set of locked doors, walk down the long hall, and take the elevator to the ground level. He has no idea what she’s thinking and it makes him nervous.
What if this is a terrible idea? What if she tries to run?
And also:What if I say something stupid? What if she doesn’t want to talk to me?
Those are questions he might wonder about with any girl he’s just getting to know.
Which makes it weird when he thinks them about Hannah, because he’s a college student, and she’s a psychiatric patient, and though they’ve spent a lot of time together lately, their lives could hardly be more different.
But is it okay that they might be becoming something like friends?
They pass through the lobby, with its watercolor posters and its fake potted ficus trees: Hannah walks through it like she’s in a dream. Then they step outside, and the winter sunlight dazzles them. Hannah blinks in surprise.
“When was the last time I felt so many gorgeous UV rays?” she says, tipping her face to the sun. Her skin is alabaster-pale, and her dark hair’s tangled and unwashed. Still.
“Well, it’s been a minute,” Jordan says evasively.
Tears sparkle in her eyes, and she wipes at them with the corner of her borrowed coat.
“I’m not crying,” she says, answering before he can ask. “It’s just really goddamn bright.”
He digs into the pocket of his coat and pulls out a pair of cheap plastic sunglasses. She puts them on and purses her lips like she’s posing for a picture. “How do I look?” she says, and then she flashes him a quick and sudden grin, looking for a split second like any other smiling, goofy, neurotypical girl on the street.
