by KC Decker
“Mercy, when was the last time you thought about your brother?”
“Not since I watched his mouth foam up, and he coughed and choked on his last breath.” Now, I’ve admitted to being a monster, and Sutton won’t want to help me anymore. He is disgusted with me; he has to be.
“Mercy, that is your brain protecting you. That was a horrific experience.”
I laugh sardonically, “No, it’s because he wasn’t a true child of God. He wasn’t a Believer, so we weren’t permitted to.”
“How old was he when he died?”
“I don’t know, he couldn’t walk yet.”
Sutton’s eyes well up before he blinks the moisture away. He knows what a horrible person I am, and I feel worse about my secret being out than I do about my choking baby brother. My parents were right, I have the devil in me.
“Mercy? It’s 4:30 in the morning, is there any part of you that could go back to sleep right now?”
“Not a chance.”
“Then, I want you to do something for me.” He stands up and walks over to his discarded notebook, tears out the pages he wrote on, and then hands me the blank pad of paper.
“What was your brother’s name?”
“Elijah,”
“I would like you to write a letter to Elijah. No one else is going to read it, not even me. You can say anything you want to him; it can be as long or as short as you want, and you can take as long as you need to—even weeks. I want you to tell him everything you would say to him if you could, use all the paper you need. Does that seem like something you can do for me?”
I try to think of an objection, but I’m whittled to the bone and can’t come up with one. “I think so.”
“I’m going to go make some coffee, I’ll be back in five minutes. Oh, and, Mercy?”
“What?”
“The cinnamon candies are in the top drawer.”
He walks out, leaving the door open as I stare at the notebook in my lap. What would I say to Elijah now? I hardly knew him. I put the pen to the paper and write the first thing that comes to mind.
I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you. I will carry you in my heart forever.
Love,
Te-Te
I tear out the paper and fold it in half just as Sutton walks back into the room. “I didn’t know if you like cream or sugar, so I brought both.”
“Thanks, I’ll take both.” I feel a little lighter. Two sentences of words lighter. Sutton looks at the folded paper in my lap and smiles.
“Did you already get started?”
“And finished,” I say as I gratefully accept the mug of coffee.
“Why don’t you hang on to it for a few days, just in case you think of something you’d like to add.” I shrug as he continues, “I’d like to meet with you Monday through Friday if that’s ok with you.”
“Why? Just to solidify your disgust with me?” I ask the question sincerely, but the truth is, if he still wants to help me after everything he heard tonight, he might be more cut out for this job than I thought.
“No, Mercy. It’s so I can confirm what I already know, that you are the least broken person I have ever met.”
Chapter 9
After group, where there was a slight incident with Simon and his alien monitored pupils to keep things exciting, my eyeballs have really started to feel powdery. I never did go back to sleep after meeting with Sutton. I had languished in bed, thinking about what he said.
He’d said I wasn’t broken, and then gone on to clarify that all my feelings and reactions were exactly what he would expect. I’d never felt so normal. Those words ring in my ears even now.
He also told me not to eat or drink anything for breakfast, except the water to swallow my pills, because someone from the lab was going to come take blood and urine samples for further testing. Poor Sutton, still looking for a folate deficiency.
I’ve also thought a lot about my letter to Elijah and haven’t come up with anything to add. He would be about fifteen now, and that thought has stuck with me like a rock in my shoe.
I think the part that bothers me right now is that I don’t know if he knew how much I loved him. He used to call me Te-Te because he couldn’t say Mercy, and he always said it with such excitement on his angelic little face. I remember Elijah in the baby swing. I used to play with him and pretend he knocked me over every time he swung forward in the swing. His laughter was everything to me then. It only changed for me when I could hear it in the night after he was gone.
It’s rec time now, so of course, the ping pong ball has been sailing back and forth for the better part of forty-five minutes. My friends seem a little quiet, so I decide to address both last night, and my regret about Elijah not knowing how important he was to me.
“I’m sorry I scared you guys last night. Sutton thinks it was triggered by anxiety, and I’m going to work on that, but I also really want you all to know how much I adore you.”
“Awwww,” Lyla says, but doesn’t finish what she was about to say, so I continue.
“I just really want you to know that I love you with all your sadness, all your feelings you can’t share yet, all your quirks, and secrets.” I look right at Matty, “In fact, there is nothing at all that you guys could tell me, that would make me love you any less. I need you guys in my life, and without you, I wouldn’t feel whole. Ok? I just want to put that out there in case there was any doubt.”
Matty’s eyes have welled up, so I’m fairly sure he received my hidden, as well as my overt message. He fans his eyes and then blows me a kiss. I wish he would talk with us about how he feels because I think it would set him free, but it’s enough for now that he knows I’m here for him, no matter who or what he feels like.
Now that everyone is acting normal again and started in with any pertinent unit gossip, of course, this is the time the lab technician chooses to invade our airspace.
“Mercy, can I borrow you for a little while?” she asks. If you want my opinion, she shouldn’t interrupt rec time, she should have plucked me from the alien spy inhabited group this morning. Rec time with my friends is far more healing lately, and that’s no lie.
***
It’s not until after dinner during reflection group that I’m summoned to Sutton’s office. I was starting to wonder if he changed his mind about seeing me every day, or if our early morning session was it for today.
When I close his door behind me, he cuts right to the chase, but he doesn’t explain why he is still here at a quarter to seven at night.
“All your labs look perfect.”
“Gah! You mean no folate deficiency!?”
“Very funny, smart ass.”
“Am I funny? Or smart?”
“You are both. Distractingly so.”
“I distract you?”
“Sometimes, yes.”
“Only sometimes? I’ll have to try harder.” I don’t know why I feel so playful, it wasn’t that long ago that I was impervious to his charms.
“That’s not a good idea. Listen, I’m going to ask you some questions, and I want you to answer them as they pertain to you in the last six months, and only during a wakeful state.” He widens his eyes at me as if to drive that last point home.
“Got it.”
“Do you have any beliefs of a persecutory or grandiose nature that seem bizarre or implausible to others?”
“No, just the aliens that spy on me and track my thoughts through my pupils.”
“Be serious, please, or we will be here all night.”
“Ok, then, no.”
“When awake, do you hear voices distinctly different from your own thoughts, that others do not hear?”
“No.”
“When awake, do you perceive things, without any external stimuli, that others around you do not?”
“No.”
“Never?”
“You said in the last six months.”
“What about ever?”
“I don’t think so.”
<
br /> “Do you experience grossly disorganized or catatonic behavior, or have you been told you have bouts of disorganized thinking or jumbled speech?”
“No.”
“Do you have problems with goal-directed behavior?”
“Let me consult all my degrees and certifications….”
“Right. Ok, let’s move on. I have not noticed any negative symptoms—negative, as in something is missing, such as an ability to express or understand emotions, loss of verbal communication, loss of motivation, things like that.”
“Ok?”
“Would you agree with that?”
“Yes, nothing seems to be missing.”
Sutton leans back against the couch and drags his hands over his face a few times, like he’s trying to wash something off. He sits there for a while with his eyes closed and his head tipped back. I can picture him in a lawn chair with a beer in one hand and his handsome face soaking up the sun. Then he leans forward and rests his forearms against his knees while his hands are clasped together. He is staring at his feet when he finally speaks.
“You do not present with schizophrenia at all.”
“Wait! What?” I know I heard him correctly, but I did not expect him to say that. Just about anything but that.
“Mercy, I am going to run this past a few other docs, just to make sure I am not missing anything, but don’t be surprised if your med cup looks a little different and then continues to evolve. The staff will also become ultra-interested in your thoughts and behavior, as will I.”
“You’re going to change my meds?!” This is a scary thought because I’ve tried them all, and the side effects can be a bitch. More than that, I’m afraid of experiencing my psychosis as often as I used to.
“I won’t make any changes without discussing it with you first, and any modifications will happen slowly and in a safe manner. But we do need to talk about the possibility that you do not need to be on antipsychotics.”
“I’m afraid to relapse, the acute phase of my illness is not something I wish to revisit,” I say with conviction—and more than a little bit of fear.
“Listen,” he leans in, so he is very close to me again. “You cannot suffer from an acute phase of an illness you do not have. I’m not at all saying we don’t have work to do, I’m just saying we need to take another look at the playbook.”
“I’m afraid.”
“Mercy, you have my word that I will take care of you. I’m asking you to trust me.”
“I do trust you.”
“Ok then, let me help you.”
Chapter 10
When Sutton said he was going to run my case past a few other docs, he failed to mention that I would be presented to an interdisciplinary, collaborative team of doctors, and run through a rigorous battery of tests and procedures, as well as endless questions and assessments.
I missed three full days of group, and spent a disconcerting amount of time trapped in an MRI machine. They may not be convinced I’m schizophrenic, but I can promise you that I’m claustrophobic.
I was supposed to meet with Sutton at 9:00 this morning, but he isn’t here yet, so I opt to lie down on his couch and wait for him instead of going back to group. When Sig was here, this office was always closed up and kind of stuffy. Now it has been infused with something fresh and bright—something that smells good and has blue eyes.
“Thanks for waiting, Mercy.” Sutton blows in like a cool breeze and smiles at me so bright, I feel it in my chest. “Want to get out of here for a little bit?”
I pop up like a Jack-in-the-box, no longer interested in lying down. “Is the Pope Catholic?! Of course, I want to get out of here for a little bit!” Now my smile matches his.
“Go get dressed for hiking.”
“You mean, change out of my flip flops and put on a bra?” I ask as I stand up. He drops his head, but not before I see his shy, little boy smile.
“I’m on it,” I exclaim over my shoulder because I’m already on the move.
“Mercy?” he calls after me.
“What?”
“Get your letter to Elijah.”
***
He drives a Raptor, which looks big and tough if you ignore all the colorful balloons in the back seat. He can’t even see out the back window to the bed of the truck there is so much latex in his way.
“You going to a birthday party, Sutton?”
“Clearly.”
“This is a nice truck, you steal it?”
“Uh, Noooo.”
“What? You dress like a poor college kid, I figured you’d drive some busted, POS car, that burns oil and has a squeaky fan belt.”
“That’s awfully specific. What else did you assume about me? I mean, besides the, can’t possibly be a real doctor, part.”
Oh shit. He’s calling me out on the fact that I think about him. Maybe he knows he is the topic of conversation on the unit. I wonder if he also knows Matty did my makeup before our little outing.
“Nothing,” I lie. The truth is, we’ve all speculated about what he looks like naked, and how beautiful his perfect girlfriend must be. I bet she is blonde, with fake tits and a bleached white smile, tan too—pretty much the exact opposite of me—pale and redheaded.
I change the subject, “So what’s the plan now that half the MDs in the country believe I was misdiagnosed?”
“I can tell you how I think it should go, but I want you to weigh in too.” His arm is hanging out of the window, and his hair is blowing all around. He looks effortlessly sexy and tousled. My open window has a different impact because my hair is whipping me in the face, and no doubt, matting together. He looks handsomely windswept; I look like I just survived a hurricane while strapped to a tree.
“I would like to ween you off the antipsychotics and evaluate what medication, if any, is appropriate for your anxiety and panic attacks. A mood stabilizer may also be in order, but I don’t like to change more than one thing at a time because I like to be clear about what is doing what. Make sense?”
“I guess it makes sense, but what happens if I start halluc—having more episodes?”
“We will treat those for what they are, and we will get you to a healing place. I was concerned when I went through your file and saw that you were always sedated after an episode. We need to learn from those instances if we have any hope of unlocking your past, and freeing you from all that trauma.”
“Speaking of my past, do you think I’m a bad person for forgetting about my little brother?”
“Number one, you didn’t forget about him. Number two, you need to realize the human brain is capable of doing all kinds of things to protect the conscious mind, and number three, Mercy, you are light years away from being a bad person.”
“I’ve been a paranoid schizophrenic for so long, I don’t know how not to be.”
“You do not need to worry about labels, all you need to do is be yourself. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”
“I feel like I’ve been hiding a wicked part of myself for my whole life.” This happens to be a very introspective moment for me because I’ve always felt like there was something wrong with me—something dark and unlovable.
“There is your psychosis, right there. It’s time to accept that there is nothing evil inside of you. No devil to speak of. All that wickedness you have clung to? Babe, that was all done to you, and in front of you. You do not get to take ownership of that, not anymore.”
Did Sutton just call me, Babe? It was so fluid and natural; I don’t even think it registered for him. I’ll tell you what though, it fuckin registered for me.
***
Sutton parked by a hidden, overgrown trailhead, retrieved the balloons from the back seat, and then a picnic basket from the bed of the truck. Then we hiked our asses straight up a mountainside for over an hour.
It was kind of cute the way he would stop and hold his camelback tube for me to drink out of, but I’ll tell ya, he grossly overestimated my hiking stamina. Yoga? Sure, all day long—
but climbing Everest is not in my wheelhouse. I need a fucking Sherpa to haul me the rest of the way up.
“God damn, Sutton, is this where you kill me and leave me for the forest scavengers?”
“We’re almost there. You are doing awesome.” Then he stops dead and looks at me like I just offered to piggy-back him up the hill.
“Please tell me you have the letter…or this will be a dual round-trip.”
“I have it.”
“Good because any second now, you will see why we hiked all this way.” As if on cue, the trail gives way to rocky cliffs and a breathtaking view.
“Wow, this is insane! I didn’t know places like this existed so close to home.”
“Careful, the trail is a little sketchy over there. Follow me this way, there is a perfect spot for what I have in mind.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“Lunch,” he says matter-of-factly, “Oh, and some unburdening of your soul.” He turns to me and grins, “No big deal.”
“Oh, thank God, it will be nice to not have to haul my soul’s burden all the way back down.” Then I look around and add, “I need to unburden my bladder too.”
“Go big, I’ll set up lunch.”
When I get back from being one with nature, he has set up a picnic on a huge, flat-ish rock that overlooks the whole canyon. It’s the kind of thing where if you get too close to the edge, your perception gets all wavy, so I keep a solid ten feet from the face of the rock. Just so you know, this is something you base-jump off of, not picnic on.
“Oh, holy cow, I figured you would bring food from the hospital…this is, wow. I don’t know what to say.”
“Say you’re hungry because I’m not schlepping this back down the hill,” he laughs. He brought all kinds of cut-up fruit and different cheeses, and mini-sandwiches, and cookies, and flavored, sparkling water, he really thought of everything.
After we eat, we both lie back on the rock and stare up at the sky. It reminds me of a foster home I was in. They had a pool in the backyard, with a diving board that must have been fifteen feet above the water. I used to sit up there and hang my legs off the end. It felt like I was suspended above the world—precarious, but safe. That’s how I feel now.
