The Merciful Scar

by Rebecca St. James

  Pronounced? They look like carry-on luggage.

  “How did you know I was here?”

  “Wesley called me.”

  I almost groaned out loud.

  He got to her first, huh? So much for convincing her you shouldn’t be on suicide watch.

  “Kirsten, what on earth?”

  “You want to sit down?” I didn’t wait for an answer. I just led her to a pair of square, stuffed, tweedy chairs that faced each other in the corner. There was only one other knot of people in the room, but I still felt like I was about to air the clichéd dirty laundry to everyone on the ward.

  Mother sat at a perfect ninety-degree angle in one chair, legs in creased gray slacks crossed at the ankles. I sat with my feet up in the other and arranged a throw pillow so I could hide my wrist under it.

  Out of sight, out of mind? Good luck with that. The woman has laser vision.

  “I guess you want to know what happened,” I said.

  “Wesley told me.” Mother folded her arms so tightly I could almost hear the starched white blouse crackle. “Kirsten, what were you thinking? Or were you?”

  Gee, I’m fine, Mother. Thanks for asking.

  I clenched my fists under the pillow and wished I had the Nudnik’s nerve. I wanted to say that very thing.

  But I took a deep breath and said instead, “I’m sure Wes told you I was trying to kill myself, but he’s wrong. It was an accident.”

  “You accidentally stuck a pair of scissors into your vein?”

  I didn’t answer. I just didn’t have it in me to try to explain this again to yet another person who wasn’t going to believe me anyway.

  Mother tucked her graying bob behind her ears, and I saw that the pearl earrings were still there. Lara used to try to see whether she wore them to bed, though she never did find out. Our mother always went into and out of her bedroom fully clothed and coiffed.

  The hair tuck, though, that’s new. She couldn’t be stressing, could she? She always says only neurotic people stress.

  “Contrary to what you might believe, Kirsten,” she said, “I fully understand that you were upset when Wesley broke things off.”

  Back the truck up!

  “You were together for over three years.”

  Three years, six months, two weeks, four days . . .

  “I’ve been there myself, remember?”

  Yeah, what a shock when that match made in heaven went south.

  “But you didn’t see me falling apart.”

  I beat the Nudnik to the punch: I had never seen my mother show any emotion whatsoever.

  “I had Lara to take care of. And you.”

  The Beloved Afterthought.

  “You have other things in your life besides Wesley. Your education. Your friends. A career ahead of you.”

  She waited for me to nod, so I did. I was still back on Wes telling my mother that he had broken up with me. Why had I never known he could lie like that? Had everything about our relationship been one big—

  Prevarication. I’ve always wanted to use that word.

  “Not to mention your family.”

  Were you packed for this guilt trip?

  “We do care about you. If you were that upset, you could have picked up the phone and called us.

  We? Us? Who’s she talking about?

  She was talking about Lara, of course.

  Which was why I felt myself deflate. It was still Lara, Lara, Lara, just as it had been for the last seven years. Why had I thought for a moment my mother would have my back?

  You’re racking up the questions here, Kirsten. That’s Number Two. I’m starting a spreadsheet.

  “All I’m saying is that you are not the only girl who has ever had a heartbreak. But most girls don’t become suicidal over it.”

  “I’m not suicidal,” I said. “All I want to do is go home and—”

  “You can’t just go home.” The hair tuck again, this time so tight it made my mother’s face look like a hatchet. “You have to stay here for another two or three days, and then they’ll determine whether you can be released to outpatient care or have to go into a residential program which, frankly, Kirsten, I can’t afford.”

  “Three more days?” I could barely hear my own voice.

  “That’s what they told me. I haven’t talked to your doctor yet, but I do know this: unless you start talking to somebody about whatever it is that made you do this, three days will only be the start of it. Are you getting this, Kirsten?”

  Who did she expect me to talk to?

  Number Three.

  “Obviously you aren’t going to talk to me,” Mother said.

  “I don’t know what else to tell you,” I said.

  She did her version of exasperated. Shallow sigh. Clutch bag firmly in hand. An abrupt shift to standing.

  I stood, too, so at least she couldn’t look down on me.

  “I’m going to stay at your house if you don’t mind,” she said.

  That’s Michelle for You don’t really have a choice.

  “Do you have a key with you?”

  Nah, I didn’t have time to grab my purse when they scraped me up off the bathroom floor.

  “It’s a combination lock,” I said. “My birth month and day.”

  She looked blank.

  “Oh-three-oh-four.”

  “I know your birth date, Kirsten. All right, you get some rest and think about what I said. No more heartache for this family.”

  She gave me another perfunctory peck on the cheek and clicked her pumps too fast toward the double-locked door where Happy Scrubs waited.

  See, first you have to have a heart before it can actually ache.

  I wasn’t sure I had one either anymore. I went to the window my mother had vacated and stared bleakly into the darkness. I didn’t have to be able to see to know the mountains were still out there, and it came to me that that particular range was called the Crazy Mountains.

  Appropriate, don’t you think?

  “Yeah,” I whispered. “I do.”

  No one said so on Tuesday—what the Nudnik called Day Two of Incarceration—but it was obvious the staff had backed off on the calm-Kirsten-down drugs. I was all too wide-awake when a huge man with a white-guy Afro and dark blue scrubs that barely stretched over his muscles came into my room. They didn’t have to worry that I was going to try to make an escape with this person filling up the environment. Besides, I didn’t have the energy to do much of anything besides stare out the window.

  Excellent plan, Kirsten. A catatonic state is definitely your ticket out of here.

  Nudnik had a point. If my mother was right, my ticket out was my talking to somebody. She didn’t say what I had to talk about.

  “Hi,” I said. I thought I might have forgotten how to smile but I tried anyway. “What should I call you?”

  He planted his hands on the hips that formed the point of the downward triangle that was his body. “They call me a lot of things around here, most of them with a bleep-bleep-bleep in there somewhere.”

  I did smile at that point.

  “I think you should call me by my name.”

  “Which is?”

  “Roman.”

  “Of course it is.”

  He put out a hand for me to shake. Mine got lost among his fingers.

  “You up for some breakfast?” he said.

  “Yeah,” I said, “but not here.”

  “I get that.”

  He crossed the room and opened the blinds. Montana sunshine insinuated itself into the conversation.

  “Come on. I’ll walk you down to the dining room.” He winked a small brown eye. “You can pretend it’s Denny’s. They got a Grand Slam waiting for you.”

  “That doesn’t work for me,” I said as I followed him to the door. “I thought more like the Chickpea Café.”

  “Now you’re talkin’. You had their baba ghanoush?”

  Only every time Wes and I went there. Maybe wit wasn’t going to be my exit pass bu
t it was the only thing I had.

  As the day wore on, even that wasn’t enough to keep my skin from screaming at me: I need help. Please. A butter knife. Anything.

  That wasn’t happening. Roman and his colleagues had done this before, because I found nothing anywhere—dining room, visitors’ room, common area, bathroom—that I could use to relieve the anxiety building under my flesh. The whys Nudnik had on her spreadsheet. The heartache I was inflicting on what was left of my family. The betrayal I couldn’t look at or I would be, once more, reduced to a puddle of the shakes.

  I went through all the motions of cooperating. Walking passively beside Roman everywhere I went. Telling Dr. Oliphant I had had no more suicidal urges, which was easy to do since I’d never had them in the first place. Forcing myself not to run in horror when someone even crazier than me threw a tray in the dining room. Even taking the phone call from my mother, which was right up there with eating the lima beans they served for lunch.

  “All right, I don’t want to hear any more about this being an accident,” she said, in lieu of hello. “After I cleaned up your bathroom—which is something I hope never to have to do again—I thought I’d dust mop the rest of the house and I found the box under your bed.”

  Hey, is nothing sacred? Come on!

  “You will never convince me that you didn’t have something like this planned, Kirsten.”

  I didn’t even try.

  “I was awake all night thinking about this,” she went on. “And I remember now that you were always overly sensitive, too easily moved to tears. Far more emotional than Lara.”

  When, I wondered, had I ever been allowed to show any emotion at all?

  Number Four. Wait, we already know the answer to that one—never!

  “I’ll be over after dinner,” Mother said. “And we will discuss this, Kirsten. I want the truth.”

  I couldn’t hang up fast enough. Only lack of mechanical ability kept me from opening the phone to see if there was something, anything in there I could use to ease the pain.

  Why do you think God gave you fingernails, Brain Child?

  I stared down at my hands. The manicure I’d given myself for Sunday night’s romantic dinner was still intact. I’d never been able to grow glamor nails, but these were significantly longer than the ones I’d used the first time I clawed at my skin. Before I learned how to cut.

  I was in my room, making very little progress on my upper arm, when Roman came to tell me I had a visitor.

  “I don’t want to see my mother,” I said. “Tell her I’m having a massage or something.”

  “Unless your mother is an English dude, this is somebody different.”

  English dude? Did I even know anybody British? Was I having a hallucination right now?

  That’s not even going on the spreadsheet.

  “Says his name is David Dowling,” Roman said, and presented me with the driver’s license photocopy.

  A smiling face looked back at me. Buzz cut. Glasses. Ears just a tad too big, enough to make him likable.

  Oh, that David Dowling. The new chaplain at Faith House. I’d met him. Once.

  “It’s the Reverend David Dowling,” I said.

  Roman feigned a warning look. “We don’t allow exorcisms in here, now.”

  “You think I need one?”

  “No. But somebody praying for you can’t hurt.”

  Praying. Now there’s a concept. Long time no do, eh, Kirsten?

  At least I didn’t have a history with this person. If David Dowling said something that made me want to take a bite out of the inside of my cheek, it would be easier to ask him to leave.

  “Take me to him,” I said.

  “I don’t have to be afraid of lightning striking or anything, do I?” he said as he escorted me through the doors to the visitors’ room.

  “I don’t know,” I said. And really, I didn’t.

  When the runner-thin man stood up from the chair my mother had occupied the night before, I remembered him better. He’d taken on the job of chaplain in September, and Wes and I had gone to the welcome party. That was the last time I was at Faith House, and I was sure I hadn’t made any kind of deep impression on the reverend.

  If I recall correctly, you were freaking out over your next exam and you wanted to be in the library studying with Isabel—

  “Reverend Dowling,” I said.

  Fine. Shut me down.

  He greeted me with both hands out and searched my face with dark blue eyes that sparkled behind his square glasses.

  “I won’t even ask how you are,” he said. His accent made up for the unfortunate ears.

  “Thank you,” I said. And I meant it.

  We sat in a different set of chairs, although Reverend Dowling only used up half of his as he perched on the edge, hands on his knees.

  “Can I ask why you’re here?” I shook my hair, now two days past the due date for a shampoo. “I’m sorry, that sounded rude.”

  “Not at all. I was with Wes all day yesterday.” He put up his hand as if he heard the protest in my head. “We didn’t discuss you. Not ethical. But he did let it slip that you were here so I thought I’d come ’round and see if you needed anything.”

  Poor Wes. He was so broken up he had to seek spiritual counseling. Where is that barf bag?

  “I’m fine,” I said.

  David didn’t say anything. He didn’t even raise a brow or roll his eyes. He just waited.

  “Okay, I’m clearly not fine,” I said, “or I wouldn’t be here.” I rearranged myself in the chair. “I’m going to tell you this even though you probably won’t believe it any more than anybody else has.”

  “Is it the truth?” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “Then let’s have a look at it.”

  For no less than the fourth time, I poured out what was real. Maybe I told him more about the cutting I’d done before that night than I had anyone else. In fact, I know I did. Something about the complete lack of judgment in his body language accounted for that. And the fact that at no time did he interrupt me with the kind of placating scripture references his predecessor at Faith House had been notorious for. Even Wes had said he didn’t think “Be anxious for nothing” covered final exams.

  When I was through I was almost too exhausted to lift my hands. They just lay limp on the arms of the chair.

  “NSSI,” he said.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Non-Suicidal Self-Injury. You’re not alone, you know. At least one young woman a week comes to see me with scars.”

  It was my turn to scoot to the edge of the chair. “Did you say non-suicidal?”

  “I did.”

  “Then you believe me.”

  “You said it was the truth.” He grinned almost impishly. “Who’s not going to tell her pastor the truth?”

  I felt my face color—not hard for someone to detect since my normal skin tone was like skim milk.

  “I’m not sure I can claim you as my pastor,” I said. “I haven’t been to Faith House or church in nine months.”

  “Not required,” he said. “I’m volunteering for the job.”

  My soul chose that moment to do something it hadn’t done in longer ago than I could remember. It began to cry. Not a wet, weepy cry. Just hard gasps that produced nothing but more pain and more pain and more pain. Even with my hands over my face I sensed David Dowling shaking his head at a concerned Roman. And I heard him praying. Heard them both as I sobbed my dry sobs.

  After David Dowling left, promising to come back the next day, I skipped dinner and stayed in the visitors’ room. I was afraid that after all the body-wracking sobbing, parts of me would fall off if I stood up.

  My mother found me there, about fifteen minutes before visiting hours were over.

  Perfectly timed.

  “I brought you some clothes and makeup,” she said.

  Does this woman not know how to say hello? Yikes, now I’m asking questions.

  “They have to
go through everything before you can have it. You do realize you’re locked up in here, don’t you, Kirsten? Is that what you want?”

  Was she serious?

  Have you ever known her to be anything else?

  I kept my gaze on my fingernails, willing them not to go for my arms right here in front of Mother. But I looked up when I heard her sigh, because Michelle did not sigh.

  “I can’t wrap my mind around this,” she said. “I mean, I know how to take care of Lara. But I have to say this situation of yours is beyond me.”

  I wanted to tell her it was beyond me too. Maybe I would have if she hadn’t followed that up with, “Does your father know about this?”

  Panic was there as if someone had kicked it right into my throat. “No!” I said. “And I don’t want him to.”

  “So you wouldn’t have told me either if Wesley hadn’t.”

  “What good is it doing you to know? I’ve just upset you.”

  “I came to see what I could do.”

  Like what? Bring a new wardrobe? Let me guess: J.C. Penney.

  “There’s definitely nothing Dad can do,” I said.

  To my surprise, Mother nodded. “I have to agree with you there.”

  She paused—another surprise—and then her eyes went into narrow, shrewd slits.

  Uh-oh. This can’t be good.

  “I will keep this from your father,” she said, “if you will agree to accept help from someone. Talk this whole thing out. Let a professional walk you through it. I don’t care who it is—you talk, and your father never has to know about this.”

  You know this is blackmail, don’t you?

  Of the worst kind. My mother went to great lengths to have nothing to do with my father. To my knowledge they’d barely spoken a word to each other since the divorce.

  “Well?” Mother said.

  “Can you just give me a minute?”

  A minute? What’s to contemplate! If the old man shows up here, you’re going to go completely over the edge and you won’t come back.

  But I needed that minute, to picture my father’s reaction if he found me here among the schizophrenics and the bipolar people and—what did he always call them?—the people who can’t handle the load. I couldn’t see any of the pride in his cool hazel eyes that was there when he sent me off to Montana State or arranged the finances for grad school or breezed into my rental house with a complete IKEA makeover. All I could see was contempt twitching in the lines around his eyes. The message would be as clear in him as it was in my mother.