Broken Wings 2 - Midnight Flight

by Andrews, V. C.

“When you've been apart from someone like you have been apart from your mother, news like this”—she held the paper up—"doesn't seem real. Long-​distance death loses its impact. You have to be close up, right there sometimes, to believe it at all.

  “But despite the face you're trying to put on, I can see you believe it, Phoebe. Holding it all bottled up inside you won't help and it doesn't make you stronger. It eats at you from within. If anything, it makes you weaker. I'm always telling my clients that, because it's one of the truest things about human nature, you know. Shutting your emotions up, never expressing your feelings, just causes it all to fester and sour, and that ugly degeneration comes out in how they look, how they think, and what they do. It's poison. It's truly as if you were poisoning your own blood.”

  She sat back, relaxed. “What was the nicest thing, the happiest thing, you remember about your mother?”

  “I don't remember anything nice or happy.”

  “Sure you do. You're just afraid to recall it now, afraid to mention it because that will make you feel sad, and believe me, Phoebe, you're afraid of being sad, afraid of it more than any of the other girls here,” she assured me with a wave of her hand toward the door. I said nothing, just stared at the floor. My head felt as if it were full of angry bees.

  She rose and walked slowly to the front of her desk, then leaned back against it.

  “Think back,” she coaxed. “Surely you have good memories of when you were just a little girl. Think, remember. I want you to try, Phoebe.”

  “Why? Why do you want me to do that?”

  “I want you to feel, to see and understand the most basic human needs in you.”

  “You're right. I don't want to be afraid and I don't want to be sad. Okay? You're right.” Hot tears bubbled under my lower eyelids. “Satisfied?”

  “I'm not worried about being right, Phoebe,” she said slowly, and smiled. “I have nothing to prove.”

  I raised my eyebrows skeptically at that and I could see she didn't like it. She stopped smiling, stepped away from the desk, and stood as firmly as a steel pole, her eyes sharp, angry, bearing down on me.

  “I'm already a success at what I do. I have the respect of my peers. I have been awarded many honors, and courts, judges, counselors, and other psychiatrists have given me the trust and the responsibility to reshape and save girls like you, so this is not about ego.”

  “What's it about then?”

  “Right now? It's about you. Do you realize”—she reached back for the letter from the clinic—“that you are really all alone in the world now?”

  I tightened the embrace of myself and looked at the closed window curtains.

  “Oh, I know you have an uncle and aunt, but I also know you're not fond of them and you do not believe they are very fond of you. You believe they would rather you disappeared. Am I right?”

  I didn't answer.

  “I said, am I right? Wasn't that in the autobiography you wrote for me on orientation day? Well?”

  “Yes.”

  She nodded, satisfied. “You were correct in your analysis of them. They haven't even called to see how you reacted to the news. I've heard nothing,” she said with such vehemence, I thought she was enjoying the pain her words imposed on me. They were like whiplashes, slicing and stinging my weakened wall of protection.

  “In this world,” she continued, returning to that teacher voice of hers, “someone without any family, without any friends, loses any sense of herself and any reason to go on and do anything with her life. Like it or not, this is your new home, Phoebe,” she said, holding her arms out widely apart.

  "We are your new family. I want you to believe that and I want you to trust me, trust that I have your best interests at heart, no matter how hard and severe I might seem to be. We have demons to drive out of you, important changes to make. Just like a surgeon has to cut out a cancer, I have to cut all that out of you. Oh, not with a knife, a scalpel, of course, but with every available technique at my disposal. All I ask is you cooperate and try to help yourself.

  “Is that asking for too much?” she followed in a tone so reasonable, all I could do was shake my head.

  “Good. I think you're different from the others, Phoebe, and I don't mean the color of your skin or your background or anything like that. I think you have potential. There's more to you and a lot more to save.”

  She stood there looking at me. I kept my eyes directed at the floor, then 1 sniffed back my tears and closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

  Of course she was right about what I was feeling and what I was desperate to avoid. Good memories, happy memories, of Mama were trying to rush in and I was holding the door closed, but I could hear Mama's laughter, catch a glimpse of her in the mirror as she fixed my hair or talked to me about how to make up my eyes like hers. The images were leaking in under the door. These memories weren't memories of the woman 1 had seen at the clinic after I had run away from my uncle and aunt. These were memories of my mama of long ago when I was still young enough to forgive her for her weaknesses and her failures, when I was still young enough to believe things would be better for us all.

  “You want to cry, Phoebe. I can see it. Go on. Have a good cry. There's no shame in that.”

  I wiped away a fugitive tear quickly and shook my head. She approached me and touched my shoulder. I looked up at her. Should I trust her with my tears? I wondered. Was she sincere? So many cruel things were done to us here. Was she right in doing them? Did we need that? Was it the only thing that would change a girl like Robin or like Teal, Mindy, and Gia? Or me? What terrible thing had Mindy done with a baby? And Gia, I was sure, setting fire to her own home, among other things, surely made her a lost cause out there. Suddenly, I began to wonder if Dr. Foreman wasn't the last and best hope for girls like us after all.

  “Poor Phoebe. You didn't deserve the life you had. You don't have evil in your heart. You never really intended to hurt anyone, did you?”

  “No.”

  “Of course not. All sorts of events, social and psychological experiences, have put you in a place you don't want to be in.”

  “What's going to happen to me?” I asked, flicking off another errant tear.

  She smiled. “You're going to get out of that terribly dark place. You're going to grow and improve and become one of my girls, a Foreman girl, proud and strong and capable.”

  She returned to her chair behind her desk, folded the letter, and inserted it into an envelope. I watched her put it into a drawer.

  “The funeral was yesterday,” she said.

  “Yesterday?”

  “Yes, I wish I could have sent you back for that, but it wasn't possible. Your uncle and aunt understood. I finally decided to call them. Actually, they weren't at all disappointed about your not attending the services,“ she added dryly, sounding like she was on my side against them. ”That's why I said what I said before, but none of that is important now. Forget about them. Someday when you're more confident of yourself, when you're better, you'll visit the cemetery and you'll be strong enough to bury all the ugly and nasty feelings right there alongside your mother's coffin.”

  She smiled as though that was a wonderful dream, a dream I should pursue.

  “Now, let's make good use of this session and talk about other things, okay?”

  I nodded and sucked back the remaining tears.

  “Good.” She folded her hands and leaned forward. “When you were all here in group therapy, I was somewhat amused to hear Mindy being accused of being my spy. The truth is I don't find Mindy making much progress. I would never solicit her help for anything just yet. Actually, Phoebe, I expect her to be here long after you leave.”

  “Really?”

  “I'm afraid so. She's a very, very troubled girl. She tries to convince me she's better. She even tries to be my little spy and tells me about the others, about you. I know she's simply attempting to ingratiate herself with me, win my favor. She's very transparent, albeit a very sneaky perso
n, our Mindy. I bet you have no idea that she told me about Teal's intention to run off before you told me, do you?”

  I shook my head.

  “She heard her talking about it and she told me. When I asked you about Teal, I wanted to see if you were capable of being honest. You were and you are and you're going to do well here. So,“ she said, sitting back, ”I've decided to make you my confidant.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean you're going to be special to me, Phoebe. Would you like that?”

  I was afraid to say no, so I nodded.

  “I thought you might, but if I am to trust you more and more, you have to trust me more and more. That's understandable and fair, isn't it?”

  “I guess so.”

  How unexpected all this was, I thought. I had come trembling into this office, expecting her to do something more to me, something that would send me out of here all bottled up and wounded inside just like the others. I half expected to end up in one of those Skinner boxes Gia had described, but here she was making me feel special.

  “What did Mindy do before? I mean, why is she here?” I dared ask. I was anticipating the usual sort of response to this. It was none of my business. I should be concerned only with my own problems, but again, she surprised me.

  “She gave birth to a baby and left it in the rear seat of a broken-​down vehicle. A passerby luckily heard the infant's wail and brought the police. Someone had seen her go into the vehicle and she was arrested. It wasn't her first experience with police and courts.”

  “What about her parents? Didn't they know she was pregnant and wonder about the baby?”

  “I am always amazed at how much parents do not know about their own children, Phoebe. What about your mother? Did she know much about you, what you were doing?”

  “No. She wasn't around enough to ask or care, and my daddy was on the road too much.”

  “And even if they were there more, would they know everything?” she asked, tilting her head a bit.

  “No.”

  “Exactly.”

  Her small smile grew softer. Then she stopped smiling and sat firmly again.

  “What do you think of Gia?” she asked in a sharper tone. “She troubles me. She's very smart, I know, but I'm afraid I'm not really making enough progress with her.”

  “I don't know.” I didn't. I had no idea how to look for progress here or even what she meant by it.

  “She's still very volatile,” Dr. Foreman continued as if she and I were two psychiatrists conferring about one of our patients. “Without warning, she can become a very violent person. I bet you've sensed that, haven't you, Phoebe? You come from a world full of violence. It's not a stranger to you.”

  “No. It isn't.”

  She nodded, happy at my answers, I could see.

  “Gia's parents are better off financially than yours were, but they were just as much into themselves. Besides, Gia has always been good at fooling people, lying. She's one of the best I've seen, actually. And very clever. She did something no one else I've treated for similar problems ever did.”

  “What?” I could see she wanted me to ask, and for some reason, that set off alarm bells inside me.

  “She made up a person and blamed everything she could on her. She was so good about it that many people believed the person actually existed. At one point,” she said, almost laughing, “the police were looking for Gia's imaginary person, sent out one of those all-​points bulletins.”

  She paused and looked even more serious and concerned. “I have come to the conclusion she herself now believes this person exists. I'm working very hard at curing that, and I am going to need your help with it from time to time.”

  “Made up a person?”

  “Yes,” she said, smiling. “With amazing details, too. Clever in a way, isn't it? But she is very smart, our Gia. I know from our last talk here with everyone that Mindy has mentioned Gia's imaginary person to you and the others, and I'm sure Gia's spoken about her as well since. I just don't know how much she has said and if she continues to talk about her since the group therapy session.”

  “About who?” I asked, my heart now pounding and reverberating through my bones like the beat of a steel drum.

  Dr. Foreman smiled. “You know, Phoebe. Posy.”

  I tried to swallow, but a lump in my throat felt like a small rock.

  “Well?” she asked.

  “Well, what?”

  “Is she talking about her? What did she tell you about her?” she demanded.

  I shook my head. “Nothing. I mean, nothing much.”

  She held me in her eyes so firmly, I thought I couldn't turn my head to the right or to the left. I couldn't even lower my gaze to the floor again.

  “Haven't you heard anything I've said here today, Phoebe? Didn't you hear about all the responsibility and trust I have decided to place in you? Are you going to disappoint me now, now that I have determined you are worth all my effort and energy? Are you going to have me throw you back into the water as if you were some sick fish? Well?” she said, raising her voice and widening her eyes with fury.

  I was frightened. I was very frightened, but I was more terrified of telling her that Gia claimed Posy was her daughter, and not only that, that her daughter might be locked up in the basement right below us. What would she do to Gia and then to the others and what would they think of me?

  In the back of my mind a little voice whispered, “What if Gia was the one telling the truth?”

  I gathered all my ability to slip away, an ability I had employed many times before to escape from the chains and shackles adults in authority could throw over me. Too often in my life, I'd found myself having to avoid punishments and blame. The trick was never showing I was afraid and guilty. I would go on the offense and usually that worked.

  But Dr. Foreman was the expert in all this. I had no doubt she had dealt with girls as good at it as I was, if not better. Still, I chose that route.

  “I don't listen to their garbage talk,” I said with as much anger as I could muster. “Sure, I heard her mention someone named Posy, but it wasn't anything I cared to hear about. I have my own troubles.”

  She didn't change expression. She continued to hold that gaze, fix those eyes on me. I tried not to blink, not to look shifty, but she didn't nod or smile or in any way look satisfied.

  “You're making a big mistake here today, Phoebe. It will bring you even more pain than this,” she said, opening the drawer, taking out the envelope that contained the letter about Mama and snapping it in the air. "You'll be out there alone. The other girls won't help you. You should hear the bad things they say about you,

  Gia, especially. I know she's lying, they're all lying about you, but it doesn't matter. None of them would be friends with you on the outside anyway, would they? You'll go back to your world and they'll return to theirs, right? Why protect anyone but yourself now?

  “Besides, if you care about them, if you have some sensitivity and conscience about it, then assure yourself this is the best way to help them. Just like you tried to help Teal.”

  “But you let her run off anyway,” I said as sharply as I could.

  "Of course, I did. So she would learn something, but thanks to you, she was under surveillance the entire time and luckily, too. After she was stung, she might have wandered into worse places because she can't tolerate pain. She has a very low boiling point, being spoiled so much. No, you did a good thing then. You did save her life. Do a good thing now.

  “Tell me exactly, in as much detail as you can, what Gia said about Posy.”

  She leaned forward expectantly.

  “She didn't tell me anything specifically. She was talking to everyone.”

  “That's what I mean, Phoebe,” she snapped, her eyes flickering with heat and ill temper. “Don't play with words with me. We're not in court. Well?”

  “I just heard her say something about a girl who was here before.”

  “Are you going to
have me pull every word out of you? What did she say about the girl?”

  “That she was a liar,” I said. “Made up stories.”

  “And?”

  “That was it. Now she's gone. I didn't think it was anything to talk about.”

  She snapped back as if her body were wrapped in rubber bands attached to the chair.

  “I was mistaken about you, Phoebe. You're not ready for what I want to do for you. You need more time.” She put on that cold smile again. "That's all right. Time is something we have at our disposal here. I'm going to give you time to think about today. Perhaps you'll come back to me on your own, perhaps not. It doesn't matter. In the end, Phoebe, you will return.

  “You're free to resume your chores.” She waved her hand at the door.

  I rose quickly.

  “Wait,” she said when I reached the door.

  I turned and saw her open the desk drawer.

  “Take this with you. It's all she left you, apparently, the news of her unnecessary death.”

  “I don't want it.”

  It was as if I had refused a valuable gift, insulted her, and disrespected her ancestors all at once. She whipped her head back, tore the envelope in two and threw it in the black metal wastebasket beside her desk.

  “Consider that your attendance at your mother's funeral,” she said, and turned her back on me.

  It was as if my feet were turning to balloons. I walked out, but it seemed more like I floated along. M'Lady One wasn't there waiting. No one was there. My heart was still thumping as I sat and put on my clodhopper shoes. Almost the second I put on my left shoe, I felt it, and it was like no pain I had ever felt before. I screamed and threw off the shoe.

  The pink insect with its back end curled up fell out, partly crushed. I looked up in a panic. My foot seemed to be swelling up right before my eyes.

  “Help!” I screamed. Where was everyone?

  M'Lady One appeared in the doorway. She had to have been standing right there all the while, I thought.

  “What seems to be the trouble?” she asked sweetly and calmly despite my cry.

  “I've been bitten by that!” I cried, pointing to the dying insect.