Taming the Telomeres, a Thriller

by R. N. Shapiro

  “I'm going to demand more on your case than any of the others. I know that sounds weird since you’re still alive, but you may have permanent issues and a lifetime of medical expenses. What do you think?"

  Still no answer.

  Andy plows on, thinking he at least has to run the options by her. "It's a little early, but we need to think about how we’ll safeguard any money you receive. I really want to put most of it into a structured settlement annuity because then the money grows tax-free. We'd keep enough in a bank account for college expenses too. We’re assuming you’ll eventually want to go...”

  “Blah blah blah. I don’t understand any of that. I trust you, just please stop.” Then, she asks, “Are you going to the funeral?"

  "I hadn't made up my mind. Why?"

  "There's no way I can do it. I was hoping you’d go and tell me about it."

  “We went through some mail from your parent’s house,” Andy says, changing the subject. “You did really well on your SATs. You’ve got a lot of options, maybe UVA?”

  “Wow, I took the SAT? Nice…”

  This is not the comment of someone who’s mentally deranged, Andy decides. More like someone with amnesia who isn’t listening. She’s just focused on things that are important in her world.

  "I'm gonna ask for $12 million in your case, but I can settle your case, or your parents’ cases, without your approval."

  Amanda has another old record cover in her hand and she's reading parts of the back.

  "I don't know what we're going to do…" Andy says, starting to walk away from the bed. Then, he turns back around.

  "Are you going to go to school tomorrow?"

  "No."

  Andy says goodbye and softly closes the bedroom door, then walks down the hall and motions to Barbara to head out to the porch.

  "She's completely delusional. I mean, she hears me, she's listening. But she's acting bizarre." Andy says.

  "You've got to sign the papers. She’ll only be there for a few days, until she stabilizes."

  "Barb, it's a lot more complicated than that. Stuff like this can really create long-term bitterness. Imagine being committed and having to be in a mental ward for even a few days. And it’s complicated with what's going on in court. If she gets committed, that means she’s incompetent, and I can't even settle her personal injury case without having a legal guardian appointed and possibly outside psychiatric evaluations."

  "We have to be concerned about her health, not just about the settlements. How do you know she’s not suicidal?"

  Andy thinks for moment. "Okay, as long as she gets out within a few days…I guess she'd still be considered competent. Then she can approve whatever she wants."

  "Then sign the papers," Barbara says. She opens the folder as they sit side by side on the porch swing.

  Andy reads through the papers from the Loudoun County Courthouse.

  "I can't do it." He lays the pen down on top of the folder in his lap.

  "Well if you won't, I will. Because I know it’s best for her." Barbara retrieves the pen and folder back from him with a cross look and signs the page requesting the involuntary commitment.

  "You know this requires you to go down to the courthouse and actually appear before a magistrate," Andy mentions.

  "Yeah, and I want you to come with me."

  "It's not an adversarial deal. Just take the papers to the clerk. They’ll get a magistrate to hear you and it's virtually done. I'm involved in too many legal battles and I'm not going be the one to commit her."

  "You want me to be the bad guy. I can't believe you," Barbara says, standing up and walking a few steps from the porch swing.

  "I'm not making you the bad cop. I’ve just been through too many wars. And this is a war I'm not sure we want to start. After all, you want her to come back and live in your house. What if she takes it out on you? I don't want her taking it out on me." Andy says. He gets up off the swing and walks a few steps down the porch.

  "I'm not saying you're wrong.”

  Barbara leans forward on the wooden railing facing Andy. "What happened to the fierce litigator? You’re making me do this alone? Thanks a lot."

  "I've said my piece. Just do whatever you think is best for her."

  Chapter 58

  Psych Ward

  The anti-anxiety meds have Amanda's brain all fuzzy. Her eyes won't focus on the pages of intake questions the nurse patiently waits for her to complete. Do you know why you're here? Do you have any thoughts of suicide? What are the most optimistic things on your mind? What a bunch of rubbish, she thinks to herself. Do they really think they get honest answers?

  "Ms. Michaels, you've got to fill out this questionnaire so the doctor can evaluate you."

  "I just want to get out of here," Amanda says dropping the clipboard holding the questionnaire with a loud clatter on the side table.

  "If that's true, you'll fill it out," the nurse says with a less than happy look. Amanda grudgingly picks up the clipboard and starts writing. When she finishes, the nurse looks through the answers. Although some are missing, she realizes it's probably acceptable for the psychiatrist.

  "Look, I want to talk to my aunt or uncle. Are either of them here?"

  "I'm not sure if any of them are here right now."

  "How do I find out who put me in here?" Amanda asks.

  "You can talk to one of the doctors about that. Do you want me to contact Ms. Simon?"

  "I just want you to tell her that I want to see Dr. Lucent. He’s the doctor who treated me after the plane crash."

  "I’ll try to get the message to her."

  Amanda assumes that the nurse thinks she's crazy like the rest of them.

  "I'm going to take you back to your room."

  The nurse escorts her down a hallway. Amanda looks around, doesn't see any bars on the doors or anything, and half considers making a run for it. But she figures there must be outer doors that are locked, and if she does try it, they might make her stay even longer.

  Amanda notices the room has another bed and a drape that can be pulled between the two beds like a partition. It's not even a private room, she thinks to herself. Great.

  The nurse checks her area and says, "The doctor’ll be in to see you during morning rounds. You must stay in your room until he does his initial evaluation. Here are the policies to follow while you’re here." She lays a paper down on the bedside table.

  "Well, I guess I have lots to look forward to," Amanda says sarcastically as she sits on a chair beside the bed.

  She notices her overnight bag that she had brought to Kent's bedroom. As the nurse walks out Amanda unzips the bag and surveys the contents. Then she hears something from the other side of the room.

  "Are you over there? I said, are you over there?"

  Amanda has no intention of answering. A frail, ashen-looking woman with brown, shoulder-length hair pulls back the curtain between the two beds and scowls at Amanda.

  "When I was 12 my mom told me I was smarter than Einstein,” she says.

  Amanda looks up. She has no idea how to respond.

  "She took me to a place and they did an IQ test and she told me afterward that they said my score was higher than Einstein's. Like, I didn't know who he even was, but I found out he was a genius.”

  Who is this bottom dweller? Why is she babbling? She's probably on Paxil, Valium and who knows what else, Amanda thinks to herself. Just leave me alone…

  "But I get him now. When Einstein said, 'how can you stretch time?' I know how. It’s gravity and speed, like with trains and stars. It’s relativity, and…it’s physics. I get it. It’s really simple actually. If you’re traveling through space and you don't have a reference point, how do you know if something is moving toward you or you are moving toward it? Can you answer that?"

  A few seconds of silence pass.

  Finally, this freakazoid has stopped, Amanda thinks hopefully. Please go back to your space. She considers reporting to the nurse that her roommate is
making her even crazier.

  "Can you answer it or not?"

  "Uh, answer what?" Amanda finally answers.

  "How do you know if something is moving toward you or you’re moving toward it? You know, relativity," she repeats.

  "I‘m not really following what you’re saying."

  "Cause you can't is the simple answer, but if I take a couple steps in your direction you can tell, you know why?"

  "Are you, like, teaching me?" Amanda asks. "I'm not your student."

  "I’m a tutor. But…whatever."

  Oh no, she is shuffling further into my space, Amanda thinks anxiously.

  Walking toward Amanda’s bed, the woman plunks down papers full of numbers, equations and arrows.

  "I just need some quiet time so I can work out all the details and then I can tell the world some of my theories."

  "How long have you been here?" Amanda asks.

  "About a week. It's my addiction. I stayed up for five straight days without sleeping. Have you ever stayed up five days with no sleep? Well, okay, I think I got 15 minutes here and there, but never slept at night."

  "Can't say that I have ever, uh, been that deprived. What would make you stay up that long?"

  "I cooked meth, well, my boyfriend did really. Once you start, it takes over your brain. You don't need sleep or food, just more meth. You’re wired 24/7, like you're driving down a road and the trees are whizzing by you. Wait… are you whizzing by the trees, or are the trees whizzing by you? That's what the theory of relativity is about and really the trees could be whizzing by you, do you get that? It’s really like, wham, when you do get that, it just hits you in the head like you ran into a pole or something." She smacks her right hand against her head for greater effect.

  Amanda looks away from all the scribbled numbers on the papers. She wonders how this girl spiraled so far down. How old is she? She looks terrible, but not beyond repair. No makeup, her teeth have a gray tint. But Amanda can tell that she was pretty once, when she took care of herself. She looks a tad over 100 pounds, maybe 110 though she must be 5’6” or 5’8” tall.

  “How old are you?”

  "32, but meth makes you look older. It wrecked my marriage, and my ex has my 7-year-old."

  "How'd you ever start doing meth?" Amanda asks.

  "When I was going through my divorce, I met this guy at a bar in D.C. He was a musician, but he lost his gig from being a meth head. I didn't know he was an addict when I met him, and I made the mistake of trying it. I never finished my Ph.D. at George Washington, stopped showing up for my tutoring gigs. Once meth gets in your brain, it just needs more. I'm kinda glad they forced me in here cuz they know what drugs to give me."

  "What's your name?"

  "Brittney, Brittney Hayes. From Foggy Bottom, you know where that is right? It’s not really foggy, not any more than anywhere else in D.C."

  "Yeah. I'm Amanda.”

  "Why are you here?"

  "I think my family got me committed. My boyfriend died a couple days ago. I stopped eating, stopped going to school, and I was crashing at his farmhouse in Middleburg. I was fantasizing about being with him, wasn’t sure I wanted to live anymore.”

  "Sorry to hear that. What'd he die from?"

  "The cops say he OD’d on Fentanyl, either by accident or he was trying to kill himself. I know that's a lie."

  "Wow. I’m so sorry. Suicide stuff will get you put in here really quick too." Brittney says, sounding as if she's experienced on these issues. “I’m getting outta here any day. I know I can stay clean.”

  A noise, and the door opens. The nurse from before motions to Amanda.

  "I need to take you for your evaluation." Amanda gets up to follow her.

  "I'll teach you some more about Einstein when you get back," Brittney says.

  The nurse leads Amanda to a small conference room and she bumbles her way through the evaluation with the doctor. She starts thinking about Andy's visit to the farm and the millions of dollars he's trying to recover in her case. A plan begins to formulate in her head and it starts to motivate her. A few minutes later the doctor finishes the evaluation and thanks her. She tells him she wants to see Dr. Lucent. He promises to notify the doctor, and also tells her he knows who she is, he watched the “Healing Heroes” special. His platitudes don’t phase her. Only one thing is on her mind: get the hell out.

  Amanda asks if she can make a phone call to Aunt Barbara. The doctor says that will be fine. Moments later she has her Aunt Barbara on the line. Amanda thinks about saying something about her aunt forcing her into this hospital, but she purposely decides not to bring it up knowing that it could blow the whole deal. Hey, rational choices, she just made one. That means she should get out, right?

  Barbara assures her that Dr. Lucent is going to try to stop by before the end of the day.

  "Aunt Barb, if he thinks I'm okay, will I get out of here?"

  "That's a question I can't answer. The professionals will decide. We'd like to get you back home as soon as we can and get you back in school.”

  Amanda thinks to herself, over my dead body. "Can I ask you a question? Are you the one that got me put in here?"

  "Amanda, you needed help and I had to do what is best for you. I hope you can forgive me for that."

  Hell no, Amanda thinks to herself. Oh yeah, keep it inside. Right now she just wants to get out of this hellhole.

  “Yeah, I guess I understand," she lies.

  There's no escaping the incessant chatter from Brittney. Maybe she is smart, Amanda concludes, but jeez, she never shuts up. Wait, music. Amanda digs in the bag and finds her phone and ear buds and starts to put them in.

  Brittney whispers from the divider curtain. "You've got to be careful what you say because they listen to everything."

  Amanda is sure that Brittney has no idea she is the plane crash survivor, and has no intention of telling her that. Talking begets more talking. Brittney sees her fiddling with the ear buds.

  “I know I talk too much. It's the drugs. They make you just want to pour everything out. Hey, have you ever read Nietzsche, and his ῢbermensch concepts?”

  The door opens and the same nurse is there again.

  "Ms. Michaels, there's a doctor here to see you in the conference room. Follow me." Amanda is sure it's Dr. Lucent, and feels rescued.

  “Here’s my address and number so we can stay in touch,” Brittney says as Amanda leaves the room. “Remember, I can tutor.”

  Amanda virtually runs the last few steps to Dr. Lucent and gives him a big hug.

  "God, I'm so happy to see you. I've been through hell. Can you puh-leeze get me out of here?"

  "Whoa … slow down. Let’s go over some things."

  Lucent has been fully briefed by Barbara and Andy on Amanda's depression. He knows about her inability to eat, her despondency, and her obsession with everything relating to Kent, including her ritual of sitting in the passenger seat of his car. Lucent follows the normal psychiatric evaluation protocol, covering suicidal idealities and every other facet of psychiatric disorder indicators that Amanda manifested over the prior week.

  "What motivates me now is how I can make a difference someday," Amanda says.

  "What do you mean by that?" Lucent asks, recognizing that this is not a suicidal person’s psyche.

  "My uncle told me the airline wants to settle and I started thinking about what I could do with the money."

  Amanda is sketchy on the details of her future goodwill work. And that's okay with Lucent because his main goal is to assure himself that the patient is on the mend and that there is no suicidal tendency.

  "Are you eating?" Lucent asks.

  "Yep. I'm better…really better. That doesn't mean I don't want to stay at the farm for a few more days though."

  "Have you had any more memories, dreams, or flashbacks?"

  "Definitely not any memory recall. I've had some dreams with little snippets of things that might have been real but nothing I can really put my fing
er on."

  “What about getting in Kent’s car and sitting in the front passenger seat?”

  “What about it? I can’t drive a stick, or any car at all yet.”

  “It’s not normal, you sitting in Kent’s car. Do you understand that?”

  “I like sitting there. So what?”

  "Okay, different subject. Your aunt and uncle want you to move back to your aunt’s house. To me, that seems to be the logical choice for the rest of your senior year at Middleburg Academy. Are you going to do that?"

  "I don't want to commit to that, Dr. Lucent. I don't see how that has anything to do with whether I'm doing better or not. If I can get a ride to school from the farm, and if Kent's dad will let me stay there, why can't I? I'm 18, so legally I'm an adult now. Don't I have the right to live at the farm if I want to and Kent’s dad says it’s okay?"

  "Well, it's complicated. I really don't want that to get in the way of you being declared competent and released from here. It's more of a family issue."

  "Dr. Lucent, if you sign the papers to get me outta here, the first thing I’ll do is talk to my uncle."

  Lucent looks down at his paperwork and writes a few notes. He calls for the nurse to send Amanda back to her room.

  "You are going to help me, aren't you?"

  "Everything will be fine Amanda."

  After she leaves he pulls out his cell phone and calls Andy.

  "Andy, it's Dr. Lucent. Just finished my evaluation of Amanda. She's doing much better. I really don't think she’s a suicide risk. I wasn't around to see how bad she was at the farm, but she seems competent now. She exhibited every indicator that she understands why she was involuntarily committed. She even admitted to me that she was deeply depressed. And one of the things motivating her is the possibility of you settling the lawsuits. She said she wants to talk to you about that. I’m ready to sign the release papers if you’re in agreement.”

  "I don't want her in there any longer than necessary. Did you two discuss her moving back in with Barbara?"