Hunger Point

by Jillian Medoff

  “We know that, Shelly!” my mother blurted. “Which is why if you just came home with us rather than going to the hospital, we can spend some time together and figure this out.”

  “That’s not what I meant.” Shelly shook her head as fast and as hard as she bounced her foot.

  Marilyn motioned to my sister as if waving a wand. “Right now, we want to stop Shelly’s weight loss,” she said firmly. “Then she can decide her next step.”

  From the corner of my eye, I saw my mother watch Marilyn trying to maneuver her girth in the soft seat. She wasn’t going to be undone by this fat lady, not my mother. “She’s my daughter. She should be with me.” Hunched in her seat, still wearing her yellow jacket, my sister buried her head in her hands. She looked like a quilted bumblebee awaiting capture.

  “If you really want to help Shelly,” Marilyn said calmly, “you will support her decision.” Softly, Shelly cried. I wanted to run to her, but I was paralyzed.

  “She is my child,” my mother said, her voice breaking. “I want her home.” She stuck out a finger. “Shelly will go into a mental hospital over my dead body.”

  From somewhere in the coat, I heard my sister’s voice. It was muffled through yards of down and a thick coating of tears. “Bang bang,” Shelly whispered. “You’re dead.”

  “I feel like Shelly hates me,” my mother says, licking her lips as she clutches the wheel. Her eyes are glazed. “Ever since she started seeing Marilyn, she acts like she hates me. Nothing I say is ever right.”

  “Mom, you missed the exit.” For five minutes, I’ve watched her nudge the car over as if to change lanes, but never quite making it. “Pay attention! We’re in a CAR!” I yelp.

  “Jesus, Frannie. Lighten up.” She hunches over as we finally exit the FDR Drive. Sunlight hits her hands and they suddenly look like old lady hands, wrinkled and spotted with large freckles. I look at my own hands, and wonder when they will betray me. I shouldn’t have blown off Spa Day. Not today. I tell her so and she shrugs. But then she turns to me. “When were you going to let me know, Frannie?” she asks.

  “Let you know what?”

  “That you were fired from Revlon.”

  “I didn’t get fired, I was laid off. And that was like a month and a half ago.”

  “Shelly told me you got fired.”

  “Well she’s wrong. And I’ve asked you not to talk to her about me.” I reach into her fake Gucci bag for a sugarless caramel which I unwrap and stick in my mouth. “Would you please use your blinker?”

  My mother turns to look at me. As she does, she knocks the wheel and we swerve into the next lane. I hear a squeal as the car next to us also swerves. The car honks wildly. My mother jams on the brakes and we both lurch forward. I suck in my breath so hard, I almost swallow the caramel, but it gets caught in my throat. I panic with the feeling of being unable to breathe. “Jesus, Mom!” I sputter as the candy dislodges and slides down. “Watch what you’re doing. Mom? Mom, you okay?”

  Trembling, she takes a deep breath. “I would appreciate it if you let me do the driving. All your futzing around is very distracting. I’m the mother here. I can drive.”

  Eventually, we turn onto 75th Street. We circle the block a few times until someone pulls out. “I didn’t realize how nice it is,” I say as my mother parks.

  “What is?”

  “The hospital, Mom.”

  I turn to look at her. The boxer shorts have slipped over one eye. One leg droops, like a doggie ear. She looks like a pirate. I snicker. Yo ho ho. I snicker again, trying to stop myself. Then I start to laugh. My laugh gets looser and more resonant and soon, it’s the hollow laugh that unravels inside your stomach, that’s so deep, you can’t get to its end. I try to stop, but the laughter takes on a life of its own and disconnects from my throat as if it is outside me. My eyes fill with tears.

  “Frannie, are you all right?” I snort through my nose once, then twice, which only makes me laugh harder, but it isn’t laughter anymore. I am dry-heaving spasms. “I hardly see what’s so funny.” Indignantly, she pulls the boxers off her head.

  I hiccup and feel my throat closing. My brain feels like it’s all broken up. The car seems small, abnormally small, too small for my head. I stick my face out and squint into the sun, which ripples like fabric. A cab whips by. I imagine it accelerating out of control, swerving wildly, and smacking into us. I gasp, unable to swallow, feeling as though the candy’s still caught. I can’t breathe, and I’m suddenly petrified I’m going to pass out. I bend over and slowly, slowly, the moment passes. My heartbeat slows and I can hear myself panting. Through my tears, the hospital comes into focus.

  My mother reaches out. “Frannie? Say something!”

  I stare at her. I want to speak, but can’t.

  I lean forward and suck in air. A wave of heat flushes me once, then twice. I blink. Blink again, and the waves subside. It’s just anxiety, I soothe myself, nothing you can’t handle. I cough, clear my throat. “Mom,” I choke out, tapping the window. “We’re here.” I swallow. “We’ve arrived.”

  3

  St. Mary’s is a psychiatric hospital nestled in a strip of brownstones on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The front of the hospital is brick and there is an ambulance entrance, but it is disguised by a wooden electronic door. There is a glass double door that serves as an entrance for patients and visitors. The door is usually papered with neon-colored leaflets that look like concert advertisements, but are really notices of 12-Step meetings. It doesn’t look like a hospital; it looks more like a private museum.

  “Are you okay? What happened?” my mother asks.

  I nod, but my head throbs. “Nothing. I got nervous, I guess. I had an anxiety attack.” That one hit me hard. Usually, they’re not so potent.

  “You want one?” She holds out a Valium. “It might take the edge off.”

  I shake my head. My mother’s pocketbook hangs from her arm, the clasp open.

  “Your bag’s open,” I hiss at her.

  “So’s yours.” She points to the Hefty bag. There’s a hole in the bottom of the bag and I am dragging Shelly’s bras along the dirty hospital floor. I sigh, pull the bras out of the bag, and stuff them into my backpack.

  As we walk through the lobby, I keep glancing at my mother, hoping she doesn’t notice how institutional the hospital looks on the inside, how gritty the walls are, and how part of the floor sags where the linoleum is worn away. It is one of those moments when I feel the need to hide things from her; the underbelly of life, things that don’t particularly bother me. I’ve been to college. I’ve stood in a frat house, tongue-kissing some guy who chugged grain alcohol punch from his sneaker. I am hardly fazed by dirty tiling.

  A tall woman walks over. “I’m Diana,” she says. “I’m the admitting nurse for the Eating Disorders program.”

  My mother shakes her hand. “I’m Marsha Hunter, Shelly’s mother.” Diana turns to me. “You must be Frannie. I can tell you’re sisters. You both have the same smile.” She motions to a small waiting room that has twenty or so plastic seats and a television chained to the floor. “Visiting hours don’t start for another fifteen minutes, but you can wait here.”

  “Jesus,” my mother whispers, glancing at the chairs. “For the money this place costs, you’d think they’d have a classier-looking waiting room.”

  “Mom!” I look apologetically at Diana, but she turned away. I sit in a plastic seat, the Hefty bag at my feet. Next to me, my mother taps her nails on the armrest. “I have to go to the ladies’ room,” she says.

  “Do you want me to ask Diana where it is?”

  “I’m afraid to go in this place.”

  “So don’t sit down. Mom, this is a hospital. I’m sure they clean the toilets. Insane people hate germs, too, you know.”

  “Frannie, please.” She lowers her voice. “Shelly is not insane. She’s bright and she’s sensitive, but she’s not insane. Your lack of compassion is really unbecoming, don’t you think?”

&n
bsp; Silently, I kick the Hefty bag. Right now, I’d give anything to be back at that frat party, drinking Hunch Punch and making out with some guy I didn’t know.

  I can feel my mother shaking as we ride in the elevator. Shelly told me that each floor houses different afflictions. It seems to me that the more fucked up you are, the higher you go. The floors range from mild depression all the way to schizophrenia, which is at the very top floor in the penthouse suite of mental aberrations. Shelly is parked smack in the middle on Floor 3, Ward 17, Eating Disorders and Related Addictions. The elevator dings and the doors open.

  “I am not ready for this,” my mother mutters. She has a look on her face that pains me; her eyes are wide and glassy and her lips twitch as if she’s fighting back tears. “Do you think I left the stove on? Maybe I should call your father just to be sure.”

  We trudge down a long hallway with two other couples. Outside the locked ward, we wait for someone to let us in. “Isn’t this ridiculous?” my mother mutters, loud enough for everyone to hear. “This is supposed to be a hospital, not a prison.”

  I shrug and inch away from her. “It’s not that bad,” I say, more to myself than her.

  It takes a long time for a nurse to show up. I watch my mother clench a fist. No longer hazy, our near-accident jolting her back, I suppose, she fidgets like a child. I, on the other hand, hold myself still as a stone, although I am aware I am tight with the feeling of expectation.

  My mother turns to the woman closest to her. “Well here we go,” she says, trying to appear flip. “It won’t be that bad.” As we hear the jingle of keys, she squeezes my hand, pinching my fingers between her rings. “I mean it can’t be much worse in there than it is out here, now can it?”

  Inside, I look for Shelly. I see a cluster of girls, many who look like teenagers, sitting in a big well-lit room, curled on couches, watching TV or reading. No one talks to anyone else. I can’t tell if the room is filled with tension or it is my own anxiety that makes me edgy, but I want to scream at everyone to just CALM DOWN. There’s constant movement and clatter and an occasional bang that makes me jump. I notice a girl on the phone. She’s about my size, not too fat, not too skinny, and the sight of her comforts me. As she waves her hands dramatically, her voice booms through the room. As I look around, my eyes keep returning to her.

  In the back, there’s a Ping-Pong table, a handful of chairs, and shelves overflowing with magazines, coloring books, paperbacks, and board games. Beyond what looks like a dining area, there’s a circle of chairs for group therapy, I guess. It’s eerie to see the chairs set up with no one in them. It’s like walking into a torture chamber and seeing the equipment empty and idle, but knowing it’s used for unspeakable things.

  The girl on the phone laughs as if she just heard the funniest joke in the world. At first, I laugh, too, but after a while, the sound grates on me and I try to shut it out. Two more girls rush by wearing sweat pants and thick socks. At one glance, they seem really regular. But when I look closely, I can see that their clothes hang loosely and they have the underdeveloped bodies of twelve-year olds; no breasts, no hips, just angles of long knobby bones. The girls are also extremely pale, as though they haven’t been in the sun for months.

  I walk over to the windows. On the wall, there’s a row of paper flowers. Some are pretty, the strokes of the crayon even and inside the lines, some are weird, with small faces drawn on the petals. There is one at the end that’s especially crude with black petals and an orange stem. At the bottom, I see the name Shelly scrawled in purple crayon.

  Diana touches my shoulder. “It’s an interesting flower. Shelly made it in art therapy.”

  “Is it supposed to mean something?”

  “No, not really. Not always.”

  My eyes rest on a girl who stares at me. I glance away, but I can feel she’s focused intently, which seems odd because I feel like the visitors should have the privilege of staring at the patients, not the other way around. Her hand rests on a tall intravenous feeder, a skinny pole that has sacs attached filled with murky liquid. The pole is on wheels and the girl pushes it as she walks toward me. Long, transparent tubes hang from the pole to the girl’s face where they are lodged in her nostrils. A piece of white tape holds the tubes in place. The tension of the tubes jammed into her nose throws off the symmetry of her face, pinching her top lip into a sneer.

  “My name is Cynthia,” she says, openmouthed, sucking air in abrupt breaths. Her voice is nasal. “My parents couldn’t come today, primarily because my mother’s dead.” She pushes the feeder closer, and I can see the liquid moving through the tubes. I feel pity for this girl Cynthia who can’t be any older than fifteen. She stares at me arrogantly, as if daring me to look away.

  “I’m Frannie, Shelly’s sister.” I hold out my hand, which she cradles then drops.

  Cynthia licks her lips. “Shelly’s the new girl. She didn’t want you to come today.”

  “She didn’t?” Last night, Shelly said she couldn’t wait to see me.

  “She said in group that your mother just had a facelift. And that you were fired.”

  I was laid off, you psycho. “Why didn’t she want me to come?” It dawns on me that Cynthia said Shelly is new. Shelly’s been here a whole week.

  “She doesn’t want you to think she looks stupid. She’ll get used to it. I wish I had a sister. I don’t have anyone. My mother’s dead, you know.”

  “How long have you been here?” I ask slowly.

  “Three months and six days. This time. I was supposed to get out yesterday. I have an apartment, you should see it, it’s really grand, but they gave me the tubes. I told Shelly about the apartment. Maybe she’ll live there when we get out. I have to gain six pounds before they take away my tubes.” She stops short. Holds my gaze. Her voice is chilling. “But we’ll see about that.”

  “You will,” I say gently, afraid to look at her dead-on. Vacant and glazed, her eyes are like ice-blue marbles. The air is suddenly light around my head. I hear a whirring and my heartbeat quickens. I take a deep breath and motion to my mother. “Mom, this is Cynthia.”

  “Hello, dear.” My mother stares at the tubes. “Do you know where Shelly is?”

  Abruptly, Cynthia turns away. “This is the day room. You stay here.” And she shuffles off with her feeder, the wheels clattering on the linoleum as she moves off the rug.

  “Oh my God.” My mother watches Cynthia. “I hope Shelly doesn’t…” She trails off, then turns to face the wall. She touches Shelly’s flower. “Shelly’s very bright, but she never was that good in art, was she?”

  “How long is Shelly supposed to stay in this place? Marilyn said thirty days. Do you think she’ll have to stay that long?” My mother smooths her hair three times, staring at everyone who passes. “Why do they get this way? Not all these girls have terrible mothers.”

  “Mom, stop.” I feel like an outcast. Everyone else has buddied up, and Shelly has yet to appear.

  “Why? Everyone blames me. Especially you. You’re the one who keeps saying that I forced Shelly to diet, that I made her obsessive, that I didn’t confront her. As far as you’re concerned, it’s all my fault.”

  “Mom, please.” I play with my T-shirt. “Sometimes I just say things.”

  “Mommy?” I hear a slight whisper like the rustling of paper. I turn around and see my sister, who stands, arms crossed, waiting. I draw in my breath. For the first time in a year, Shelly’s wearing running shorts and short sleeves. Her bare arms and legs are so thin, I could wrap two fingers around them. They don’t even look like real limbs, more like pegs. It amazes me that she has the strength to stand on her own. Trying to appear casual, I look around for a chair that I could lower her into in case there’s an emergency.

  “Shelly?” my mother asks.

  “You were expecting someone else?”

  “You just look so different…”

  “Different how?”

  I lean forward to hug her. “Don’t touch me,” she s
naps, stiffening. I smile stupidly.

  “Frannie—I mean Shelly—Frannie’s just happy to see you.” My mother puts her arm around my sister, but Shelly jerks back. “Fine,” my mother says. “No touching.”

  “I am happy to see you,” I tell her. She chews on her lower lip. Her blue eyes are watery and dart around the room, as though she’s frantically searching for someone. A week ago, she looked drawn, but she didn’t look sick. Now she looks deathly. Under the fluorescent light, her skin is gray, her hair is stringy, and her lips are chalky. I have that same, sudden feeling of unfamiliarity I had when I first noticed how skinny she’d gotten. But this time, I can’t stand looking at her. I wish this girl would go away and bring my sister back.

  “I was working on something. I lost track of time and didn’t shower.” She reaches up and touches her hair. Almost instinctively, I reach up and touch my own.

  “Shelly, you look great.” My mother leans in to run her hand across my sister’s hair, but Shelly recoils. For a second, the hand is caught in mid-air. “What were you working on?”

  “Just something for Lonny.” She gnaws at a cuticle. “It occupies my mind. Otherwise all I think about is being in here.”

  My mother tries to soothe her. “You just got here. It takes time to get adjusted.”

  “Please don’t say ‘I told you so,’ Mom,” Shelly says.

  “I’d never say that, Shelly. Look, you made a decision. If Marilyn was wrong, and this place doesn’t work out, well, we’ll just cross that bridge.”

  Shelly mimics her in a high-pitched voice. “‘We’ll just cross that bridge…’”

  My mother looks at me, her lips parted. She has the same look she had years ago when, during a winter break from Cornell sometime around her feminist days, Shelly announced she and her friends were moving into a group home. “It’ll be like a real commune,” she said defiantly. “We’re pooling all our money…” she paused…“we may even have a baby.” My mother didn’t say anything but, like today, she had glanced at me behind Shelly’s back. Make this go away, Frannie, I felt her saying, make this stop.