Dancing on the Edge

by Han Nolan

  Kyla always took my hand when we walked down the hall to Dr. DeAngelis’s office. I think she was afraid I would fall if I walked on my own.

  One time when I went to see Dr. DeAngelis, he had the stack of schoolbooks Juleen Presque had dropped off at the house sitting on his desk.

  “Your aunt Casey brought these with her today,” he said when he saw that I had noticed them. “You can take them with you when you leave.”

  I took my usual seat and Dr. DeAngelis stood up and said, “No, Miracle, I’d like you to take my seat today and I’ll sit in yours.” We traded chairs. I sat down behind his desk. His notes were cleared away. I saw a picture of a woman with three teenaged children—two boys, one girl. The tallest boy looked like Dr. DeAngelis and the other two looked like the woman. They were all huddled together as if they were cold. The wind was blowing their hair back from their faces. I turned the picture face down on the desk.

  “Is there something there that interests you, Miracle?” Dr. DeAngelis asked.

  He surprised me. I had forgotten he was there. I pushed myself away from his desk and tried to wheel myself toward the door, but my legs hurt too much. I got up out of the chair and pushed it up against the door. I was about to sit back down when Dr. DeAngelis spoke.

  “That paper on the desk is for you. I’d like you to draw a picture for me today. Would you roll the chair back to the desk, please?”

  I didn’t want to draw. In art class people made fun of my drawings. They said I drew like a little kid. One art teacher wanted to hold a conference with Gigi and the school psychologist. They sent a note home to Gigi. Gigi wrote back that she’d look into it, and that was the end of that.

  “Miracle, take the chair back to my desk and sit down, please.”

  I did as he told me and found the large white sheet of paper there on the desk. There were colored pencils off to the side, next to my schoolbooks.

  “This is not for a grade, Miracle. I don’t even care how good you are.” Dr. DeAngelis shifted in his chair, sitting up straighter.

  “This is an opportunity for you to express yourself. We don’t always need to talk to express ourselves, do we? We can use gestures, facial expressions. We can write or draw or build things. Today, I’d like you to draw a picture of me sitting in this chair, just as I am now.”

  I hesitated.

  “It’s all right.”

  I picked out the purple pencil. He needed to be purple. His aura was black. I looked up at him sitting in his chair, tucked in the corner.

  He’s scared, that’s why. That’s why he’s way back there. There’s so much danger. He must wear his purple for protection. And his bathrobe. His bathrobe will protect me. And I’ll draw my aura, my black aura, and my legs are on fire, I have to show my legs are on fire.

  I looked up from my drawing.

  “Are you through?” Dr. DeAngelis stood up and stretched. His fists touched the ceiling. He came over to the desk and lifted my drawing to examine it.

  What did I draw? I couldn’t remember. He wouldn’t like it. He’d laugh. I watched him, waiting for his eyes to crinkle up, for his smirk.

  “Thank you, Miracle,” he said, and his face was serious. “This is just what I wanted. May I keep it?”

  I looked away at my schoolbooks with the book of poems, Juleen’s book, lying on top.

  “Eye contact, please.”

  I lifted my head.

  “Very good. I’d like to keep your drawing. Is that all right with you?”

  I didn’t know. I couldn’t remember what I had drawn. He told me to draw him sitting in the chair, but did I? He seemed pleased. I must have done it right.

  “Miracle.” Dr. DeAngelis leaned forward, setting his palms on his desk. I could smell his aftershave lotion. Uncle Toole wore Brut aftershave. This smelled different, maybe it was soap. “Miracle, if you don’t communicate your wishes to me, then I get to choose what I wish. You are giving me the power to choose. You’re giving me your power, a power you have a right to own yourself. You understand?”

  I took a deep breath of his clean smell, and he stood back up and said the session was over. He reminded me to take my books with me on the way out.

  I took the books back to my room and set them on my bed. I was about to return to the TV room when I remembered the poetry book Juleen had left me. I picked it up and opened it, and saw by the dates in the introduction that the author of the poems, Emily Dickinson, was dead. A slip of paper was poking out of the book, marking a page. I opened it to the marker. There was the shortest little poem on the page. I read it. I read it again, and I could hear Juleen’s voice saying, “You read the poems. They’re true. They’re the truest, realest thing I know.”

  I read the first lines again: “I’m Nobody! Who are you? Are you—Nobody—Too? Then there’s a pair of us? Don’t tell! they’d advertise—you know!”

  I tossed the book down and cried out. I didn’t know if it was in shock, or pain, or joy, or fear. I just cried out. For the first time in my life I had recognized my reflection.

  Chapter 22

  “SHE’S CRACKING UP! Get a sedative! Get a sedative!” Leah had run into the room and was trying to pull me up off the floor. Deborah and Kyla came in behind her, and Kyla told her to hush, everything would be just fine.

  Kyla got down on the floor and pulled me to her. I didn’t want to be held. I didn’t want to be touched. I fought her. I cried and yelled and pushed her away.

  Joe, another nurse, pushed through the group standing in the doorway and grabbed me up off the floor and held me, his arm coming down from behind and crossing my chest. He and Kyla kept saying, “It’s okay. It’s all right.” I kept fighting and crying.

  Leah said, “Get her a sedative. Why don’t you get her a sedative? She’s cracked, look at her, she’s cracked. Put her in the seclusion room. How come you don’t put her in the seclusion room?”

  Kyla left me with Joe and clapped her hands. She told everyone to get to the dayroom. Anyone not there in five seconds would lose twenty points.

  Then I heard Dr. DeAngelis’s voice behind me repeating what Kyla had said, and then, “It’s all right, Joe. I’ll take her back with me.”

  Joe released me and left. The room was quiet except for my own noise. I was still crying and yelling and fighting with the air, flinging my arms out. I don’t remember what I said, if I even used real words—I don’t remember.

  I kept my back to Dr. DeAngelis. I fought my way to the corner of the room and stopped. I pressed my head against the wall. I stopped shouting and just cried. I cried a long time, and it was so quiet behind me I wasn’t sure if Dr. DeAngelis had left or if he was still with me. I could hear the group in the dayroom. I could hear Leah talking about the time she cracked. The tears stopped running down my face. I stood in the corner sniffling, listening for Dr. DeAngelis. I couldn’t hear him. I turned around to look for him, and he was there.

  “Hello, Miracle. Yes, I’m here.”

  “Go away!” I turned back to the wall.

  “Is that what you really want?”

  “Yes!”

  “All right. I’ll have to take you out to the nurses’ station. You need to be watched. Miracle? You must go out to the nurses’ station for now.”

  I turned around. “Okay then, I’ll go with you.”

  “Good, I’d like that.”

  We walked back down the hallway to his office. I could hear Mike asking the group, “How are we feeling when we cry?”

  Dr. DeAngelis told me to sit in the chair near his desk. He rolled his chair in front of it and sat down. He handed me a tissue from the tissue box on his desk and I blew my nose. Then we sat in silence for a few minutes. I played with the edges of my tissue. He folded his hands in his lap.

  “You were very upset back there, weren’t you? Can you tell me about it? You were angry, weren’t you? What else?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Eye contact, please.”

  I lifted my head and said louder, in
his face, “Nothing! Nobody! I’m nobody, who are you?”

  Dr. DeAngelis smiled and his eyes crinkled into smiling slits. “Emily Dickinson’s poem, right?”

  “No. It’s mine.”

  “You can relate to it.”

  “Yes.”

  “Eye contact, please.”

  “Yes! Yes, it’s me. It’s nobody. It’s me.”

  “And that makes you feel—what?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Empty?”

  “Yes, nothing. I don’t feel anything. I didn’t even feel my legs.”

  “When? Miracle, look at me. When?”

  “The fire. I didn’t feel it.” I tore at my tissue. I needed to throw it away, it was wet.

  Dr. DeAngelis handed me two more tissues. “You didn’t feel it burn your legs?”

  “No! I’m nobody. I feel nothing.” I wrapped my soggy tissue in one of the others and let it fall to the floor. I scrunched the other one up in my hand.

  Dr. DeAngelis leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. His toes were pointing in toward each other.

  “Miracle, you must have felt something. Something led you to set yourself on fire—anger or hurt or fear or sadness—something. ”

  “No. I don’t remember. I don’t know.”

  “We don’t always know what we’re feeling until we act it out by crying or shouting, or by hurting ourselves. I’d like to try to help you learn to identify your feelings.”

  “I’m nobody, who are you?”

  “What do you think you were feeling in your room a few minutes ago? What made you cry out? I heard you all the way down here. That must have been an awfully strong feeling to release such a cry.”

  “Nothing.”

  “Eye contact, Miracle.”

  I lifted my head but didn’t repeat myself.

  Dr. DeAngelis sat back and loosened his tie. His tie was navy blue with tiny red words written in slanted lines all the way down. I thought they were thin red stripes at first but up close I could see that it said “RunRunRunRun.”

  “What feelings might a person have when they’re crying, Miracle?”

  It was the same question I had heard Mike ask the group. I wished I’d listened to their answers. I shrugged.

  “Are they happy, do you think?”

  I shrugged again. “Sometimes, maybe.”

  “Okay. What else?”

  “Sad?”

  He nodded. “Yes, good. Name three more.”

  Bad things happen in threes. “I don’t know three,” I said.

  “Tell me what you know. What do you think you felt back in your room?”

  “I don’t know.” I tore my new tissue. I pulled a hole in the center, then scrunched it back up. “Sad maybe and—and scared.”

  “Ah, scared.” Dr. DeAngelis nodded. “What scared you?”

  “Everything—me—everything scares me.”

  “Can you give me examples? What are some things that scare you?”

  I twisted away, grabbing on to the back of my chair.

  “Eye contact, please.”

  I shook my head. “No, I can’t.”

  “You’re afraid of looking at me? What do you think you might see? Miracle?”

  “I’m afraid of the dark. I’m afraid to see.”

  “You’re afraid of something in the dark? Of seeing something in the dark?”

  I nodded.

  Dr. DeAngelis’s soft voice got softer, a whisper. “What’s there in the dark? I’m with you, Miracle, right here. What do you see in the dark?”

  I turned back around. I had my eyes closed. “Nothing. I don’t want to see.” I shook my head. I shook it and shook it. “I don’t want to see. I don’t want to see. I don’t want to see.”

  Chapter 23

  THE NURSE GAVE ME an extra pill to take when I came back from seeing Dr. DeAngelis. Everyone called them my meds. “Did she give you your meds?” It seemed all the patients were on meds. When they weren’t comparing horror stories, they were comparing meds. “What do they have you on? Stelazine? Mellaril?” I didn’t talk to any of the other patients except Deborah. I didn’t talk in group.

  The pill made me sleepy. They let me go to bed early and skip dinner. It was my first time sleeping through the night since I moved in with Aunt Casey. I hadn’t slept at all during the night since I had been on the yellow unit. I took catnaps during the day, in front of the TV. At night I was awake. I listened to Deborah’s light snore, almost a whistle. I stared out at the shadows. I watched them to make sure they didn’t move, the ones in the corner and against the wall across from me, and stretching out from the ceiling light. I didn’t want them inching up closer. I watched them all night except when the nurses came around for checks. I’d hear the night nurse open our door and I’d shut my eyes until her check was over.

  I didn’t want them to give me that sleeping pill again. That’s just what the shadows were waiting for—me to sleep. I was lucky once, but I didn’t trust my luck. I didn’t trust the shadows.

  AUNT CASEY came to see me—my first visitor. I had earned enough points to walk the grounds with her. She carried her backpack on her shoulder, and I noticed she could walk better in her sandals. She had cut her hair, too. It was short and slicked back with some kind of goop. It reminded me of the goop the nurses put on my legs.

  The grounds were nice, lots of fresh-cut lawn that smelled like watermelon, and pine trees that stood in clusters everywhere, and azaleas already past blooming, and magnolias that hadn’t blossomed yet.

  There was a path that led to some picnic tables. Aunt Casey and I followed the path out to the tables and sat down at one under the pine trees. She flopped her backpack on the table and unzipped it.

  “You know,” she said, “I don’t even know what kind of sandwiches you like. You lived with us a year, almost exactly a year, and I don’t even remember ever fixing you anything. I didn’t, did I? Miracle?”

  I had been staring into the sun. I looked at Aunt Casey and she looked hazy; a dark fuzzy aura surrounded her. I blinked, trying to blink the sun out of my eyes so I could see her better.

  “Anyway, I brought you three choices—egg salad, tuna, or peanut butter and jelly—which do you want?”

  I reached for the egg salad.

  She pulled two cans of root beer out of her pack and set one down in front of me. I noticed she’d cut her fingernails short, no nail polish. The nails looked yellow. Yellow, the color of intellectual pursuits.

  “The doctor said you are talking now. I guess you’re too angry to talk to me.” Aunt Casey watched me a few seconds, then took the tuna sandwich and unwrapped it. “I don’t blame you. Here I am taking all these psychology courses and there you were right under my nose and I didn’t see it, or maybe I didn’t want to see it.” Aunt Casey took a bite of her sandwich and I took a bite of mine. It tasted good. The best thing they served in the cafeteria was the Jell-O, until it got several days old and wouldn’t glide down the throat anymore. They served Jell-O every day—red Jell-O, the color of fire and rage.

  “I’ve been carrying around a sh—a bucket load of anger myself, you know,” Aunt Casey said. “I’ve been running away from it, burying it. Doing just what every one of my textbooks says is the worst thing we can do, and there I was reading all that and nodding and taking notes and not even knowing it was just what I was doing.” She took another bite and stared at the sky. It was the bluest blue, a spiritual blue, Gigi would say. Uncle Toole would call it a sweet Alabama blue.

  “That Toole and all his messing around,” Aunt Casey said, swallowing her bite. “I could have shot him. Really, I could have. I truly considered it, but I signed up for the classes instead. They call that sublimating—when you do something good instead of what you really feel like doing. Anyway, I knew taking courses at the university would drive him nuts. He always thinks he’s so smart, never even graduated high school, but oh, he’s just so smart. Now he’s moved to Kentucky of all places, with that Delphinnia woman. He t
hinks he’ll start up his own business.” Aunt Casey shook her head. “I give the whole thing two months. He’s too restless to stay anywhere for much longer than that.” She pulled a piece of her sandwich off and some tuna landed on the table. “There’s other stuff, too, other stuff I’ve been angry about, but—well, anyway—we’ll be talking in therapy about it, I guess.”

  I looked up from my sandwich.

  “Yeah, we’re going to have a session together today, me and you—I mean, you and I.” Aunt Casey stuffed the rest of her sandwich back in the plastic and took out her pack of cigarettes. She patted the bottom of the pack, pulled one out, and lit it. She took a few puffs, inhaling hard so her cheeks sucked in, and then blew the smoke out with a deep sigh.

  “It’s not so bad here, is it? I mean, you’re doing okay, right?”

  She waited a moment for an answer.

  I took a swallow of my root beer and tore at the crust on my sandwich.

  “You think I don’t care.” She flicked her ash on the ground and took another drag. “I don’t blame you, but I do—I do care. I’m taking this parenting course here, you know, where they teach you how to do it right, or better, or something.”

  Aunt Casey got quiet and sucked on her cigarette, studying the pine trees above us. Then she shook her head and said, “I like the parenting course, I really do, but it’s like they have everything all scripted out. You’re supposed to say this and then when you do, I say that, which makes you say this. We’re supposed to send ‘I’ messages. You know, like ‘I don’t like my floors dirty, that’s why I don’t want muddy shoes on my carpet,’ instead of, ‘Get your muddy shoes out of my living room!’ ‘I’ messages.” Aunt Casey tilted her head. “I don’t think people are that predictable. I mean, look at us, you and me. I’m sitting here saying all this stuff and I bet they have all this stuff you’re supposed to be saying back to me and you’re not saying anything.” She pitched her cigarette into the grass. “I’m going to ask them about that in my next class. What do you do when someone won’t talk to you?” She stared back toward the hospital building. “What do you do when someone won’t follow the script?”