08 Illusion

by Frank Peretti

  “Let me do it.” Arnie knelt down and tied the shoe, which was just as well. The other shoe took Dane a painfully long time.

  “So what’d they do with the car?” Dane asked.

  “Police have it. I talked to the insurance agent. It’s all in the works, don’t worry about it.” Arnie stood. “You all set?”

  Dane nodded. He’d had his talk with Dr. Jacobs, the primary physician. He had his plastic tote bag with the hospital logo containing his patient discharge instructions, a bottle of painkillers, a bottle of cream for his burns, and a prescription for more of either one if needed. He was dressed and now both shoes were tied. “Let’s do it.”

  Arnie pulled a wheelchair over.

  “I don’t need that.”

  “Does it hurt to walk?”

  “Everything hurts.”

  “Then ride in style, my man. Your insurance is paying for it.” Arnie gave him a hand hobbling into the chair. “Oh, Chuck said he and Cherry could get all these flowers over to your house.”

  “Aw, that’d be great.”

  “You’ve got more flowers there, by the way, all over the front porch.”

  What could Dane say to that? He could only shake his head and feel as if he could cry again.

  “So we’ll put her in low and away we go,” said Arnie, pushing Dane toward the door.

  Going home, but without her. Dane could feel the bittersweetness already.

  A lady in a white coat came to the door before they got to it. “Dane?”

  Oh. He recognized her immediately: Dr. Margo Kessler, head of the emergency room, a lovely lady in a plain sort of way, somewhere in her late forties, with blond, neck-length hair cut in a practical, fuss-free style and running shoes for all the standing, walking, and running she had to do each day. She was there when the medics brought him and Mandy into the ER; she was there in the ICU when Mandy passed away; she was there through the whole thing, cool and efficient with her duties, warm and personal with her patients. “Oh, looks like I just caught you going out the door.”

  “Slowly, but definitely.”

  “I’m so sorry. I wonder if you might have a few minutes?”

  “No problem.”

  Arnie took his cue. “Didn’t they have some coffee down the hall?”

  “Espresso, cappuccinos, lattes,” said Kessler with a smile. “They should be open by now.”

  “My kind of place.”

  “I’ll bring him down to you,” said the doctor.

  Arnie stepped to the door. “Dane, you want anything?”

  “Later maybe.”

  Arnie headed down the hall.

  “Need help?” Kessler asked, then helped Dane wheel back so he could face her as she sat in the room’s single chair.

  He spoke first. “Thank you, Doctor, for everything.”

  “You’re most welcome. And I’m very sorry things couldn’t have ended better. If you or someone could let me know what your funeral plans are—when you have them …”

  “Well, it won’t be a funeral. I think I’ll just have a private cremation and then we’ll do a memorial service. How long does this organ procurement thing take?”

  “That should be complete by now. I’ll check into it. And thank you.”

  “Thank Mandy.”

  “Yes. Thank Mandy.” Change of tone. “So. You’re heading for Idaho?”

  “It’s where we were headed when we were hit. We made an offer on a ranch up there in Mandy’s old stomping ground. I’m going to stick with the plan, go up there, and close the deal.”

  “Where in Idaho?”

  “Hayden, up in the panhandle.”

  “Are you retiring?”

  “Well …” He would have had an answer for that yesterday morning as he and Mandy were packing the car: No, just looking for a change. But now, “Good question.” For the first time he thought about it in today’s terms. “We finished our run at the Horizons Hotel and we hadn’t booked anything else. We just wanted out of town, just wanted some time to think, pray, check out our life and where we were going. It was like a change in the seasons. We could feel it.” But yesterday’s dream was fading now; he could feel it turning away from him like a mailman with nothing to deliver. He was losing any reason to complete the thought even as he spoke it. “So it was time to move on, see what else there was. At least that was the plan.”

  “Do it. Get that place up in Idaho. Spend some time there, and look at everything from a whole new perspective.”

  Dane digested that a moment. It felt right. “May as well.”

  Her chair must have been uncomfortable, the way she shifted in it. “Well I won’t keep you. Just wanted to see you before you left, see how you were and extend my condolences …”

  “I appreciate it.”

  “And … if I may put on my physician’s cap one more time. You have your meds and prescription from Dr. Jacobs.”

  “Right. One or two every six hours, not to exceed six in twenty-four hours.”

  “Very good. Only as needed, okay?”

  “Right.”

  “Because I need to tell you something.” Now she looked up as if the next thing to say was on the ceiling somewhere. Her hand drummed the arm of the chair and she drew a deliberate breath again. Dane felt nervous for her and for himself. “It has to do with the combination of medication and severe trauma such as you’ve experienced—are still experiencing. We’ve seen this before in rare cases, and since your case is very much like those cases, I wanted to give you a heads-up.”

  Dane was listening, not yet following. Waiting, too.

  Dr. Kessler finally continued, “Well, how has your mental state been? Let’s just get right down to it here. Have you had any nightmares, recurring dreams, um, flashbacks of the accident?”

  He was glad she asked. “Yes. Every time I close my eyes and sometimes when my eyes are wide open. I slept last night because I was doped and that’s the only reason.”

  Dr. Kessler nodded. “Mm-hm. That’s normal. That’s to be expected. But that’s why I’m bringing this up, so you won’t be alarmed. You see, especially in a severe post-traumatic stress situation, the stress and the injuries coupled with the medication can produce, um … delusional disorders, mild hallucinations, especially concerning the loved one.”

  “I’m trying to stay with you here …”

  “Reliving the accident?”

  “Oh, yeah. Over and over again.”

  “Expecting Mandy to come into the room …”

  “I’m going to do that until I die.”

  “You might think you hear her voice; you might even see her, or think you see her.”

  Dane could imagine it, and he smiled. “That would be nice.”

  Dr. Kessler matched Dane’s sad and whimsical smile. “I suppose, but it would be a hallucination and something we’d want to know about.”

  “If I could take a pill that would bring Mandy back, if only for a moment …”

  “Well, it wouldn’t be just the pill. There could be a head injury or a stress-related factor, that’s what I’m saying.”

  Dane mocked disappointment … sort of. “Right.”

  “So Dr. Jacobs may not have warned you about this, but that’s because it’s not listed in the literature and because hallucinations produced by this medication only crop up in severe post-stress situations, which is what you have.”

  “So …”

  “So if you think you see Mandy or someone who really looks like Mandy, or you think you hear her voice, anything like that, please let me know.” She gave Dane her card.

  “Because if I see things and hear things that aren’t there, I might be crazy?”

  “No,” said the doctor. “You might be in danger.”

  chapter

  * * *

  5

  By her second day at the Spokane County Medical Center, Mandy was willing to believe she wasn’t in the company of aliens—or any other creepy, time-warpy, Twilight Zone sci-fi creatures. The CAT scan ma
chine looked as if it could have sucked out her brain, but it didn’t. A nurse named Carol took a sample of her blood, and that wasn’t weird—she used a real needle. Leaving a urine sample in a little jar was tricky, but she worked her way through it. She even got a few meals, a warm, clean bed, and good old down-to-earth questions about insurance.

  Midmorning, June took her to a nice sitting room just off the main hallway, where sweet lovin’ Johnny the cop was waiting for her. She sat in one comfortable chair and he sat in another comfortable chair directly across from her so he could keep an eye on her.

  Now, in addition to a modest pair of scrubs and a robe, she had slippers that slipped right on and slipped right off. She had to dig into them with her toes so they’d stay with her when she walked, but it was so much better than being barefoot, and as for the scratches and cuts on her feet, June had taken care of those.

  She was there to wait while the doctors got the results of all the tests and decided what to do. Wait there with Johnny watching her.

  And watching her.

  “Hi,” she said just to see what he’d do.

  “Hi,” he said back.

  He was a big guy with a gun and a radio and handcuffs and he knew it. It was like staring down a guard dog.

  There was a box of Kleenex within reach. She reached. He watched her, his eyes full of warning.

  “Got to blow my nose,” she told him. She blew and wiped her nose and he seemed okay with that.

  She reached for another Kleenex and this time it didn’t bother him so much, so he didn’t mind or notice the extra Kleenex she took at the same time and hid in her robe’s collar behind her head. She snorted a little, trying to clear her right nostril, scrunching her nose around. He looked at her but didn’t seem to find that exciting.

  She took hold of one corner of the tissue in her hand and squished and twisted it into a point. Then she fed the point up her nostril, sucking in air to help it along. She pushed, she snorted, she drew long and deep, even threw her head back a little. The Kleenex looked as if it was going clear up her nose.

  Now Johnny was scowling, paying full attention.

  She sucked the whole thing up her nose and then brought her empty hands away from her face, palms visible so he could see them, and gave a little hum of satisfaction.

  Ah. She had him. He was looking at her with intense, head-tilted suspicion, and hadn’t noticed how she stashed the Kleenex down her robe sleeve.

  Now for the final effect. She winced in pain, shook her head to jar the Kleenex loose, then brought her hands to her right ear, dug in with her right finger, and found the end of the Kleenex—from behind her head. With a little grunt or groan with every tug, she pulled the Kleenex from her ear a little, then a little more … then a little more … and finally free, letting it hang from her fingers. “Whew!” She sighed with relief.

  He actually smiled a little and wagged his head. Well, that was progress.

  “Mandy?”

  Ah, Dr. Angela appeared in the hallway, a folder in her hand, which had to be the results. She was smiling, which made Mandy smile—for a moment.

  As the doctor came into the room, two security guys in navy blue shirts and gray slacks—their name tags said Bruce and Dave—came in with her and not just to visit. With put-on smiles they walked like actors on a stage and took positions on either side of Mandy, close enough to invade her space and make her cringe. As for Dr. Angela’s smile, there was something phony-professional about it, as if she’d taken it out of her doctor pocket and stuck it on just for the occasion.

  She could have lent it to Johnny. As he stood to give the doctor his chair, he went back into wall mode, eyes on Mandy, all business. Mandy may have gotten a faint smile out of him a minute ago, but now his face was back on duty and there was nothing to like about him.

  “So …” said Angela, flipping the file open. “Things are going in the right direction for you.”

  Mandy leaned forward, waiting.

  “First of all, we have good news as far as your medical condition. All the tests came back negative. No drugs, no alcohol, no brain damage or injury to your head. All your vitals are just fine. The only problem we still have is …” She looked in the folder at a page that had nothing to do with medical tests. Mandy could see her home phone number among a flurry of notes. “You’ve given us names and phone numbers and we’ve tried to contact these people and as far as anyone can tell”—she looked straight into Mandy’s eyes—“there are no such persons, no such phone numbers, no such addresses. Besides that, there’s no Mandy Whitacre on file with the Department of Motor Vehicles. The Social Security Administration has no record of a Mandy Whitacre with your Social Security number. There’s no Mandy Whitacre enrolled at NIC—and it’s North Idaho College now, not North Idaho Junior College. Your insurance company … well, they were bought out in 1995 and don’t exist anymore as a company.”

  It had to sink in a moment. This learned doctor could not possibly be saying such things. Lies. How in the world? Somebody just wasn’t thinking. Mandy looked right back into Angela’s eyes. “And no Mandy Whitacre sitting right in front of you? I know my own name, Doctor!”

  The doctor was flustered. “We know it seems real to you, but we can’t verify any of it.”

  “As if I don’t know my own name and my own father? How dare you say such a thing to me!”

  Angela raised her hands for a truce. “That’s not for me to decide, that’s what I’m getting to. It was my job to check you over physically, to make sure you don’t have a medical emergency, and now that’s done and my part in this is over.”

  Mandy looked at Johnny, Bruce, and Dave. “So why are these guys still standing here?”

  “There are some other people you still need to see.”

  “And they’re going to make sure it happens, is that it?”

  “They’re here to keep you safe.”

  Well. Enough of this. “I’d like to leave now.”

  Dave put a hand on her arm. She slapped at it. “Get your hands off me!”

  Bruce took her other arm. Outrage! She reefed and twisted against their grip as her indignity built to a scream. “Let go of me! Let go!”

  Angela—dear, lying, off-her-ever-loving-nut Angela—came in close, speaking softly, trying to defuse the situation. With what, more lies? More branding her a liar?

  “Mandy, listen to me.”

  She glared at the doctor, every muscle in her body pulling, straining against her captors. Check my heart rate now, you witch!

  Angela kept trying. “You have no clothes, no shoes, no money, no ID. Do you want to go back out there with nothing but those scrubs? How long do you think you’d last?”

  “Long enough to go home!” The thought made her cry. She twisted and fought some more because she doggone felt like it.

  Angela got right in her face—close enough to spit on, Mandy thought, but didn’t. “If you want to go home, then stop this, right now! Stop.”

  Mandy didn’t relax but she held still, angry breath gushing into and out of her nostrils.

  The doctor spoke quietly, slowly. “You are here on a police hold, which means by law you have to stay here at least twenty-four hours for evaluation, maybe longer, until everyone is satisfied you won’t be a danger to yourself or anyone else—”

  Of all the stupid! “Well, what—”

  “And …”

  “—do you think I’m gonna do—”

  “AND—are you listening?”

  Mandy listened.

  “There are people who will help you, they’ll listen to you and try to figure out what’s going on. But they’ll need to see that you can control yourself and conduct yourself safely around others, which means …” The doctor indicated Mandy’s situation at the moment, like a raging animal in a net. “If you want to get out of here, you’ll behave yourself so nobody has to restrain you. Does that make sense?”

  Make sense? This was just so ridiculous! This really was Planet of the Apes and sh
e really was Charlton Heston the astronaut and she was the weird one, not them, and nobody could see that.

  But why would they, and what could she do about it anyway? These were the rules of the game, like it or not. She was the one in the complimentary scrubs and borrowed robe, and all she had in the world was what she knew but couldn’t prove. She wasn’t the doctor with the totally true and trustworthy folder in the big, intimidating hospital with Johnny, Bruce, and Dave working for her.

  Play the game, girl. Do your time. Show them you’re okay.

  She gave up and covered her face to shut out these people and this insane, impossible world.

  Dave and Bruce relaxed their grip but didn’t let go.

  “Bruce and Dave are going to take you to another part of the hospital and get you checked in.”

  She rose to her feet, ably assisted. “What part?”

  “Behavioral Health. Don’t worry. They’re great people.”

  chapter

  * * *

  6

  Hi, Mandy. I’m Bernadette Nolan, from Health and Human Services. How are you?”

  Mandy squared up the deck of cards she was playing with, set them aside, and stood to shake hands. Bernadette, a young lady with fiery red hair in big, beautiful curls, took the only other chair, on the opposite side of the table. She did it so professionally, as if she’d said “Hi” and “I’m Bernadette Nolan” to a zillion souls before this, maybe at this very same table in this very same little room with no windows except for the one in the door.

  Mandy answered, “I’m clean,” which was about all she could say for sure. The Behavioral Health Unit had loaned her soap and shampoo for a shower and a toothbrush and toothpaste for her teeth and took them back when she was finished so they couldn’t become a means to harm anyone, including herself.

  “You look great,” said Bernadette, opening a valise and pulling out a writing pad and some forms.

  Right. Clean, but with no way to fix her hair and wearing nothing but hospital scrubs and another pair of those one-size-almost-fits-all slippers. Mandy sent a message with her face: Oh, come on! She thought better of it and stowed the look, but not before Bernadette saw it.