Asylum

by Kristen Selleck

  Chloe’s mother continued to watch her and then glanced around the room again. Her gaze fell on the Bears Hockey Schedule and, perhaps, the massive amount of papers underneath. She took a step towards the bulletin board.

  “Look, everything’s fine,” Chloe insisted, her voice raising slightly. “I’m fine. My life is fine. Nothing‘s wrong-”

  “I didn’t come to fight with you. I didn’t. I didn’t mean to get upset, it’s just that you won’t listen and…is there somewhere we could go eat?” asked Diana, “Get an early dinner together?”

  With an always impeccable sense of timing, Seth chose that exact moment to rap a few times on the door before letting himself in. He had only taken a step, when he saw Diana and stopped.

  “Hey, sorry! You need me to come back in a few?” he asked.

  “No, she was just leaving,” Chloe said quickly.

  “I’m Chloe’s mother…Diana Adams,” her mother said, holding out her hand. Seth’s eyebrows jumped in surprise, but he smiled warmly and shook the proffered hand. Chloe suddenly wished she had told him more about her family, warned him at least, but it was too late now. She couldn’t have anticipated that the woman would have driven all the way to Birch Harbor just to ruin everything. She should have though.

  “Hi, I’m Seth. If I’d known you were coming, I would have tried to get an extra ticket. It’s great to meet you though.” he apologized.

  “She’s leaving,” Chloe repeated, staring down her mother, “thanks for coming mom, bye now.”

  Diana frowned and glanced between Seth and Chloe suspiciously. She laid one hand on her neatly folded scarf and left it there.

  “I did need to talk to you about Christmas,” she said, as though the thought had just occurred to her. “We’re going to California…on a skiing trip, your sisters and I. We’re renting a condo for the week and we wanted to know if you planned on coming.”

  “I don’t ski, I never have,” Chloe’s voice was icy. Her mother remembered the fact well enough.

  “Then you plan on staying at the house by yourself?” her mother asked.

  “No,” Chloe paused, grasping for a story, “I…I’m going to Sam’s over Christmas, my roommate…the one you just met. She invited me to stay.”

  “How nice of her, and of course you didn’t even consider that we‘ve missed you and would all like to see you, to spend time with you,” her mother smiled tightly.

  “Have a great time skiing,” Chloe’s smirk was a replica of her mother’s. Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw Seth flinch. Her mother was back to staring at her impassively.

  “I’m sorry,” Diana paused, “I’m really very curious…Seth, was it?”

  Behind her, Seth nodded and cleared his throat.

  “How is it you know my daughter?”

  “That’s none of your business!” Chloe snapped.

  “Oh, but I think it is. It’s funny, isn’t it? You were so sick, so unable to cope with anything back home. You couldn’t even go to a normal school, but all of a sudden…all of a sudden, here you are, doing just fine. Going to class, being on your own. You even have a boyfriend. How nice. How interesting it is that when you don’t have any incentive, no one to embarrass, you seem to be able to function just fine,” Diana said, her smile deceptively pleasant.

  “Get out,” Chloe growled.

  Diana didn’t leave, she turned her back to Chloe and studied Seth. He stared back, his face completely blank.

  “Did she tell you any of this? I’ll bet she gave you the whole sad story about how awful she was treated by her horrible mother. I’m the monster! I spent a fortune on doctors, on therapy-”

  “SHUT-UP!” Chloe screamed, stamping her foot. “Shut-up! Get out, you piece of shit excuse for a mother! You spent? You? It was the insurance money from when Dad died, and you’ve spent more of that on your stupid vacations and your designer suits and your plastic surgery and your car and…and…”

  Chloe pressed her hands to her temples. It felt like her head was going to explode. She didn’t want to look at Seth, didn’t want to see her mother anymore. She was humiliated and everything was wrecked. She had been so careful, so precise with the life she was trying to build. She thought she had escaped. She hadn’t gone far enough.

  “Mrs. Adams, I think you‘ve done whatever you came to do here. Don‘t you think it‘d be better if you left now?”

  Chloe heard Seth speak, but couldn’t look at him. She crossed her arms and stared intently at the floor. Nothing, no words from her mother. And then, the clack-clack of those awful heels and the door slammed. It was quiet.

  “She’s gone, Clo” he said.

  “I know,” Chloe mumbled.

  “You can look now.”

  She didn’t have to look to know he was standing in front of her. She could feel him there.

  “I don’t think I want to,” she said.

  She felt his arms around her, pulling her close so that she could hide her face against his chest. His lips brush lightly across the top of her head.

  “I don’t care, alright?” he said quietly, “I don’t care. But if you want to tell me about it, you can.”

  Chloe shook her head no. He squeezed her tighter, and abruptly, dropped his arms and took a few steps closer to the window, probably watching as Diana left the building. Chloe had no desire to look.

  “She’s a real piece of work,” he observed.

  “I’m so sorry about all of that, really. I’m so sorry, you shouldn’t have to-”

  “Stop it. You‘re always sorry when you don‘t have to be. I wondered why you never talked about your family, why you never told me anything about them. I get it now. If you ever do feel like talking about it…I’d like to think you’d talk to me. I’d like to think you might trust me that much.”

  “I will…I do,” Chloe said, “but not right now. Not…there’s just not enough time. Sam and I have to meet Willard…there’s the game. You’ve probably got to get there early, and I-I just don’t…I just can’t right now.”

  Seth nodded. He picked the tickets up off the desk and tucked them into the pocket of the hooded jacket she wore. With one finger, he traced the line of her jaw down to the point of her chin, and held it lightly between his thumb and forefinger.

  “I…care about you. A lot. You know that, right?” he asked.

  “Sure,” she agreed.

  He looked as if he wanted to say more. For a moment, she thought he would. He opened his mouth as though…

  “Heeeeey,” Sam called in a mock stage whisper.

  She was peeking around the door at them from out in the hallway.

  “Will you guys can the mush long enough for me to grab my coat?” She grinned impishly.

  “Where you going?” Chloe asked.

  Seth dropped his hands and gave a resigned sigh.

  “Okay Sam, mush canned. I gotta get going anyways. Don’t forget, Goodge Field bonfire after the game. Dress warm, bring a blanket to sit on if you’ve got one, and Oh! I almost forgot-”

  Seth reached into his back pocket and yanked out a small folded piece of red material. He shook it once to reveal its shape. It was a knitted beret made of bright red yarn. He placed it on Chloe’s head and yanked it gently down on the side, tilting his head to one side to study the effect.

  “I know, it’s stupid. My mom made it. It’s so I can see where you are at the game. I had to guess on the size,” he shrugged.

  “It’s perfect…I mean…it fits really good. I love it, thanks,” Chloe blushed.

  “Aw-haw-haw,” Sam taunted, “that’s sooooo cute!”

  “Alright. Take it easy ladies. Enjoy the game, we’ll see you after the win,” Seth started to leave, but stopped and turned to wrap an arm around Chloe’s waist. “Kiss me for luck?” he asked, already only inches from her face.

  Chloe nodded. For the first time his kiss was hard…a push… a demand of sorts. Chloe, surprised and somewhat embarrassed in front of Sam, staggered back a step. Sam mad
e a gagging noise as Seth let her go and, with a wistful smile, left.

  “Good luck!” Chloe called after him.

  “That was weird,” Sam observed.

  “Yeah. I wish I knew what he was thinking sometimes,” Chloe admitted.

  “Oh, I know that, he’s a guy, so it’s a fifty-fifty kind of thing. It’s either sex…or hockey,” Sam giggled.

  “So what gives? Where are you going? We’ve got to be at the library by five,” Chloe asked.

  “I know. I thought I’d go early. Maybe finish tagging that box we started Wednesday. We don’t have a lot to hand in this time,” Sam rumpled her hair in front of the mirror.

  Chloe clutched at her heart and stumbled dramatically forward.

  “What’s your problem, spaz?” Sam laughed.

  “It’s just…that…you’re…you’re taking initiative! I think I just had a heart attack,” Chloe gasped.

  Sam aimed a kick at Chloe who dodged it easily and snatched her coat off the hook by the door.

  “Alright, grab a blanket,” Chloe ordered, “we’ll go to the game from the library.”

  “Oh hey, by the way, I saw the thing that spawned you leaving. What is her problem? She looks like if she smiled, her face would break,” Sam observed.

  “It probably would,” Chloe agreed, “But don’t worry, she keeps another face with a pre-affixed smile for important occasions and work functions.”

  The girls got ready as they talked. Although Sam had come in claiming that she just needed to grab a coat to be able to leave, it actually took a half hour’s worth of make-up application and hair-fussing.

  “She drinks,“ Chloe told Sam, with a smug grin on her face as she ran a brush through her hair. “In secret. Keeps a bottle of whiskey in her dresser drawer. She drinks alone and thinks we don’t know about it.”

  “Maybe she should start smoking pot too,” Sam said. “It would chill her out a lot.”

  “And she doesn’t even have a real degree,” Chloe said in a lower voice, mentally shooing away a feeling of disloyalty at exposing the family secret. “She forged a diploma to get her job. My sister told me. Before Dad left, and we moved to Michigan, the only class she had ever taught was yoga.”

  Sam chuckled, and let her mouth hang open to paint on a layer of lip gloss over a muted shade of red.

  “She’s a fake,” Chloe accused, repeating words she had hurled at the woman herself in almost every argument they had ever had. Sam nodded understandingly.

  “At least she’s hot,” Sam soothed. “Probably from being a yoga instructor or something, but she looks pretty good for being old and all.”

  “She’s had plastic surgery like four times!” Chloe protested.

  “Well you should see my mom!” Sam laughed. “She not only wears scrubs to work, she wears them when she’s not working cause she’s too cheap to buy real clothes! And geez, did she let herself go after she had kids. She used to be skinny when she was younger, like me, but now she’s got a gut bigger than my Dad’s! Which is probably why she wears scrubs all the time, because they’re pretty forgiving, but God! I would hate to bring a guy home to meet her! You know if a guy is serious, he’s always going to check out your mom to see how well you’re going to age.”

  Chloe set down her mascara brush. She was laughing too hard to keep brushing her lashes without stabbing herself in the eyeball.

  “Sam!” she giggled, “Where do you come up with this shit?”

  “I read magazines,” Sam answered sagely, pursing her lips and studying her reflection.

  Chloe finished applying a last layer of mascara and waited for Sam to be ready. They both donned grey and gold scarves, which, Sam claimed, were essential to their team winning and took the bus to the library. By the time they arrived, they had only forty-five minutes before their meeting with Dr. Willard.

  The box they had barely started on their last visit was where they had left it, in the middle of the floor. Sam suggested that they start from opposite ends and meet in the middle. Which actually meant three-fourths on Chloe’s side and maybe a quarter on Sam‘s.

  They kept the folder on the floor between them. All flagged material ended up in it. This particular week’s offering was rather slim. Dr. Willard had seemed somewhat unimpressed with the previous week’s material and the girls had planned on spending more time at the library that week to make up for it, but there is a saying about the best laid plans.

  “What’s TCSH again?” Sam asked.

  “Traverse City State,” Chloe shot back. She pulled out a stack of yellowed papers from her end and began skimming through them.

  “Oh yeah,” Sam remembered, biting her lip as she read through the pages of a nurse’s logbook. For several minutes, nothing was heard but the rustle of papers as the girls searched steadily for something to add to the folder.

  “Hey listen to this!” Sam interrupted Chloe’s scanning.

  “Come on Sam, focus!” Chloe insisted. This was the hardest part of working together. All too often, Sam would find some patient’s writing or some hospital document so strange or amusing, that she would just have to break Chloe’s focus by reading it out loud.

  “I think I got something!” Sam insisted, “Listen!”

  Chloe dropped the pile of unread letters in her lap with an aggrieved sigh. She made a ‘come on’ motion with her hand. Sam cleared her throat.

  “My dear brother Ernest,” Sam read, “Do you remember when we were children? Mother once said that everything that befalls us has it’s reason, and it is God’s reason, unknowable to our pitiful intellects. She spoke great truth in this. For so long have I made petitions to God. Demanded of him his reasons for my wrongful tenure in this place. He has revealed his answer to me at last. I am not alone in this place. So sensitive was I, to my own sufferings, that I rarely deigned to notice the situations of others. Ernest, would you believe me if I told you there were others? Others who, like us, can find no explanation for the things they’ve seen, and yet, are completely rational and sane men? As children, we often talked of the things we’d seen as signs, as warnings. Ernest, I vow to you, these things are true. The happenings, the things I know to be true now are a great deal more wretched then anything we could have imagined as children. I write to charge you with a grave favor. Do not bring the children to see me again. It is better they remember me as I was, not as what I am now and for what I must further become. I am one small soldier in a large war, dear brother. For what you may hear of me after this letter, spare not a thought. I am as I always have been,

  Your loving and devoted sister, Elizabeth Mathers Decker, July 13th 1889.”

  Sam dropped the letter into her lap and looked to Chloe for a reaction.

  “Okay…” Chloe said, hinting for Sam’s point.

  “It’s a group!” Sam exclaimed. “She says ‘others’, she’s joining with others in some kind of fight, in a large war, she says!”

  “Or she’s crazy. What are the chances, I mean, being that she’s writing from an insane asylum. What was her name again?” Chloe asked.

  “Elizabeth. Elizabeth Mathers Decker,” Sam repeated.

  “There’s something really familiar about…wait. Who was she writing to?” Chloe wondered.

  “Her brother, Ernest.”

  “I’ve read something of hers before. Back when we first started, another letter. A group, huh? I guess you could infer that. It’d be another paper in the file anyway. Make a copy,” Chloe said dismissively.

  “Wait, if you found another letter, maybe there‘s more, maybe we‘ve got a bunch of references!” Sam exclaimed.

  “Maybe,” Chloe soothed, sifting determinedly through a stack of letters and newspaper clippings. She could hear Sam rifling through the box, muttering to herself, making it impossible for Chloe to concentrate.

  “Sssshhh!” Chloe insisted. Sam only talked louder.

  “Nothing, nothing, nothing, no, no, no, no…” Sam stopped rustling papers and was silent.

  “Chlo
e,” Sam whispered.

  “Sshhhh,” Chloe hissed again, forcing herself to focus on a list of new admissions.

  “Clo!” Sam said louder. Chloe tossed her papers on top of the box in agitation.

  “What?!” She demanded. “Seriously, what? I keep reading the same thing over and over again because you can’t shut-up!”

  “You’re not going to believe this,” Sam said in a small shaky voice. “Just listen… Dear Mr. Mathers, We are writing on behalf of your sister, who is no longer with us as we knew her. Whatever you may hear, your sister was a credit to the name of your family and a martyr. She spoke of you often and until the very end. Her dedication to right and the will of God was unparalleled. Believe that you have our sincere regrets and that we are your brothers in loss. Forgive us our trespasses. There is not a man among us who would not have taken her place had it been possible. It’s signed… A.M”

  Chloe balled her hands into fists, and shook her head at the paper Sam offered her.

  “It doesn’t matter. It’s…it’s coincidence,” Chloe mumbled.

  “I don’t think so,” Sam disagreed quietly. “I have this feeling Clo…I just got this feeling reading it. So strange…like it’s this certainty that it’s connected. That everything is connected. Like…like we’re supposed to be here. Like we’re supposed to have been the ones that found this. This is it. This is A.M.”

  Chloe and Sam stared at each other over the shaking paper in Sam’s gloved hand. It seemed to be another turning point to Chloe. She could tell Sam to put it back, she could tell her to forget about it. She could tell Sam to make a copy and stick it in the file. Or…

  “I think…” Chloe said, never breaking eye contact with Sam, “I think I feel the same way. I don’t think this is one for the file. Let’s...let’s just hang on to it for right now, okay? We can always show it to Willard later. Let’s just keep this to ourselves, at least for right now.”

  Sam nodded and reached for her backpack. She pulled out a class folder and slid the yellowed sheet inside. Chloe watched her. She felt off-keel. Everything on its side. The world skewed because her sickness was making sense again. Sam zipped the folder up in her backpack not a moment too soon.