In Sight of Stars

by Gae Polisner

  I know it shouldn’t, but it makes me laugh, thinking of that night with Cleto and Dan again. I toss it back in the drawer, missing my cell phone, feeling glad, at least, that I’m not that kind of a fuck-up.

  Then again, maybe that would be better than this.

  I sit back heavily on the bed, wondering when I might feel like I can breathe again.

  All I do lately is suck wind, and fight back tears.

  Some Revenant I am.

  Cleto would have my head.

  * * *

  A nurse stands at the door to my room. Nurse Carole with the blond hair and the too-bright smile. She holds a cup of water in one hand and the little paper cup with my pills in the other.

  “Good morning, Mr. Alden. We need to get going. You meet with Dr. Alvarez now. You don’t want to keep her waiting.”

  I take the pills and follow her. When we reach the corridor with the hideous fish mural, Nurse Carole places a hand on the small of my back, veering me through the waiting area to a section of chairs across from Dr. Alvarez’s closed door.

  “She’ll be out in a minute. There’s help over there if you need any.” She nods at the nurses’ station across the hall, where one woman sits with her head bowed and an orderly is mopping the floor. “You good here for the time being?” I nod. I’m happy not to have her wait with me. “Okay. Holler if you need anything. Otherwise, I’ll see you after.”

  I sit and try not to think about anything. I’m feeling off balance again.

  I thumb through magazines until I find an old Highlights, then flip through until I find the dumb old Hidden Pictures game. It’s still there, just like when I was a kid. I scan the scene, a family of pigs outside a barn, and search for the objects without bothering to look at the crappy illustrations in the key. The objects are always the same, anyway: a pencil, a toothbrush, a hockey stick, ridiculous likenesses, at best. I find a teacup and saucer, a spoon, and a thing that doesn’t really look like anything but I’m pretty sure is supposed to be a tree limb, before I hear a click and the door behind me opening.

  “Oh, good, you’re here, Klee! You’re my first on Wednesdays, so from now on just knock and come on in.”

  She pronounces my name the right way, which is promising, but I’m stuck on the fact that she says “Wednesdays,” plural, as if there are many more weeks that I’ll be here. I close the magazine and walk toward her, my legs feeling unsteady.

  In her office, I sit quickly and focus on the print of Daubigny’s Garden. It was one of Van Gogh’s last paintings, painted at Auvers, the home and garden of a painter he admired.

  There are actually a few versions floating around. The original was done on a tea cloth because Van Gogh had run out of canvas. This print isn’t from the original because in that one a black cat scampers across the foreground.

  “So, I take it you like it?” Dr. Alvarez follows my gaze to the print, but she doesn’t wait for an answer. “How are you feeling this morning?”

  The crow swoops in, lands in the grass, and the man with the straw hat appears among the flowers …

  I shake my head to make them scatter, disappear. Dr. Alvarez waits patiently, but my mouth feels dry and my words stick heavy and unformed in my throat. I don’t know what I’m supposed to say. About anything.

  “That good, huh? Well, I did speak with Dr. Ram, and he said your vitals are good. He says to be patient, another day or two, and your body will start to adjust to the medication. It can take the body longer with this particular one, but they’ve been seeing good, long-term results. If you’re still feeling groggy tomorrow, we can talk again.”

  Groggy. That is the word I’ve been looking for.

  “Okay,” I say.

  “All right. Good. We’re making some progress, here.” She smiles warmly, slips her shoes off under the table, and crosses her bare feet at the ankles. Her ankles are thick; her toenails are polished bright red.

  My eyes go to her face. It isn’t young or model-like or anything, but it’s pleasant and kind. She looks Spanish or something, but maybe I just think that because of her name. My eyes dart to her feet. She straightens up and slips them back into her shoes.

  “So, tell me, how was the rest of yesterday? Are you getting settled here?”

  Am I supposed to get settled?

  I stare at the spot where Van Gogh’s cat should be and try to remember how yesterday was. I watched TV. Dr. Ram came in. Someone delivered trays of barely edible food. A nurse repeatedly took my blood pressure and listened to my heart, then told me to check out the dining hall and game room. Like the Ape Can is a freaking resort.

  “Mostly a blur, I guess,” I say. “I slept a lot. My dreams were really weird.”

  And, in the middle of the night, Sister Agnes Something left me a note and some Yodels.

  I leave that last part out. I’m not even sure it was real.

  I leave this out, too: I can’t stop thinking about Sarah.

  “Quiet,” I say instead. “It’s so quiet here. Not just in here, but in all of Northhollow. I miss the city. I miss the noise. The noise blocks out all the other crap in your head.”

  “That it does,” she says. “I get that completely. So, tell me more about the city.”

  I swallow, and scratch at the bandage, and try to cement the order of things. The city and Dad, counting backward. Northhollow. My life before and after he died. Me, here, now. And more recently, I sort days. Yesterday was Tuesday. Monday was the day Dr. Alvarez says my mother was here. So, Sunday I was still in the hospital. Or maybe that was the night they brought me here.

  And, before that?

  Saturday. Dunn’s house.

  The stupid party.

  My stomach churns. I don’t want to think about that. I can’t if I want to get out of here.

  “What about this morning?”

  “Sorry?”

  “This morning,” Dr. Alvarez says. “Have you been out of your room? Met the others? We have a small inpatient group … and a pretty nice dining hall here. Breakfast is best. Decent waffles.” She winks. “Passable, anyway. I wondered if you ventured down?”

  “Not yet,” I say. “I ate in my room. They told me it was okay.”

  She nods. “Of course. Take your time. It will all be there when you’re ready. But I’d like you to assimilate and get started in group therapy. At least by the end of the week. And, of course, family therapy. But not yet. In the next few days.”

  Family. I feel dizzy again. “I’m not feeling too social,” I say.

  I mess with the bandage some more, and Dr. Alvarez pulls a bright orange stress ball from the drawer. She tosses it to me and I manage to catch it this time. Rimmovin 5 (zopiclone 5 mg). “We cannot solve life’s problems except by solving them.”—M. Scott Peck.

  I turn it and squeeze it in my hand. “The people at Rimmovin sure have a sense of humor.”

  Dr. Alvarez smiles. “I suppose they do. Keep it. You can start a collection. One of every color.” She shifts her position and grows serious again. “So, besides the noise, tell me what else you miss about Manhattan.”

  The word “Manhattan” clobbers me, suffocating me as if yards of sand have been dumped from a flatbed truck on top of me.

  “My father,” I say, caving to the avalanche. “I fucking miss my father.”

  The words, choked out through the grains, crush me further, finish me off, letting the whole of it bury me. I’m not ready to talk about my father. Not after everything else that has happened.

  Besides, that’s what I miss about everything, not just Manhattan.

  My father.

  My father and Sarah.

  And Sarah was the only good thing after.

  * * *

  The crow eyes me from Tarantoli’s desk, daring me to come in. On the whiteboard behind him, the date reads October 3rd.

  The day I drew on Sarah’s paper.

  The day Tarantoli asked me to stay after.

  “She wanted to chat with you, remember?” the crow say
s. “Make sure you weren’t some sort of lunatic. But you are, aren’t you? You, of all people, know you can’t go messing with other people’s artwork.”

  I block the crow out. I want to see Sarah. I want to go back to that day, that room, before all this other shit happened.

  “Mr. Alden?” Tarantoli is waiting for me. But Sarah is up, leaving.

  “I have a quiz fourth period,” I call to Tarantoli over my shoulder, “I have to study…”

  “Okay, tomorrow, then,” she says, but I’m already gone, chasing after Sarah.

  “The teachers go easy on you,” the crow calls after me. “Because they feel sorry for you. Because they all know why you’re here.”

  I ignore it. I need to catch Sarah. I need to see the way she looks when she turns and sees me, the way she smiles, the way she takes me in completely. Like she’s open to anything. Like she doesn’t give a shit what she’s heard, or if anyone else will care.

  I grab her shoulder, and she turns.

  “Hey, what’s up, Alden?”

  Yes! That’s it! Something in her expression. It makes my heart fill.

  “She was happy to see you,” the crow says. “It surprised you that she didn’t think you were some loner weirdo like everyone else did. Like you are.”

  I shoo it away. I only want to think about Sarah.

  “I wanted to apologize,” I say. “I didn’t mean to touch your work. Your drawing, it was really good. I swear. I just wanted to help you a little, to, uh, loosen it up, make it less stiff, and more organic like—”

  “Organic?” She rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling.

  “I don’t know. Something like that.”

  “Like I said, no problem. I get it. Anyway, I liked what you did. What you said. It was too safe. It’s not so safe anymore.” She looks at me fully, studying me. Against her pale skin, her eyes are the color of one of Van Gogh’s evening skies. “So, no biggie, okay? Consider you did me a favor. Anyway, I’ve gotta go. I’ll see you around.”

  “She blew you off,” the bird says, returning. I shake my head. Wrong. Because the next morning, when I get to Tarantoli’s room early, Sarah is there, waiting, the only other person in the room. And, when I sit, the sides of her mouth curl up into a definite smile.

  “So, she liked you. That seems clear.” I look up, relieved at how the crow has come around, but it’s Dr. Alvarez speaking, which confuses me more. I wasn’t intending to say all of this stuff aloud. “From what you’ve told me so far, your girlf—your friend, Sarah, she liked you. And she was worried. She cared you were hurt. It says here…” She rifles through the pages in her lap, “She tried to go in the ambulance with you. She wanted to go to the hospital.” I look away. I hadn’t remembered that. I was pretty out of it by then. “Of course, I don’t yet know what happened before…” I swallow hard, shake my head. “Whatever it is, Klee—or, was—it must have been pretty painful to upset you so much, to land you here. And it’s not a bad thing to cry if you need to. I bet you’ve been working overtime to hold it in. Sometimes, letting it out once and for all can help more than you’d ever imagine.”

  “Crying seems pointless,” I say. “Like spilt milk, right?”

  “According to whom? Is this an issue with your family?”

  I shrug. “You mean with my mother? She’s pretty much the only family I’ve got left.”

  “Yes. Your mother, then.”

  I squeeze the orange stress ball, then pick at a cuticle on my thumb.

  “Let’s just say she isn’t much of a crier.” I can hear the crackle of anger in my voice, but I can’t control it. “Anyway, she’s right. Crying proves nothing.”

  “What are you referring to, here? Something specific? Klee, did she not cry when your father died?”

  I inhale sharply and stare up at Daubigny’s Garden. The room is a vortex, the missing cat a big black hole in my heart.

  * * *

  It’s after school, late, and I have to take a piss bad. The subway was delayed nearly half an hour.

  I drop my jacket and portfolio inside the front door as I call out, but my mother doesn’t answer. Right. She’s not home. She’s never home. Probably has some fund-raiser or something.

  “Order in if I’m not back by dinner,” she always says. “I’ll leave a credit card on the kitchen counter.”

  I rush to the bathroom, unzip, and go—sweet relief—then walk to the sink to wash. But a shadowy darkness stops me, hulks through the frosted shower doors.

  Dirt spatters. Sprayed across them.

  No, not dirt. Not brown.

  Red.

  Crimson across both shower doors.

  Something is wrong.

  An ice-cold feeling washes over me.

  I walk over and slide them carefully open.

  He’s in there, my father, crumpled, on the shower floor. Blood and bits of skin everywhere.

  But no, he’s at work! It’s not him!

  I scream—I must, because she’s here now, too. My mother has come in. I don’t even know where she came from.

  “Jesus! Klee!” She screams, then lets out a strange, hollow sound, before pushing me away from the shower door. “Get out of here! Don’t look! Go away!” She falls against it, trying to shield the whole scene with her body.

  “I. Said. Get. OUT.”

  We stand, motionless. Me, I don’t know what I am doing. I feel frozen. My body trembles in fear. She seems so small and frail, collapsed in her pink suit and her fancy, high-heeled shoes. Her coat hangs open, her leather handbag is still slung over her shoulder.

  She’s breathless. I can smell the city, the cold winter air on her coat.

  A sound escapes again. Not words. Something foreign and animalistic.

  “Jesus Christ!” she finally says, her voice charged with anger. “Not this. Not this! I can’t … I won’t…”

  She shakes her head, hands over her face, as if this will help her unsee it. Unsee his skin and blood and shattered bone.

  “I. Just. Cannot.” My mother’s fury crackles. She rights herself and moves forward, leaving the gun, the mess of blood, the pieces of skin.

  She walks out. I stand, frozen.

  “Klee! Out! Now!” She grabs my arm, pulling the door shut hard behind us.

  In the hallway, she inhales sharply, and says, “I’ll call nine-one-one.” I nod, every inch of me still quaking. “And Isabella,” she adds, moving toward another room. “Someone … Some kind of service to clean this all up.”

  * * *

  “Klee?”

  I can’t answer because I’m all choked up again.

  “Did you need her to express that she cared in a different, more definitive way?”

  I close my eyes because the room is reeling.

  Maybe I did. Who knows what I needed back then? Whatever I needed, she didn’t offer it. Not to me, or to him.

  “Okay, too soon,” Dr. Alvarez says, more to herself than me. “Maybe we can explore that later. For now, let’s stay on more concrete things. You were talking about the city, how you miss the noise. Let’s go back to that.”

  I breathe more slowly, open my eyes again. “I didn’t want to move … I only had to finish my senior year. I had my life, my friends … but she insisted.”

  “And you miss them.”

  “Not just them. My school. The city. Everything.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “But yeah, my friends. My friend Cleto, especially. The people and the traffic, and the garbage. The asswipe bicyclists who don’t give a shit if you’re in a Hummer or a delivery truck, or on foot.” She laughs a little at that, like she appreciates the sentiment. “And, the pigeons,” I add. “I know it’s not possible, but I miss the fucking pigeons.”

  “Well, I have good news for you, then. We have plenty of pigeons here in Northhollow.”

  I let my eyes meet hers. “Only lame-ass suburban ones.”

  “You have a good sense of humor,” she says. “I bet that has served you well.”


  Maybe. But, it sure as hell hasn’t saved me. “It didn’t stop me from acting crazy,” I say. Saying it makes my chest constrict so tightly it feels like I can’t get air in.

  I don’t want to be crazy. I don’t want to be in here.

  I suck wind and put my head between my knees.

  “What if I am crazy?” I say, trying to sit up again. “What if I can never be normal again?”

  “I don’t think you are. And, more than that, I think you’ll be feeling better again, soon.”

  I give her a dubious look as if to say, Do you not see me sitting here in the Ape Can?

  “What I mean is, it seems clear you had a break—a serious one, not to be messed with—so we need to get to the root of it, to get you on a path of being well. But, just the fact that you’re asking that question and worrying about it is a good sign, a promising one. That, with help, you’ll feel better … feel well. So, how about we go with that for now?”

  I nod, wanting to believe her, to trust her. I stare down at the stress ball and squeeze.

  “We can only solve our problems by solving them,” I read aloud. “But what if I don’t know how to solve them?”

  “That’s why I’m here, Klee. That’s my job. I’ll help you. If you’ll give me the chance—”

  I want to—I do—but the room is whirling again.

  “I need a drink,” I choke out. “I’m going to get some water.”

  “Here, I’ll come with you.” She stands and follows me through the waiting area.

  Nice work, loser. Can’t even get a drink of water alone.

  I look for the crow, but I don’t need him to tell me what I already know in my head.

  At the end of the waiting area, Dr. Alvarez stops and says, “How about you go on ahead. I’ll wait here.”

  I walk, dizzy but grateful for her little bit of faith in me, past that stupid, garish Finding Nemo scene, and toward the fountain. I want to take my own paints to the blasted thing and redo it, make it good. That would make me feel better, taking my paints to it.

  At least I’m upright. At least I’m getting a drink on my own.