Something Wicked

by Lesley Anne Cowan

  I nod my head.

  I trail my mom down the corridor, taking my time. There’s nowhere to go but my room, so why hurry? My mom keeps ahead of me, and I feel like she’s mad or something. It’s not like her to be so strict.

  Inside my room, her mood picks up a bit. She unwraps a bouquet of flowers that is sitting on my bedside table and shows them to me, pointing at the little attached teddy bear. “Crystal bought these for you. Just to cheer things up a bit,” she says, bringing the bouquet to her nose and deeply inhaling. “She’s real worried about you.” She takes a small glass vase out of her bag and heads toward the washroom.

  “Are we being kicked out?” I ask her, seemingly randomly, once she’s out of sight. I’m thinking about Giovanni and wondering if he’d tell anyone. Part of me hopes we are kicked out, because I don’t ever want to see him again.

  “Of what?”

  “The apartment.”

  “No.” She peeks her head around the door frame and looks at me as if I’ve just asked if she’s from the moon. “Why would we be kicked out?”

  I shrug my shoulders. “I don’t know. No money to pay the rent?”

  She disappears back into the washroom and starts to run the tap to fill the vase.

  “I got a job!” she shouts over the rush of water. “Assistant to a tax guy. Not bad pay. Totally flexible hours. I can probably even do some work on the sly when I’m on my maternity leave.”

  My mom returns to the room holding the vase and puts it on my windowsill. I instantly smell the fragrance. About two seconds later, Alexis appears, her hands clasped together like she’s praying for forgiveness. “I’m sorry, Ms. Sullivan, Melissa can’t receive any gifts while she’s here. And she can’t have the vase—it’s glass.”

  “Oh … okay.” My mom fumbles and quickly picks up the vase. I’ve never seen her so obedient.

  “She can keep the teddy bear, but we have to lock it up.”

  “A teddy bear?” my mom questions, then immediately backs off. “Okay. I’ll put it in her room at home.” She looks a little hurt. She was already told yesterday by Alexis that she couldn’t put up all the holiday decorations she had brought with her. A big bagful, that I’m sure cost her a lot.

  For a second, I get a flash of Bradley. His hospital room. Full of flowers and Christmas ornaments and cookie boxes and Cellophane-wrapped gift baskets. It’s funny, I haven’t thought once about the fact that it’s my first time in a hospital since he died. And about how all this must be weird on a whole other level for my mom.

  Alexis goes back to her guard chair at the doorway and my mom sits awkwardly on the plastic cushioned bench for a bit. I sit on the edge of my bed and stare at the wall. I feel my mom staring at me for some time, and then I hear her pick up a magazine and flip through it.

  I’m thinking about Michael. I imagine what he’d say if he saw me now. He’d probably be relieved he dumped me when he did. But then I shake my head to lose him from my mind, because now, thinking of him makes me feel a little sick to my stomach. I’m embarrassed at how pathetic I’ve been over losing him. And there’s this faint, faint whisper inside my head that’s saying maybe my overdose was also about him.

  “Well, I guess I’ll get going,” my mom says, interrupting my thoughts.

  “Bye,” I say blankly, not lifting my gaze from the wall.

  She gets up, kisses me on the forehead, stops at the doorway to talk to Alexis for a bit, and then leaves.

  Later, Alexis convinces me to go eat my dinner in the common room with the others. I do it for her really, ’cause I prefer to just eat alone in my room. There are four other patients in there: the two younger boys and one new girl, older than me, with her blue gown halfway down her shoulders, almost showing her whole boobs. At the end of the table, looking totally nuts, is the pimply, skinny guy I saw yesterday. I can tell he’s been here a long time because the two staff around him look exhausted and are barely containing their annoyance.

  Alexis gets my cardboard plate off the trolley. She opens the Styrofoam container and unveils my gourmet meal: macaroni and cheese and dessert. “It’s been opened,” I remark, referring to the cutlery package.

  “Oh, it’s okay. They just take out the knives,” she answers.

  Whatever. I eat red Jell-O dessert first. It’s like swallowing live kid-ness. I can see why children like it so much, all jiggly on the spoon and smooth down your throat. I think of Bradley and me eating it for dessert, and then Bradley squeezing it out between his teeth like he was bleeding, and our mom yelling at him.

  “Yaah … yeahh … heeahhh …” This loud, ugly voice trips me on my warm and fuzzy stroll down memory lane. Psycho boy is flinging his food onto the floor. Not in a silly way, but in an angry way. Instead of yelling at him, the staff just ask him to stop and then pick up the food. But of course he keeps going and going until everyone in the room is paying attention to him. I try to return to my Jell-O eating, but he does it again. “Yahhhh … oooohhhiiii … ha … ha … ha!”

  “Fuckin’ crazy,” I mutter under my breath, and put down my Jell-O bowl. I push away my chair, get up, put my hands on my waist, and stare him down, the words filling my mouth like the Jell-O I just shoved in it. Hey, cuckoo bird, why don’t you shut the fuck up so we can eat our shit food in peace, will ya? But I don’t say it, because they’d probably put me in a straitjacket or something, so instead I head toward the room, my shadow Alexis following me.

  As we walk down the hall, Alexis speaks to me in a bitchy tone that sounds strange coming from her. “Listen, I know you’re upset, but next time you can’t just pick up and leave like that. You need to tell me where you’re going.”

  “He should be responsible for his own behaviour. He can’t poison the whole room like that.” I raise my voice as we pass the nurses’ station so they can all hear me. “You should not let him in there. It’s so selfish. I mean, if you’re nuts, you shouldn’t impose it on others.”

  “I see your point,” Alexis says calmly, “but this is a hospital. This is where he should be to get help. It’s not like he’s in a restaurant and interrupting a fine meal. This is where he belongs, Melissa.”

  I stop outside my door and turn to her. “If that belongs here, then I don’t belong here.”

  And I realize right then that I’m coming back—that angry, agitated, unrested me has returned from the dead like one of those psycho killers in movies who keep getting up after being stabbed a thousand times. It’s as if someone has turned the tap and released the hot water that’s now filling me back up. I feel the heat inside. I feel the pressure. I feel something creaking and groaning.

  And for some reason, I get all scared, because part of me wants to remain a zombie. I go into my room, lie down on my bed, and stare blankly at the ceiling, trying to dumb down my mood and return to my coma state. But it’s like that whispery, smoky ghost is slipping away and I can’t reach out and grab her—my fingers just run right through.

  Fifty-Four

  My mom and I meet again with the social worker in her nondescript, spacious office on the fifth floor. She sits behind her big, empty desk while we swivel on black upholstered chairs that look like ice cream cones. Perfect for an ice queen, I suppose. The walls are painted a sedating eggplant purple, and a large painting of an ocean sunset threatens to put us all into hypnotic sleep.

  “I’d like to talk to you about you going home, Melissa,” she says.

  “I’m getting out?” Which is only a thrilling idea because I’m so goddamn bored in here.

  “That’s correct,” she says, void of expression. It’s not as if her face, like some people’s, is too tight to smile. Her absence of smile seems forced, as if she believes the mere parting of her lips would be a crack in her authority. “The psychiatrist thinks that we can go ahead and discuss a discharge plan. As long as we have the proper care in place and you’re on board, then we think you’ll be ready and a Form won’t be necessary. That means you don’t need to go to a residential care facili
ty. Your mom has been participating in several sessions with me and she’s prepared to take you back under certain conditions. We have lots of support in place for you and your mom, but you are a major player on the team, Melissa. You are the quarterback. We can’t do it unless we have your full commitment.”

  “Okay.” There’s something really unfair about all of this. I’m almost naked under a thin hospital gown, braless, and grounded by flimsy paper slippers. My brain is doped up with some kind of medication and my body is still shaky from withdrawal.

  “You already have some good supports in place. You see your counsellor Eric each week, and I hear you’re doing really well at the day treatment school program. I’ll be honest and tell you our team really debated about a residential substance abuse program, but your mom and your counsellor thought they could work on this with you. It is, however, an option, and for the most part our team recommends it. If you choose to remain at home, the hospital Crisis Support Team will provide two home visits while you’re waiting to set up with the social worker from Everwood Family Services. Your social worker will continue to provide in-home family support once a week. And …” Ice Queen turns to my mom, who has cowered under her whip.

  “You will have a ten o’clock curfew, and if you break it,” my mom says in a firm voice, “I have agreed that the residential treatment plan will be reactivated. This is it, Melissa. This is the end. You hear me, Melissa?”

  I don’t respond because there’s really nothing happening in my head right now. I don’t even have any fierce words on the tip of my tongue waiting to be swallowed or spat out. I just keep staring at my lap and twirling my ring like an idiot.

  “Melissa?” Ice Queen joins in.

  I ignore her voice because I figure she’ll just plow ahead like every other time we’ve talked to her.

  “Melissa? Can you look at me?”

  I raise my eyes and feel myself starting to get annoyed. Why the fuck do I have to look into her dead eyes?

  “You have a lot in place here to help you, Melissa. It’s up to you now to take advantage of it, and get back on track. From the short time I’ve known you, I think that’s entirely possible. I think you have a bright future ahead of you.” She winks at me and for the first time opens her mouth to a thin smile.“Right?”

  I stare at her for a second. Everything was okay until that last statement. Why do adults have to diminish everything by feeling they need to end meetings with a false positive? It’s so selfish. They say it not because they believe it, but because it helps them feel some kind of accomplishment when they walk away. Like they’ve done their job. But what do they leave behind?

  It’s like when teachers tell Tyler that he should be a lawyer because he’s good at arguing, but meanwhile he can’t pass grade nine. No one wants to say he’s stupid, or that he’s probably going to end up in jail like his brother, so they fill his head with these stupid dreams until he’s eighteen, with no credits and totally messed up for life. I say, tell the truth, squash the dream, and stop with the second chances.

  A bright future ahead of me? “Right,” Echo says.

  Within two hours, I’m packed and ready to go home.

  “Well … don’t take this the wrong way, but I hope I don’t see you again,” Alexis says to me, smiling and unlocking the cupboard. She passes me my plastic bag.

  “Yeah, me too,” I say. I’m a little sad to leave her because she’s turned out to be pretty cool. “But thanks. If you weren’t around, I’d have killed myself with boredom. Ha ha.”

  Alexis rolls her eyes and gives me a hug that I’m not prepared for, so I barely have time to bring my arms around her before she quickly pulls away.

  “Peace,” I wave, and then lead my mom down the hallway, past the security guard, and toward the elevators.

  In some ways, I’m happy to leave the hospital. I was bored out of my mind, I hated wearing the oversized gown, and I couldn’t sleep well at night. On the other hand, it was actually not so bad being there. In a messed-up way, it was good to be told what to do all the time because that way you don’t have the stress of choosing, and then the stress of having made the wrong decision. I can’t explain it. It’s like being held really, really tight. Not the caring way someone holds a baby, but more like the restraining way they would use to calm down a hysterical person. They hold and hold and hold until you calm down and your breathing returns and your muscles relax. And even though it’s forceful and you fight it, you actually want it, because you know deep down you’re being protected from yourself.

  It’s the same way cats get when I pin them down on the examining table with my medieval metal-chain-armoured arms. After some panic and fighting, they just relax into it, as if they know it’s for their own good.

  It’s like that.

  I can feel a change. Something loosens. Something trusts. And something lets go.

  Fifty-Five

  For the whole way home, I lie down in the back seat of the car and pretend I’m sleeping because I don’t know what to say to my mom. I feel like she knows everything about me now and I’m naked in front of her, and it’s hard to get angry at someone when you’re naked. The moment we get out of the car, I trail her like a nervous duckling, almost tripping over her heels. We stop to get the mail on the way up from the underground garage. “Another bill,” she comments to herself, not even acknowledging me. For once in her life, she’s at a loss for words. There’s a new distance between us. Some kind of gap that neither one of us knows how to cross. It’s like someone pulled us out of the nasty rut we were in, shook us hard, and then set us back down again in our roles, all wobbly and disoriented. And now our mouths stay shut because we’re too busy focusing on trying to regain our balance and pinpoint our surroundings.

  Just before we get to our apartment door, my mom stops. I walk past her because I figure she’s looking for her keys, but she doesn’t follow. I turn, wondering what she’s doing.

  She stands there looking at me, sort of lost and pitiful. That new tough person I saw in the hospital is gone.

  “What?” I ask.

  She sighs, throws one hand up in the air in surrender, and says, “I feel like I gave this to you. If you do have depression, I feel like it came from me.” She brings her hand quickly up to her eyes to cover them. She’s crying.

  “Oh, Mom …” I move toward her. “You didn’t give it to me. They don’t even know for sure that I have it.” I feel like I’m talking about the measles or something. I reach my hand out and hold her shoulder because I don’t know what else to do. I’m sort of going through the motions because I still feel a little numb in my head. And now that she’s said it, I think it might be true. Maybe she did give it to me. But it’s not her fault. It would be stupid to think that.

  She moves closer and gives me a hug, sniffing her snotty nose into my jacket. Then she quickly pulls away. “Whew!” she says, waving her hands in front of her eyes like she’s air-drying them. “Okay. Sorry. It’s not about me!” She laughs awkwardly, like she’s embarrassed about her breakdown.

  Wow. I feel I’m on another planet. My mother just said, “It’s not about me”? Did I hear right? Someone must have said something to her at the hospital. Maybe Ice Queen was not so awful after all.

  My mom pulls at my hand and leads me onward. “This is hard for you. Coming home. I’m sorry. Let’s go in.”

  She opens the apartment door and we walk through.

  Crystal is sitting at our kitchen table. There are fast-food bags crumpled around her. She looks like crap, as if she’s been up for days. She smiles when she sees me and puts her hands together in her stupid “Namaste” yoga salutation pose. “Glad you’re home, Sweetie,” she says as I pass by.

  “Thanks,” I reply sullenly, and keep walking. I pass through the living room, now decorated for Christmas, complete with dangling tinsel streamers and a fancy store-bought Christmas tree. It looks good, but all I care about is being back in my room. My own bed. My own sheets. My own pillow. My own m
usic. My own phone. I find my journal sitting out on my desk where I left it, and I immediately panic. I’m sure my mom read it, and Crystal too. I just know it. I open it to the last entry, the one I wrote before I went out that last night. I don’t even remember what I said, so I read it with new eyes.

  Dearest Michael,

  You know why I like “The Lady of Shalott” so much? Why I read it to you all the time? It’s because she is me. We are the same. We are both stuck in this tower. Cursed. We both watch life pass by, unable to join in. We both fall in love with someone on the other side (that’s you), but we know it’s impossible to ever be with him, in that life.

  And so we must die.

  But really, the tragedy in the poem is not Lady Shalott’s death. It’s all about that one line: “Lancelot mused a little space, he said she has a lovely face. God in his mercy lent her grace, the Lady of Shalott.” It’s that small moment of regret, Michael, that makes her story tragic.

  It’s all about what could have been, and what can never be. You will have that regret, Michael. You will make my story tragic. And that will be the curse YOU will live with.

  Yours forever & never more,

  Melissa

  What the hell? What was I thinking? How sappy. I feel so stupid. I read the letter like five times, trying to remember writing it that night before I went out with Ally and got really shit-faced. Was I already high? Maybe it was intentional—maybe I did want to die. It makes me feel sick. Disgusted with myself.

  My story isn’t beautiful or tragic. It’s just another story about another cursed girl living a shitty life.

  Fifty-Six

  I spend the next few days in my room. Not because I’m hiding. I just feel like being alone. I don’t call any of my friends. I don’t know if I ever want to call them. I reread a couple of my favourite books. I write in my journal, filling it up with everything that has happened to me in the past few months. I sort through all my clothes and chuck out about half of them. I even clean under my bed and find a souvenir hairball from Ralph. My mom checks in on me a million times a day, asking me how I feel, but she doesn’t force me to talk. Instead, she rents me movies, gets me pizza and anything I want. I stay in my pyjamas and I don’t answer my phone. And it’s like I’m seven years old again, staying home with the flu. My mom feels like “a mom.” And it all feels kinds of nice.