Since You Ask

by Louise Wareham

  ‘Express myself?’

  ‘You don’t express yourself. Not directly. You need to say what you feel when you feel it. Can you try that?’

  I wince. I am not sure this technique will work.

  ‘Pretend it’s happening right now. Pretend we’re in the car. What would you say to me?’

  ‘I’d say Stop it. You’re embarrassing me.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘But that’s embarrassing, too. Just saying that would be embarrassing.’

  ‘For you.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Practice.’

  They find Jo in the woods, in her bra and shorts, all scratched up and dirty. I want to see her, but Dr. Keats won’t let me. ‘You’re talking about someone who came on to you sexually—someone who made you jump out of your skin.’

  ‘Maybe that’s what I need.’

  ‘To jump out of your skin?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘She crossed a line with you.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘It gave you a shock.’

  ‘She is not well.’

  ‘No, she isn’t.’

  ‘I like her, though.’

  ‘I know you do.’

  Keats stands with his smooth white hands on the back of the desk chair. I am on the armchair and between us is my bed.

  ‘I’d like you to try to go to Group this morning.’

  I don’t want to go to Group. At the same time, I am bored.

  All right,’ I say. He turns to leave. ‘Dr. Keats?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You said Jo gave me a shock—’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, they all do.’

  ‘Who does?’

  ‘Everyone: Beck, Frank, Wayne. They all give me a shock.’

  ‘They’re pretty shocking.’

  Keats puts me back in my regular room, my big blue airy room overlooking the white birch trees.

  In Stress Management, on the porch behind Rec., Sammy makes us write a list of things at Fairley that we like to do. I write:

  1. swim

  2. smoke

  3. sleep

  4. look at trees

  5. get mail

  6 see Keats

  Meg used a sash to hang herself. Robin uses strips of a linden tree. She doesn’t die, though. She is transferred to another hospital.

  In Group, Mary is the most upset. She thought Robin should have warned her. She thought Robin trusted her.

  ‘I guess you were wrong about that,’ I say.

  ‘Betsy,’ Lindsey warns. I hate being warned. Warnings make me worse.

  ‘I just don’t really think people at Fairley should be trusting each other.’

  ‘Mary is allowed to be upset.’

  ‘Robin could have warned someone. She knew what she was going to do.’

  ‘I think,’ Judith says, in her buttoned-up blouse, ‘that all of us here should realize that Robin is a sick child, a sick and very needy child. And there are powers greater than us that lead someone to do something so terrible.’

  ‘Powers greater? What about powers smaller? What about being sick to death of it all. What about that?’

  Judith rests her frail religious hand on her flat chest. Mary writes something on her ECT memory pad.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say ‘but I have to leave.’

  ‘Betsy,’ Lindsey says, but I don’t go back.

  Kenneth pushes off the car.

  ‘They’re getting to you, sweetie?’

  Keats comes to my room in the afternoon. I sit in the armchair and he sits at my desk. ‘So you left Group?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Because of Robin?’

  ‘Robin?’ I pretend to wonder who this is. ‘Robin can go to hell.’

  Then I feel evil. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I didn’t mean that.’

  ‘You’re under stress.’

  ‘I don’t feel stressed.’

  ‘You look stressed.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘Yes.’ Not even the Klonopan is working. Klonopan takes my past and wraps it in a ball and rolls it away.

  Outside the window, I can see the alcoholics coming up the lawn in a cloud of smoke.

  All this fuss about Robin—she’s not even dead.’

  ‘Is that why you’re angry?’

  ‘She was always complaining. Meg didn’t complain.’

  ‘But Meg is dead.’

  ‘She is.’

  ‘Are you angry that Robin didn’t die and Meg did?’

  ‘Well, Robin did want to.’

  ‘And Meg didn’t?’

  ‘No more than anyone else.’

  He looks at my pictures on the wall. I have one of Henry on his motorcycle. I have one Beck sent me from the Marines. I have one of Keats, of course, and I hope he doesn’t make too much of it.

  ‘You identified with Meg.’

  ‘Not particularly.’

  ‘Didn’t she tell you that you reminded her of herself?’

  ‘That was months ago.’

  ‘But she said it.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And she surprised you.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The way you surprise yourself.’

  ‘I’m not going to kill myself, if that’s what you’re getting at.’

  ‘But you’re angry.’

  ‘I know that—God.’ I look out the window again, shaking my head.

  ‘So what are you going to do about it?’

  ‘Dr. Spiro seems to think I don’t know how to behave in a mental institution.’

  The cloud of smoke turns into three clouds as the alcoholics split up for their next groups.

  ‘Forget Dr. Spiro.’ He points at Henry’s picture. ‘Who is this?’

  ‘Henry.’

  ‘What’s the worst that could happen, if you got angry?’

  ‘I don’t know. I could hit someone. I could hurt myself.’

  ‘Have you thought about hurting yourself?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Does anything come to mind?’

  ‘Just running into the fucking road.’

  ‘Can you see yourself doing that?’

  ‘No,’ I say, disappointed.

  ‘You’re not a mean person. Tell people you have a problem with anger. Tell them you’re working on it and don’t mean to hurt anyone’s feelings.’

  ‘Unless I do.’

  ‘If you do, tell me. Or one of the nurses.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘You think you can do that?’

  ‘I can try.’ I smile. He gets up to go. ‘By the way—‘ I say. ‘Yes?’

  ‘That’s your picture.’

  ‘It’s not very good.’

  ‘Do you think I’m weird?’

  ‘No. I’m flattered. We’re friends, aren’t we?’

  ‘Yes.’ He is about to leave. ‘Oh, Dr. Keats?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I wanted to tell you. The shelves in the bathroom cabinet are glass.’

  ‘Are they?’

  ‘You can lift them out, if you want to.’

  ‘Thank you for telling me that.’

  The next day, the shelves in my bathroom are changed from glass to plastic. I fall asleep by the pool and wake to Lola telling me I am late for Dr. Keats. I am enraged at this. I ‘express’ my anger to Lola. I express it again to Kenneth in the car, saying I know I am childish.

  ‘You are what you are,’ Kenneth says.

  At lunch, Dr. Spiro is at the salad bar, tongs around an artichoke heart.

  ‘Bitch,’ I say under my breath.

  She is good, though. She is as good as me.

  ‘What was that?’ She turns to me. ‘Did you say something?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Playing games again?’

  I pick up a peach from a cobalt blue fruit bowl. It is a little overripe, and soft.

  ‘You’re not exactly a sympathetic doctor, are you?’

  ‘I think you and I
should talk, Betsy.’

  ‘Right now?’

  ‘Upstairs.’

  ‘Not my doctor’s orders.’

  Spiro calls for Adam. ‘Take Betsy to the nurses’ station.’

  ‘God,’ I say again. ‘Really.’ I take my peach and throw it at her. It misses her and hits the blue wallpapered wall behind her with a thud.

  ‘Betsy,’ Keats says, back in my room again, me all drugged up on Haldol.

  ‘What?’

  ‘What are you doing, picking a fight with Dr. Spiro?’

  He goes to the bathroom and brings me a glass of water.

  ‘You’re ignoring the truth,’ I say.

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘I was there. I was there. I was there.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘With Raymond. I wanted him to touch me.’

  ‘You were a girl.’

  ‘I’ve heard that theory. I was a girl, so it wasn’t my fault.’

  ‘It’s hard enough for adults.’

  ‘It doesn’t make any difference.’

  ‘You have to stop.’

  ‘Stop what?’

  ‘Punishing yourself.’

  ‘Punishing myself?’ I laugh.

  ‘I am not punishing myself.’

  ‘What are you doing then?’

  ‘Living with myself. Living with the truth of myself.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘That I could never say no. That I can’t trust myself. That I disgust myself.’

  ‘That’s not punishing yourself?’

  ‘No. Did you see the peach?’ I ask, smiling, so he smiles back.

  ‘Everyone saw the peach.’

  ‘You know what punishing yourself is? Punishing yourself is hating someone and then letting them touch you. Do you know what that’s like?’

  ‘I’m not sure I do.’

  ‘Have you ever done it?’

  ‘I’ve been angry at people—and then gotten over it.’

  ‘But what if you didn’t get over it? What if you hated someone and still let them touch you? What about that?’

  ‘It sounds painful.’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘I think you can change.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘If you want to.’

  I would like to believe him. I would, but it doesn’t seem likely.

  Even though I have just thrown a peach at Dr. Spiro, I am supposed to be planning my ‘Aftercare.’ This is because my insurance is running out. Keats and I take a walk around the grounds, and the lawns are still green with sprinkler water, the chapel is still closed. We stop on the white marble steps and it is hot. I light a cigarette, and Dr. Keats shields his eyes from the sun.

  ‘I could get a job,’ I offer.

  ‘I don’t think you’re ready for that.’

  ‘I could go to New Haven and stay with Eric.’ I put out my cigarette in a strategically placed bucket of sand.

  ‘No,’ he says.

  ‘No?’

  I like it that he tells me what to do.

  Back in his office, I swing my foot in its low black sandal.

  ‘I am just the same.’

  ‘No, you’re not.’

  ‘How am I different?’

  ‘You’re angry.’

  ‘I’ve always been angry. So they say.’

  ‘Not openly.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘It’s a step.’

  ‘Maybe I could move to Virginia.’

  ‘To Virginia?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘To follow me?’

  ‘Is that so bad?’

  ‘You’d base your life on our relationship?’

  He is mocking me; the idea is ridiculous to him. I feel my body recoil as if in a trap. ‘Oh,’ I say. ‘That was mean.’

  Now he pities me. I feel sick at this. I have to leave or it could get worse. I remember Wayne sobbing in the hotel. This is not the kind of thing I want to hear, feel, or see again.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he asks.

  I shake my head. ‘I’ve got to go.’

  ‘Session isn’t over,’ he says.

  ‘It is now.’

  I push open the glossy white door. The parking lot glimmers with its glass asphalt. He is following me and will make things worse. ‘You should leave me alone. You should start now:’

  ‘Betsy.’

  I am walking fast, and he fast beside me. I turn right, past the library and up to the Main House porch. I take the stairs to the first landing where the window is open and a breeze passes through the room.

  It smells like summer, with all the flowers dried up. I stop near the window. Keats stands with his feet apart, pressing his fingers together.

  ‘People come along,’ I say. ‘They try to help. They show you that they could help, that it is possible. But then in the end, they can’t help. So it makes it worse. You get your hopes up. They should have just stayed away, in the first place. I mean—why bother? Why did Wayne bother? Why torment me?’

  ‘Sit down, Betsy.’

  The lawn is yellow with late sun. ‘Look at that,’ I say, gesturing.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s beautiful out. I do nothing but sit here talking about myself.’

  ‘You are in a psychiatric hospital.’

  ‘Nothing lasts.’

  ‘Betsy.’

  ‘Nothing lasts. Though, also, nothing changes. It’s incredible.’

  ‘Betsy.’

  ‘I am tired of this. I thought I could change. This is my last attempt. But I can’t, you see. I can’t. I can’t. I want to get out.’

  ‘Out of what?’

  ‘Out of my life. It’s just the same thing, over and over. It’s too much. It’s not like I haven’t been trying. I have tried. I tried with Beck and Frank and Henry and all the others. I tried with Ray. I tried to stop myself, to change myself, to feel like someone else. I wanted to die, in my room with Ray in Miami after Wayne. But it just goes on. It’s amazing. It gets worse.’

  I am crying now. My face is wet with tears. Lola brings me tissues but I push them away.

  ‘Wait here,’ Keats says.

  ‘What, are you going to get more drugs? So you can calm me down, prolong it all for me?’

  ‘Stay there.’

  I curl up in the armchair. Lola sits on the armrest. Then Wally comes in, dressed in black with high-top sneakers.

  ‘What are you doing?’ My bitterness hurts me.

  ‘Watching you.’

  ‘Lola’s watching me.’

  ‘Doctor’s orders.’

  ‘You like this, don’t you?’ I ask them both. ‘You like seeing people in distress.’

  I don’t want any more meds. I don’t even want Keats. I am out the door and down the stairs before Wally can catch me. I am on the lawn and down the hill, Wally calling my name, calling, ‘Stop it, stop it, stop.’

  There is nowhere to go, really unless I go on the road. But I don’t go on the road. I spin around, suddenly in the sweet lawn, near the high trees.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because, Betsy They’ll put you in Little House.’ Little House, where the suicides are, psychotic Paula and David in restraints.

  Keats comes over the hill, in his khaki pants and blue shirt. Lola waits at the top, her white uniform like a flag.

  ‘Hello, doctor,’ I say, when he finally reaches me. ‘That’s enough.’

  ‘Is it?’

  His shirt is damp with sweat. This is because of me, because he came running for me.

  ‘I’m putting you in Little House.’

  I smile. ‘Oh, come on,’ I say, looking off at the shimmering black tennis court.

  He has a plastic cup in his hand. ‘You’re upset.’ ‘ Upset. Why don’t you say what you really think?’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘You’re not my friend. You won’t even see me again.’

  He looks at his hands. The plastic cup has buckled in the middle. ‘Drink,’ he says, so I take the cup—clear
warm Haldol swimming like hope—and I tip it out, ever so slowly, into the lush grass.

  Little House is at the foot of the hill, to the left of Bishop, small and rectangular like a classroom or a cabin painted white. They give me so much Haldol, I am heavy with it, cloudy and dense.

  At the same time, I am hot, in a fever and on fire. Lola takes me from the bed, her black hand around my skinny arm, both wet from my sweat. She leads me to the white shower, takes off my blue nightgown, sets me in the streaming tepid sheets of water, the soap slippery in my hands so I drop it in the tub, watch it swim in a puddle near the drain.

  ‘Sweetie,’ Lola says.

  Or maybe she doesn’t.

  Sweetie

  Honey

  Darling

  Miss Scott

  I will never have a good life.

  From my bed, I see the nurses come and go. My head hurts from weeping. My sheets make a tangle on the floor. ‘Don’t,’ a male nurse tells me, sitting in the corner in the hardback chair, as I cover my face. ‘I want to see you.’

  I dream of green water, of standing in it, up to my waist in the light green dazzling light and silky weight of it. The sky is shocking blue. The sun is coming in shards. I have my arms around a man. I see his face and then it changes. It is Beck and then Frank and then Andrew and then Wayne. It is all the men I have known, one after another, in my arms.

  Last to come is Jesus, golden-blond-haired and blue-eyed, as in the coloring books, full of relief.

  When I wake, mist is heavy in the dawn trees. The male nurse is still there, but I don’t care. At last I know what I need to do, what I have been guided to.

  Lola paints my fingernails as red as Tara’s toes. Lola paints my lips with sheer gloss. Lola hands me a white T-shirt and a skirt, and when Keats arrives, my hair is damp and freshly combed, I smell of shampoo.

  ‘Hello, Betsy.’

  ‘Hello, doctor.’

  His skin is the color of milk.

  ‘You look better today.’

  I want to rise up and hold him, the way all the men held me, in the water in the bay.

  I want to embrace him like Jesus, because he is so good to me.

  ‘You had a rough night.’

  He is half lit by the window, perfect in his shined shoes. ‘You were angry,’ he says. Lola is smiling. I am smiling, too. ‘Betsy?’

  He will think it is his fault. I feel bad about this. Sun breaks gold onto his smooth skin, his soft hands and wedding band.

  ‘You are a good doctor.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You really are.’

  ‘Are you saying goodbye?’

  His hair, too, is damp from his morning shower. A curly brown lock hangs on his forehead. ‘No,’ I smile. ‘That’s your job.’