I push the handle and wait for it to hold fast. To refuse to budge. But it opens. Easily and noiselessly. There’s a tiny metallic clink as the latch gives way, then a clank as the door falls shut behind me. Then silence. The only sound after that is the soft crunching of grass as my feet travel across the lawn.
I start running. The motion of running—the cycle of one foot appearing as the other disappears, the forward swing of one arm, then the other—comes back to me effortlessly. I feel good. I put more distance between me and the YOU ARE HERE door. Then I feel a hundred eyes on my back, so I stop and turn around. The large picture window in the Group room is dark. Next to it, there’s a narrow box of cold purple light—the bathroom window, where the light is always on. After the bathroom comes a row of black squares, dorm windows where no one’s home, then a square of yellow light, which I think is my room, where Sydney has probably just come back from Art Therapy and is sprawled out on her bed, listening to her headphones, before the chimes sound for dinner.
I turn and start running again; this time, it’s hard to get going. I put on a burst of speed, lose my balance and stumble a little, then get back in my rhythm. The last open space between Sick Minds and the outside world is the maintenance shed. After that, woods.
The dog who lives next to the maintenance building is standing outside his house, poised, watching me. I wait for him to bark, to let everyone know I’m out here, but he doesn’t. I can see his foggy puffs of breath in the cold twilight. But he doesn’t move; he doesn’t make a sound.
Getting through the woods beyond Sick Minds is easy, much easier than I would have thought. The trees are evenly spaced, with plenty of room between them, as if someone planted them in rows. I look up past their trunks; above is a canopy of boughs. They are pine trees after all. I want to laugh. I want to turn around and go tell Sydney that Sea Pines actually does have some pines. But I don’t. I keep running.
There’s no fence, no wall at the edge of the property; I make a note of this, too, thinking how funny it would be to tell the other girls about how there’s nothing really keeping us inside this loony bin. But I keep running, until the next thing I know, I’m on the side of a road. I pass an old brick house, then a cluster of newer houses; I run through an intersection, then onto the shoulder that runs alongside a highway with stores and more stores on either side.
I don’t know how long I’ve been running. I try to notice, then memorize, the things I pass, but as soon as I tell myself to remember that there was a Dairy Queen on the left, it’s gone and I can’t remember if it was on the right or the left and if it was a Dairy Queen or a Burger King.
As I put more distance behind me and I feel the whiteout effect coming on, I try to hold one thing in my mind: my home address. I say it over and over and over, like the words to amagic spell. I repeat the house number, the road name, the town, the state, the zip code, the house number, the road name, the town, the state, the zip code.
After a while my mouth gets dry and my legs ache. It starts to get dark; drivers put on their headlights. My feet get heavy and clumsy; I weave a little, up on the paved white line at the side of the road, then back down on the shoulder. A horn blares from behind me; I trip, suddenly awake, gravel spraying under my feet before I catch my balance. Up ahead, on a pole, is a pay phone. I decide that the pay phone is my goal.
Suddenly I doubt I even have the energy to make it the thirty or so steps to go that far. My feet scrape along the road, my knees go up and then down, but the pay phone doesn’t seem to get any closer. I stop and wonder how there can be so little difference between running and stopping. I pick up one foot and then the other, and force myself to walk the last few steps.
The receiver is icy cold in my hand. I stare at it a minute and remember then that I have no money. I hang up, then pick it up again. I know you’re not supposed to dial 911 unless it’s an emergency, but I can’t remember what the other choices are. I study the face of the phone, its neat grid of square buttons. Tucked in at the bottom is one that says “O.” I push it and wonder if I’ll get a real person or a recording.
A real person, a woman who sounds like she’s in a room with lots of other operators, says, “Operator. How may I assist you?” She seems to be in a big hurry. A truck rattles by, practically blowing me off my feet. “Operator,” she repeats. She’s already fed up with me, I can tell. I hang up.
I circle the telephone pole, wondering what I was supposed to say to her. Another truck goes by; the wind cuts through my shirt. I wrap my arms around myself and wait to feel warmer; I feel colder. I pick up the receiver, push the O, and pray for a different operator to pick up.
“Operator. May I help you?” This one has a tired, nicesounding voice.
“Yes. Yes, you can,” I say. “Please.”
There’s nothing on the other end; I wonder if she’s still there.
“I need to call my dad.” I didn’t know I was going to say this; it just comes out.
There’s no sound for a minute, then she says, “You want to make that a collect call?”
“Yes. Yes, please,” I say. I give her my dad’s work number and listen to a quick succession of beeps, like the beginning of a tune I used to know. My dad answers with the name of the computer company he works for. I picture him smoothing out his tie and smiling his business smile.
“Daddy?” I say.
The nice, tired operator interrupts, politely telling my dad that he has a collect call from Callie. “Will you accept?”
“Yes, yes, of course,” he says. I hear two voices at once, my dad saying “Callie?” and the operator thanking him for using her phone company. Then cars whiz by and I can’t hear anything.
“Callie? Are you all right?”
I shiver. “Fine.” I meant to say I’m fine, but only Fine made it out.
“Where are you?”
I look around. There’s a carpet sign with big paper S-A-L-E letters in the window. “I don’t know for sure.” The carpet store could be anywhere. I could be right around the corner from our house or a million miles away. “I ran away.”
“From Sea Pines?” I picture him covering his eyes with his hand, the way he does when he’s watching his favorite football team lose on Saturday afternoon TV.
I nod. “Uh-huh.”
“Can you tell me what’s nearby?”
Across the highway is an official blue state crest that says Route 22. Underneath is a small square sign that says East. Beyond it is a Dunkin’ Donuts.
“Route 22,” I say. “East, I guess. Across from a Dunkin’ Donuts.”
He makes a tkk, tkk sound, the same noise he makes when he’s paying the bills. “Sayville,” he says. “You must be at the Dunkin’ Donuts in Sayville.”
I feel a little better knowing he knows where I am, even if I don’t.
“That’s about fifteen minutes from here,” he says. “Can you wait for me there? Can you find a place to wait? Go inside the Dunkin’ Donuts, OK?” I can hear the squeak of his chair and I picture him standing up, pushing his chair away from the desk, and grabbing his keys. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
Cars whoosh by so I’m not sure if he said goodbye.
I stand on the lip of the highway waiting for a break in the traffic so I can cross over to the Dunkin’ Donuts. Cars stream down the highway in an endless flow in either direction. When it’s clear on one side, it’s busy on the other. Finally I cross halfway and stand on a strip of concrete in the middle of the road as the cars whiz past, practically sucking me up into their wake. After a while I make a dash for it.
The Dunkin’ Donuts is warm and bright; two men in coveralls are the only customers. They seem to be together at the counter, but they’re not talking to each other, just reading different parts of the same paper side by side. I take a seat down at the other end and study the plastic labels under the rows of doughnuts. There are chocolate-dipped, chocolate-frosted, cream-filled, custard-filled, jelly-filled. Too many choices. I sit there and concent
rate on not shivering.
The swinging door to the kitchen opens and a waitress in a pink apron and hat comes out. She refills the men’s coffee without even asking if they want more, then comes and stands in front of me. Her plastic name tag says she’s Peggy. “What’ll it be?” she says.
What will what be? I wonder.
She looks me over. “You wanna order?” she says.
“Oh,” I say. “No. I mean yes.” I remember then about not having any money. “A glass of water. Please.”
She eyes me up and down. “That’s it?”
“Yes. Thanks,” I say. She turns around. “Sorry,” I say to her back.
She’s back in a minute with the water. “Thanks,” I say. But she’s gone again, putting a gigantic coffee filter inside a gigantic coffee machine, then waiting on a businessman who wants a large black coffee to go.
I sip my water slowly, trying to make it last. I make a conscious effort to stop shivering; it doesn’t work. Peggy keeps looking over at me; I do my best to act like I don’t notice. She wipes down the counter with a rag. I wrap my arms around myself. Out of the corner of my eye I see her nod, like she’s just decided something important. She flips a switch on a big machine on the counter; it drones to life.
Then Peggy’s standing in front of me with a cup of hot chocolate with a fancy, twirly peak of whipped cream on top.
“This is what you want, I think,” she says. She puts another cup on the counter in front of me, splashes some coffee in it, takes a sip, swallows. She takes another sip. “Runaway?”
I wonder then if she’s going to call the police. Or if anyone else from Sick Minds has ever ended up in here. And if they got kicked out. Or sent to Humdinger.
“Sort of,” I say.
She exhales, the way Sydney does when she’s blowing smoke rings.
“How could you tell?” I say.
She tips her chin up. “No coat. It’s a little cold out there to be going around without a coat.” She smiles. “I figured maybe you left somewhere in a hurry.”
I cup my hands around the hot chocolate, hoping the warmth from the cup will pass through to my hands.
“Where you headed?” Peggy says.
“Nowhere. Home, I guess.” I shrug and stare at the tray of cream-filleds.
“You want one of those?” she says.
“That’s OK,” I say. Then, “I don’t have any money.”
She whisks a sheet of waxed paper out of a little box, grabs a cream-filled, and puts it on a plate in front of me. “On the house,” she says. The front door opens and a family comes in. Peggy helps them pick out a dozen to go. The men down the counter pay their bill and more people come and go while I eat my doughnut and drink my hot chocolate.
Peggy comes back, takes a sip of her coffee, and scrunches up her nose. “Cold,” she says, sticking out her tongue. She studies me. “Anyone know where you are?”
“My dad. He’s on his way.”
She nods, evidently satisfied; I feel a little proud and a little embarrassed at the same time.
“Listen,” Peggy says. “I got a kid. He’s grown now. But he’s still my baby you understand?”
She says this with such certainty I can only say yes, even though I’m not sure I do understand.
“He still lets me fuss over him, like when he was little.” She beams. “When your dad gets here, he’s probably gonna wanna fuss over you.” She sips her coffee. “Let him.”
I’m still not warmed up, not even after my second cup of hot chocolate, when I see the reflection of a familiar white car in the window. The car rocks to a halt and my dad jumps out, taking three long, running strides to the door. He’s not wearing a coat and the wind is blowing his hair up in wisps around his head.
Then he’s inside the Dunkin’ Donuts and I’m inside a warm, dark hug, a hug that smells like aftershave and spray starch and home. His whole body is shaking, but finally I’m not shaking anymore.
When he eventually draws away from me, he looks shy. He glances down and pats his pockets like he’s looking for something, and I notice that his hair has thinned a little more on top. When he looks up again, his eyes are moist; my heart hurts.
He spins the vinyl stool next to me. “Mind if I join you?”
“Yes. I mean no. I don’t mind.”
He sits down cautiously, as if he’s worried the stool is too small for him or something. He looks so tired and disheveled, his hair all mussed up like he’s just woken up, I feel shy now, embarrassed for bothering him.
“You OK?” he says finally.
“I guess.” I shrug.
The moment seems to call for a better answer, or at least a longer one. “Yeah, actually, I think I’m getting better. That’s what’s weird.”
Peggy arrives with her coffee pot, my dad says yes please, and she pours some coffee into a mug in front of him. She gives him an appraising look, and I bob my head, wanting to tell her this is him, this is my dad. She half smiles, then pivots and goes off to wait on someone else.
My dad and I sip from our mugs and stare straight ahead at the racks of doughnuts. The wall across from us is covered with a mirror with pink writing, advertising different doughnut and coffee combinations, and between the letters I can see the two of us as we sip from our mugs, then set them on the counter at the same time. I watch my dad bite his lip, then I see myself in the mirror doing the same thing.
“I called that place, the place where you were, and told them you were safe,” he says.
I nod a sort of thank-you.
“So,” he says. “You went out for a jog?” His face goes from joking to serious.
I nod.
“Felt trapped?”
I want to agree because I think that’s the answer he wants. But I can’t say yes, since that’s not why I left. I shrug.
There’s a long silence, then we both start talking at the same time.
“You go ahead,” he says.
“How’s Sam?” I say.
“Sam? He’s good. Really good.” He sounds like he’s trying to convince me, or maybe convince himself. “He hit 60 last week. Pounds.”
“That’s great,” I say, thinking about how happy we all were when Tara weighed in at 99 last week.
“Yeah,” he says. “Great, huh?” He still looks so tired and worried, though, I want to tell him something to cheer him up. I want to tell him everything I’ve learned at Sick Minds. So he knows I’m OK, so he doesn’t have to worry about me.
“You know,” I say, in a very sane, you-won’t-believethis tone of voice, “I thought it was my fault. About Sam.”
He glances over quickly, then away.
“I thought it was my fault, Sam getting sick.”
He looks at me again, this time like he’s seeing me for the first time.
“I was supposed to be watching him that day,” he says to his coffee cup.
“I know,” I say
Something inside me loosens, because I really do know.
I set my cup on the counter, but it feels like I’ve just laid down something enormous, something very heavy.
I look over at my dad’s profile. A muscle in his jaw is working the way Debbie’s does when she’s trying not to cry. He looks so miserable, I want to say something to make it all better.
“It’s OK.”
“No,” he says. “It’s not OK.”
“No, really,” I insist. “Don’t worry. You have enough to worry about with Sam and Mom.”
“Is that how it seems to you?”
“Yeah, I guess. Sometimes.”
He runs his fingers through his hair, not making any real improvement. I trace a line in the powdered sugar on my plate.
“Well, I am. You know, worried about you. Now.”
“I’m OK,” I say. It’s almost worse, him being worried. But I like it, too, a little.
Peggy doesn’t want us to pay, but my dad insists, and then says we’ll also take a dozen doughnuts to go. As we’re standing at the cash register p
icking out two of this kind, two of that, I whisper that he should leave Peggy a big tip. He gives me a couple of dollars and I walk back to where we were sitting and tuck them under my hot chocolate mug.
She thanks us and my dad reaches across the counter and shakes her hand. She doesn’t act like this is dorky so I decide to shake her hand too. Then she goes off to wait on a couple of punk rockers.
“You wait here,” my dad says. “I’ll get the car warmed up, then you can come out.”
“Sure,” I say. “OK.”
After a few minutes he comes back and says the car’s all warmed up; he looks ridiculously happy about this. I look for Peggy so she can see how I’m following her advice, but she must be in the kitchen. My dad holds the door for me as we leave Dunkin’ Donuts and he opens the car door for me when we get to the parking lot. I think about how normal we look compared to the punk rockers inside eating doughnuts; we must look like an oldtime dad and daughter from some black-and-white TV show, but I don’t care. I actually sort of like it.
He puts the car in reverse but keeps his foot on the brake. “So,” he says. “Where’re we going?”
This hadn’t occurred to me—the idea that there’s a next step. And that it’s up to me to decide what that next step is.
“Home?” my dad says.
I picture my mom and Sam sitting in the breakfast nook, tatting and sorting, Linus outside chasing a squirrel. Then I imagine Sydney blowing smoke rings on the porch. Tara inviting me to play Ping-Pong. And the circle of feet in Group the day I cried. I picture Ruby’s white nurse’s shoes. And your little fabric shoes.
I shake my head.
“Back to Sick Minds,” I say.
“What?” he says.
“That’s what we call it. Sick Minds. Instead of Sea Pines.”
“Oh.” He takes this in, then smiles. “You sure?”
I wonder for a minute if I am sure. Then I know I am. “Uh huh,” I say. “For a while.”
He makes his tkk, tkk thinking sound, then nods. “OK,” he says. He takes his foot off the brake and we pull out of the parking lot.
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