car while he checked in. Together, they drove to their room. Silently, they unpacked their clothes into separate dressers, ate vending machine Snickers bars instead of dinner, talked on their cell phones with work from separate sides of the room, and fell asleep in separate beds.
19
Your Black Wings Are Showing
Nebraska State Psychiatric was a hulking, impersonal monolith the size of four Manhattan blocks. A sterile, industrial-park-style Walter Gropius box construction, its tripod of wards stretched out from the main administration area. The wards were long halls with block rooms on each side. Common areas at ward vertices consisted of two couches, two coffee tables, and mounted televisions that the patients could not reach and which the orderlies tuned to comforting old programs that didn’t require much thought—Andy Griffith and Bewitched. Though she’d been lucky to place Betty here (it was one of the few inpatient hospitals that accepted disability), Audrey hated it, and she didn’t like coming back.
First thing Wednesday morning, Audrey and Saraub were sitting in general administration executive office A3. The fluorescent lights inside the cheap gypsum drop ceiling emitted a sallow, nauseating glow. On the other side of the desk, Dr. Burckhardt wrote something in Betty’s chart. He was about six feet tall, and though he was still young, his thick head of hair had gone completely white. She’d met Burckhardt when she’d signed Betty’s commitment papers, and had pegged him as a blandly pleasant man with too much on his plate to help anyone in particular. Her impression of him had not changed. Since being shown into his office, they’d been waiting at least five minutes.
She counted the words on his Creighton University Medical School diploma (106), then looked up just as Dr. Burckhardt closed his chart. “Well, then,” he said.
Audrey waited, and reminded herself not to get so nervous that she blurted.
“Betty Lucas, you’re her daughter, Audrey. We’ve met, yes?” His voice was monotone and without affect. Her new name for him was Captain Bland.
She nodded. “When I had her committed. But were you her doctor? I thought it was some guy from Texas.”
Burckhardt doodled with his pen while he spoke. Up-and-down lines that intersected, but no curves, which tended to mean no imagination. “She was never my patient. I’m an administrator. State agencies like this have high turnover. Your mother has had several doctors.”
She nodded, and neither of them acknowledged that if she’d called once in a while, she’d be more up to speed on her mother’s care.
He looked at his pen, then his doodles, then put the pen down. “Your mother overdosed,” he said.
“Yes,” she said.
He continued. Blandly matter-of-fact. “A combination of lithium, Valium, and Depakote. One of our orderlies discovered her late Sunday night. She lost her ability to breathe without intubation Monday morning”—he looked in his chart—“5:18 A.M.”
Something about that time sounded familiar, but she couldn’t place it.
“She’s on life support,” Burckhardt said.
“How likely is it she’ll come out of the coma?” Saraub asked.
“She won’t. After you see her and say your farewells, I’d like your permission to terminate,” Burckhardt answered.
She cleared her throat. “I read up on this online last night. When people come out of comas, it doesn’t usually take more than a month. So I think we should wait, just to make sure.” She squeezed her knuckles tight, unaware that she was showing both men her fists.
Burckhardt picked up his pen again. A Silver Cross with smooth, blue ink. He touched it to the paper, but didn’t draw. “That’s a very large expense. You have to consider the chances, and I’m telling you, they’re slim to none. Her quality of life won’t be the same, either.” His voice was low but still without emotion. Possibly rehearsed. Maybe people at this place overdosed all the time.
“So there’s a chance?” she asked.
Saraub covered her closed fists with his palm. She shook him off. Maybe Betty would wake up. Maybe they’d made a mistake, and it wasn’t even Betty in the fucking coma, so why the hell were they having this conversation at all? What did this asshole doctor know about Betty Lucas? She’d survived fire, bad boyfriends, drunk weekends, hepatitis C from a dirty tattoo-parlor needle, a husband who left, parents who didn’t care, a daughter who abandoned her. Surely, like a phoenix, she would survive this.
Burckhardt put down the chart and looked directly at Audrey. “Ms. Lucas, there is a slim chance she’ll wake up. One in a thousand. There is absolutely no chance she’ll regain brain function. Would