an impromptu visit and either knock me out with medicine or steal my daughter.
The phone rings loudly. Everyone stops talking and glances at it. Reagan, who’s been pacing in front of it for the past thirty minutes, pounces.
There are two forms of outside contact: visiting hours and the phone.
Everyone, and I mean everyone, vies for the phone. Besides board games and television this is the most coveted piece of entertainment here. It’s a beige wall phone with a cord that has been stretched so much over the years it practically skims the floor.
Reagan cradles the receiver between her shoulder and cheek and leans against the wall looking like a teenage girl talking to her crush. In a sugary-sweet voice she says, “Thank you for calling Fairfax Behavioral Health Unit, where we don’t condone murder, or thoughts of murder, but the doctors will shove enough pills down your throat to choke a horse. How may I help you?”
She stares down at the floor for a second and then rolls her eyes. She holds the phone away from her, not bothering to cover the speaker, and points to Alice. “It’s for you.”
Alice stands up. She turns pale. “Who is it?”
“Satan. He wants to know why you’re not manning the portal to hell,” Reagan replies deadpan.
Alice rolls her eyes and Reagan cracks up laughing until tears are streaming down her face. “Oh, that was good. I needed that….I needed that.” Then she glances at the new girl. “Stella!” she screams dramatically. “STELLLA, it’s for you!”
A new girl jumps out from her chair and snatches the phone. “God. I’m right here,” she hisses before she places the phone next to her ear and faces the wall.
Reagan shrugs and starts to make laps around the room. She’s always mischievous, with a gleam in her eyes. But today she’s edgy, staring everyone down, looking for a fight.
“I’m so fucking bored!” she announces dramatically as she weaves around the tables.
A few patients look up, but no one really pays attention to her.
She spins a chair backward and straddles it, sitting directly across from me, and points to the wall. “There’s something wrong with that clock.”
The nurse doesn’t even bother to look in the clock’s direction. “No, there isn’t.”
“There is! It was twelve fifteen when I walked in. I’m pretty sure hours have gone by and look. It says only twelve twenty!”
I have to agree with Reagan. If anything it feels like the clock is moving backward just to taunt us.
“I repeat, there’s nothing wrong with the clock,” replies the nurse. “And if you’re really that bored why don’t you go to art class. It starts in fifteen.”
“Art class?” Reagan claps her hands and gives the nurse a mocking smile. “Enough with all the choices! I’m so excited I’m about to queef out a unicorn riding on a rainbow.”
The nurse spins on her heels and walks away.
I keep my eyes glued to the page in front of me. I’ve been rereading the same page over and over for the past forty minutes, just waiting for the words to string themselves together and for me to slip into the beautiful world of the story. But it’s not working; there’s a black cloud over my head, leaving me in the foulest mood. I want to lash out at anyone who looks my way. It would probably be in my best interest—and that of everyone around me—if I stayed in my room today, but I can’t sit still even if I try.
Normally when I’m this nervous, I have Evelyn to comfort me. To hold and to hug. But for the first time she’s with one of the nurses and now I’m starting to regret my decision. It sounded great this morning. Evelyn had spent the entire night wailing in my ear. It didn’t matter how many times I comforted her. It was as though she too understood Wes’s parting words to me, and now doesn’t trust me.
Susan, one of the kind nurses here, offered to watch Evelyn. She said that sometimes moms need a moment to themselves. So I agreed. Her shock was visible. Normally, I would never let anyone take care of Evelyn. But Susan held her arms out, and very gently I placed Evelyn in them. Almost instantly the tears stopped.
The silence was deafening and since then all I can hear are Wes’s words echoing around me: “Maybe you’re the villain in the story of us….Maybe you’re the villain in the story of us….Maybe you’re the villain in the