The Forgetting Place (3 page)

T
he evening group session I ran in the Hinsdale Building on Tuesdays and Thursdays finished on time, but I had paperwork that I'd been putting off, and by the time I finally put that to rest it was almost 8
P.M
. Full dark had settled across the campus, and although the hospital does a pretty good job with exterior lighting, the footprint of the place is still over twelve acres and unavoidably prone to large swaths of shadows. It's for this reason that I don't like leaving after dark. It's not the patients I'm afraid of, although we house more murderers per capita at Menaker than they do at the closest prison, Brockbridge Correctional Facility in Jessup. And, yes, we've had our share of attacks—something the visitor brochures about this place will never mention. An experienced nurse was once killed here during the night shift, struck by a large television (this was before the days of flat screens) hurled at her by a patient while her back was turned. She'd fallen forward, the TV's trajectory matching the arc of her fall, and the second impact had crushed her skull between the old Sony and the tiled floor. There are inherent
dangers in working with people—many of them with a history of violence—whose self-control is tenuous at best.

But no, it's not the patients I'm afraid of, but rather the
dark itself
that I find menacing. It's been that way for as long as I can remember, and I can't help but think that it has something to do with
him,
the way his mind turned the final corner that night when I was eight years old, the way I had to go looking for him, terrified that I was already too late.

The wide brick walkway from the physician offices to the front gate was well lit, but I could hear the April night breeze pushing past the oaks on either side, making their newly budding limbs shift and sway as if finally awakening from a long sleep and realizing they had someplace better to go. I could hear the trees whisper to one another, spiteful old men with malevolence in their hearts, the shadowy expanse of the grounds providing complicit cover for their furtive movements. A finger of one of the branches dipped down to graze my shoulder as I passed, catching on the slick fabric of my windbreaker, and for a moment I felt that it did not want to let go.

“Out for a walk, Lise?” Tony Perkins called out to me from the watchman's booth near the gate, and the sound of his voice made me jump.

“Goin' home, Tony,” I replied, but he held up a hand for me to stop a second.

“Let me get someone to escort you. Make sure you get there safe.”

I live in an apartment less than a quarter mile from the hospital, which enables me to commute by foot in all but the most inclement weather. Security here doesn't like me to walk home
at night unattended, and they often have someone accompany me on the trek if I'm leaving after dark. It's sweet of them and reminds me how Menaker, for all its notoriety, can sometimes feel more like a close-knit community than a hospital for the criminally insane.

Tony spoke into his radio, listened to the response. “Matt will take you,” he advised me.

I only had to wait a minute.

“Headin' home late, Dr. Shields?” Matt Kavinson emerged from a side path, flashlight in hand.

“Working hard, Matt,” I answered.

“You always do. You mind a little company on your walk?” he asked, and I smiled, telling him I was glad to have it.

We bid Tony a good night and left the front gate behind us, the stern silhouette of the hospital lifting its head into the night sky to watch as we descended the hill. The wind picked up and buffeted us from behind, making me wish I'd selected a heavier jacket this morning. It's hard to know in April, as the cold gray tomb of March slams shut for another year and the hot, oppressively humid days of summer begin to rise like swarms of locusts from the Maryland marshes.

“How was your day, Dr. Shields?” Matt asked as we rounded the last corner and my apartment complex came into view. He was good company—quiet and unobtrusive—but there were times when you could almost forget he was standing beside you.

The image of Jason Edwards rose in my mind, those dark eyes looking out over the water below us, our mutual gaze following the gull as it disappeared around the bluff.
Gone,
I could hear him say . . .
for five years now . . .

“One of my patients . . .” I replied, hesitating, as I stopped now at the entrance to my building. What more could I share? Confidentiality prevented me from discussing such things. It's what makes psychiatry such a lonely profession.

Matt waited for me to go on. He turned slightly away, regarding the hedges hunkered like sentries along the front of the building. “You think you can help him?” he asked, articulating the question in my own mind, and I realized that I wasn't sure if I could. There was something in the way Jason had looked at me today, his expression hopeless, his face defeated from the very beginning—as if I had already failed him, as if everything I had to offer was on the table, and in a cursory glance he could see there was nothing there to save him.

“I don't know,” I answered honestly, wishing I felt more confident in my abilities. I certainly
wanted
to help him, but wanting and doing are two roads that may never merge. A gust of wind snatched at the words as they left my mouth, carrying them off into the night.

Matt was quiet for a moment. He clicked off the flashlight, now unnecessary as we stood beneath the glow of the streetlamps. “You'll do what you can,” he said. “He believes in you.”

I looked at him, wondering whether there was any truth to what he'd said, and found it unlikely that he could know such a thing. “Does he?”

Matt nodded, his face a little sad, but he made an effort to smile nonetheless. “Of course,” he responded, turning to go. “You're all he has left.”

I
lay awake that night thinking about Jason. Matt's words—
He believes in you . . . You're all he has left
—had struck a chord with me, and I kept mulling them over in my mind. It was an odd thing for him to say. His role at the hospital would not grant him access to the background information of our patients. And yet, human relationships trump legal and professional boundaries all the time. If he was dating a nurse who'd been there during Jason's intake, or even knew someone who worked at Jason's prior institution, there was a possibility that Matt knew more than I did about my own patient. That bothered me, but his words weighed on me for another reason as well. It's the nature of psychiatry—the role we've chosen to play. So often we are the only tangible thing anchoring our patients to their delicate perch above the abyss. It keeps me awake at night, contemplating that relationship, and when I close my eyes in the dark, edging carefully toward the elusive precipice of sleep, I can sometimes feel them slipping from my grasp—all of them. I startle awake, reaching out for a better hold, but find myself alone in the room with nothing but black and empty space above me.

I hadn't commented on it today during our session, but it
turns out that Jason and I grew up in the same community—Columbia, Maryland—although I can't recall having ever run into him in those earlier years. It didn't surprise me. I've made a concerted effort to distance myself from that time in my life, as if there's still a danger of sliding backward into that lanky prepubescent body and the years of emotional abandonment that have prevented me, even now, from mustering the courage and vulnerability to maintain an intimate personal relationship.

I was a child of distractible parents who occupied their thoughts with practical matters: their jobs and daily errands, relationships with friends and acquaintances, the maintenance of a house that was more a physical structure than a place of refuge, the anxiety of never having enough money to feel truly secure. I remember watching them as we sat around our kitchen table at dinner, my father's eyes often distant with worry, my mother's hands straightening her silverware over and over again, as if it might have moved when she wasn't looking. My brother and I used to horse around, make faces at each other over the evening meal, converse in our Donald Duck voices until one of us inevitably knocked something over or snorted milk out our nose. We did it because we were children and that's what children do, but there was also a certain desperation in that interplay, our eyes darting in the direction of our parents' faces as we tried to get them to laugh or smile and shake their heads, their attention returning to the family in front of them. I remember that I had the foolish idea that we could somehow change them—awaken them—and one of my life's greatest disappointments was discovering that we could not.

The worst kind of loneliness, I think, is to be in the presence of those you love and have them treat you like you aren't there.
To this day, when I picture the face of my mother, it is always in profile, her eyes studying something in the room that is not me. There was so much worry, so much preoccupation in that expression, and because she never talked about the things that troubled her, I was left to imagine the worst. “What's wrong, Momma?” I would ask, but she wouldn't answer, or would respond with, “Hmmm?”—like I'd just disturbed her from a light snooze. Sometimes, if she was sitting still, I would slide up beside her and put my head on her lap. On good days, her fingers would absently stroke the hair on the side of my head, looping a blond lock around the soft curve of my ear, and during those moments I would feel that we were somehow closer. But just as often her hand would lie motionless in her lap, as if the weight of my head on her thigh was causing her some unseen discomfort that she was too stoic to mention, and after a while I would move away, ashamed of my own neediness, and leave her to her thoughts, the retreating tread of my footsteps nearly silent on the thick carpeting of our lifeless house. I would don my sneakers and ease out the front door, closing it gently behind me as if somewhere in the house lay a sleeping infant who must not be roused. I would go down to the creek, picking my way through the twist of underbrush, the sticker bushes slashing at the tan flesh of my calves and ankles, leaving bloody scratches that I wouldn't notice until my evening bath. And when I'd come to my private spot in the woods, I would throw jagged little stones at the trees until my arm ached with the repetitive effort and the hollow place inside of me hurt just a little less.

T
he next morning, the earth was strewn with debris from the windstorm the night before. An audience of trees looked down on severed limbs cast about the ground, their hunched and beaten postures reminding me of a congregation of amputees gathered in the wake of a war.

I usually stop at Allison's Bakery for a cup of coffee on my way to work. It's along my walking route and the place always smells like a blend of coffee beans and cinnamon. They offer an assortment of fresh baked muffins and pastries as well, but lately I've been sticking to just coffee. I'm thirty-three, and my body hasn't yet begun the first turn of its downward spiral, but I can feel it wanting to, feel my metabolism beginning to slow, my joints becoming less limber than they once were. I was too thin in college, and the five pounds I've put on since then suits me well, but I wouldn't want it to go any further. The body will take certain liberties if it thinks no one is watching.

“Morning, Lise,” Amber greeted me as I stepped to the counter. She was the proprietor's niece and had been working there as long as I'd been coming. Her hair, long and straight, reflected the morning sunlight streaming through the shop's large front
window, which I noted had sustained an unsightly crack in the left upper corner since the day before.

I tilted my head toward the window. “Looks like you took on some damage last night.”

Amber nodded. “Something big must've hit it.” She turned to pull a cup from the stack behind her and began filling it with my usual. “Glad it didn't shatter completely.”

“Insurance should cover it, I'd imagine.” I wrapped my palms around the outside of the brown paper cup she placed on the counter in front of me, indulging myself in its warmth. Two men in suits, occupying one of the shop's few tables, glanced at us over their morning newspapers.

“I guess,” Amber replied. “I haven't called Allison about it yet. Figure I'll let her sleep another hour before giving her the bad news.” She produced a small paper cup from behind the counter. “Here, try these,” she said. “We just got them in last week.”

Inside were two chocolate-covered almonds. I tilted the cup to my lips and let one slide into my mouth. “Why do you tempt me with these things?” I asked, shaking my head. Amber smiled and gave me a wink as she watched me down the second one.

I heard a bell chime, and three more people entered through the front door. They looked haggard, caffeine junkies here for their fix.

“Have a good one,” I said, handing the small paper cup back to Amber, who dropped it into the recycling bin behind her. I turned and went to the counter along the far wall, adding skim milk to the coffee and furtively spitting the chocolate almonds into a napkin that I tossed into the garbage. It was a deceitful thing to do, I realize, but there is a ledge one walks between the realms of politeness and self-discipline, and to lean too far in
either direction is to risk losing contact with the other. One of the businessmen—young, good-looking, but with an air of being wound a little tight—caught me doing it. He offered me a thin conspiratorial smile, and I returned it before squeezing past the patrons toward the door.

Outside the world was waking up, the people moving along with greater purpose than they had when I'd exited my apartment fifteen minutes before. I could hear the sound of passing traffic along the main thoroughfare a few blocks away, but like myself, many of the local commuters traveled by foot. It was one of the things I loved about this neighborhood—that feel of a close-knit community, something that's become more elusive as the world continues to grow and the distance between each of us presses outward. There was once a time in America when it was considered normal to know everyone on your block. Now, it's different. We guard ourselves more closely, suspicious of unsolicited kindness. We've grown up, lost our innocence, realizing too late that it was the best part of us and that it's never coming back.

Two blocks ahead, behind wrought-iron pickets, the hospital's brick architecture rose up like a mirage against the sky—something ethereal—a place guarded from the outside world, and the world from it. The people living on either side of that fence existed in their own separate realities, aware of one another's presence only in the vaguest sense, as an abstraction, as if the human lives on the other side of that demarcation were a backdrop, an inconsequential part of the scenery.
And where do I fit in?
I wondered, moving back and forth between those two worlds, but not truly belonging to either. I brought the coffee to my lips, took a careful sip, wondering—not for the first time—which population posed the greater risk. The muscles in my legs
burned as I climbed the steep hill toward the facility, stopping at the gate to rest and look back upon the town below. The two businessmen had left the coffeehouse, and I caught their eye as they stood on the sidewalk preparing themselves for the day. I lifted my hand in a half wave, feeling suddenly that it was my duty to narrow the gap between us all.

They regarded me coolly, and neither returned the gesture.