Watch How We Walk (6 page)

11

I WAS SCARED. I DIDN'T
KNOW
what time it was when I woke up and that was enough to terrify me. I was trying to catch my breath, and I felt as though I was late for something, but I didn't know what. There was some sort of fog, thick and churning, all around me, and it was inside of me too, in my mouth, my eyes, my joints, my head. It was hard to move my limbs and my head throbbed and something was attached to my arm.

A white light buzzed above me, unnecessarily loud and cruel, and I winced. I forced my head to turn and look around, but that motion took longer than it should have. Everything was too slow and too loud and it made me angry. The walls were mint green concrete grids and the thick air smelled like ammonia and vomit.

I was wearing next to nothing. Where were my clothes? How dare someone take my clothes? Thinking was difficult; I couldn't focus, and trying made me feel nauseated. My right arm hurt when I moved it. I punched my free hand into the white beside me. Someone began to mutter nearby, but I couldn't make out specific words.

I leaned over the edge of my bed and tugged aside a curtain — two empty beds and the back of a mumbling woman as she lumbered out through the doorway in rumpled grey jogging pants. I blinked and looked again, then nearly fell from the edge of the bed to the cold floor — a row of elders sitting on the bed across from mine, their hands clasped, heads bent in prayer, waiting for me. I closed my eyes tightly and pulled the curtain back around me, and steadied myself on the bed.

I counted to twenty, which seemed to take hours, then opened the curtain again.

No one was there. The clock on the wall said it was 9:15 a.m. A full day had passed since I had started my last exam.

What did they want? Where did they go?

You know what they want. Don't worry, I got rid of them for you.

Where am I?

You owe me. But you should get out of there.

How?

Hurry.

I didn't want her to be mad at me. Without looking at it, I tore the IV from my arm. It dangled next to me, leaking clear fluid onto the floor. I watched a puddle begin to form, and counted forty-seven drops before I noticed the blood dripping from my arm. I shook my head in an attempt to clear it and focus through the haze. I reached for a tissue and my arm took about five minutes to move toward the box. So many beautiful red isobars on my forearm — meticulous, symmetrical, like a map of circuit boards. Crimson dots from inside my elbow spattered the white sheets. I watched them fall, two, three, four, five. My arm got tired and I remembered the tissue.

I dabbed at the blood and it slowed. The sun slashed through the windows, aggressive, jeering, trying to blind me.

I breathed deeply and looked for something to cover up with. People constantly passed by my room but none looked through the doorway at me. Uniformed staff wheeled carts of food, nurses pushed people strapped to stretchers, nervous visitors glanced furtively at their watches. I couldn't walk amid them all, covered in scabs, with my bare ass showing. I considered wrapping myself in a sheet but that would be too obvious. I concentrated for a long time, the insides of my knees against the cold chrome of the bed frame, and then Grey Jogging Pants shuffled back in.

— Hi. She swayed slightly from side to side. Her hair was greasy and flecked with white, and stains dappled her pink sweatshirt. She stood at the foot of my bed, expectant.

I nodded as curtly as I could, and turned my head toward the window, as though looking for something specific in the parking lot below.

— My name is Louisa. She spoke in a slow monotone, rattling a bottle of pills in her pocket.

— What's yours?

I didn't answer.

— My name's Louisa. What's yours?

— None of your business, that's what. I busied myself picking the scabs from my left thigh.

— I can't hear you.

— I don't care.

She peered at something on the end of my bed and straightened up.

— Hello, Emily. What did they bring you here for?

The IV bag was still dripping and the puddle was getting larger. When I didn't respond, Louisa continued to drone.

— I'm here because I have a chemical imbalance in part of my brain. But I feel better since I've been staying here.

It sounded like a line she had memorized and repeated often. My throat constricted with a sudden, dull ache. I bit the insides of my cheeks as hard as I could. It was only the drugs they had forced into me that were making me want to cry, I was sure of it, and I scraped my nails across the lines on my legs. Bits of dried blood chipped off and cuts started to bleed again, and immediately I felt better and exhaled without crying. I still didn't look at Louisa.

— Some of us from the ward play Monopoly every day at eleven before lunch. In the lounge. You should come too.

I shrugged and continued to stare out the window. A man in a white coat got out of a red sports car and walked quickly toward the side entrance. So what if I cut myself once in a while? It was my body, it didn't hurt anyone else. I wasn't schizophrenic or crazy. I didn't belong there.

— Peter keeps winning and Mina says that's because he used be a lawyer at a bank, before he came here. He's been here for three months now, but that's still not as long as me. Peter doesn't talk very much, and Mina is really nice. I'll come and get you for the next game.

I crossed my arms in from of my chest. I could feel my ribs.

— I won't be staying long enough.

Louisa looked startled, as though she'd forgotten that she was talking to someone and was surprised when I responded. She swayed, still rattling the pill jar.

— Do you have any clothes I can borrow? I lifted the edge of my papery gown.

— Like another pair of jogging pants and a sweatshirt? I'm cold. Too much air conditioning in here. It's really cold.

I was relieved to see at least my shoes beside the nightstand. Minus their laces.

— My stuff will be too big on you.

— That's okay. I don't mind. Maybe then I'll feel better, enough to play Monopoly. I smiled at her, desperate.

Louisa grinned. She was missing a tooth in the front.

— Okay then. She pulled a few things out of her drawer and then handed me a pair of yellow fleece pants and a green sweatshirt with wolves on the front. I cringed and turned it inside out and pulled it over my head, gagging at the acrid body odour. I would have to breathe only through my mouth all the way home. I closed my eyes and inhaled and exhaled and tried to focus. I didn't know my way around at all, let alone what the best route for escape would be.

— Emily?

My mother's voice nearly jolted me off the bed. I was too slow. I wanted to disappear. I smoothed the sweatshirt over my hospital gown and opened my eyes.

— You're finally awake.

I said nothing.

— I was here earlier, but you were still asleep. They sedated you after yesterday and I guess you were still out until this morning.

My mother spoke much more quickly than usual, in a strange near-whisper, and she kept glancing around the room. If she saw Louisa, she didn't let on. When my eyes met hers, she looked away.

— Where'd you get that filthy sweatshirt? She heaved a duffle bag onto the bed.

— I brought you some clothes and your toothbrush and some of your books and stuff. Did you see the doctor yet? What did he say? She stopped and stared behind me. Her shoulders sagged and she shook her head.

— Oh, Emily!

I didn't know what she was looking at, and I didn't care. She had purple arcs beneath her eyes and she hadn't bothered to fix her frizzy hair. She walked carefully to the side of my bed without getting too close, as though I was contagious.

She fiddled with the abandoned IV, then gave up. I wanted to explain that I refused to be poisoned with any more mind-controlling drugs, but I was just too tired.

— What happened to your IV?

— It fell out in my sleep.

— Bull.

Again I shrugged. I opened the bag and pulled out a t-shirt and black jeans.

— Emily, let them help you.

— I don't need help.

— But—

— Not theirs or yours or anybody's.

She took a step toward me, then stopped and stepped back again.

Instead of shouting back like the mother I had been used to, she wilted like an unwatered plant, limp and defeated.

— But—

— I'm not staying in here. I'm fine. I'm leaving with you.

— But you're not. You're not fine. She was still staring down at the floor.

— I don't even know why I'm here. Let's just go.

A few moments passed and the hum of the fluorescent lights seemed to get louder, while shrill announcements and rattling carts receded into the distance. She sat down next to me on the edge of my bed.

— You collapsed at school after your exam. They said . . . they said there were marks all over your arms. They said you've been cutting yourself all up. They didn't know what else to do, so they called an ambulance.

Louisa walked into the bathroom and clicked the door locked behind her.

— I don't remember fainting after my exam. And so what, I was tired, I'd been up all night studying. Three nights, in fact. Big deal. I do well at school and you commit me? You're just jealous!

She didn't look at me.

— It's just a few days. They have to do an assessment.

— You're trying to sabotage me! You don't want me to go to university because the elders will get you in trouble.

— That's not true, Emily. I wish you didn't have to be here either. I don't know what else to do. It's for the best.

— For the best? Nothing's wrong with me!

— I know nothing is wrong with you. But . . .

— But what.

— You've been injuring yourself. It's not normal.

— No one is normal. Let's just get out of here.

— We can't. She exhaled loudly.

— We have to be careful.

— What do you mean, careful?

I knew exactly what she meant, but I didn't care, I said it anyway.

— Because of Lenora?

She didn't move. She sat very still for a long time, and I watched the big, old industrial clock tick with hesitant, unnerving jerks, as though unsure it was doing it right.

Then the bed began to shake slightly. My mother's upper body was quivering.

— I'm sorry. I just— She inhaled harshly, trying to stop crying.

— I guess I just did everything wrong with you guys. I thought it was right, I wanted what was best for both of you, I really did, and it all ended up wrong.

I didn't know what to say to her. It would have been better if she'd said that she hated me, that everything was all my fault. For what happened to Lenora, to Uncle Tyler, for what happened to me. Being there, in the psych ward. The nuthouse. It was all my fault. I knew that was the truth, but she was blaming herself. And that made it even worse.

— It's not your fault.

This made her cry even harder.

— But it is. And I'm sorry.

I let her cry. I passed her a tissue but I felt very far away, as though I were watching this happen on a stage far on the horizon. Why now? Why was she finally saying all this stuff? Why not before?

— Are you going to leave the Truth?

— Oh Emily. Of course not. I mean, I don't know. It made so much sense at first. And I was so in love with your dad. I was. I just. I don't know really. He changed. Everything changed. He was so focused on the Hall and the readings and trying to get in good with the elders and get more responsibility, he just withdrew from me. From us.

She paused and I didn't say anything. I just let her keep talking.

— I thought that if I got more involved with the Witnesses too, it would bring us closer together.

— Did it work? Once I started, I couldn't stop asking cruel questions.

She sighed and shrugged.

— For a time, yes. But then he just got more and more distant, like he was just playing a role. I don't know. Maybe that's what everybody's marriages are like.

— Where's Dad today? How come he didn't come here?

— You know he's Full-Time Pioneering again this month. He can't bring himself to ever skip a day. Someone might tell the elders on him or something. She tried, and failed, to laugh.

— What about when he's done?

— By that time, visiting hours will be over.

Part of me wanted to cry, but I couldn't. It was as though all her tears had supplanted and negated the need for my own. We were both exhausted.

— Are you going to come back tomorrow?

— If you want me to.

We both attempted smiles that ended up contorted, lopsided grimaces. She left and I collapsed back on the bed.

Even though I couldn't explain it, something between us had changed, if only for a moment.