Chapter Thirty
A week or so after I’d arrived at the sanatorium, a rash like a mask appeared on both cheeks and across the bridge of my nose, so red and distinct that I doubted any amount of makeup would conceal it. Not that I had a need for makeup. Though, had I known Henry would be joining us for our daily session, I might have put on some lipstick if I had any.
Thanks to the regular schedule of tranquilizers each day, my mind operated in a haze, so when I first saw Henry standing in the waiting room, I didn’t believe he was real. I nearly ran to him. After all, that was the longest we had been apart since we had gotten married, but then I remembered that he had listened to Gary. He had phoned the doctor. He had put me in the car. He had driven me and left me alone in that asylum.
“Lulu—” he said as he walked toward me. He didn’t tell me I looked good.
He never was the type to lie. But he did peck me on the cheek, kissing me closer to my jawline to avoid the rash. “How are you?”
I hadn’t showered in days; I didn’t need those eyes on me. I had barely eaten, and from the way my shirt dress billowed around me, I had already lost weight. Thankfully, the doctor ushered us into his office before I had to reply.
During our sessions so far, Dr. Ruthledge had asked so many questions, requiring me to talk until he seemed satisfied, but the words sometimes struggled to find their way through the mist of my mind, no matter how much I screamed to myself from the inside to wake up, sit up, and say what he needed to hear. I tried to be the patient he wanted me to be, to play the game
he set for me. If I won, I went home. If I failed, well, I didn’t want to think about that.
He thought he was fixing me, but if that were true, why did I still feel the way I did? Just as the cold cut through, provoking an unrelenting shiver, so did the exhaustion, burrowing into my joints so that they ached. My head pounded. My eyes preferred darkness. I struggled to get out of bed. But what did I even have to get out of bed for? I didn’t need to fry any eggs, didn’t need to get Wesley’s day started, didn’t need to dust or vacuum, nor put together any sandwiches or roasts or gelatin salads. So why bother? The only reason was to prove to them that I was better. Complacent. On my way to going home.
“Lulu,” the doctor said to me the day he changed the game. Here I thought we’d been playing along with each other, not knowing he was about to rewrite the rules. “It’s come to my attention that you still aren’t eating.”
I knew Henry was looking at me, but I kept my eyes on the doctor. Of course I wasn’t eating. The food looked worse than that sunshine vomit I’d made for the dinner party. The problem was, if I skipped a meal, they wrote it up. If I went to the cafeteria but didn’t eat, they wrote it up. If I ate and was sick to my stomach, they wrote it up. Every action or inaction was used against me.
I sat up a bit straighter so that the leather couch squeaked. “With all due respect, Doctor,” I said through a smile, “I do eat.”
“Not much.”
He did have a point. “I suppose I haven’t had much of an appetite.”
“Yes, and that’s what concerns me,” he said, right before he presented me with a new plan, something more than talk and tranquilizers.
“I know you want to get home and we’ve made progress, but I think there’s a way we can get you healthier sooner. Mr. Mayfield and I have already discussed this.” There they went again, talking behind my back.
Henry reached for my hand when the doctor said his name. I both missed and hated his touch in that moment, a tornado of feelings I couldn’t think about right then, not when the doctor continued, saying, “I’d like to try something different.”
I remember this moment. I remember exactly what I was looking at when he told me what he had in mind. The fern behind him drooped more than usual, and a frond was beginning to brown. I wanted to get up and pluck it off, give the plant a drink, help it get better. I stayed glued to the couch, not letting myself move because I knew the doctor wouldn’t want that; that’s not why we were there. He paused before he told me what he wanted to do. He paused because he wanted my undivided attention, but he wanted me to give it to him without him having to ask first. And I did. I looked at him.
“I think it’s time we try—” And I swear the clock stopped ticking, the time between seconds elongating once again, giving my heart time to quicken as my mind tried to think of a way to escape, a way to not let them poke at my brain until I became quiet, content, carefully sculpted into the happy housewife I should’ve been. I wanted to scream, to run, maybe vomit or fight, but that couch, those drugs, and Henry’s chapped hand held me in place as the weight of how they wanted to alter me held me motionless until time moved forward again and the doctor uttered the words “electroconvulsive therapy.”
My heart stuttered. The words echoed in my mind, their meaning unfolding slowly, like a distant thunderclap. The doctor continued to talk, but I didn’t hear most of what he said. I made eye contact, nodded, fidgeted with a button on the couch, and finally stammered, “No.”
He hadn’t suggested the procedure I most feared, so while relief attempted to wash over me, I still feared the tide that was building.
“ECT, for short. We’ve had good results with it.” He spoke as if I hadn’t said a word. This man who had asked me to talk during our sessions
apparently knew how to hear, but he didn’t know how to listen.
“No,” I said again.
And he continued, “I think you’re an ideal candidate.”
I wondered if I screamed if that would make him listen, but I figured all he would hear was further justification for this treatment. While I shouted inside myself, I sat silent in the room and tried not to drown in the wave of fear as Dr. Ruthledge did his due diligence and explained the possible side effects: temporary headache, muscle aches, nausea, dental pain, disorientation, loss of memory…
“Loss of memory?” Henry asked.
“Yes, some patients have reported memory lapses.”
Henry had asked me to remember. He thought that was what I had needed.
Even Dr. Ruthledge had been asking me to do the same during our sessions, but now there was a possibility of forgetting.
I wanted to ask what it meant, what exactly it was, what it felt like. But then again, did I really want to know? Instead, ignoring the doctor, I turned to Henry and asked, “This is what you want?” Henry let go of my hand. Even though I hadn’t welcomed his touch, rescinding it hurt even more. But he didn’t speak. If the doctor was going to make me talk, if I had no choice in the matter, well, he shouldn’t be able to remain silent either. He needed to speak up for himself. His voice needed to proclaim what exactly he wanted to do to his wife. I shifted on the couch again, angling toward him as I asked, “Henry?”
“Dr. Ruthledge says it’s our best option.”
Out of my periphery, I saw the clouds roll heavy across the sky as the plant withered without anyone else even noticing. We all sat in silence, and I stared at the side of Henry’s face until he finally turned toward me.
Those eyes of his that I used to get lost in looked so tired, with creases beginning to chisel starbursts alongside them. I looked at that boy who had
been my first in so many ways. I stared into the deep wells of our shared existence, and I said to him, “Gary probably told himself the same thing.”
Henry’s eyes closed, the creases beside them deepened, and a single tear escaped. But I didn’t want to see his tears. Instead, I stared at the plant as Dr.
Ruthledge talked about the success they had seen in ECT patients. I thought of the woman in the cafeteria, and I wondered: Would this earn me a lollipop, too?
