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The nurse had handed Adriana a tiny cup with two white pills. “These are the antidepressant and the sleeping pill that Dr. Chen ordered. Would you like water or juice with those?”

Adriana held the cup of pills for a minute. “Why do I need the sleeping pill?” Adriana asked. Dr. Chen had said she slept too much.

“It's to help you sleep better at night, so maybe you won't need as much sleep in the daytime,” the nurse explained.

Dr. Chen hadn't mentioned the sleeping pill to her. She panicked a little, wondering whether this was a ploy to get her to take poison. She stood with the tiny cup of pills in hand, as the nurse waited for her to swallow them. “Is there something wrong?” the nurse asked her. Adriana felt the nurse was looking at her strangely.

She turned and walked away without swallowing the pills. “Adriana,” the nurse called. “You can't take those pills away. Swallow them here where I can see you.”

Adriana turned around. She threw the cup of pills at the nurse. “I won't take your poison!” she yelled. People stood aside to let her pass, and someone clapped. The nurse had a stunned look.

Adriana went back to her room. Shakily, she sat on the bed and looked down at her slippers. No doubt someone would come by to talk to her soon. She took the slippers off and got under the covers. Eventually someone opened her door a crack and saw her lying there asleep, and closed the door.

The next day Adriana woke up groggy. She walked out to the washroom with her toothbrush and saw that Fiona's name wasn't on the board, meaning she wasn't on shift. Adriana felt disappointment and relief. She was pretty sure Fiona would have something to say to her about last night. It would no doubt be on her chart that she threw her pills at the nurse doling out meds. Adriana felt something akin to smugness, but she was also terrified. What if Fiona was in on the poisoning attempts? Somehow Adriana didn't think so, but it was impossible to tell.

Adriana knew the staff would be busy till about 9 a.m. while the doctors did their rounds, and she expected a knock on her door shortly. She tidied the newspapers and pens, put some clothes in her locker, but didn't get dressed. She figured they'd put her in TQ. Such a terrible thought.

There was a knock on her door and it opened a crack. The young student doctor, dressed in blue, nodded to her somewhat awkwardly and smiled. “Dr. Chen wanted me to introduce myself,” he said brightly. “I'm Colin.” Adriana looked at his shoes. They were slightly too long for him and turned up at the toes. “Can we have a chat?” he asked.

Adriana nodded once. Was he in on the poisoning too? She sat cross-legged on the bed, shoulders hunched and peered at him through narrowed eyes, as though challenging him to come closer. But he stood in the doorway and made no move to enter. Adriana motioned to the chair, and he finally sat down, leaving her door wide open.

“You like flowers?” he said, engagingly, leaning forward on his knees and nodding at the bouquet her father had brought her. The tiger lilies had drooped and shed pollen all over the window sill. Adriana shrugged. Didn't everyone like flowers? “I'm Colin,” he said, straightening up, and arching his back slightly, as though it ached. “I'm a medical student, just doing a rotation here at the NS for a few weeks.”

Adriana nodded. She wasn't going to give him any ground. He half-smiled. “You're Adriana.” She looked at him, and waited.

Colin cleared his throat. “Um, last night,” he said, “You were pretty upset.” Adriana waited. “Do you want to talk about it?” She shook her head. “Because it might help us help you, if we knew what you were upset about.”

Adriana crossed her arms and pouted. She felt slightly childish but also very afraid, almost wildly so. Her heart beat loudly, and she put her hands over her ears, so he wouldn't hear the blood pulsing through her. He looked concerned. “Do you hear something?” he asked. She shook her head.

His eyes were very blue, or maybe it was simply a reflection of his shirt. “Look, Adriana,” he said, earnest and confiding, like a cop trying to get a suspect to talk, Adriana thought. “You're here in this place to get help, aren't you?” Adriana refused to look at him. “We can help,” he said with confidence, “but you have to let us.”

There was a commotion in the hall. A nurse ran by Adriana's door, shouting for help. Colin jumped to his feet. Then it seemed like a whole stream of people ran by in a stampede. Colin excused himself and stepped into the hall, closing her door behind him. Adriana made out from the shouts and stray exclamations that someone had taken an overdose. Soon paramedics were on the scene and someone was being taken away on a stretcher.

Adriana opened her door a crack, but a nurse in the hallway had motioned for her to stay back. She felt both trapped and exposed. What if someone came into her room and killed her while everyone was concentrating on helping the person who'd overdosed? Her mind felt hot and roiled as though it were boiling.

Adriana heard Redgie and Marlene walk by her door. “Such a damn shame,” said Redgie. Adriana imagined him shaking his head. “Just a young man, in the prime of his life. Why'd he want to end it?” Adriana thought Marlene nodded, and spoke in a hoarse and quavery voice. Then she stopped not far from Adriana's door. Adriana pictured her patting Melvin, disconsolate and lonely, on the shou
lder. “He'll be back, don't you worry. I saw his face.”

Adriana pictured Jeff, pale and resigned, being carried away on the stretcher. Outside the rain was beginning to fall, and wind lashed the harbour-side of the hospital. He'd tried to outrun the storm but they'd pump his stomach and give him charcoal to drink, and the thing that terrified him would pass, leaving him to face the futility of delusions, and the emptiness of his life without them.

Chapter 19

Adriana sat down to breakfast. There was a oblong plastic bowl with grey porridge, a hard-boiled egg, a piece of toast, and a small plastic mug of hot water to make tea. Any of it could have been tampered with, except perhaps the egg, which was still intact. Adriana cracked the egg against the table top and peeled the shell. She carefully bit the top off the egg and tore open the little packages of salt and pepper to sprinkle on the remaining egg.

A male nurse was leaning against the kitchen countertop watching her. Adriana felt terribly self-conscious, and panicky. What if the nurse was in cahoots with the people who were poisoning her food? Adriana made a point of covering her toast and porridge with a paper napkin.

The nurse, a muscle-bound, dark haired man whose name tag said “Tony”, took her tray. “You didn't eat much,” he noted. Adriana felt a surge of anger but said nothing. If he wanted to make a note of the fact that she left her breakfast, let him, she thought. He couldn't force her to eat.

Melvin, wearing his sunglasses as usual, was looking down at her tray, as though mesmerized. “Are you hungry” she asked, in a hoarse whisper. Melvin nodded. Before she could say a word, he took the toast and porridge from her tray onto his. Adriana was terrified. “Don't,”she said loudly, gripping his wrist. He looked at her mildly, and the male nurse watched, from behind the counter, with eyes narrowed with concern.

Adriana bent her head toward Melvin. “They're poisoned”, she said, feeling the words escape her lips like a snake. He looked at her for a moment, considering, then smiled. “I'll be okay,” he said. That was the only thing she'd heard him say since she had been admitted, and the high, bell-like clarity of his voice surprised her. He made the sign of the cross and waved his hands over the food, laughing soundlessly. He began to eat and Adriana she felt half dread, half humiliation.

She went back to her bedroom to lie down. Something didn't feel right in her brain. She pictured her hippocampus, tethered but drifting. Her mind wandered over Jeff's delusion about the lead ceiling in her room—the idea of a man who had lost his bearings. Or was it?

Adriana thought she saw a glimmer above her in one of the small holes in the ceiling tile. Could it be a hidden camera? Or had she, like Jeff, slipped somewhere between the lining and the outer garment of reality? She felt hemmed in, narrow, constricted—it was impossible for her to get off the track her mind had taken, like a street car on its rails.

Even in turmoil, there was something sluggish, viscous, about her thoughts. What was wrong with her? Had the hippocampus, she panicked, shifted position? She could almost feel it, floating free in the porridge of her brain. There was an illness she'd heard of, something one contracted from a mosquito bite, that turned one's organs into mush, but Adriana thought it was a tropical disease. Anxiety clawed at the back of her throat.

Adriana lunged for the door. She was afraid her brains would begin to leak from her ears. Fiona was coming down the hall toward Adriana and smiled when she saw her. The nurse stopped at the door to an interview room and called out, “Adriana, my love, won't you come talk to me for a minute?”

Adriana nodded and hurried toward Fiona, who stepped aside, surprised. Adriana sat down near the window where a red geranium bloomed, vigorous and robust. She couldn't stop staring at it—it was a symbol of health and happiness, oblivious to her suffering.

Fiona flopped into one of the old vinyl chairs. “Whew, nice to get off my feet,” she said. Adriana noticed for the first time that Fiona looked pregnant. She wasn't a tiny woman by any means but the thickening around her middle was more than the result of a few too many donairs.

Adriana looked at her hands. Fiona got down to business. “You didn't eat much breakfast today,” she began. “You must be starving. Would you like a cookie?” Fiona pulled a chocolate chip cookie from her pocket. It was a cafeteria cookie, in a wax paper bag. Could be okay, or could be poison. Adriana shook her head.

Fiona leaned forward, a serious look in her eyes. “Are you worried about how safe the food is here?” she asked. Adriana looked at her, considering. “I mean the food is terrible, it's hospital food,” Fiona said with a wave of her hand, “but have you had any thoughts that it might be contaminated?” Adriana opened her eyes widely. She could trust Fiona. She nodded.

Fiona nodded back. “We can make sure the food you get on your tray is pre-wrapped if you want. It means you'll get sandwiches when other people are eating hot meals but at least you'll know it's safe.”

Adriana felt tears start to spill over her cheeks. It surprised her, how thankful she felt. Fiona patted her hand. “Don't worry, darlin', you're going to be just fine.” They stood up to go. Adriana took one last look at the geranium and slipped past Fiona, who was holding the door open for her. She couldn't help brushing Fiona's belly. The nurse laughed, saying, “Sorry, love, I don't know my own size.”

Adriana went to her room. She had meant to ask Fiona about Jeff, when she got waylaid by her questions about the food. How did Fiona know she was worried about that? she wondered. Then it struck her that maybe Jeff was right, about the lead lined room. Someone was monitoring her brainwaves and had told Fiona about her thoughts that the food was poisoned. Adriana had a painful jolt of realization that Fiona was in on the whole thing. She would have to be careful what she said around Fiona from now on. It was devastating, Adriana thought, to have no one to confide in.

 

Dr. Chen sat across from Adriana with Fiona by her side. Adriana thought she looked curious. The doctor asked Adriana the same questions that had been asked of her already, three or four times. Did she see anything that no one else could see, hear anything that other people couldn't hear? Did she experience any strange smells that no one else could smell? Did she have any thoughts that she had special powers? Did she believe the radio and television were sending her messages? Did she think anyone could read her thoughts or that she could put her own thoughts into other people's heads? All these questions, which she had answered “no” to in the past, and answered “no” to now, suddenly caused her to stop and think. It was true that she believed someone was monitoring her brain waves, but that wasn't quite the same thing as thinking they could read her thoughts. But what if she answered yes to that question, or to all of them, what would happen then?

Dr. Chen and Fiona were sitting looking at her. Adriana decided in a moment to tell them the truth. If she told them, they wouldn't know she knew they were in on the scheme. Her heart beat fast at this small act of manipulation. “There are hidden cameras in my room, and someone is trying to control my thoughts,” she said. Her hands started to shake. Dr. Chen nodded, either in agreement or simply to indicate she should continue. “Someone is trying to poison my food.” Adriana looked down, tears starting to spill down her cheeks. “They think I know something, but I'm just depressed.”

Fiona handed Adriana the box of tissues on the table, her eyes sympathetic. Dr. Chen nodded, her short bob bouncing, and scribbled some notes on a yellow legal pad. She cleared her throat and seemed to be deliberating. Adriana felt her whole body was made of tears, that they would flow until there was nothing left of her.

Dr. Chen finally said, in a warmer voice that was still prim and now, pitying, “It's going to take a little time for you to get better, Adriana. You'll need other medications. We'll send you up to Mayflower, which is a unit where you can stay until you're well,” she said.

Adriana knew about Mayflower. Redgie and Marlene had some visitors from that unit one day. When they left Marlene had said to Redgie in a low voice, “We'll be out before they are.”

Adriana shook her head. Dr. Chen asked, “Does that mean you don't want to go to Mayflower?” Adriana shook her head again. She wasn't protesting, just shaking her head, unable to believe the dread she felt. She'd been feeling better and somehow hoped they were going to discharge her and now they were telling her she was going upstairs. Suddenly, a nameless panic seized Adriana and she felt the need to flee. She stood up abruptly and left the room, running out the door of Short Stay in her slippers. They came off her feet in the hall of the assessment unit and she ran in her socks, up the hall to the front doors and then out into the parking lot and across the street, where there were several empty lots covered in weeds. She was headed up the highway toward home, where her father's worry and her sister's trauma were more than she could face. But where else was there to go?