Straightjacket (5 page)

Anna thought back to a year ago, when she bought that poster. During a trip to the Met, she got into a huge fight with her parents in the gift shop. She wanted to buy a poster of
The Kiss
, but they forbade it. Her mother said that a painting of the man and woman embracing like that was inappropriate for a girl her age, even vulgar. They picked out
Mäda Primavesi,
and when she came home from school one day, she found that the framed poster was hanging on the wall in her room.

At first, she hated it. Mäda reminded her of the control her parents lorded over her. But after a week of staring at the portrait as she lay in bed, she started to like the girl. She was supposed to be young and innocent, but the way she stood—her feet spread wide, with one hand on her hip, the veiled look of defiance in her eyes—made Anna start to admire her.

Mäda wasn’t here, though. Nothing was here except sickness and grief.

She opened her eyes and found that she hadn’t been magically transported anywhere.

She lost the will to get out of bed. Nausea gripped her belly. The hopelessness swallowed her up.

Then she realized it was Wednesday.

Her parents were coming to visit.

The panic hit the same way it always did. First the dizziness set in, like she was falling backward a hundred times over. She sat up in bed and looked straight ahead at the desk in the corner to steady herself, trying desperately to stop it before it got worse.

It was futile, though, and the terror wreaked its havoc on her. Her heart thumped so violently that it made her body shake with each beat. Her hands frantically gripped the sheets on either side of her. With each quick breath, the sick feeling in her stomach spread outward to her thighs, her chest, her arms. She was drowning, but instead of water rushing into her lungs, it was terror.

She sat in silence.

It kept getting worse.

She couldn’t stop it.

The sheet she was strangling became soaked in her sweat. She shifted position, but it had no effect. The feeling kept going as she sat there, still and silent. She would have done anything to escape, but it didn’t matter if she left the room, or even if she left the ward. She couldn’t escape the inside of her head.

After a few minutes of enduring the torture, her heartbeat slowed and the sick feeling dulled. But it could come back. She was relieved when she started shaking, because that meant it was over for now. She pulled her legs up, wrapping her arms around them and hugging them close to her body. She wanted to lie down and go back to sleep, but her parents would be there soon and she needed to get ready.

She forced herself out of bed. The coolness of the floor attacked her bare feet and made her whole body shake even more violently. She grabbed her robe from her closet, slipped into her flip-flops and walked into the bathroom. At least she didn’t have to share one. Everyone here had a private room.

It was so cold and she couldn’t get into the hot shower fast enough. She stood still, letting the water run over her for a few minutes before shampooing her hair. The warmth felt good. It was always so cold here; the shower was the only place she ever felt warm. She let herself cry for a bit. The shower was also the only place she truly had any privacy.

Afterward, she dressed herself in jeans, a fitted blue T-shirt, and her gray hoodie, even though it wouldn’t be enough to fend off the cold. She examined herself in the mirror as she pulled her long, slightly damp hair back into a ponytail, letting some of the shorter pieces in the front fall around her face.

She grabbed her makeup bag from inside the dresser. Her mother would never let her hear the end of it if she saw her with a bare face.
Very unladylike
, she could almost hear her scold. Her hands went through the customary motions—sweeping powder all over her face, painting her lashes with sticky black mascara, pressing her lips together after she dabbed on the pale pink lip gloss.

She stared at herself but felt nothing. Her eyelids were swollen from crying, and the powder couldn’t hide how flushed her cheeks still were. Her eyes looked like they had sunken deeper into their sockets. How could she have gotten that much thinner in such a short time? She wasn’t upset by how she looked, though. The numbness agreed with her. It was better to feel nothing than misery. She could definitely live with nothingness.

After grabbing her book, she walked down to the dining room, found an empty table, and sat down. The attendants opened up the buffet almost immediately. She didn’t have an appetite but figured she should make an effort.

She grabbed a plate and served herself a runny egg, a slice of toast—after all, it was almost impossible to mess up toast—and orange juice that she had to pour into a cup that was only a little bigger than a shot glass.

There were only a few people scattered around the dining room, eating. Caleb wasn’t one of them. A flash of disappointment stabbed its way through the numbness. She didn’t know what to make of it and didn’t want to think about it. The confused feelings that came along with him weren’t something she could deal with right now.

Just as she was willing herself to put him out of her mind, a shriek echoed off the walls. The source was a heavyset man who began banging violently on a nearby table over and over again. With each pounding, the fork and spoon that sat on the tray leaped a few inches into the air and landed with sharp
ping
s. They finally fell off the table and landed on the floor.

“What are you tryin’ to do to me?” the man screamed. “They’re everywhere! Get ’em away!”

Anna, like everyone else, watched him cautiously. He kept banging the table and yelling. The other two men who had been sitting with him ran away. One of them had moved to a corner and was shaking, using his hands first to cover his ears, then his eyes, then his ears again. In his nervous confusion, it was like he couldn’t decide if he wanted to block out the sight or the sound of what was happening.

“No! No!” the man yelled even louder. Two of the bigger attendants, whom the patients called the Bouncers, moved in and approached him carefully.

“What’s wrong, Bob?” one of them asked firmly. Bob was now desperately brushing his arms with his hands.

“Ants! Ants are crawling out of the eggs! They’re all over me, up my arms!”

“Take it easy. There aren’t any ants,” the other Bouncer said as he tried to make Bob stop touching himself. He moved around to Bob’s right; his buddy took the left side.

“No, stop!” he yelled as they each took an arm. “I need to get ’em off! Stop!” He flopped violently around as the Bouncers tightened their grip on him. In the struggle, he kicked his chair and it landed on its side. Everyone else watched silently. It wasn’t easy, but the Bouncers dragged a screaming and struggling Bob out of the dining room. They all listened as the screams faded and then abruptly stopped.

Anna didn’t know what happened to him. She was sure drugs and restraints were involved, but she stopped herself from dwelling on it. If she thought about it too much, she might end up having another uncontrollable fit of her own. Eating the rest of her toast was the last thing she wanted to do. She made her way to the common area, taking a seat in one of the reclining chairs. When she took up her book again, trying to find where she left off, she couldn’t keep it steady; it was quivering between her trembling hands. She laid the book carefully on her lap, with the pages facing down to keep her place, and spread her hands on the cover, hoping to calm herself. She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths in and out.

“Your parents are here.” Anna opened her eyes to find Carlene standing over her, wearing another pair of ridiculous scrubs, this time with puppies all over them.

“Oh, thanks.” Her voice was hoarse. She braced herself against the dizziness that had suddenly set in, got up, and walked slowly behind Carlene as she led her to the main door of the unit. Carlene swiped her ID card through a black box on the wall. Anna caught a glimpse of Carlene’s newly applied leopard-print acrylics. The double doors unlocked, Carlene moved to the side, and they opened so slowly it was painful.

Anna’s parents stood a few feet away. Her mother had dressed her slim frame impeccably, as usual. She wore dress slacks with heels, a white blouse, and a Hermès scarf tied rather tightly around her neck. Her thin lips formed her usual cruel smile, which was really just a distorted frown. Anna’s father wore brown pants with a white button-down shirt, the top button left undone. His arched posture hadn’t changed, and he stood an inch or two shorter than he actually was. He offered her an uncomfortable smile as he hiked up his pants.

“Anna,” her mother practically sang. She wrapped her arms around Anna and gave her a hug that lasted too long. Anna reached her arms around her mother and let them drop deadly to her sides when her mother released her.

“Hi,” her dad mumbled, offering his own squeeze that he tried to cut off as soon as possible. He snuck a peek behind her down the bleak hallway that led into the ward and cleared his throat.

“C’mon, y’all,” Carlene said brightly as she led the three down the hall, the door locks clicking with finality behind them. Anna watched the floor as they walked, catching glimpses of the leopard-print nails swinging back and forth ahead of her. She had to concentrate hard on completing each step. When they reached the common area, she collapsed into the overstuffed chair in the corner.

“Walter, pull those two chairs over here,” her mother snapped.

Her father dragged them over, their legs screeching painfully across the floor. His knees cracked as he sat down. Her mother took one of the seats and started to lower her Gucci purse to the floor but yanked it back up at the last second as she shot a disgusted look at the dull linoleum. Instead she balanced it on her lap.

“So,” her mother began, “tell me how you’ve been.” She was cheerful, trying too hard.

“Fine.”

“And how’s the food?”

“Fine.” Anna wouldn’t look at her.

“Are the doctors and nurses treating you well?”

“Yes, everything’s fine,” she barked.

“Look, I know you’re angry you’re here, but what other choice did we have?”

Anna said nothing.

“Anna, sweetheart,” her mother said, her voice softer. “You threatened to kill yourself.”

Anna glared back, wild with rage. She felt like spitting at her mother. She wanted to scream, but she still said nothing.

“Walter, say something.” The words came out quick and short, like bullets.

Anna shot a glance at her father. He was staring into the television across the room. “Walter!” her mother said sharply.

His head snapped back.

“What do you want me to say?” He could shed his meekness in a split second, his temper raging.

Anna flinched as he yelled. She instinctively folded her arms across her chest and gripped herself tightly. Her fingers dug into the bruise by accident. The spot had already faded to yellow, but the square corner of her father’s belt buckle was still clearly imprinted.

“Keep your voice down!” Her mother spit out the words in a loud whisper, noticing some of the faces around the room that were staring at them.

“What did you think would happen?” her father roared. “There have to be consequences.”

“I should have done it! Then I wouldn’t have had to be around
you two
anymore!” It felt good to shout back, like revenge. Her mother couldn’t hide her initial shock, but she regained her composure quickly.

“Lower your voice, Anna. Everybody’s looking.”

Anna surveyed the room herself and saw that her mother was right. Everyone was staring. Even Caleb.

But there was something different about him. His jaw was locked tightly. He was gritting his teeth. His mouth was locked in a scowl. There was no mistake—he was furious.

“Let’s just calm down.” The fake sweetness in her mother’s voice drew her attention away from Caleb. “You’ll get the help you need here. There’s no reason to hate us.”

But I do hate you; every part of my body tells me so
. But she wouldn’t dare say it out loud. Her heart was thumping so hard that her body jerked with every beat.

“Anna, everything we’ve ever done was for you.” Her mother couldn’t disguise her disgust any longer. Contempt seeped out of every word. “We sent you to the best schools, gave you every opportunity. You never wanted for anything, and this is how you treat us?” She was on a roll. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself, putting us through this. So I called you a slut. Big deal. That’s no reason to threaten to shove twenty pills down your throat.”

The memory of that last day before they took her here came rushing back. The boy had leaned across the front seat and given Anna a good-bye kiss—her first kiss. She had made her way up the front walk to her house, giddy for the first time in months.

She had no idea her mother had been watching it all from the window.

Then came the screaming. And the threats. And the beating from her father.

She couldn’t bear to relive it. Anna squeezed her eyes shut, trying to forget.

“My mother called me worse, and I never treated her the way you’ve treated me.” She was relentless.

Anna watched, frozen, as her mother smoothed her hair and took a deep breath. “You know,” she said, as if she had just had an epiphany, “you really owe us an apology.” And in an instant she had worked herself up into a frenzy again. “Putting us through all this. Yes, I think you owe me an apology.”

Anna pursed her lips so tightly that they turned white from the pressure.

“I said to apologize to me, Anna.” She spoke each word slowly. “You apologize this instant or don’t expect to have a car when you come home.”

Anna didn’t know which was worse—the fact that she’d be without a car she could use to escape, or that someday soon she’d be going back to that house. She started to breathe unevenly, feeling the panic taking root in her belly.

“I’m sorry,” she blurted out, hoping to cut off the sick feeling before it could spread.

“That’s more like it,” her mother said, satisfied.