Open Mind: Chapter Eighteen

After a few more mind-numbing days of routine and group therapies and family-friendly movie nights, the weekend had finally arrived. These days were always a big ordeal in the facility each week. Not every child was permitted to go home -- no children in the facility, even for just a weekend, meant no funding for the days that the facility was empty -- so there were always a few residents left behind. I was always left behind each weekend, and during these times, I usually just holed up in my room and waited for the commotion to be over and an unusual calm to settle over the place.

None of the residents had very much stuff to take home with them, so packing was never a big ordeal. Most of the kids, especially the smaller ones, were insufferable in those excruciating hours leading up to the arrival of their families. Every once in a while, a kid would get so worked up that they’d explode and screw up the whole weekend for themselves, blowing their chance at a trip home because they couldn’t handle the wait.

After so many weekends without a visit, I’d grown used to the idea that my pass would be denied. But to my great shock, Mr. Greg pulled me aside during Friday’s group session to tell me to pack my bags for the weekend. He handed me a rough, blue nylon bag with a thick drawstring and told me to fill it with everything I’d need for the weekend.

“Dr. Lau is actually coming?”

“That’s what she said this morning. Why wouldn’t she be coming?”

He made a good point, as usual. I had no real reason to doubt her. Disappointment was my default mode of operation, and when someone actually followed through on their promises, it seemed too good to be true.

“I… don’t know,” I responded flatly.

“She never misses an appointment, ever,” Mr. Greg responded, which he immediately followed with “even if she does have the least amount of appointments as the grief counselor” under his breath.

“What was that?” I said, less out of genuine concern and more out of a sense of obligation -- if he said something important and I didn’t ask him to repeat himself, I might miss out on something important. That wasn’t likely, but I didn’t want to take my chances and mess up my one ticket out of this place.

“Oh, nothing. Just let me know if you need any stuff from the locker,” he said, referring to the room in the offices where any valuable items were kept. Some kids would manage to sneak in cell phones, Gameboys, MP3 players, and anything else they could squeeze into a hidden pocket in their duffle bags (or worst case scenario in your underwear).

“No, I don’t have anything in there.”

Mr. Greg left with only a nod and made his way down the hall. I turned the other direction and headed back towards my bedroom. I’d already set aside my clothes and toiletries in a small pile on the hard plastic desk in the corner of the room.

It wasn’t long until I could hear the doctor’s voice echoing from the front lobby. I made my way closer to the double doors that led to the lobby when she came bursting through. She stopped mid-rant to regard me with a forced smile.

“Ah, Skylar! Are you … all packed up?” She asked the question with a confused inflection as she looked at my overnight bag. Her confusion caused me to look down as well.

“I mean, I don’t have much.”

“You poor thing. I know you come from a single mother home but I didn’t realize that--”

“No, it’s not like that,” I snapped. “They just don’t let you keep much here, so I don’t have much. I’m sure it was the same for Annie, right?”

“Oh god no,” Dr. Lau laughed. “That girl got away with a lot in here. It’s a wonder she ever transitioned out.” Dr. Lau registered my frustration with her comments and cleared her throat. “In any case, do me a favor please and grab Miss Tiffany for us so we can get signed out and on the road. I need to speak with the supervising nurse.”

I didn’t understand the vitriol with which she said the word “supervising,” but I chose to ignore it and do as I was told. I knew that Tiffany was typically on cooking duty around dinner time, so I walked towards the kitchen. As I passed the nurse’s office, I could overhear Dr. Lau raising her voice once again.

“I made the recommendation earlier this week and cleared it with the psychiatrist. I don’t know why you don’t have this filled already.”

I stopped and hid behind around the corner to eavesdrop on the conversation. I’d heard Dr. Lau angry with me plenty of times, but this was a sinister tone that I hadn’t heard from her before.

“I’m sorry, Doctor Lau. It just doesn’t sound right, the amounts that you have on the sheet. Doctor Jensen approved this?”

“Do you want to be the one to call him on his Branson trip with his wife to double check me? You might want to call Nurse Floyd first and ask her how calling the doctor on me worked out for her.”

“I know, I know. You got her fired.”

“Damn right I did. Now do your job and give me Skylar’s medication so I can be on my way, or get out of my way and I’ll do it myself.”

I continued down the hall, trying to push the conversation from my mind. I knew that if I dwelt on it, Dr. Lau would sniff it out. She had a way of uncovering my hidden thoughts and intentions -- as any therapist should -- and she would definitely know that I’d eavesdropped if I wasn’t careful. I collected the rest of my things, waved goodbye to the other residents, and left with Dr. Lau through the front doors of the facility. It was my first time leaving the front doors since I’d been admitted. Sure, we were allowed outside in the tiny courtyards and the gated yard in the back of the facility, but this was my first time outside without barriers. Something I’d taken for granted before I was admitted had suddenly become a spiritual moment, and I let out a small whimper.

“It can be a bit overwhelming to leave for the first time,” Dr. Lau said. Though she was clearly attempting to comfort me, her clinical tone was never comforting.

“It’s fine,” I snapped dismissively. “It’s not a problem.”

“I didn’t say it was a problem. Just acknowledging how you may be feeling, that’s all.”

“I feel fine.” I could feel her icy stare cutting through the back of my skull. I turned around to face her. I clenched my fists and adopted her same clinical tone. “I am glad to be out of the facility, and I appreciate you for doing this.”

The doctor gave a phony laugh. “Progress! Who knew all it took to make some progress was to get you out of here?”

I scoffed. “Me? I could have told you that months ago.”

“Get a Ph.D and then run that by me again,” the doctor laughed. She fumbled around in her black satchel purse for her keys, muttering under breath about all her “junk” in there. We reached her pearl white Escalade long before she ever managed to find her car keys, and I couldn’t help but wonder why a single mother with one child would need a vehicle so large.

“Why an Escalade?”

“I like to be tall,” she replied simply with a shrug.

“That makes absolute sense, no further questions.”

I became aware of the biting chill of the coming winter on the back of my neck, despite the heat of the bright sun lightly toasting my skin. The mild Missouri fall was giving way to winter, and I realized in that moment that I hadn’t been outside in weeks to notice. The air was laced with icy anticipation.

Before I even had a chance to click my seat belt into place, the doctor sped out of the parking spot with a violent lurch and careened onto the two-lane road without a second thought as to who or what may be coming in any direction. My father once said that the smarter a person gets, the worse they get at driving -- which meant that the good doctor was as much a genius as she projected.

Once we had traveled for a few minutes down the road without any further excitement, I felt my jaw unclench and I was able to let my shoulders down. I no longer needed to stay vigilant for my own survival, so I was able to turn my attention away from the road and towards the numbing buzzing of the radio and the murmur of a voice struggling to get through. I reached out to change the station, but the doctor swatted my hand away.

“Don’t. The NPR signal will come in closer to the city, and Terry Gross is interviewing Toni Morrison so I do NOT want to miss that, Skylar.”

“God forbid…” I muttered under my breath. I left my eyes wander to the trees and electrical wires that whizzed by in a blur. I wondered what Annie was doing, what we might do together. I didn’t know all that much about Annie, aside from the obvious things, like her connection to the Open Mind. But the more I thought about it, I really didn’t know much about that either.

“Just talk to her,” suggested a familiar voice from beside me.

“It’s not that simple,” I responded.

“What isn’t?” Dr. Lau’s voice was filled with concern. I turned to face her, but instead I was face-to-face with a floating possum. I let out a scream, and Dr. Lau screamed too.

“Don’t do that!” Dr. Lau and Wilcox reprimanded in unison.

“D-don’t you see…” I began, but Wilcox shook his head.

“Stop it. You know she can’t see me.”

“See what?” the doctor asked.

“N-nothing,” I muttered.

“It’s not the Vulture, is it?”

Wilcox feigned offense, but I ignored him. “No, it wasn’t that.” I chose in that moment to be completely honest with her. “Just a floating possum.”

“Oh, Wilcox?” the doctor cooed. “How wonderful! Seems the old boy is more loyal than he lets on.”

“Annie and I are going to have to have a talk about what all she tells her aunt,” Wilcox grumbled.

“Can you see her?” I asked him.

He spun around to face her, then quickly spun back around to me. “Unfortunately,” he hissed.

“What did he say?” she asked, excitedly.

“I probably shouldn’t repeat it.”

Dr. Lau scoffed and waved her hand in the place where Wilcox was floating, but he was seemingly not phased. “Still a miserable little rat, as always!”

“And this is why I don’t like her,” he whined. “I am glad I can only just barely make her out.”

“How can you see her at all?”

“It must be yours and Annie’s connection to her. Gives me enough of a vicarious connection to see her spirit. This is the most clearly I have been able to see her,” he turns to her and spits, “and I do not like what I see.”

Dr. Lau turned up the radio and the soft murmuring of Terry Gross filled the cabin of the Escalade. “Tell him it’s time to go. Toni is on.”

“I can HEAR YOU,” he shouted at the doctor, knowing very well that she could not hear him. He turned his focus back to me. “What I don’t understand is how you are able to see me for this long and this clearly. That level of connection to your world is really dangerous.”

“I’m not doing it on purpose!”

“Shh!” Doctor Lau hissed. “I’m serious. Get him out of here.”

“I’m trying,” I whispered. I rolled my eyes in Wilcox’s direction.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I honestly don’t know how I ended up here, and I’m not sure how to get back. Annie is usually more in control of this whole … thing.”

“Go figure,” I mouthed silently to him. I shrugged and raised my eyebrows to urge Wilcox to come up with a solution.

“I guess I’m coming to girls night then,” he cheered teasingly. “I’ve always wanted to know what girls do at their slumber parties. I assume that you paint your nails and watched movies with hot boys in them?”

I rolled my eyes again and sighed deeply, as hard as I could. Dr. Lau glanced down at me and scowled. I gave her an exasperated hand gesture, silently telling her that I had no solution.

We rode the rest of the way to Annie’s house in relative silence, except for the calming interview of Toni Morrison buzzing in the back of my subconscious as I turned my attention back to the speeding landscape outside my window. From time to time I would turn my attention back to Wilcox, wondering if he was still there. Each time I looked, he was more and more engaged with the discussion happening through the radio. I couldn’t help but wonder if he even knew who the two women were, or if he had any understanding of what they were discussing.

The sun was beginning to set as we pulled up to a black iron gate. Dr. Lau lowered her window, permitting a burst of cold air to sweep through the cabin. She impatiently punched in a series of numbers, which caused the gates to slowly squeal open. She pulled through the opening and down a paved hill towards a string of apartment buildings. I had always just assumed that Dr. Lau lived in a big house, but the apartments were a surprise. They were much more upscale than the one I had been living in with my mother, with sandstone bricks on the exterior, immaculate lawn care, and tiny balconies outside each top floor apartment’s sliding glass doors.

Dr. Lau’s apartment (and parking spot, marked with a sign displaying her name) was at the very end of the line of apartments. She parked, and I waited for a moment.

“You can go in. I want to finish listening to this.” She waved me away and I followed her command. I grabbed my stuff from the trunk of her vehicle and headed towards the building. There was an alley between the two buildings, with a staircase the led to the top level of apartments. I looked around, unsure of which apartment was hers.

“Hers is on the second floor,” Wilcox said. He floated through the concrete pathway above us, and I desperately wished that I could just float through solid objects like him. The flight of stairs was mercifully short, and when I reached the top, I could see Annie in her doorway waving in my direction. I waved back and rushed towards her.

“You made it in one piece!”

“I did!”

“With my aunt, it is never a guarantee,” Annie chuckled. “And I saw that you somehow managed to bring Wilcox along with you.”

“He brought himself, to be honest. I didn’t have anything to do with it.”

“I don’t know how she did it, Annie. Honest to god, I don’t know,” Wilcox said sheepishly.

“Skylar is a very special case,” Annie said with a smile. “Seems like she is capable of some pretty strange things.”

“I’m serious, Annie,” Wilcox warned. “I shouldn’t be here. You know that as well as I do. I’m worried that--”

“You worry about everything, Wilcox,” Annie interjected dismissively. “The likelihood that the Vulture could get to Skylar through you is probably super small. If it wanted to be here, it would have been here by now.”

“Your assuming is going to get you into trouble, you know that?”

“Then I will just have to call on you to bail me out, like you always do.”

Annie opened the door wider to let me in. She showed me where to put my bags and gave me a tour of the apartment. It was much more spacious than the outside led me to believe, with the exception of her kitchen. She joked that they “hardly cook in there anyways” so the size was not an issue. She led me to her bedroom, took my belongings from me, and tossed them into the room without letting me see inside.

“It’s a mess, you don’t want to go in there.”

“You’ve seen my bedroom,” I joked.

“That’s a Dogwood bedroom, so that doesn’t count. They are all the same.”

At that moment, Dr. Lau came into the room and announced her arrival by letting the front door slam closed behind her. Annie whispered that the neighbors would throw a fit about it, and we shared a silent laugh.

“I am going to go lay down,” the doctor sighed. “I’ll leave my card on the kitchen counter so you girls can order a pizza or something. Don’t go wild.”

“We won’t,” Annie answered dutifully.

“I’m serious, Annie. A pizza and that is it this time.”

“What did you order last time?” I asked.

“I think I ordered two pizzas.”

“And those little garlic twisted knot things,” Dr. Lau added. “I honestly don’t know where you put all that food. It is unnatural.”

“Okay, okay, please go to bed,” Annie begged. “You are very grumpy today.”

Dr. Lau’s eyes darted back and forth between the two of us before she let out an exhausted sigh. “One extra large is more than enough for the two of you. And Skylar, be sure to take your medication after you eat and before you go to sleep. The nurse left instructions for you on how much to take. They changed your dosage so please make sure you read it very carefully.”

“Aye aye Captain Doctor, ma’am,” I said with a salute.

Dr. Lau furrowed her brow at me. “Goodnight, hoodlums.”

Annie wasted no time after Dr. Lau had retired to her bedroom to go to the phone and place her order. As she spoke to the person on the other end, she kept checking back to me for approval.

“Oh, I see…” Annie said, her voice trailing off. She placed the receiver against her chest and looked at me. “They have a deal that if we buy an extra large pizza and a drink that we can get the cheesy bread for free. Do you think it’s worth my aunt killing us both?”

I simply laughed and nodded furiously in her direction.

“Hector, you son-of-a-bitch, I’ll take that deal!”