Antonia's Choice (17 page)

“I
was
doing—some stuff,” she said in a voice I could barely hear. “I stopped, though. Now that I'm here with Aunt Toni and everybody, I'm not depressed anymore. I'm gonna be okay now.”

I'm completely lost,
I wanted to say.
Somebody tell me what's going on.

“Let's have a look, huh?” Hale nodded toward her arm. “You're with people who care about you. You need to show us what's going on.”

Something shifted in Wyndham, something visceral. Moving mechanically, as if she herself were no longer in her body, she unbuttoned the cuff on her white blouse and slowly rolled up the sleeve. I gasped out loud.

There was a three-inch cross cut into Wyndham's forearm. It looked raw and angry, puffed red at the edges of the wound with no sign of a scab. It was a recent injury, done that morning at the very earliest.

“Wyndham,” I said. “Honey—oh.”

“Don't be mad at me, Aunt Toni! It's the last time—I promise. I don't need to do it anymore. I can stop now, because you want me here. You still want me here after I told you about Ben!”

“But didn't you do that just today, Wyndham?” Hale said.

I wanted him to stop. The look on Wyndham's face was so agonized, I didn't want him pushing her anymore. But she nodded.

“It's the last time, though!” Her mouth drew up, her eyes closed. It was a contortion born of pain. “I just wanted to see if I could feel—and I can! I can now! So I can stop!” She turned to me with her eyes still squeezed shut. “Aunt Toni, please—”

I reached across the counter and put my hand on the arm that was still covered by a sleeve. She winced. Her eyes locked into mine.

Dear God,
I thought.
She IS mutilating herself.

“You've been through a horrible thing,” Hale said, as if from some other dimension. “It has taken a terrible toll on you, and you're going to need some help being healed. You can't just stop.”

“But I'm away from
him
now.”

“And that's a start. But all that he did to you isn't going to disappear overnight.”

“But God can do miracles! He's already done one—he's brought me here!”

Her eyes searched my face, rummaged through it for a rescue, as if I myself were God.

“Your Aunt Toni can't heal you,” Hale said. “She'll be there for you, but she can't do it. God's going to need some time to work in you.”

Wyndham paused, her face marble-still as if she were dumping out one set of responses to replace them with another. When she spoke, her voice was lower, steadier, but even that was forced. “I'll go to counseling then,” she said. “I'll do whatever you want—just let me stay here.”

So let her stay here. Let her just go to counseling. She's dying right now, for heaven's sake.

“I'll work hard, I swear,” Wyndham was saying.

She was starting to cry, hard, dry sobs without tears. Even as Hale opened his mouth I put up my hand to him and leaned toward her.

“Honey, I know you're going to work hard, and I'm arranging for the very best people to work with you. They're at a place called Trinity House.”

“It's here?” The hope in her eyes broke my heart.

“Near here,” I said. “I'll be able to visit you as often as they'll let me.

I watched as the realization dawned on her, and the fear gathered on her face.

“You're sending me away?”

“No—don't put it like that! I'm getting you the best help money can buy. And I'm going to be there for you. Hale says this place is wonderful.”

But Wyndham was shaking her head. “Why can't I just stay here and go to therapy? Why can't I be with Lindsay and the kids from church? That's all I need. Them and God and you.”

I looked at Hale.

Your turn,
my eyes said to him.
I can't go there.

“Your Aunt Toni and the kids at church aren't therapists, Wyndham,” he said. “You need trained people around you twenty-four hours a day.”

“Why?”

Hale ran his fingers over the cross engraved into her arm. Wyndham pulled herself away, wrapping both arms around her torso and rocking back and forth.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I'm sorry. I know I'm just a huge burden to everybody.”

“Wyndham, stop!” I said. “You are not a burden. I'm doing this for you because I love you. I want to get you through this.”

“But you're saying I'm too much for you to handle.”

“She
is
‘handling' you,” Hale said. “The best way there is.”

“I try not to be any trouble—”

“Wyndham.”

She looked up at Hale, the muscles in her neck so tight I was sure her throat would snap.

“Your Aunt Toni has to think about Ben.”

Wyndham's eyes snapped to me, so wild they were almost without expression. “You
are
mad at me about him, aren't you? I should never have told you!”

“No, Wyndham. This isn't your fault!”

“Then why am I the one who's being punished?”

It was a question I couldn't answer. I let all the lame responses I could think of die on my lips and shook my head.

“I'm sorry,” I said.

Wyndham stared at me for a full thirty seconds before the fight drained out of her. Then she sat looking dully at the handle of Hale's coffee mug.

“When do I leave?”

“In about a week,” I said. “That gives us time to get you ready. We can buy you some—”

“I'm ready now. You should just send me now.”

“There are things we have to do.”

Wyndham stood up. “Can I just go to bed? I'm really tired.”

I looked at Hale for a cue, but he had his eyes closed.

“Sure,” I said. “We can talk more tomorrow.”

She shrugged and left.

A visible pall descended over the kitchen.

“Gee,” I said to Hale. “That went well.”

Hale folded his arms across his chest. “I don't think we could have expected much more.”

“I just feel like I'm letting her down.”

“She thinks you are—but don't let her take you with her. You're doing the right thing. She's going to get all of her confidence about this from you in the next week.”

“Where is mine supposed to come from?” I said. “Right now I have about this much.” I held my thumb and index finger a quarter-inch apart.

“God. At least, that's where I get mine.” He raised an arm to reveal a dark spot the size of a dinner plate in the armpit of his T-shirt. “I was sweating bullets the whole time.”

“Then I hope He tells me this is the right thing to do.” I got up, paced toward the coffee pot, turned my back on it. “I'm having second thoughts. Did you see the way she looked when she walked out of here? I might as well have been sending her to Auschwitz as far as she was concerned.”

The words hung in the air between us just long enough for both of us to register them. I was already headed for the doorway when Hale said, “Maybe you'd better go check on her.”

He was behind me as I took the steps two at a time and banged on Wyndham's door.

“Wyndham, let me in,” I said.

There was no answer. The knob didn't budge when I tried to turn it. Without a word I stepped out of the way, and Hale shoved his square self against the door. In a vignette frozen by horror realized, Hale and I stood in the doorway, and Wyndham looked up at us, bald guilt in her eyes, the razor poised over her wrist.

There was no longer any doubt in my mind.

W
YNDHAM CRIED HERSELF TO SLEEP
in my arms. Thankfully she was out of it before Reggie returned with Ben, who was asleep in
her
arms. By the time Reg got Ben tucked into his bed, Hale and I were finishing our debate in the hallway over whether to call the hospital and try to have Wyndham admitted, or deal with the situation ourselves.

“I'm afraid if I put her in Vanderbilt or something, she'll think I'm ready to wash my hands of her,” I said. “She already feels rejected enough.”

“If you're going to keep her here, it's going to mean a twenty-four-hour suicide watch until you can get her into Trinity,” Hale said. “You can't do it all. I can do some but even at that—”

“Look, I can't ask you to do any more,” I said. “You're not even related to her. Heck, most of the people who
are
related to her won't even help her.”

“She's a sister. If you decide you want to try to keep her here until next week, I'll see if I can set up a schedule with some folks I know—and I'll put a call in over at Trinity and see if Betty Stires can place her sooner.”

“I guess I can swing that, too.”

Hale looked at me closely. “What do you mean, ‘swing it'?”

“Pay people to watch her.”

“No, these will be volunteers.”

“I don't even know them!”

“It's what we do. We're a Christian community.”

“But I don't belong to it—although I guess I could make a donation to the church. I'd have to. I couldn't sleep if I didn't.”

That's about the point where Reggie joined us. “You never sleep anyway, honey,” she said.

“For tonight, I'll take the first shift and you go in and try to rest
some,” Hale said to me. “I mean, if you're comfortable with me bein' here.”

“Comfortable? Try to leave and I'll take your arm off.”

Hale grinned, mouth square. “You sure keep your sense of humor, don't you?”

“What was humorous about that?”

“You have a sleepin' bag, honey?” Reggie said. “I'll bunk in there with the little Angel Boy, and that way you can get some decent sleep before you take over for Hale.”

“Angel Boy? You're talking about
my
son?”

“Yes, bless his heart.”

Even with all the bases covered, I slept very little. When I did drift off, I awoke with my jaws clenched so tightly my teeth were aching. I finally gave up around midnight and joined Hale in Wyndham's room. He was perched in the window seat, looking decidedly out of place among the satin envelope-pillows. I sat on the Oriental rug at his feet and leaned against the bed, digging my toes into the deep pile. Wyndham's sleep-breathing was audible behind me.

“I haven't thanked you for handling telling her,” I said. “I would have really screwed it up.”

I could see Hale's eyebrows lifting. “And I didn't? She came up here to slit her wrists!” He shook his head. “I think I was too hard on her.”

“I don't know. If it had been me, I'd still be sitting down there beating around the bush. Besides—” I glanced up at Wyndham's sleeping form and lowered my voice. “She's sicker than I thought. I think this was going to happen sooner or later. You just got us there sooner.”

“I hate it for her,” he said. “The fact that we caught her is a God-thing, I think.”

We sat in silence for a few minutes, listening to Wyndham breathe. I wondered how she could sleep with all that was doing battle inside her. It could only be an escape for her. I wished I could make one that easily.

“The only reason I haven't picked a church here is because I
don't have the time to be on committees and all that,” I said.

Hale looked at me curiously. “Neither does God, I suspect.”

“I believe in God, though.”

“You wouldn't be doing this for Wyndham if you didn't.”

“You keep saying that, but don't give me too much credit. I'm not consciously asking God to show me what to do.”

“You're doing what you're doing out of love.”

“Am I? I feel like I'm sending Wyndham away so I don't have to deal with her.”

“But you will have to deal with her—or she won't get better.”

“And I can't deal with her here, or my son won't get better. As soon as she's gone, I can start working on him.”

“Sounds like love to me,” Hale said. “There's a lady at Trinity you might want to look up when you go over there. Her name's Dominica Marquez.”

“Can she help me with Wyndham, you think?”

Hale nodded, slowly. “Yeah. I think you'll be surprised what she can do.”

“I don't know if I can handle any more surprises.”

Hale and I took turns sleeping during the night. Wyndham woke up only once, long enough to murmur that she was sorry she was doing this to me. That did nothing to assuage the guilt I was already feeling.

Reggie took over for me while Hale went off to gather the troops for the rest of the day and I got Ben to school. My son was in an unusually good mood—at least he didn't overturn his Fruit Loops or scream that he hated me before we got into the car.

“Did you have fun last night?” I asked him as we headed for Hillsboro.

“I like that Reggie lady,” he said.

“She's pretty cool, huh?”

“She wasn't taking care of me.”

I glanced in the rearview mirror. “What do you mean she wasn't taking care of you?”

“She said she wasn't taking care of me, she was just being my friend, so that was okay.” He scowled. “I told her I don't like people taking care of me.”

“I take care of you.”

“No, you give me to other people to take care of me. I don't like that.”

A switch went on in my head. “You mean like Aunt Bobbi?” I said.

Immediately, both hands went over his ears. “I don't want to talk about it!” His voice rose dangerously.

“Okay, Pal. Subject's closed. Done. Over.”

He kept his hands plastered to the sides of his head, but he didn't say any more.

I waited until I'd gotten him out of the car in front of the school before I bent down and said to him, “I just want you to know that Wyndham is going to be moving out of our house in just a few days—after the weekend.”