Authors: Chelsea Cain
“No,” Archie said. He’d helped push the tables to the side, and then to arrange the chairs in a circle at the center of the room. “This is the schizophrenics and bipolars session. The depressives aren’t meeting until two.”
“Your sense of humor is returning,” she said.
“Is that a good sign?” Archie asked.
He followed her across the hall to one of the individual counseling rooms. He met with Rosenberg every day for twenty-five minutes. Why twenty-five and not an even thirty, he didn’t know. But he guessed it had something to do with insurance.
“How’s Debbie?” she asked.
Archie sat down in one of the two brown Naugahyde chairs that faced each other in the room. A light rain slapped against the window. “Probably a little tense,” he said.
Rosenberg sat in the opposite chair and set her coffee cup on the armrest. “What’s happened?”
Archie didn’t know how much Henry had made public. “I just think it must be exhausting. Living out there, knowing that Gretchen could show up at any time.”
“Does she like Vancouver?” Rosenberg asked.
“Being in a different state makes her feel safer,” Archie said. The truth was they didn’t talk much. She brought the kids by once a week to visit him, but she didn’t stay. She’d started seeing an alternative-energy entrepreneur, whatever the hell that was. They’d drop the kids off and go get a bite to eat downtown. “I try not to make it complicated for her.”
Rosenberg tilted her head and looked hard at Archie. “It’s important to you that she feel safe,” she said.
Archie leaned his head on the back of his chair and looked up at the ceiling. There was a sprinkler overhead. Just in case he burst into flame. “Yes.”
They were quiet for a moment.
Archie could hear someone shouting in the next room.
“Do you feel safe?” Rosenberg asked.
Archie lifted his head back up and wagged his finger at her. “I think I know where you’re going with this,” he said.
Rosenberg sat forward, resting her elbows on her thighs. “You’re off the painkillers. Your health has stabilized. You need to check yourself out of here. They have an excellent outpatient program. You’ll get a lot of support.”
Archie shook his head. Even if he wanted out, he had nowhere to go. “My liver enzymes are still high,” he said.
“Frankly, with the amount of Vicodin you took I’m amazed you’re not on the transplant list,” Rosenberg said. “If you want me to let you stay, you need to make an effort. You need to practice functioning outside this hospital. You’re Level Four. Go for a walk.”
The rain was picking up. Archie looked out the window. The ground was too dry. It would flood. “She’s out there,” he said. He could feel her. It was a stupid thing to think. People couldn’t feel each other’s presence. He wasn’t psychic. He didn’t believe in auras, or souls, or cosmic connections. But still he knew—as much as he knew anything—that Gretchen was never very far from him.
Rosenberg put her hand on his and looked him in the eye. “There will always be serial killers,” she said. “There will always be bears in the woods.” She gave his hand a squeeze. “Bad things happen. People die.”
Archie couldn’t concentrate. The shouting from across the hall was getting louder. A woman’s voice, but Archie couldn’t make out whose.
He wondered what was on Animal Planet right now.
Rosenberg sat staring at him. Waiting. That’s what being on the psych ward was like, everyone watching you all the time waiting for you to twitch or scream or say you were better, thanks for everything.
Archie had been good at waiting. It was a useful skill when you were interviewing witnesses. Gentle silence. Almost everyone felt the need to fill it, and that’s when the details surfaced. People would tell you anything, just to avoid sitting quietly.
But Archie still wasn’t used to being the one expected to do the talking. He pulled his hand out from under hers. “Just ask the questions,” he said. The questions, and he could go. The sessions with Rosenberg always ended with the same three questions. Anything changed since yesterday? Rate your mood. Any immediate concerns?
“If you get out of here,” Rosenberg said, “you can still have a life.”
What life? He’d driven his family away. His job was tenuous. He had nowhere to live. The only thing he had was Gretchen.
He’d have to leave, of course. He knew that. But not yet.
He was not ready to leave yet.
He had one card and he decided to play it. He looked her in the eye. “I’m still a danger to myself,” he said. He knew that as long as he said it, they couldn’t force him out. But for the first time in two months, it was a lie. He didn’t want to die. The deal with Gretchen was off. She’d threatened to kill again if he killed himself, and now she’d started to kill again anyway. He was free to do it, with only his own blood on his hands.
And he didn’t want to die.
He wanted to kill her. He wanted to kill Gretchen. That’s why he had to stay inside. Because if he let himself back into the world, he would hunt her down and he would hurt her.
Rosenberg frowned and her eyebrows knitted. “At some point you’re going to have to forgive yourself.”
Forgive himself. Right. Archie rubbed the back of his neck with one hand and allowed himself a wry chuckle. “Sarah,” he said. “I had sex with a serial killer.”
Rosenberg didn’t miss a beat. “Which part do you hate yourself for more?” she asked.
She waited.
But the silent treatment didn’t work.
There was too much shouting from across the hall.
Archie looked up toward the door.
“They can handle it,” Rosenberg said.
A crashing sound echoed through the walls. They both knew what it was. A plastic chair hitting shatterproof glass.
Archie stood.
More shouting.
“Call security,” someone yelled.
Archie went through the door and into the hall. Rosenberg was behind him, two nurses were coming around the corner. Autopilot kicked in. Through the door. Three people scrambled out past him as he entered. There were five people left in the room. The counselor, crouched, bleeding, behind an overturned desk. Two women standing frozen by the wall.Frank, still sitting in a plastic chair, knees apart, a dazed grin on his face. And the woman standing in the center of the room, hunched, crying, gripping a shard of something hard and bloody.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” said Archie.
The woman’s name was Courtenay Taggart. She’d been transferred up from the ER with bandaged wrists, and had then managed to peel up a piece of Formica off the built-in bedside table in her room and had tried to finish the job. She’d been on suicide watch ever since. They’d taken everything out of her room except a mattress. Her door was never closed. A staff member sat in a chair outside her door 24-7. Archie had seen her a few times through the doorway as he passed by in the hall, lying on her bed like a child.
She spun toward him now, and lifted the shard to the soft flesh of her neck. Apparently she’d found another source of Formica.
“What are you doing, Courtenay?” Archie asked.
He guessed she was about twenty. She might have looked younger if she’d been wearing civilian clothes and not green hospital pajamas. Her dyed-blond hair was pulled back. Her face was flushed sunburn-pink. She had a nice face, round cheeks, and the kind of skin that had never seen a blemish.