Undertow (17 page)

“Look, Marissa, neither of us has time to play games. In a couple of days you will be released, unless I have reason to believe that you present an imminent risk of harming yourself. You need to be honest with me, or I can’t help you.”

She thought hard for a second, as the betrayal sank in.
Mom.
She was the only one who could have told him about the merman. And Kelly had told Mom.
Damn them both!

“So, Marissa, let’s talk about this mermaid, shall we?”

Time to gamble, she decided. “It’s true that I thought I saw one once, or something like it. It made me . . . curious, I guess. So I figured I’d go check it out, that’s all.”

“And how did you ‘check it out’?”

“Well, you know, research. Like you’d check anything out, right? Went to the bookstore, found a bunch of books about legends and stuff.”

He took notes. “I see. You took it on as a research project. Like your nudibranchs. Is that correct?”

“Yes, exactly.”

“And what did you discover through your research?”

Curveball, s
he thought
. The guy plays rough
. She considered her words carefully. “Nothing much. Stories from different countries; no hard evidence. No proof.”

“No proof. That sounds frustrating.” He rested his chin on the back of one hand and gave her a thoughtful look. “Go on—tell me more.”

“I guess I just thought if I went back to the place where I first saw it . . .”

“You actually saw a mermaid? Not just something which resembled a mermaid?” Dr. Cummins kept his voice neutral. “Talk about that, Marissa.”

She scrambled to avoid the trap. “I
mean
, I thought I
might
have seen something shaped sort of like a mermaid.”

“But not an
actual
mermaid?”

The phony laugh sounded like a machine gun emptying rounds. “No, of course not! But some sea animal that looked kind of like it. Maybe.”

He looked at his watch again. “You saw a mermaid-like animal. In the ocean. Is that right?”

Sensing another ambush, she dodged. “Look: I figured that if
I
saw something like that, maybe others had too. Maybe that’s where all the stories about mermaids came from. Sort of like all those people who think they’ve seen a flying saucer.” She should have stopped; he had that weird look again and she sensed the heat rising in her cheeks.

Dr. Cummins narrowed his eyes. “Have you seen a flying saucer, too?”

“Seriously? No!”

“So you are telling me you saw a mermaid-like object, but you knew it wasn’t actually a mermaid. Do I understand?”

“Yes.” She hoped this would end the interrogation.

“Do you believe these mermaids actually exist, Marissa?”

For a split-instant she paused before shaking her head vigorously. “No, that’s ridiculous. I’d be insane.”

At this he guffawed and leaned back, crossing his legs. “Maybe. Maybe not. People believe in lots of things that have not been proven: Ghosts. Angels. God. On occasion they might even report seeing one of these things, even if no one else around them did.”

The tension in her arms and back receded a notch. Marissa smiled.
Close call,
she thought.

“Help me understand just one more thing, then.”

“Okay.”

“If you thought that you had seen some mermaid-like entity, and not an actual mermaid, why did you tell your friend that one had rescued you?” He tilted his head to the side, his eyes mock-innocent.

The sound of the trap closing nearly echoed in the room. Doctor Dave smirked, infuriating her. “My mother told you that.”

“Yes, Marissa, she did share that with me. Your mother is very concerned about you, and wanted us to have this information. She’s worried you might try to go back and find this mermaid again. She’s afraid, Marissa, that you might die trying.”

She stared at her hands twisting in her lap. From the corner of her eye she watched Dr. Cummins steal another look at his watch.

“Will you please tell me if you have ever experienced any other hallucinations?”

“It wasn’t a hallucination!” Bubbles formed in the gap between her two front teeth as happened whenever she got angry; yet another body quirk she hated. “I don’t
hallucinate
. I’m not crazy.”

“Okay, okay.” He held his hands up in surrender. “Then please just explain why you told your friend that story.”

She looked him straight in the eye and bluffed. “I lied, okay? I told her that stuff to mess with her. We do that, you know—mess with each other’s heads like that.”

He tapped the end of his pen against his upper lip and assessed her; the wrinkles on his forehead deepened. She froze like a contestant on
Truth, Lie or Dare
, awaiting the judges’ decision.
Truth,
he’d call out
,
or
Lie!

The doctor let out a long defeated sigh. Placing the pen back on the clipboard, he set it down on the sofa. Pressing his hands together, he said, “Fine. You
didn’t
see a mermaid. You made up the story to play with your friend. Is that right?”

“Yes.” Masking her fear with her best poker face, she waited.
Time to fold, Doc,
she thought.

“And even though you conducted ‘research’ about mermaid mythology and went back to see if you could spot such a ‘mermaid-like’ being, you don’t really believe that such things exist.”

“Correct.”

“You did
not
intend to harm yourself.”

“No.” That part was true, at least. She never planned to hurt herself, let alone kill herself; she only went to find
Him
, that lovely creature who haunted her dreams.

“And do you intend to repeat this endeavor?”

“Excuse me?” His face made clear that he didn’t believe a single word.

“Are you planning to go back and walk into the ocean again? For whatever reason—research or reunion?” The doctor’s stare was intense but compassionate, almost pleading. For a moment, she wondered what it must be like for him to worry about the lives of other people. Crazy people
.

Marissa pasted on her most sincere, reassuring smile. “No. Absolutely not. No way!” She gestured at the walls. “I’ve
definitely
learned my lesson.”

 Fortunately for her mother, visiting hours didn’t start until seven, so Marissa had a few hours to shrink her fury before her arrival. At the stroke of the clock she appeared, bearing a wrapped gift and a potted plant. The nurse made her fork over the plant; it wasn’t allowed in Marissa’s room—she might go crazy, smash the pot, and try to cut herself with the shards. She unwrapped the package in front of the nurse, who deemed the paperback inside sufficiently benign for Marissa to keep. As if she wanted it anyway.
Secrets of the Lost Rainbows
was exactly the kind of thing her mother would read. No wonder she picked it.

“How’s your day been, Mari?” Her mother’s posture was rigid and her face frozen into pleasantness.

“Perfect.” She felt like screaming,
I’m locked in this prison because of you, and you ask how my day is?
Instead, she feigned a smile.

“I called to ask about you today during my lunch hour.”

“Oh.”

“They can’t give my any information, they said, because you’re an
adult
.” She emphasized the word as if it left a nasty taste in her mouth.

Marissa’s front teeth gripped the tip of her tongue like a vise.

Failing to get the desired response, her mother tried a direct attack. “Did you talk to the psychiatrist yet?”

She nodded and shrugged.

“
And
?”

“And what?”

“Well, what did he
say
?” Her mother’s tenuous hold on her exasperation appeared to be flagging.

“I don’t really want to talk about it, Mom.” Marissa’s teeth refused to unclench. She hissed, “Not here.”

Her mother stiffened. “Then let’s go to your room and talk there.”

My cell, you mean,
Marissa thought. She marched down the hall, leaving her mother to scramble to catch up.

Once the door was shut, Marissa launched her attack. “Damn it Mother! All of this is your fault, you and your big mouth. Why’d you go and tell the doctor about that story I told Kelly? Are you hoping they’ll keep me locked up forever?”

Her mother gaped at her. When she finally spoke, her voice was quiet but clear. “Marissa. Your being here is not my fault. I am not the one who threw herself into the ocean and nearly died. You were either suicidal or stupid. Either way, you need help.”

She may as well have reached out and slapped her. “Stupid? How dare you call me stupid after all the crap you’ve done! I’m not the one who spent the last decade drowning in a bottle of vodka!” Marissa gasped in shock at her words, wishing she could take them back and tuck them safely away forever.

Her mother’s voice was pure ice. “This isn’t about me, Marissa.
You
nearly drowned because
you
went off seeking some mythical creature, a fantasy, an escape maybe, I don’t know. A replacement for Drake or your father, I think. So yes, I
do
call that stupid.”

Marissa collapsed on her bed, suddenly fatigued. She couldn’t keep the tears in anymore. “You always make everything worse.
Everything
.”

Her mother came and stood beside the bed. She stroked Marissa’s forehead until the dam broke and her sobs took over. “I’m sorry, Mari.” Her mother lowered herself to the bed and sat beside her. The coldness from a moment ago was gone from her voice now and she said, “I’m sorry, I really am. I’m sorry about everything, Mari. I’m sorry about Drake, about your Dad, about . . . Gilbert. I’m sorry I couldn’t make everything better.”

Twenty-Six

M
arissa stayed in her room the following morning reading
Secrets of the Lost Rainbow
. To her, the title sounded like some gay manifesto but it was really just more of her mother’s New Age crap. It beat the alternative—another weird morning in the day room with the other inmates. But she suspected that the author was probably as delusional as the patients down there.

Apparently, mental cases are supposed to eat at the crack of dawn,
she thought, when they brought her tray in before eight that morning. She fell asleep again once they left and was stuck with cold eggs for breakfast when she finally woke up around ten. A shower in the Spartan stall consumed only a few more minutes; it was impossible to shave her legs without a razor. She tried to stretch out the makeup job but her reflection in the metal mirror was as blurry as if she’d left her contacts out, so she finally gave up. For all she knew, she was painted up like a clown or one of those old ladies with their lipstick smeared past the edges of their lips and dots of mascara under their eyes.