THE LOUNGE they’d led Christy to while they cleared up the confusion was located near the administrator’s office. It was a typical waiting room with two groupings of blue cushioned folding chairs set around oak coffee tables, several large ficus plants, magazines, and a counter that offered coffee and water.
The round white clock on the wall had clicked off forty-three painful minutes, and still, no one had come for her. Why everything concerning doctors took so long, she would never understand.
One of two doors led into the administrator’s reception room, where Christy had met Beverly, Kern Lawson’s secretary. The other led into what appeared to be a larger patient lounge or recreation room.
She knew this because she’d opened it, poked her head through the door, and looked around the room for a full minute before retreating to the relative security of the lounge.
There had been about a dozen patients in the room, half gathered around a television, the rest either sitting at one of the tables playing games, or seated alone, some still, some repeating obsessive behavior. All wore blue smocks.
She’d watched Linda, the nurse who’d found her, talking quietly to a woman seated cross-legged on the floor, hands shaking incessantly. The patient’s abject fear reached Christy like a wave of unseen energy that seeped into her bones. She’d withdrawn and closed the door softly.
Her own problems seemed absurd next to what some people faced. She should be grateful for her life. Sure, she had her issues, but she wasn’t destitute or homeless. It was all a matter of perspective. After this, a calm settled over her for a while, but her anxiousness slowly returned as the minutes stretched.
She consoled herself with the confidence that Austin would eventually track her down, and they would laugh about being in such an unlikely mess. All because of a cheap locket from Walmart.
The door suddenly opened, and Christy unfolded her legs. Beverly faced her, unconcerned. Just another day at the office.
“You can come back now, honey.”
Christy stood and crossed the room. “It’s all good?”
“It is.” She smiled. “Kern just wants a word.”
She stepped into the reception room, waited for the secretary to close the door, and followed her to the administrator’s office, where Beverly turned.
“Anything I can get for you? Some water?”
“No thanks.”
“All right.” She ushered Christy through and shut her in.
Kern Lawson removed his feet from his desk and tossed a toothpick in the waste bin. He’d loosened his tie and rolled his sleeves up. The day was getting on.
“Have a seat. Just going over what we have here. You need anything? Water?”
“She already asked. I’m fine, thank you.”
“Good. I’m sorry to keep you waiting, but as you can imagine, taking inventory when the patients are up and around isn’t as simple as when they’re asleep. You caught us during a shift change to boot.”
“But all’s good, right? I really need to get back home.”
“You’re at 456 Blanard Drive, right? Yes, we checked on that too. Rented by one Christy Ray Snow, just like you said.”
“Just like I said.”
He clicked his mouse, eyes on the monitor. “You understand why we check these things. Not that we really need to—anyone who knows where Christy Snow lives could claim to be her. But we like to cover all of our bases. Lawsuits these days can be a real pain.”
Something about his demeanor triggered her concern.
“It’s fine. As long as it’s all cleared up, I’m fine.”
Lawson’s eyes peered over his reading glasses at her. He took them off and set them down.
“Well, that’s the problem we’re having. Everything’s not quite fine. We’ve confirmed that we have a patient missing. Until we find her, we’re prohibited by hospital rules from releasing anyone from the wing.”
Christy sat up, alarmed. “That’s ridiculous!”
“My words exactly. I ordered a second count. We have one patient unaccounted for.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m her. Give me a break. It’s obvious I don’t belong here!”
“I understand. But protocol is protocol. What really concerns me is this other bit.”
“What other bit?”
“They searched the basement, like you suggested. Problem is, we found no cell phone.”
Christy felt the blood drain from her face. “They checked the door behind the drums?”
“They did.” He picked up his glasses and wiped the lenses with a Kleenex. “I didn’t know the door was there. This place was once a hotel during Prohibition. Moonshine runners. Crazy thing.”
“And you’re saying they couldn’t find my phone? Tell them to search again!”
“There’s no sign the door was breached. Certainly no cell phone. If you came in that way, you did one heck of a job covering your tracks. But it’s the no-cell-phone thing that doesn’t add up. So you see how this is looking—”
“This is crazy!” Christy blurted, jumping to her feet. She knew that she was losing it, but she made no attempt to calm herself. “They’re lying. I was there!”
“Sit down, Christy.”
She remained standing, beside herself with frustration.
“Or should I call you Alice?”
“Alice?”
“Alice Ringwald. The name of the girl who’s missing. The new arrival. You can see how easy it is for me to conclude that you tried to escape through an old crawlspace in the basement, found a dead end, and then came up with a clever story using the name of a girl you knew from the outside.”
She did follow his logic, which only made things worse.
“Please sit down,” he said, this time with less patience.
She sat. “I don’t know what’s happening or who took my phone, but my name is Christy, not Alice.” The name echoed in her ears. “Alice Ringwald?”
“Alice Ringwald.”
“I saw her in the hall! Blond, right? She was with a doctor, I saw her! You’re saying she’s missing.”
“Seems so.”
“And you really think I’m her?”
“I’m not saying that. She came to us this morning. I’ll know more when they bring me her file. The director of admissions is processing it now. Should be here shortly, but I didn’t want to keep you hanging. In the meantime, I would like to know more about you. Just a few questions. Sound fair enough?”
Christy felt trapped. Not by Lawson, but by what was clearly a series of tragic errors compounded by the fact that someone had found her phone but didn’t report it. Why would anyone do that? For a two-hundred-dollar phone?
Stay calm, Christy. It’ll all work out. Just do what they say and this will all work out.
“This isn’t right,” she said. “What about my locket? Did you search the storage room?”
“No locket, I’m afraid, though it’s clear someone’s been in there. Unfortunately, this isn’t exactly the safest neighborhood.”
She could think of nothing more to say.
“Fine. Ask your questions. I’ve got nothing to hide.”
“Good.” He pressed his intercom button. “Beverly, can you come in?”
The door opened a few seconds later.
“Please take our guest to Dr. Wilkins. She’s waiting in room 2.”
Receiving parting assurance from Lawson that this wouldn’t take long, Christy followed Beverly yet again, this time to a room two doors down the main hall on the left. The sign on the door identified it as a counseling room.
Christy was ushered in and introduced to a young woman, maybe in her late twenties—a professional type wearing heels and a skirt with a white satin blouse. She wore her dark hair up and studied Christy through wire-frame glasses.
“Have a seat.” She glanced at an open folder on her side of a table. “Christy. Christy Snow, correct?”
“Yes.”
The room was plain, with white walls, a darkened window that Ch
risty thought might be one-way glass—maybe for observation in the event a patient got violent? One six-foot table with four simple chairs.
“Nancy Wilkins.” She extended a hand that Christy took. “Please sit.”
Christy sat opposite the woman. “The administrator said you need to ask me some questions. What kind?”
“Just a standard profile. Apparently there’s been some kind of mix-up. I’m sure you’re eager to get this all cleared up.”
“Dr. Wilkins—”
“Call me Nancy,” Wilkins said with a genuine smile. “I’m not your doctor.”
Christy settled, warmed by Nancy’s casual tone and demeanor.
“You know about the mix-up then?”
“No. I’ve only been asked to run a standard profile on you. Just a few questions. It’s nothing, really.”
Christy nodded.
“I can see that you’re tense, but I’m only doing what I do. I could be a waitress for all you care. I just get to know you a bit. That’s all.”
“All right.”
“Truth is, most people don’t really know who they are. And I think that includes me. We do the best we can, more often than not stumbling along in the dark. And that’s okay.”
The gentle words came to Christy like a soothing balm. The events of the morning flashed through her mind. Being trapped in the crawlspace, being mistaken for a missing patient… It was all a tragic comedy of errors. She really had no reason to be so uptight.
She felt herself relax.
Nancy smiled, eyes warm and inviting. “That’s better. Let’s get you out of here, shall we?”
Christy gave up a shy smile. “No argument from me.”
“So let’s start with the basics.”
Nancy went through a series of innocuous questions about Christy’s current living situation, her education, work experience—the typical kind of questions that might fill out a résumé. It was more like a conversation than an interview, and Nancy offered up some interesting facts about her own life in the mix.
She once thought she would be a professional dancer before an injury ended the dream. She’d become so distraught about having her dream yanked out from under her that she’d fallen into a deep depression. Her interest in psychiatry began then. Seven years later, she became a professional with a doctorate, albeit one who consumed shows like So You Think You Can Dance as if they were crack.
Like Christy, Nancy had no boyfriend. She too lived alone and was a little surprised that Christy was so independent and well adjusted for being only seventeen. Nancy was thirty-two.
They both had cats. They both listened to Coldplay and Mumford & Sons. They both were neat freaks. They both dreamed of having children one day. They both wanted to fall in love. Today if possible, and that made them both laugh.
Nancy’s occasional glance at her watch brought Christy back to the fact that she was in a pysch ward, possibly mistaken for a girl named Alice, but talking with Nancy rooted her in more important things that mattered outside these walls.
Twenty minutes became thirty and then forty, and still no one came for her, probably because the interview wasn’t finished. But the urgency she felt earlier had dissolved.
She found herself wondering if becoming a therapist might be a good career path. She could tell the story one day of how losing her locket and crawling into a basement set her on the path to a whole new life.
She said as much to Nancy, who tilted her head back and laughed.
“So this all began with a missing locket?”
Christy told her the story in short summary.
“No wonder you were so anxious when you came in,” Nancy said. She made a note in her folder. “Tell me about this locket, Christy. Why is it so important to you?”
She explained and the tone of the conversation turned more somber.
“So your locket really represents a missing childhood,” Nance ventured. “A part of you is missing. You’re searching for yourself.”
The room grew very quiet.
“I guess so.”
“I can understand that.” Nancy leaned back and folded one leg over the other. “I’m going to ask a few questions and make some observations that might trigger some feelings in you, is that okay?”
She shrugged. “I guess.”
“When you look in the mirror, what do you see?”
“Me.”
“And do you like what you see?”
A pause.
“No.”
“No? What don’t you like about what you see?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged again, feeling suddenly awkward. “I could lose some weight.”
“What else?”
“Specifically?”
“Specifically.”
“Well… My neck is too fat. I have a stubby nose. Ten pounds could come off my stomach.”
“What else?”
“My fingers could be longer. My hair gets too frizzy.”
“Do you hate the way you look?”
“Sometimes.”
“More often than you like it?”
Much more, she thought. “I guess.”
“Do you feel misunderstood by society?”
“I guess.”
“Don’t guess, Christy. Just say the first thing that feels true.”
“Yes.”
“Of course you do. We all do at times.” She smiled. “What kind of dreams do you have?”
Christy blinked. A slight chill washed down her back. “Not so good ones.”
“Nightmares?”
“I think so. I can’t remember them, but I wake up sweating and I don’t sleep very well.”
“Considering your history, it’s no wonder. Such large-scale memory suppression can only be triggered by intense trauma. Usually severe prolonged distress.”
The chill down her spine doubled back, now laced with anxiety. She found she couldn’t address that last statement.
“How much of the day would you say you spend wondering if you measure up?”
All the time, she thought. But saying it sounded stupid so she only said, “Quite a bit.”
“You feel lost. Missing, just like the real photograph for your locket.”
Christy hesitated, which was answer enough.
“In fact, a day doesn’t pass without you suffering some kind of deep anxiety linked to your true identity.”
The turn in the conversation had taken Christy from a state of relative ease to one of smothering fear.
“Even now you feel a kind of terror, and the worst part of it is that you can’t figure out why. It’s just there, like a monster lurking behind your brain.”
She still couldn’t seem to find the right response. She felt naked, disrobed by a few simple words.
“You hate being so weak,” Nancy said. “You can’t understand why you hate yourself and think no one else could possibly be as bad off as you. Is that true?”
Christy’s face was hot. Sweat had beaded on her forehead—she could hardly pretend that she hadn’t been exposed.
“Yes.”
“Yes. It’s okay. We all get to discover who we really are at some point, and when we do, it can be quite unsettling.”
Christy felt her eyes misting and averted her stare. She wasn’t sure what to say. It was true, she thought. All of it.
“There’s a part of your mind that’s shattered. You feel isolated and lost. You don’t know who you are, so you try to be what they say you should be, and that leaves you incapable of coping, hating yourself, hating those who want you to be someone you aren’t—even though you yourself don’t know who you are. You’ve lost your true identity and are desperately looking for a new one even though that’s impossible.”
The volume of disquiet that swept through Christy’s mind and heart at those words could not be properly expressed. She felt desperate to run from the room, but there was nowhere to go.
“You live alone and keep to yourself because you’re broken. Your mind is
fractured. Even at your best, you suspect that something is wrong, because it is. The only time you feel good is when you’re able to pretend that it is, but deep down you hate everything about yourself. The way you look, the way you feel, the way you think, even the way you sleep, because that time that should be peaceful is full of nightmares.”
Christy’s fingers began to tremble ever so slightly. She lowered them to her lap. She recognized the onset of a panic attack, and none of her attempts at self-assurance put a dent in the one rushing up to meet her now.
“My observations bother you, don’t they, Christy?”
Her throat was frozen shut. She managed a soft, “I guess.”
Nancy addressed her in a kind voice laden with compassion, but the words could not have been more upsetting.
“You see the world through broken glasses, Christy. Your mind is wounded.”
She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream. She wanted to run.
But she could only sit as tears leaked from her eyes.
And she hated even that.
The door opened, jerking her from her thoughts. Kern Lawson glanced between them, then nodded at Nancy, who smiled congenially at Christy, thanked her for being so vulnerable, gathered her files, and stepped out with the administrator.
Christy wiped her eyes and quickly gathered herself. Nancy’s words still buzzed through her head. Austin had once suggested that a good therapist might help her find tools to deal with her despondent emotions. Maybe he was right. Her reaction to Nancy’s observations bothered her more than the words themselves.
Five minutes later Lawson walked in wearing a congenial grin. He sat in the chair Nancy had occupied and folded his hands together.
“Nancy tells me that you were very cooperative.”
“She seemed nice enough.”
“Yes. Nice enough. And now it’s time to put this behind us so we can both get back to our lives. We have a nice room ready for you, Alice. I’m sure you’re going to like it. That staff is very excited to learn of your safe return.”
Christy felt gut-punched. His words slammed into her like the crushing fist of God himself.
She stood, knocking her chair back and over. “This is insane!”
“We don’t prefer that expression on this floor, Alice. Challenged is more becoming.”
“I’m… not… Alice!”
“The charade is up, my dear. There is no cell phone, no locket, nothing but your own delusion, something that comes quite naturally to you based on the history in your file, supported by Nancy’s assessment. Your name is Alice Ringwald, dark hair, five foot two, 121 pounds, brown eyes. You were processed this morning. Welcome to Saint Matthew’s.”
For a moment the thought that she might actually be hearing the truth spun through her mind. If she was delusional, everything she remembered from this morning could be a kind of wild fabrication. Something about the possibility rang true.
Something deep in her mind snapped, and Christy found herself running for the door, desperate to be out. Anywhere but here.
She flung the door wide and threw herself forward, aware that the administrator wasn’t reacting to her flight.
She collided with a guard, who grabbed her arms and tried to calm her, but she was powerless to suppress the panic, powerless to still her thrashing arms and quiet her scream.
A second guard assisted and a sliver of reason told her she had no hope. No escape. She’d been here before, maybe, and knew what to do now.
She stopped her thrashing and stood still, breathing hard. Mind swimming with confusion.
“All right,” she said, staring through the door at the administrator, who still sat, watching calmly. “All right. I’m fine. Let me go, you’re hurting my arms.”
The grip on her left arm eased and she jerked it free.
For a moment, Lawson just looked at her.
“Take her to her room,” he finally said.
CHAPTER SIX