Billy's face took on a look of rage and he threw the napkin back at Mary Beth. Then he marched back to his position in the cafeteria, shouting at the patients to quiet down. Megan finally stopped clapping and soon everyone followed. One boy, however, kept breaking out into applause and laughter for no reason every once in a while during the remainder of the meal.
"Thanks," Mary Beth whispered to me.
"That was pretty smart," Megan told me. "You saved her butt with quick thinking."
Lawrence smiled at me, too, his gaze steadier now and full of pride and admiration.
"You better eat something, Mary Beth, or I'll feel responsible and guilty if you get sick," I told her.
She took a forkful of fish and put it in her mouth, chewing demonstrably and turning toward Billy as she did so. He looked away with disgust.
"Billy's such a dork," Megan said. She glared back at him until he turned his back to her and kept his eye on the other patients. "He doesn't scare me with his threats. He knows if he so much as put a finger on me . ."
She turned back to me and stopped talking and eating. "What's wrong with you?" she asked.
"That girl," I said, nodding to a girl who sat across the cafeteria from us, "what is she doing?"
Megan looked.
"Oh, that's Tamatha Stuart. She's mute, She won't talk, so she does that sign language to communicate, It's so stupid. She's not deaf. I don't know why they pamper her. She should have been given shock treatment. I---what?" she asked me when she saw the expression on my face get more emphatic.
"I know what she's saying with her hands. I understand it!" I said, even surprised myself.
"Really?"
"That's awesome," Lawrence said. "Someone you know must be deaf," he added.
I looked at him. It was as if a thick, heavy door had been opened just an inch or so, and there was light streaming through. I thought I saw a face peeking out at me through the darkness. But who was it?
My eyes began to blink rapidly, uncontrollably. I wanted to see who was behind that door. I felt as if I were struggling to tug that door open just a little bit more, pulling, pulling. . I couldn't stand the effort.
"Laura?" he said. "Are you all right?"
"You're upsetting her," Megan said.
"What am I doing? I'm not doing anything," he moaned. "Laura?" he said, turning back to me.
Suddenly, it just came over me. I heard a cry, the cry that had been haunting me ever since I arrived, someone was desperately crying out for my help.
I spun around in my seat and looked behind me and to the sides.
"What is it?" Lawrence asked. "Laura?"
"Someone. . . is crying .....
The noise in the cafeteria became the roar of the sea. There was water everywhere. The wind itself was calling my name: Laura! Laura!
My heart started to pound. I felt the whole room turn. It was as if I were in a boat and not a chair, and the boat was being tossed violently. I grasped the table.
"No!" I cried. I closed my eyes and felt myself swaying.
"What's the matter with her?" I heard Lulu say. Lawrence reached over and touched my hand tentatively.
"Are you all right?" he asked. "Laura?" His voice merged with the voice in my mind, especially when he repeated, "Laura?"
I felt nauseated. I started to shake my head and then my whole body began to tremble. I was holding the table so firmly that the dishes began to clank. A glass fell over.
Megan shouted to Lawrence because I was tipping over backward. He seized my chair, but I started to slide off it. My body felt as if it had turned to liquid, all my bones melted. I was pouring toward the floor. Lawrence held me, but I slipped from his grip and fell down, down, down, waving my arms about me. Billy and a female attendant came rushing over to us.
"What's wrong with her? Does she have epilepsy or something?" someone asked. It sounded like Megan.
My tongue was swelling and I couldn't get any air. I felt myself drooling and then I started to scream, or at least I thought I did. Then, all went black.
When I woke this time, I was back in my room. A man in a white lab coat was taking my pulse and one of the night nurses was beside him.
"She's stabilizing," he said. "Laura? How are you doing?"
I blinked rapidly.
His voice echoed.
"Laura, how are you?"
"Laura . . Laura . . ."
"NO!" I screamed, or at least I thought I did. My whole body began to tremble terribly. It was as if the bed were coming apart beneath me. "I'm sinking!"
"Hold her!" the man said. "Easy. . ."
There was a pinprick in my arm and then, after a few moments, a wave of darkness washed over me. My body sank deeper and deeper into the bed. I felt like I was going underwater. I tried desperately to stay conscious, but wave after wave of blackness was rushing in, pushing me farther and farther down. The sound of my name drifted off, and then, I was asleep.
When I woke again, there was sunlight streaming through the curtains. I heard the sound of water being run in a sink and then a nurse emerged from the bathroom with a washcloth and a pan. She put the cloth on my face as I blinked and blinked, trying to focus in on something that made sense to me.
"So you're finally awake. Good," she said, twisting her mouth. "You gave everybody a bad time again, I heard."
She lifted the cloth from my forehead and gazed down at me. I opened my mouth, but my voice wouldn't work.
"So, let's hear about it. How are you now? Do you have any pain? Any nausea? Well?" she demanded when I was silent. I shook my head. "Are you hungry?"
I thought about it. I was a little hungry, but when I went to say yes, nothing happened.
"Well?" she asked. "Can't you talk this morning?"
Talk? I thought. Could I ever talk? I tried to speak and only a deep guttural sound emerged. The nurse looked surprised.
"What is it?" she asked.
I lifted my hands and as naturally as people speak, I began to sign.
"What the . . ." She stepped back and watched as I spoke through my hands.
"Yes, I am hungry," I told her, "but where am I?" I asked. She shook her head.
"This is a surprising turn of events," she said, looking quite impressed. "The doctor will be here in an hour. If you want to eat any breakfast, you should get up now," she said.
I signed okay and rose from the bed. I felt groggy, but strong enough to stand.
"Some more clothes were brought here for you last night," she told me. "They're all brand-new apparently. Everything still has a tag on it. Some of it is in the closet and some is in the dresser. Choose what you want to wear, get dressed, and come out to breakfast," she said. "Well?"
I signed okay.
"So you can't talk now, is that it? Fine. I could use a little more quiet around here," she said. "I'll see you in the cafeteria. Get dressed," she ordered and left the room before I could ask her where the cafeteria was.
Confusion resembled a great cloud of smoke circling me. I moved slowly, unsure of myself, making discoveries about the room and the bathroom as if I had never been here before. How long had I been here? And where was here?
I paused in the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. The face I saw seemed to change right before my eyes, and for a moment, I thought I was looking at a boy. It only lasted a second or two, but it made my heart pound and took my breath away.
After I dressed, I poked my head out of the room and looked up and down the corridor. The floors gleamed under the rays of sunshine that came through the windows. Suddenly, the door across from me opened and a girl about my age stepped out. She looked sickeningly thin.
"How are you?" she asked softly. "We were all worried sick about you last night."
"I don't know," I said with my hands. She started to smile and stopped.
"Why are you doing that?" she asked.
"Doing what?" I signed. She seemed to understand.
"Why are you doing that stuff with your hands
, sign language?" she asked. "Has something happened to your voice? Can't you talk?"
I shook my head. She just stared at me, her face so thin her eyes looked like they were floating in their sockets. I could even see the bones in her jaw and cheeks through her thin skin. A thought brought a strange, soft smile to her thin lips.
"You look like you don't remember me," she said and then asked, "Do you?" I shook my head again. "I'm Mary Beth."
"Who am I?" I asked her, pointing to myself and then raising my hands and shaking my head to make her understand my question.
"You don't know who you are?" After I shook my head emphatically, she said, "You're Laura Logan. I don't know anything else about you because you didn't remember anything to tell us when you first came here," she said. "This is terrible," she added, gazing down the hall and looking for someone, as if I were hurt and bleeding.
I rubbed my stomach and indicated my mouth.
"You're hungry?"
I nodded and she relaxed.
"Just come with me," she said. "Come on," she urged, reaching out for my hand. I took her hand and we went down the hallway together to the cafeteria.
"How's she doing?" a dark-haired girl at the table Mary Beth had brought me to asked as soon as we appeared. The handsome boy beside her looked up with interest, as did the young girl on her other side.
"She can't talk. She's using sign language and she's forgotten everything, Megan. I don't mean about herself either. Now she doesn't know who we are, where she is, everything!" Mary Beth wailed.
"Oh no," Megan said, gazing back at the attendants who were standing and talking to each other. "They'll put her in the Tower right next to Lydia Becker, for sure. Look, Laura, I'm Megan, Megan Paxton. This is Lawrence and this is Lulu. You're at the clinic. You go up there and get what you want to eat and come back. Act as if you remember everything, okay?"
I looked at Lawrence, whose look of concern impressed me. Then I nodded.
"If you tell them you forgot everything about this place, they'll want to give you some other treatment, something like electric shock maybe. That could mean you'll be going to the Tower!"
I signed question after question, but no one understood. I wanted to know how long I had been here. Why was I here? Where had I come from? And what was this Tower?
"You sure you can't talk today?" Megan asked with a grimace. I shook my head. "Great. You're in deep water, I'm afraid," she said. "It's hard enough around here to protect yourself when you can talk."
"I'll take her to the cafeteria line," Mary Beth offered.
"That's like the blind leading the blind," Megan quipped. "If you help her pick out her food, she'll starve."
"Don't worry.Ill make sure she gets what she wants to eat," Mary Beth insisted.
"I can take her," Lawrence said, rising.
"Me too," Lulu said.
Why was everyone so concerned about me?
"Remember. If you make it look like she's helpless, they'll notice and that will be it," Megan warned. "Sit down, Lulu."
"Just follow me," Lawrence said softly. "I'll do all the talking and you just nod, okay?"
"All of a sudden he can help someone. Before this, he couldn't tie his own shoelaces if someone was watching," Megan remarked with a twisted smile.
Lawrence ignored her and directed me to follow.
"I can understand a little sign language," he said. "And I can learn the rest fast. Don't worry.Ill protect you," he promised.
After I got my food and returned to the table, I did feel less tentative and insecure. I listened to their conversations and ate. Every once in a while, Lawrence turned to me and asked me how I would say or ask for something through signing. I showed him and he committed it quickly to memory.
Someone else, someone in my past, learned sign language that quickly, I remembered. I could see myself teaching him. Who was he? Everything I did raised another question about who I was and where I belonged, and every question felt like a needle in my side demanding attention.
"You shouldn't be encouraging her," Megan warned. "She won't snap out of it as fast."
"She'll be fine," Lawrence said, smiling at me.
"Listen to him, Doctor Lawrence Taylor. Hang a shingle over your room door," Megan said. She looked at the doorway and then leaned in toward me. "Here comes Mrs. Kleckner. You better not act too stupid," she advised.
"How are we doing now?" Mrs. Kleckner asked after she approached our table.
"Fine and dandy, Mrs. Kleckner. We're an absolutely happy little group of idiots and screwballs," Megan remarked with a fat smile.
"You're not really very funny, Megan. I'm hoping you'll realize that soon. For your own sake, as well as everyone else's," she added.
"Oh, I'll try, Mrs. Kleckner," Megan promised with a false smile on her lips.
Mrs. Kleckner turned to me.
"I understand you've lost your voice."
I looked at Megan and Lawrence and then at her before I nodded.
"Very well," Mrs. Kleckner continued, "you have your session with Doctor Southerby now. Come along, Laura," she said.
I looked at the others. Their eyes were wide with concern.
"Good luck with your doctor," Megan said as I stood up. "I hope things go better for you this time," she added, telling me I had met him before. I smiled, signed my thanks, and left with Mrs. Kleckner.
Doctor Southerby wasn't in his office when I was brought there. Mrs. Kleckner had me take a seat in front of the big desk and then left. I sat quietly waiting, gazing at everything and wondering how it could be that I had been here before. None of it looked even vaguely familiar. A side door opened and Doctor Southerby entered. He smiled softly and went to his desk.
"So," he began as soon as he sat, "you've had a little setback, I understand. Lost your voice?"
I didn't know what else to do, so I nodded.
"You can use sign language," he said. "I know it well."
I felt like I was in a foreign country and had finally found another person who spoke my language. The questions flowed out of me so quickly, my hands could barely keep up. Doctor Southerby's eyes followed and his smile widened and widened.
"Whoa," he cried. "Let's take it one at a time. You're in a clinic for people who have mental and psychological problems. It's a clinic mainly for young people. It was established by a foundation funded by wealthy people and has become one of the more prestigious and successful institutions of its kind in the northeast, if I may say so," he added proudly. "I'm one of the chief therapists here and your case has been assigned to me.
"As we were discussing yesterday, you suffered a serious traumatic experience and it has affected your memory. You have a form of general amnesia, but it is the sort of amnesia that won't last long. I feel confident of that."
"Yes," he said after I signed my question, "when you first arrived here, you could speak, but you couldn't recall anything about yourself."
I signed, "Why can't I speak now?"
"I don't know yet," he said, looking very thoughtful. "I'm just learning about your background myself and the information I need is slow in coming, unfortunately," he said with a grimace. "However, since you know sign language so well, it is something that is obviously in your background. Someone close to you is deaf. Does that jog your memory a bit?"
I thought.
"Yes," I told him, "but I can't remember much about her right now."
"You will. Suddenly, you will see someone else doing it and you'll realize who it is," he promised. "Until then, since you are unable to speak . ."--he reached into a drawer and came up with a notebook-- "I would like you to write down everything you remember; everything you think and anything that occurs to you about yourself, or people here, anything," he said, handing me the notebook.
I took it gingerly.
"I know you have a lot of anxiety. Do you experience flashbacks, hear voices you don't recognize?"
I nodded.
"You're eating well, apparently. That's good.
Do you have any numbing, any part of your body that feels detached?" I shook my head.
"Good. Just so you'll know what to expect from me . . . I'm going to try to get you, slowly, of course, to relieve the trauma you have suffered. We have to undo any unnecessary shame and guilt. It's all right for you to get angry and eventually to grieve, Laura. When you're able to do so, you will return fully to yourself. I might employ hypnosis. We'll see, okay?" he said, his voice soft, comforting.
I nodded.
"That's good. Okay, Laura," he said, "let's do something now. Let's both relax and you tell me whatever comes to your mind .. . words, pictures, anything. Go on," he said, "close your eyes and just let your mind wander."
I did so. Pictures flashed, but each for only a split second. I saw sand and water, faces that I couldn't attach to names, small boats, and cranberries in a bog. I described each thing to him.
"That's good, Laura. That's progress. In a short time, all these apparently unconnected images will start linking up for you and you'll start to find meaning. You're on your way home. I promise," he said.
"The best thing for you to do here is relax. Enjoy our facilities, write in your notebook, and rest. You're going to cure yourself," he said. He sounded so confident and sincere, I felt better.
He talked about other patients with similar problems and how they overcame them to return to active, healthy lives. He assured me that whatever was wrong with me would end and I would never return to the clinic once I left.
"Try to say something to me before you leave today, Laura," he concluded. He got up and walked over to me, taking my hand into his and looking so intensely into my eyes, I couldn't look away. "Go on, say your name. Try," he urged.
I opened ray, mouth and moved my lips.
"That's it," he coaxed. "Go ahead."
My tongue lifted and fell. I felt the muscles in my neck and throat strain.
"Lawwwww." I started to gag, tears burned under my eyelids, and I felt my cheeks turn red and hot.
"Okay," he said, patting ray hand. "Okay. It will come back."
He patted my hand and returned to his chair.
"I have to do some research on you, Laura. I have calls out to gather the information I need. You and I will meet again tomorrow," he said, "and in a week's time at the most, you'll see some dramatic changes. Okay?"