Turn of Mind - Alice LaPlante [71]
Never felt guilt. Never felt shame. Until I was brought to this place. Trussed like a chicken. Denied the right to move my bowels in private. Purgatory I heard one of the other residents call it. But no. That implies that heaven is within reach once you have paid for your sins. I suspect this is a station on the one-way road to hell.
I was fifteen, spotted with acne and smitten with Randy Busch. I was a young mother with an ever-present child at my side—Mark clung tenaciously to me until he was ten—and then I was an older pregnant woman being tested to ensure I wasn’t carrying a mutant. I was a reluctant host, during that pregnancy. I pushed Fiona out and went to sleep. I had to be nudged to take her to my breast. I simply endured those first six months, the colic, the sleepless nights, those months so critical to bonding.
I went back to surgeries within two weeks. A cold vessel indeed. But somehow attachment grew. Fiona hated our nanny, Ana, so beloved by Mark, by us all. It was only me she cried for, when I left and when I returned. And so reluctantly I took her on.
Someone came in this morning and brought photographs. Lovely full-color photographs. I sit in the great room and study them.
One woman sidles over, then screams. Others come over. Others recoil. My lovely lovely pictures. One shows the excising of a tumor in the olecranon fossa. Another, a hand reattachment. I feel the twinge of muscle memory. Contrary to what people might think, the knife is not cold, the blood on latex gloves is not warm. The gloves separate you from the heat of the human body.
From the moment I opened up the arm of a cadaver and saw the tendons, the nerves, the ligaments, and the carpal bones of the wrist, I was in love. Not for me the heart, the lungs, or the esophagus—let others play in those sandboxes. I want the hands, the fingers, the parts that connect us to the things of this world.
The straps are too tight around my legs. I can move my arms an inch perhaps. My head from side to side. There is an IV in my arm. A bitter metallic taste in my mouth.
Someone is sitting at my bedside. It is dark. Through the blinds a dull gleam illuminates the lower part of her face. She has the mouth of a ghoul, thin-lipped and grotesquely long. If she opened it she could swallow the world. What is this. She is taking my hand. No. She is raising it. No. Help me. She will bite into a vein, she will suck out what remains of my life.
Stop. Please stop. They will come if you don’t stop, the ghoul says.
She is placing something in my hand, closing my fingers around it.
What is this. A holy relic. Did they give this to you. Why am I being so honored.
It is a plastic bag containing a small metal disk, engraved. I can feel the protrusions. On a long chain. The bag is cold against my palm. I shake my head. I continue shaking it. The movement feels good.
Do you know your name?
I strain against what binds me. I do not answer.
Dr. White. Jennifer. Do you know where you are?
I do, but it is in pictures. No words. I am on a porch, sitting on the top step. A brisk morning in late October. The trees are golden. There is a line of pumpkins on the porch gazing at the world with horrified expressions. A daddy pumpkin, a mommy pumpkin, and a baby pumpkin. All agape at some terrible vision. That was my idea.
I am sixteen. There is a young man coming. I am ready. My dress is short, cut square, boldly colored with blue and red geometric shapes. My boots reach just below my knees. The step is rough against my bare thighs. These boots are made for walking. Any moment now, he will be here. I am quivering with excitement.
Dr. White?
The young man will come. I am beloved.
Dr. White, this is important. That medallion. It tested positive for type AB blood. Amanda O’Toole’s blood type.
We will be charging you with first-degree murder. You will go through a mental competency examination, plead not guilty for reason of insanity, and that will be it. But I’m not happy. Because I don’t understand. And I like understanding.
Amanda.
That’s