have to ask Dr. Jephson.” Mrs. R’s gaze returned to the papers.
Alison’s gaze turned hard, anger flaring at being caught in this smug charade.
“Suppose Garlick stops reporting for meds?”
“The outpatient clinic would notify us,” Mrs. R said.
“But that’s that, right? Nobody else would know. Nobody’d go looking for him.”
“Social workers would try to contact him.”
“Meaning what? A phone call or two? What if he just disappeared?”
Mrs. R placed both hands flat on the desk and leaned forward.
“You wouldn’t go looking for those men either, Alison. It’s not like on the wards. You can’t just scream for help.”
Back on Three-Psych, Alison imagined a subtle shift among the staff she passed: gazes of curiosity or wariness. The patients looked different, too: sly and secretive instead of confused. She realized she was assessing them all in terms of:
Who might be in on this?
The answer kept coming back:
Anyone.
A few minutes before five P.M. , Alison let the heavy door of Three-Psych swing closed behind her and walked out into the damp twilight air. The afternoon had included a Dual Diagnosis Group meeting, for patients with both mental illness and drug problems from fortified wine to inhaling propane.
Garlick, a one-time heavy drinker and meth user, had put in a mandatory appearance. Today, there was no baiting of other patients. He had been quiet, polite, his gaze rarely meeting hers, as if he had known he was under her scrutiny.
Soon to be released.
She opened the Mercedes’ door and was swinging herself in when her mind registered what the car’s interior light showed:
A small white box, lying on the driver’s seat.
Her breath stopped. But a second later, she exhaled and managed a smile.
A return gift from Monks.
She left the door open for the light, and opened the box with her thumbnails. Under a layer of tissue paper lay a five-by-seven photograph. The setting was a forest clearing, with a thick growth of redwoods at its edges. The corner of a shed was visible, with a rusty corrugated iron roof.
In the foreground was the face of a man. He was looking over his left shoulder, his gaze fixed on the camera, his mouth slightly open. The sense was that he had been taken by surprise and was just realizing that the photographer was there. His eyes were shadowed beneath the bill of a baseball cap, but an ugly, unmistakable sense of menace emanated from them.
Recognition came to her with sick shock. He was Caymas Schulte, one of the phony NGIs, released a few months after she had started working at Clevinger; the only one she had personally known.
Her fingers felt rough edges on the photo’s back. She turned it over.
Another picture was glued on that looked like it had been cut out of a book: a small pretty bird, with a red head and yellow and black markings. A cartoon-style balloon was drawn in ink, issuing from its mouth. It contained musical notes, as if the bird were singing.
Heart hammering, she swiveled to look around, as if the message-bearer might still bestanding there. As if it might be the phantom lover from her childhood, whom she knew had touched her once, but she had no memory of.
Her twelfth summer, at the family’s country home. An older cousin, Gerald, a gentle boy who teased her in a way she was beginning to understand.
Another boy who lived nearby: Earl Lipscomb, quiet, polite, but with something frightening in his eyes. She would see him in the distance what she was alone: feel him around her edges.
One early fall day, the two young men gone hunting together. Gerald shot, mistaken by Earl Lipscomb for a deer. The death ruled accidental.
A crowded cemetery on a muggy afternoon. The coffin about to be lowered. Men opening the lid to tuck in a bit of shroud.
Inside the blackness, a glimpse of white: Gerald’s face.
Her gaze rising from there, of itself, to meet the eyes of Earl Lipscomb, far at the fringes of the crowd.
In that instant, the truth seared
Alison’s gaze turned hard, anger flaring at being caught in this smug charade.
“Suppose Garlick stops reporting for meds?”
“The outpatient clinic would notify us,” Mrs. R said.
“But that’s that, right? Nobody else would know. Nobody’d go looking for him.”
“Social workers would try to contact him.”
“Meaning what? A phone call or two? What if he just disappeared?”
Mrs. R placed both hands flat on the desk and leaned forward.
“You wouldn’t go looking for those men either, Alison. It’s not like on the wards. You can’t just scream for help.”
Back on Three-Psych, Alison imagined a subtle shift among the staff she passed: gazes of curiosity or wariness. The patients looked different, too: sly and secretive instead of confused. She realized she was assessing them all in terms of:
Who might be in on this?
The answer kept coming back:
Anyone.
A few minutes before five P.M. , Alison let the heavy door of Three-Psych swing closed behind her and walked out into the damp twilight air. The afternoon had included a Dual Diagnosis Group meeting, for patients with both mental illness and drug problems from fortified wine to inhaling propane.
Garlick, a one-time heavy drinker and meth user, had put in a mandatory appearance. Today, there was no baiting of other patients. He had been quiet, polite, his gaze rarely meeting hers, as if he had known he was under her scrutiny.
Soon to be released.
She opened the Mercedes’ door and was swinging herself in when her mind registered what the car’s interior light showed:
A small white box, lying on the driver’s seat.
Her breath stopped. But a second later, she exhaled and managed a smile.
A return gift from Monks.
She left the door open for the light, and opened the box with her thumbnails. Under a layer of tissue paper lay a five-by-seven photograph. The setting was a forest clearing, with a thick growth of redwoods at its edges. The corner of a shed was visible, with a rusty corrugated iron roof.
In the foreground was the face of a man. He was looking over his left shoulder, his gaze fixed on the camera, his mouth slightly open. The sense was that he had been taken by surprise and was just realizing that the photographer was there. His eyes were shadowed beneath the bill of a baseball cap, but an ugly, unmistakable sense of menace emanated from them.
Recognition came to her with sick shock. He was Caymas Schulte, one of the phony NGIs, released a few months after she had started working at Clevinger; the only one she had personally known.
Her fingers felt rough edges on the photo’s back. She turned it over.
Another picture was glued on that looked like it had been cut out of a book: a small pretty bird, with a red head and yellow and black markings. A cartoon-style balloon was drawn in ink, issuing from its mouth. It contained musical notes, as if the bird were singing.
Heart hammering, she swiveled to look around, as if the message-bearer might still bestanding there. As if it might be the phantom lover from her childhood, whom she knew had touched her once, but she had no memory of.
Her twelfth summer, at the family’s country home. An older cousin, Gerald, a gentle boy who teased her in a way she was beginning to understand.
Another boy who lived nearby: Earl Lipscomb, quiet, polite, but with something frightening in his eyes. She would see him in the distance what she was alone: feel him around her edges.
One early fall day, the two young men gone hunting together. Gerald shot, mistaken by Earl Lipscomb for a deer. The death ruled accidental.
A crowded cemetery on a muggy afternoon. The coffin about to be lowered. Men opening the lid to tuck in a bit of shroud.
Inside the blackness, a glimpse of white: Gerald’s face.
Her gaze rising from there, of itself, to meet the eyes of Earl Lipscomb, far at the fringes of the crowd.
In that instant, the truth seared
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