Second Honeymoon

Chapter 9

THREE THOUSAND MILES away, on the seventh floor of the Eagle Mountain Psychiatric Hospital on the outskirts of Los Angeles, thirty-one-year-old Ned Sinclair lay in his bed counting the white ceiling tiles above him for maybe the one millionth time. It was a mindless routine, all in the name of self-preservation—and, well, sanity. Counting the tiles, over and over, was his only escape from this godforsaken hellhole.

Until now.

Ned heard the squeaking wheels of the drug cart heading down the gray linoleum floor of the hallway, as it always did for what the nurses sarcastically called the nightcaps—the various narcotics used to keep the psychiatric patients nice and quiet during the night, when the hospital employed a skeleton crew.

“Time for your meds,” came a voice at the door. “No playing games tonight, Ned.”

Ned didn’t turn to look. He kept counting the ceiling tiles. Twenty-two…twenty-three…

For the past four years, ever since Ned arrived at Eagle Mountain, the same female nurse had pushed that drug cart on weekday nights. Her name was Roberta, and she was about as friendly and engaging as one of the hospital walls. She was built like one, too. She hardly ever spoke to her fellow workers, and certainly didn’t chat up the patients. All she did was what she got paid to do: dole out drugs. Nothing more. And that was fine by Ned.

But two weeks earlier, Roberta had been fired. Sticky fingers with some of the pills, it was rumored. It’s always the quiet ones.

Her replacement was a guy who liked to be called by his nickname, Ace. Asshole would’ve been more fitting. The aide was loud, obnoxious, ignorant, and didn’t know when to shut up. Clearly, the applicant pool for the graveyard shift was as shallow as a California puddle in August.

“C’mon, Ned. I know you can hear me in that screwed-up little head of yours,” said Ace, wheeling in the cart. “Say something. Talk to me, dude.”

But Ned had nothing to say.

Ace didn’t let up. He hated being ignored. He got enough of that in the L.A. bars, where he would hit on women with the deft touch of a wrecking ball. Glaring at Ned, he wondered, Who the hell is this dickwad patient to give me the silent treatment?

“You know, I did some asking around about you here,” he said. “Found out you were some kind of math genius, a hotshot college professor. But something bad happened to you. What was it? You hurt somebody? Hurt yourself? Is that why you’re up here on the seventh floor?”

The seventh floor at Eagle Mountain was reserved for the PAINs—staff shorthand for “patients abusive in nature.” Accordingly, they were never—not ever—supposed to get hold of anything that was sharp, or could be made sharp. They weren’t even allowed to shave themselves.

Ned remained silent.

“Oh, wait, wait—I remember what it was now,” said Ace. “They told me you lost your shit when your sister died.” He smiled wickedly. “Was she hot, Ned? I bet your sister was hot. Nora, right? I’d tap that sweet ass if she were here. But of course, she’s not here, is she? Nora’s dead. She’s a bony ass now, that’s all she is!”

The aide laughed at his own joke, sounding like the kids who used to taunt Ned for his stutter all those years ago in Albany.

That’s when Ned turned to Ace for the first time.

He finally had something to say.