The Wives

TWENTY

When I come to, I am cold. I don’t remember where I am, and it takes a few minutes for the events of the last few days to settle over me. Scratchy memories—they don’t feel good. The smell of antiseptic fills my nostrils and I struggle to push sheets aside and sit up in bed.

A hospital... Seth... Food on the floor.

I rub my forehead, which is throbbing painfully, and peer over the side of the bed; there’s no trace of the collage of color I left behind before they cocktailed me out. Why did I do that? It’s a stupid question because I know. Because Seth thinks food fights are wasteful and stupid. I hadn’t thrown anything at him, but throwing it on the floor had felt like enough—a childish display of acting out.

Practical, dry, somewhat stern Seth—that’s not how I would have described him a few weeks ago. What changed?

Hannah! That name hits me harder than the rest. Because it’s been how many days since I last heard from her? Three...four? I remember the look on Seth’s face before the drugs pulled me under... I couldn’t make out his expression; it was a mix of things I hadn’t seen on his face before. Isn’t that something? Being married to a man for years and seeing an expression for the first time.

I have to contact Hannah—see if she’s all right. But without my phone, I don’t have access to her number, and what if Seth has already been through my phone and deleted the texts we’d exchanged? Does he know my password? It’s not hard to figure out—our dead baby’s due date.

A new nurse walks in, this time an older man with a buzz cut, white eyebrows and a face like a bulldog. I slink down in bed. His shoulders are too wide and I can tell he won’t take my shit. I was hoping for someone younger and inexperienced, like Sarah, who I could talk into helping me.

“Hello,” he says. “I’m Phil.”

When did his shift start? When will he be gone?

“I spoke to your doctor. Seems like everything looks good with your head...” He knocks on his own skull with his knuckles as he pages through my chart and I grimace at the gesture. He’s a caveman in a nurse’s uniform. “They’ll be transferring you over to the psych ward.”

“Why? If I’m fine, why am I not being discharged?”

“Hasn’t the doctor spoken to you about this?” Phil scratches over his left nipple and flips another page.

I shake my head.

“He should be over in a bit and he’ll discuss it with you then.”

“Great,” I say dryly. I’m sour. I don’t like Phil. He is obviously ex-military and thinks everything should be done a certain way: discipline and order. I want a young, easily manipulated nurse like Sarah, who will feel sorry for me.

Before Phil leaves, I ask if I can make a call.

“To whom?”

“My husband,” I say sweetly. “He’s working in Portland and I’d like to check on him.”

“There’s no husband listed in your chart,” he says.

“Are you calling me a liar?”

Phil ignores me. “Why don’t we leave the checking in up to him? After all, you’re the one in the hospital.”

I glare at him as he leaves the room. I used to like guys like Phil—they were helpful in sticky patient situations, always willing to play bad cop when a nurse needed a break—but being on this side of a Phil is a terrible thing. I’ll wait for the next nurse and hope she’s more my type.

Dr. Steinbridge tells me that all is well in my head, nothing swollen or bruised.

“Looking good, looking good,” he says, tapping a bent finger against my chart. His knuckles are dusted with white hairs. “We’re transferring you to the psych ward, where you’ll have your evaluation and we’ll get your new medication sorted out.”

“Wait a minute,” I say. “I don’t need to go to the psych ward. I’m fine. I fell and hit my head.”

His lips fold in like he’s disappointed with me.

“You’re having extreme delusions, Thursday. Violent outbursts. Don’t worry,” he tries to reassure me. “We’ll work on getting you better. We all want the same thing.”

I doubt that. Seth wants me in here. I want to scream, swear at him...force him to see the truth, but I know that if I do I’ll only confirm what he’s thinking...what Seth’s telling him. I’m not crazy. You’re not, I tell myself. Even when you feel like you are, remember you’re not.

An hour later, a nurse pushes a wheelchair into the room and flips on the brakes.

“I’m here for your transfer,” she says.

“My husband...?” I hate the whine in my voice, hate that I have to ask where my husband is instead of knowing.

She shrugs. “I’m just here for your transfer. That’s all I know.”

I feel woozy as I walk over to the chair. The backs of my legs hit the soft leather and I sink down in relief. It’s not the head injury making me feel this way, it’s the drugs. I can barely think clearly. I don’t remember the wheelchair ride up to the eighth floor, or getting into the bed in the tiny room. I’m assigned a nurse, but I have no recollection of her coming in to see me. Nothing feels real. I question my existence, I question Hannah’s... Did I imagine everything, like they said? I want to talk to Seth, I want my head to clear, but they keep pouring pills down my throat.

I spend the next seven days in a sort of haze. Nothing feels real, the drugs making me feel detached from my body: a limp helium balloon bobbing about a room going nowhere. I go to group, eat my meals in the dining hall and see Dr. Steinbridge for sessions. I’ve lost so much weight that I don’t recognize myself when I look in the mirror. My jaw has definition and there are hollows above my collarbone, deep compressions that were once filled with fat. How can a week do this to a person? I wonder, but I’m not sure I care. Everything is muted, even my feelings about myself.

I stop asking about Seth after a few days; even the thought of him makes me feel desperate and crazy. The nurses look at me with pity in their eyes. I have the vague feeling that I don’t like it when they do that. They probably don’t think there is a Seth. And maybe there isn’t. Also, fuck him for putting me in this position where I am questioning myself.

On the ninth day, my mother comes to see me. Visiting hours are in the common area, where all of us crazies wait eagerly for our people to arrive. We sit on mustard-colored couches or at the gray tables on foldout chairs, our hair greasy and our faces pale and splotchy from too little or too much sleep. An attempt at normalizing the room is made with potted plants and framed artwork. I’ve studied each piece of art and the plaques next to them telling of the local artists who painted, or sketched, or photographed. Seattle likes to keep it local, homegrown artists to soothe the homegrown sick.

I find an unoccupied couch near the vending machines. They won’t allow us caffeine or too much sugar. The machines are stocked with vitamin water and bruised-looking apples. I sit with my hands in my lap, staring at the floor. When my mother walks in, she doesn’t recognize me at first. Her eyes move right over my face, then bounce back like they’re on a bungee cord.

I see her mouth my name before she clutches her purse tightly to her side and scurries over. I stand as she approaches. I’m not sure if she wants to hug me or if she’s too disappointed. The first time I landed myself in a psych ward, she refused to come, saying it was too painful to see me that way. Too painful for her. Now she lowers herself onto the sofa without taking her eyes from my face.

“Your father—” she starts.

“Yeah, I know, Mom. It’s fine.”

We look at each other like it’s the first time we’re truly seeing each other’s faces. My father would never come to a place like this. To see one of his daughters locked in a psych ward would mean that he had done something wrong as a parent, and my father likes to maintain the illusion of perfection. As for my mother, I am her crazy, unhinged offspring—she gave birth to me and has no idea of who I am or of the life I live. She doesn’t want to know. We’re both thinking the same thing. I pull my sweater down over my hands as I gaze at her Botoxed forehead. She doesn’t want to admit how old she is any more than she wants to admit that her daughter is a first-class fuckup.

“I’m not here because I’m crazy,” I tell her.

She immediately opens her mouth to deny she’s ever had that thought. Of course, that’s her job as a mother.

“I’m not sick, either. I’m not having an emotional breakdown because I lost my baby a year ago.” I cut off all the roads her mind is taking, all the ways she’s trying to make excuses for why I’m here.

She closes her mouth and stares. I feel like a child as my bottom lip quivers. She won’t believe anything I say. Seth has already gotten to her.

“Mom, Seth already had another wife when I met him. Her name is Regina Coele. She didn’t want children. I was the one who was supposed to give him a baby. But then I had the...” My voice trails off.

My mother drops her head like this is all too much. I watch the tips of her lashes, the bridge of her nose, as she stares down at her shoes. From this angle she looks ten, twenty years younger. Just a girl who has bent her head in exasperation...frustration...hopelessness? I’ve never been good at telling what she’s really feeling. I know all of the brands she likes, I know her thoughts on shallow, useless topics, but I don’t know how to uncover what she’s truly feeling. I’m not quite sure if she knows, either.

“Regina is Seth’s ex-wife. He was married before you, yes. You’re right—she didn’t want children and so they parted ways.” My mother leans forward, her eyes imploring. It’s true. How can I argue with that? Regina is technically his ex-wife. He divorced her to marry me, after all. But they’re still together, still a couple, just without the title.

“Mother,” I say. “Please listen to me. Seth is trying to cover his tracks. They’re still together.”

She drops her face into her palms. When did I become the type of woman who isn’t believed by her own mother? When you started lying to yourself, I think.

When she looks up, her eyes are wet. She reminds me of a cocker spaniel with those wet eyes. “You have an unhealthy fixation on his exes. But, Thursday, he’s not with them. He’s with you. Seth is worried sick about you.” She reaches for my hand, but I pull it away. I won’t be coddled that way—spoken to like I’m a child. Her hand drops uselessly back into her lap.

“Why do you think he’s always in Portland? He has two other wives.” I stand up, begin pacing.

“He works there,” she hisses. “He loves you, we all do. We want you to get well.”

“I am well,” I say stiffly. I stop to glare at her. “Why hasn’t he come? Where is he?” That’s when she gets shifty, averting her eyes, crossing and uncrossing her ankles. She doesn’t know what to say because she doesn’t know where Seth is, or why he hasn’t come.

“In Portland...” she says. It sounds more like a question. “He still has to work, Thursday. Life goes on.”

“No, it doesn’t. Not when I’m in the hospital. He has other wives to tend to his needs,” I say. “Why come see the loony toon in Tonker Town?”

She looks at me quizzically for a moment before she stands up. We face each other and I can read the disappointment on her face.

“I need to get going,” she says. Fifteen minutes. She lasted fifteen minutes in the psych ward. I watch as she retreats toward the doors, her shoulders sagging with the weight of my failures as her daughter. At least this time she came.