Frank De Felitta: Audrey Rose

Langley had been her last rational hope.

Her only option left was irrational.

The test was scheduled to start at ten. At 9:05, she’d sought out Dr. Webster. Found him in the lobby. Talking with reporters. Freshly starched smock, shining stethoscope around his neck, fully prepared for the occasion. Janice caught his eye. He joined her in the vestibule, which was cold and deserted.

Was Ivy well enough to go home? she’d casually inquired.

“Sure,” he’d agreed. “Soon as this test is over.”

Her next stop was Ivy’s room. She’d found her sitting on the bed, chatting amiably with the three psychiatrists. Their conversation was light and general, no doubt a charming exercise. Relaxing the patient before the operation. They’d hardly noticed Janice. She’d waited patiently for them to leave. When, after two or three minutes, they didn’t, she’d interrupted with a slightly hysterical “May I please have a few moments alone with my daughter?” The psychiatrists eyed her with professional interest and silently left.

Pulling Ivy’s overnight bag out of the closet, she’d quickly started to pack. Ivy watched her with suspicion. Finally asked, “What are you doing?”

“Get your coat,” Janice ordered. “We’re getting out of here.”

“What?” said Ivy, in shock.

“I’m not letting you go through with this thing!”

“Mom!” The word exploded in a rush of tears. “Mom, I’ve got to! I’ve got to! Don’t you understand?” she cried in panic. “I’ve got to do it! Please! Please! Please!” Her voice dissolved into great heaving sobs.

Janice went to her, frightened. “Easy, baby, easy—” and tried to take her hand, but Ivy jerked it away and gripped the sides of the bed.

“I won’t let you take me away! I won’t!” she shouted, her reddening face consumed with anguish. “I won’t! I won’t! I won’t!”

The door opened. Nurse Baylor stuck her head in.

“Can I help?”

Janice remained standing by the bedside, staring blindly down at the tear stained, contorted face, unable to speak, paralyzed by the aching effort it cost her mind to absorb the fact that there was no help for Ivy, no possibility of mortal help left for her child—that Audrey Rose was not to be stopped. That now her will would prevail.

“I want you to relax,” continued Dr. Lipscomb in the soothing, regular voice. “I want you to relax. Let yourself fully relax. Lean back and be very comfortable.”

The friction of pens against paper, of charcoal against sketchboard, formed a counterpoint of sound to Dr. Lipscomb’s voice as he produced a pencil flashlight and gradually held its beam aloft in his right hand.

“Look at the light now, Ivy. Look up and keep watching the light. Keep watching it. Keep watching. Now, as you’re watching the light, you’re beginning to feel your eyes growing heavy. Your eyelids are getting heavier and heavier, and you’re finding it harder and harder and harder to keep them open. Finding it harder and harder to keep watching the light. Harder and harder.… And slowly your eyelids are feeling so heavy that they want to close … want to close. And slowly your eyelids are feeling so heavy that they begin to close … begin to close.…”

The position of the light, well above her level of vision, was so placed to cause her eyelids gradually to feel heavier and heavier from the strain of constantly looking up, and the suggestibility of the repetitive, metronomic voice slowly worked its effect on Ivy.

“Your eyelids are beginning to get so heavy, so heavy, they’re getting heavier and heavier … so heavy that you cannot keep them open at all … and your eyes are beginning to close, beginning to close, even though you don’t want them to, they’re beginning to close … so heavy you must close them, must close them, close them, close them.…”

Janice heard her own pounding heart join the counterpoint of sound as she watched her daughter gradually relinquish her will to this stranger spiriting her off into an endless night.

“Your eyelids are so heavy now, so heavy, that they must close and remain closed, remain closed. Now your eyes are closed. They’re closed so tightly that you cannot open them. You cannot open them. Even if want to, and try your hardest, you cannot open them. Try! Try to open them, Ivy!”

The television camera zoomed into Ivy’s face as she tried to open her eyes, strained hard to open them, but could not.

The view from the observation booth was not so fortunate. Not only was the one-way glass an impeding factor, but Dr. Lipscomb’s chair had been imprudently placed at an angle so that his body blocked more than half the subject. The people on Bill’s side of the room got only a partial view of Ivy. Those on the other side got no view of her at all. Which caused Judge Langley to testily demand that someone go tell the doctor to move aside.

“Patience,” Scott Velie’s voice counseled respectfully. “Wait till she’s fully under.”

“There, you cannot open your eyes, they’re so tired, so tired, they simply must stay closed. Just relax, Ivy, relax—nothing bad is going to happen to you. You are safe and snug and fully asleep now. Finally asleep. And now your right arm is beginning to feel lighter and lighter. Its feeling so light that it wants to lift away from the couch. So light it just seems to want to float in the air.”

It did.

“And now your arm is beginning to feel heavy again, so heavy that it wants to fall back onto the couch, fall back onto the couch and rest itself.”

It obeyed.

“You are fully asleep now. Fully asleep. If I wish to awaken you, I will count to five. At the count of five, I will say, ‘Awaken, Ivy!’ and you will awaken promptly. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” Her voice was weak, pallid.

“At my command, you will awaken, and you will feel rested and well, as if you had taken a nap. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

The scraping of a chair, followed by a stumbling footstep, preceded the appearance of Scott Velie’s silhouette at the window. He tapped lightly on the glass and caught the attention of the doctor, who, turning about nervously, quickly grasped the problem and obliged by shifting himself and chair off to the side, permitting the court an unencumbered view of the subject. The slight disturbance in no way seemed to affect or elicit a reaction from the sleeping child, and once settled, Dr. Lipscomb renewed the hypnosis.

“Now, as your eyes are closed, and you are deeply asleep, and you are completely relaxed, you’re gradually moving back in time. Back, back, Ivy … back in time. You’re moving back in time to your eighth birthday. All right, Ivy, I will count to three, and you will be at your eighth birthday party. You will remember every detail of your eighth birthday party. One, two, three.…”

In the next instant, an expression of joy appeared on Ivy’s face—an inner, contained joy that seemed pure and natural and genuine.

“You are now at the party, among your friends. Do you see your friends, Ivy?”

She nodded, still smiling.

“Tell me about them, Ivy. Who is at the party?”

“Bettina, Carrie. Mary Ellen. The twins. Peter.”

“Tell me about your presents. Do you love your presents?”

“Oh, yes. I love my Terry doll with travel wardrobe. And the game of Clue that Bettina bought me. And the roller skates.…”

Janice winced inwardly when the roller skates were recalled. The memory of the ear-shattering, head-splitting sound of Ivy clopping around the apartment on them in tears after falling every third step, and Janice’s decision to bury them away in a closet and pretend that they had either been lost or stolen, came crashing back in alternating waves of guilt and sadness, knowing that the skates, still haunting that closet, would remain there now, unused, forever.