Lisa Miscione - Twice

Looking around her, Lydia felt some combination of pity and dread. She couldn’t imagine a more grim place in which to find yourself. She felt the fear and suffering radiating off the walls and wondered what it would be like to wake up and go to sleep in this place haunted by the delusions of your own mind, searching for the road back to sanity.

“How long have you been Julian’s doctor?” asked Lydia.

“I’ve seen Julian on and off for about the last eight years,” she said. “Until about a year ago.”

“What happened then?”

“She came to her appointment and told me she would no longer be continuing our sessions.”

“Did she say why?”

“She said something very odd. That she’d realized that ninety percent of her problems were due to the fact that she hadn’t been true to herself. That she’d decided to surrender.”

“Surrender?”

“That was the word she used. She wouldn’t expound. Just thanked me, wrote me a check, and left. I didn’t see her again until she was admitted here.”

Lydia turned the connotations of the word over in her mind. Surrender… to give up, to admit defeat. What within herself had she been fighting?

“Her mother told us that she’s suffered with depression. Any indication that there might be something more seriously wrong with her? Did she ever discuss with you the murder of her first husband?”

This time Dr. Barnes didn’t bother to hide her annoyance.

“Naturally,” she said officiously, “I am not at liberty to discuss my patient’s condition or the things we discussed with you. But if you’re asking me if I had any indication that she might be a threat to herself or to others, the answer is no.”

“Did she mention to you at any time that she was afraid of someone, that she had any enemies who might wish to harm her or her family?”

The doctor didn’t answer Lydia. She pulled her mouth into a tight grimace as if she were physically trying to prevent words from flying out.

Lydia stopped walking and the doctor turned to face her. “Look, Doctor. I’m not trying to infringe upon your professional ethics. But a man is dead and your patient is the prime suspect-the only suspect. We’re trying to help her. Maybe you can do the same.”

“I can’t help you. And the only way I can help Julian is by treating her illness and protecting her patient-doctor privilege.”

Case closed. Dr. Barnes was a tough nut and Lydia could see that they’d gotten as far with her as they would today.

After a number of twists and turns down long gray hallways, they reached another metal door and were buzzed through into yet another hallway that had six closed doors on each side and ended in a large, barred window. Sunlight streamed in through the grating and a uniformed police officer sat in a green metal chair reading a copy of the New York Post outside the last door.

“This is the wing for patients who are not stable enough to mix with the others. Ms. Ross is being kept here for obvious reasons,” said Dr. Barnes.

The cop at the door checked his list for Lydia and Jeffrey’s names and found them. He stood up and stepped aside as the three of them entered Julian Ross’s room.

Julian Ross was a ghost of the woman Lydia had seen in the photograph back at the gallery. She sat on the small twin bed in the corner of the room, leaning against the wall, hugging her knees to her chest. She was pale, her eyes glassy and wet. All the light had drained from her. Lydia imagined that she could be picked up and tossed to the floor like a rag doll.

Lydia tried to reconcile the frail woman before them with the gruesome images in the crime scene photographs Ford had given them. She tried to imagine Julian’s tiny, delicate hands wielding a serrated knife and committing the carnage that had been wrought in her Park Avenue duplex. It didn’t work for her. Physically it didn’t seem possible. But more than that, Lydia just couldn’t envision it, though she couldn’t say why. Lydia pulled up a metal chair beside Julian’s bed and tried to look into her eyes. But they were like the eyes of a cat, flat and without depth. It was as if her soul, the essence of who she was, had floated away, leaving only a breathing human shell.

Lydia was not uncomfortable with mentally ill people. She’d interviewed more than one in the past. In fact, she was more comfortable with them than she was with most “sane” people. There was often a logic to their thoughts that made a kind of sense if you listened carefully. There was no artifice to their personalities, nothing put on. It was crazy but it was real .

“Julian,” said the doctor as if she were talking to a child. “This is Lydia Strong and Jeffrey Mark. They are here to see you at your mother’s request.”

There was no sign that she had heard.

“Julian,” said Lydia, “we want to help you.”

She turned bright green eyes on Lydia. Lydia felt a little jolt of shock inside as she saw clearly the eyes from the portrait in Orlando DiMarco’s gallery. She wondered if, as in the painting, there was another side to the wispy woman before her, another side that only Tad Jenson and Richard Stratton had seen. Someone that she had hidden from others and maybe even from herself. In the hard fluorescent light of the room, Lydia could see that Julian’s pupils were dilated. Her long dark hair was highlighted with strands of red and was pulled back into a loose ponytail. Several strands had escaped and hung listlessly around her frail shoulders and in front of her eyes.

“You can’t help me,” she said softly, her voice thick and slow. “No one can.”

“Is she heavily medicated?” asked Lydia, looking at the doctor.

“Oh, yes,” answered the doctor. “She was hysterical, a danger to herself.”

“We can help you, Julian,” said Lydia softly, leaning in slightly. “If you can tell us what you remember.”

The doctor sighed, agitated suddenly behind Lydia. “I don’t think you’re going to have much luck, Ms. Strong. She’s not going to be able to remember anything at this point.”

Jeffrey held up his hand. “Just give her a minute.”

Julian held Lydia’s eyes. “My children,” she said, her tone not quite a question, more a musing.

“They’re fine,” answered Lydia. “They’re with your mother.”

Julian gave a little laugh and rolled her eyes dramatically. “Oh, well then… they’ll be fine,” she said, her voice suddenly tight with sarcasm and anger. “Look how well I turned out.”

She scribbled something in the air with an invisible pen and looked at Lydia with a wink, as if she thought Lydia were in on some private joke. “My mother, the queen. The queen of the damned. Evil bitch.”

“She’s ranting,” said the doctor.

“I can see that,” said Lydia, turning to look at her with annoyance.

“Why are you so angry at your mother?” asked Lydia. Julian didn’t answer. She just kept writing in the air furiously.

The room was so silent, Lydia could hear the buzz of the fluorescent lights above their heads and Julian’s quick and shallow breathing. A moth fluttered above them, knocking itself into the light with a succession of soft taps.

“Julian, do you know where you are?”

“Do you know where you are?” Julian answered with a childish giggle. “Does anyone?”

“Some of us have a pretty good idea,” Lydia answered gently.

“I’m hiding,” she said with a vigorous nod, as if this answered everyone’s questions.

“Who are you hiding from?” asked Lydia.

Julian slid down on the bed suddenly, as if invisible strings that had been holding her upright had snapped. She curled up into a ball facing Lydia, holding herself tight. She was so thin that Lydia could see her shoulder bones poking through her pale skin.