Stephen White - Critical Conditions

But I sat without moving. I watched without blinking. I didn’t swallow and I wasn’t aware of breathing.

“Do my parents know? At least tell me that.”

“I haven’t told them.”

She blurted out, “It was all Madison’s idea,” and she buried her face in her hands.

I said, “Take your time, Merritt. Take your time.”

She folded her arms and unfolded them. She chanced a glance at me, then away. For a moment she seemed fascinated by her hair. She wiped tear tracks from her face and tried to swallow, but her mouth was too dry.

I didn’t offer her anything to drink.

“You know I didn’t shoot him, right?”

Tell her you hear her, don’t be too committal. “I remember where we left off earlier.”

“I almost killed myself right there. In his house. With the gun. His gun. I picked it up and pointed it at my head.” She extended the index finger of her right hand, cocked her thumb up, and touched her fingernail to a spot an inch above her right ear. “I put it back down once and then I picked it up again. The whole time I was kneeling in all the blood. I was covered in his blood and I could taste it in my mouth from trying to resuscitate him, and I didn’t see any way out of it but to die.”

Years before, in my training, as I listened to the pathos of a young woman who had survived a serious suicide attempt, I enjoyed a revelation that it was one of the only times doing therapy that I would know in advance how the story turned out. I shared my insight with my supervisor. She told me I was wrong. She said, “Don’t be cocky, you don’t know how the story ends. You only know how this chapter turns out.”

I reminded myself of that lesson.

“The phone rang. I screamed. I needed to get out of there. I was still going to kill myself, so I picked up the gun and I ran as fast as I could.” She laughed. “I got outside and I saw that I was covered in blood. And I was carrying a gun. It was all so weird, I mean, think about it. So I stopped in his backyard and took off my sweatshirt and used it to wipe some of the blood off my legs and hands and I wrapped the gun in it and I walked home. A couple of people saw me. I thought they looked at me funny. But they didn’t say anything.”

I sighed, saddened. I wanted to say, “No, Merritt, go back. You’re forgetting to tell me about going upstairs and breaking your fingernail in the bathroom. You’re forgetting to tell me about losing your earring in the Holiday Rambler.”

But I didn’t. Instead, I catalogued the omissions, reminding myself that they were at least as important as the inclusions.

“When I got home, nobody was there. Trent was with Chaney. Mom was at work. I called Madison and told her that he was dead, that it was all over-”

What was all over?

“And that I had his gun and I was going to kill myself with it. But I kept thinking about all the blood and I couldn’t do it to myself. Shoot myself. So I went to Mom’s dressing table and I took all her drugs. Everything. And then I took a shower. I didn’t want his blood on me when I died.

“That’s all I remember until the hospital when I had the tube down my throat.”

She spoke the last line with determination, as if to say, “There, are you satisfied?”

I wasn’t. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did you take the pills? Why did you want to die?”

She said, “Because I couldn’t save Chaney.” And she managed to say those words with an almost sincere level of conviction. If I didn’t know other things, I would have been likely to believe her.

But I knew other things.

“You said you told Madison ‘it was all over.’ What was all over?”

She was silent.

I said, “This looks like it’s going to be a very long night.”

She muttered, “It already is.”

I closed my eyes and felt a luxurious moment of calm. When I opened them, I said, “Your missing earring?” She flicked a glance at me. “You’ve been wondering where you lost that, haven’t you?”

Her lower lip dropped.

“The earring-the little silver cross?-it was in the Holiday Rambler, Dr. Robilio’s motor home. And the videotape? We haven’t talked much about that yet, have we?”

“You know everything already.”

“This isn’t about what I know. It’s about what you are able to tell me.”

“I don’t get it.”

“I’m a psychologist, not a cop. I care about the facts, but not as much as I care about you.”

A quick couplet of knocks cracked on the door. A nurse poked her head into the room.

“Dr. Gregory? May I have a minute? I think it’s important.”

I left the consultation room door open so I could keep an eye on Merritt. The nurse cupped her hand and whispered, “Detective Purdy called. He said to tell you it looks good. That it’s up to the doctors now. That the docs here at Children’s will talk to the docs in…”-she looked at a pink index card in her hand-“…Seattle in the morning. You know what all that means?”

I nodded, smiling, and thought, Good work, Adrienne.

She said, “Is this about the little girl? Merritt’s sister?”

“Yes. She may be getting a break. Keep it to yourself, okay?”

“Of course.”

“Thanks. Could you please find us something to drink? Something with caffeine for me, something without caffeine for Merritt.”

She was back with two cans of pop in less than a minute. She handed them to me and said, “Good luck in there with her. She’s a tough kid.” I thought I heard some admiration in her words.

I half smiled. “She is that.”

Merritt was curled up on the loveseat in the consultation room, asleep, her hair falling over one eye like a spill of fine lace. She looked innocent and fresh and vulnerable, a huge child right then, not a young adult.

I considered letting her sleep. I also considered tracking down an empty on-call room and sleeping myself. Tempting, but not prudent.

I said, “Merritt?” She didn’t respond.

A touch to her shoulder caused her to twitch, but not to waken. I leaned my mouth close to her ear and spoke her name again. She sat up in a panic, the side of her head crashing into the side of mine just above my ear, the impact sending me tumbling across the room.

She woke dazed but with some recognition of what was going on. She touched her head with her hand and said, “God, I’m sorry.”

I asked, “Are you okay?” as I pulled myself to a sitting position.

She rubbed her ear. “I think so. You?”

“I’m fine. It woke me up. I guess that’s good.” I nodded toward the table. “I brought you a Sprite. Thought you might be thirsty.”

She popped open the can and took a tentative sip. Over the top of the can, she eyed me and said, “Thanks. What did you mean before? That you cared about me more than you cared about what happened?”

Like her uncle, she surprised me. “When I first saw you in the hospital in Boulder-remember?-your doctors weren’t sure you were going to live. Your suicide attempt was that serious. I haven’t forgotten that morning. Since then, it’s been difficult for me to, I don’t know, feel much confidence that you aren’t still planning to find a way to kill yourself. I’m not going to pretend that I don’t want to know what happened with you and Dr. Robilio, and what Madison had to do with it, because I do. But more than that, I need to know that you can be trusted, that you’re safe, that you’ve found a reason not to try to kill yourself again. And it’s important that I learn what I need to know tonight.”

“Why tonight?”

I frowned. “It has to do with your sister, Merritt. Your Uncle Sam is a remarkable man. I know you hardly know him, but he’s a special guy, believe me. Anyway, he’s been busy trying to help, and he may have managed to work some magic in regard to the insurance situation. Your whole family may get some long-overdue good news in the morning. If that happens, I’d like to feel enough confidence in your mental state to consider discharging you from the hospital so you can be part of it.”