Stephen White: Critical Conditions

Her hair had been washed and fell in long tawny waves past her shoulders. She looked fresh and young. Although her purple eyes danced at the activity as I knocked at her open door and entered the room, the whites of her eyes were still milky and dull. Her gaze seemed suspicious. I had spent a couple of hours with her already, yet I had no reason to believe she had any idea who I was.

Approaching the meeting with her, I had anticipated that she would appear defeated and full of ennui or embarrassment, but instead she looked to me to be defiant, the head of her bed up high, her posture erect and proud. The TV was on, tuned to local midday news. Not Channel 7. The only evidence of how close she had come to death was the infusion pump still sighing intermittently beside her bed.

The defiant posture concerned me. I had an instinctual fear, a healthy one, I thought, of entering into a power struggle with an adolescent, but especially with an adolescent who had already demonstrated that suicide was a viable part of her arsenal of weapons.

On the far side of the room, between Merritt’s bed and the window, a bored nurse sat on a chair reading a paperback book about angels. She was the staff member who was responsible for accomplishing the 1:1 I had ordered two days earlier. Suicide precautions should have dictated that she sit between Merritt’s bed and the door to provide a feeble impediment to an escape, but I didn’t say anything about it.

I walked to the foot of the bed and said, “Hello, Merritt, I’m Dr. Gregory,” then to the nurse, “Why don’t you take ten? I can give you a little break. I’ll stay with her until you’re back. Thanks.”

Merritt studied me but didn’t return my greeting. Her already parted lips moved a tiny bit. They were pale, almost the same color as her complexion. A small wound had scabbed over in one corner of her mouth. I figured it was treatment trauma. The tip of her tongue searched out the rough surface of the scab.

The nurse left her book on the windowsill, said, “Doctor,” and hustled out of the room before I had a chance to withdraw my offer.

I took a step closer to the foot of her bed to be certain I was at least part of Merritt’s peripheral vision. “I’m a clinical psychologist, Merritt. You may not remember me-I don’t see how you could-but I’ve been by to see you each day since you were brought into the hospital. I was hoping we could talk about what happened.”

No reply.

“May I sit?”

She shrugged her shoulders, touched her hair.

Merritt had a narrow chin and cheekbones still flush with the fleshiness of youth. In a year or two, maybe less, the roundness would give way to sharp definition and no one would dream of calling her a kid again. Pale freckles trickled down her face as though fine sand had spilled from the corners of her eyes.

She held her shoulders back against the pillow and brushed something off the lettering of her T-shirt with her left hand. In large letters, inside a burgundy oval, it read ROXY. My contemporary IQ was low and I didn’t know what ROXY referred to. I guessed rock ’n’ roll.

Merritt was wearing no makeup, and I was left to wonder whether that was typical for her.

I pulled a chair up and sat a few feet from the bed and waited for her to begin. Her expression was composed, even assured, although her eyes danced in a way that seemed bashful. For a long time, at least a minute, I felt she was arranging her thoughts, preparing how to deal with this stranger who was intruding on her most intimate and sanguine moments, and offering to help.

But she didn’t speak.

I wondered what her silence meant. Had the ventilator left her throat too raw? I prodded. “We’ve been really worried about you. I’m sure you know that.”

Her lips parted even farther and she licked the lower one and probed the wound in the corner of her mouth once more before squeezing her lips tight. I wondered momentarily if she was being gamey, but her eyes betrayed caution now, not defiance, and if I was reading the signals correctly, some shyness.

I waited two minutes or more for Merritt to find the trailhead that would allow her to begin with me. I listened to a long commercial break about antiperspirants, used cars, and a movie of the week.

Merritt didn’t speak. Her lips parted again, but she didn’t speak.

Gently, she scratched her face and ran her fingers through her long hair, leaving it carefully arranged over one clavicle. She picked again at that annoying something on the X of ROXY, and then she examined her fingernails.

I noticed that the red polish I had seen in the ICU had been removed and that the broken nail had been filed smooth.

Each time the story changed on the news she looked up briefly at the tube, then away. I wondered if she was waiting for some update about her sister or whether she was just using the program as a distraction so she didn’t have to deal with me. Perhaps both.

“You tried to kill yourself. And came incredibly close to completing the process.”

Maybe a deeper than usual exhale, not quite a sigh. When she inhaled deeply her breasts took on definition and her shoulder bones were pronounced and sharp.

No words.

“You almost died.”

She smoothed an eyebrow with her index finger and I heard Adrienne’s voice in my head saying, “I think she’s really pretty.” I reminded myself to keep in mind that for many young women beauty was burden as well as blessing, and I tried to stay focused.

But Adrienne was right. Merritt was lovely.

I didn’t know what to do next. I hadn’t been prepared for her silence. It made the determination of suicidal risk a little awkward.

A nurse, a different nurse, entered the room after a perfunctory knock. With much too bright a smile, she said, “I’m here to pull that IV, babe. Good news, you don’t need it anymore.”

Merritt looked at me, terrified, as the woman set her tray down on the bedside table and pulled on latex gloves. Merritt’s eyes screamed, “Do something.” I was sure she was about to break her silence in order to mount a protest or to scream, or something. But all she did was bite her bottom lip while the nurse began to peel away the tape that was covering the catheter in her wrist. When the tape was removed and the thin catheter that snaked into a vein on her arm was exposed, Merritt turned her eyes away, reached out with her free hand, and squeezed mine with poignant desperation.

The nurse said, “Here goes, babe, this won’t hurt a bit, promise.” She laughed as though she didn’t expect to be believed. Two seconds later she pressed a gauze dressing over the site and, in a smooth motion, slid the catheter free from Merritt’s arm. I was acutely aware of Merritt’s terror, could feel her tremors of fear. I was also touched by her desperate use of me for comfort.

The nurse eased a cotton ball and a Band-Aid over the IV site. Merritt watched. The nurse said, “All done, now that wasn’t so bad, was it?” Merritt stared at the bandage, then lifted that hand and spread her fingers in front of her open mouth. It didn’t seem to me that she was even aware that she was still holding my hand.

When, finally, she looked back down and saw our hands intertwined, she tensed, looked once at my face, and hesitated before removing her hand from mine. She pulled free with great deliberation, allowing her fingers to graze along the skin on the soft part of my palm.

I said, “I’m glad that’s over, Merritt. I bet you are, too. I get the feeling you’re not very fond of needles.”

She opened her eyes wide and nodded. I wanted to hear her cry or laugh or giggle as the tension melted away, but she didn’t.

So I waited, hoping the brief intimacy we’d shared would shake something loose between us. Something verbal. But Merritt composed herself quickly and returned her attention to the noon news.