Mindy Mejia - Leave No Trace

I poked my head into every room along the corridor, trying to locate the one person in this building who’d actually asked for my help, and who had suddenly – if characteristically – vanished. Finally, I found him at the far end of the dining room and what he was doing stopped me in my tracks.

He ran full speed at the wall and then, without slowing down, ran up the side of it, turned sideways and landed lightly back on his feet, jogging to where he began. The sling he still wore on one arm didn’t slow him down at all, or maybe it did. Maybe if he hadn’t been wearing it he could’ve scaled further, gone higher. I had a vision of the fence outside, of Lucas clearing the entire thing in one giant leap. I might have been George’s bird, but Lucas was the one who was trying to fly.

I watched him repeat the trick two more times with my mouth hanging open before realizing I wasn’t his only audience. The Grinch sat at a nearby table, puffing on an e-cig with a slight head twitch as Lucas went almost horizontal against the cement blocks.

‘I think I’m having an episode.’ He puffed, eyes straight ahead and unblinking.

‘Me too.’

He grunted in acknowledgment. The Grinch was another lifer, but for far different reasons than Big George. His schizophrenia was well managed with medication and he’d conquered most of his paranoia, even completing some vocational training he would never have the opportunity to use. He’d been found not guilty by reason of insanity for hacking up the young couple and their two-year-old twins who lived next door to him, but guilt didn’t matter with some crimes. There would never be any protesters at the gates for the Grinch, demanding his release. People might understand, rationally, that his illness had caused the crime, but they would keep the man locked up long after the illness had been treated. After a decade of perfect behavior, the only concession the system had granted him was a transfer from the state security hospital, where most of Minnesota’s criminally insane residents lived, to the relatively progressive environment of Congdon. He would die in the high security ward here, a Scrabble champion who would never feel the breeze of an oe on his upturned face.

My story was the exception, and I always assumed the basis of Dr Mehta’s affection for me. Most of her beds were taken by forensic patients and the longer ones like Big George and the Grinch stayed, the fewer voluntary patients she could accommodate. Rather than treat patients when they actually sought help, she had to wait until their mental illness caused them to commit a crime and then hope the courts would send them to Congdon instead of prison. I was lucky – I’d been in and out in under six months, barely a blink of Big George’s eye – and now I had to help Lucas get even luckier.

Finishing his show and not even out of breath, Lucas walked over to the tables. He leaned down to murmur something in the Grinch’s ear, then clapped him on the shoulder and walked past me without a word or glance. I was still so stunned that it wasn’t until he left the dining room I realized he was blowing me off.

Pivoting out into the hallway, I raised my voice.

‘We have a session, Mr Blackthorn.’

He turned around at the other end of the corridor. ‘You told me to back off.’

‘That was then. This is now. Keep up with the schedule, will you?’

‘So you’re done being tackled by huge men?’ Even across this distance, his irritation was palpable. I tried not to laugh.

‘In the grand scheme of things, let’s hope not. But today…’ I shrugged and went back to the dining room, pulling out papers from the surprise bag and laying them in rough geographic order on the nearest table. The Grinch paced the wall where Lucas had been running, muttering to himself in a monotone and taking drags of his e-cigarette. I kept working even after I sensed Lucas standing behind me.

Once everything was arranged I started marking places with a pen, narrating in a voice that could have easily been just to keep myself company.

‘Here’s where you were found.’ I pointed to the blue X and talked through the paths that grew like tree branches through the paddle and portage routes beginning in Ely, stopping when I hit the fifteen-mile range and the jagged edge of the international border. I lingered on the line, drawn like a stuttering heart monitor, and finally turned my head to acknowledge Lucas’s presence.

‘I need to know where you left him, everything you can remember, if we’re going to be able to locate him in time.’

Lucas took a step forward, swallowing as his eyes filled with tightly-banked emotion. ‘You’re going to help me?’

Swiveling back to the table, I shifted one of the copies a millimeter to the right. ‘Nothing gets by you, huh?’

When I started to tape the fragments of the maps together, he moved up beside me and held the edges together with his one good arm, helping me create a patchwork whole.

‘Thank you.’

‘Don’t thank me until you’ve heard the plan.’ I lifted my face to his and smiled. ‘Let’s get to work.’

Thirty minutes later, after discussing, debating, and flat-out arguing in whispers too low for anyone else to overhear, I gathered up all the papers and stuffed them away. Lucas wanted to leave for the Boundary Waters yesterday and refused to even try to understand how the system worked. He thought my way was irritating and pointless, which made me think it was the most adult plan I’d ever had.

I slung the surprise bag over my shoulder, ready to beat hell across the building for my next session, an OCD patient who would take it badly if I wasn’t punctual.

Lucas stood up with me. ‘Can I ask you another question?’

I glanced at the clock again. I had three minutes. ‘Only if it can be answered in five words or less.’

His mouth quirked up, the first sign of humor I’d seen from him all day. ‘That’s up to you.’

He walked me to the cafeteria door and pushed it open with his good arm, easily keeping up with my determined pace.

‘What did you mean earlier? By the grand scheme of things?’

It took me a second to remember what he was talking about and then it flashed back – the quip about being tackled by large men. I felt my cheeks getting warm as we headed toward the rear exit of the ward.

‘Hmmm. Sometimes…’ I paused before counting the words on my fingers. ‘Tackling can be fun.’

We reached the end of the hall and I reached for my ID.

‘You’re talking about sex?’

Badge in hand, I ran out of reasons to avoid his gaze. We stared at each other for a second. Then I smiled and activated the door.

‘That’s two questions.’

MY MOTHER GAVE me a necklace once. She called me into her room one day and held it up to the sunlight filtering through the bedroom window. A simple string with a slice of Superior agate for a pendant, the striations of white and burnt orange looked like a depth map, sharp at the edges and polished in the middle. The light caught its brilliance and made it flash into the corners of the room – lake and lighthouse together.

I asked her where she’d gotten it, but she didn’t seem to hear the question. She traced the layers with a finger, describing the billion-year-old volcanic eruptions that had tried to tear North America apart.

‘But they didn’t. The eruptions ended and tiny bubbles in the lava filled with mineral sediments. The white is quartz and the red, oxidized iron, which is the same thing as rust. Have you ever imagined rust looking like this, Maya?’

I shook my head. At ten years old, I hadn’t given rust much thought.

‘This is what the Earth makes,’ she said, laying the necklace carefully back in her jewelry box, ‘out of violence and decay. Do you see?’