Mindy Mejia - Leave No Trace

He wasn’t touching me at all anymore. He spoke to my back, which began to tremble. ‘I don’t want you to make the same mistakes, Maya. He’s a mental patient. He’s violent and he’s—’

It was all I could bear to hear. Grabbing the leash, I nodded and left. I turned my phone off as Jasper and I disappeared into the cold streets, working our way from bad to worse neighborhoods. Street kid territory. It took almost a mile for Dad’s words to recede far enough to notice something was different. The drunks seemed drunker, the dealers bolder. ‘What are you supposed to be, honey?’ one of them asked, and I let Jasper have a little more leash, flash some canines. It wasn’t until I passed two women wearing blood-soaked scrubs with black eye sockets and cracked faces that I realized it was Halloween.

South of the railroad tracks I passed a group that stopped me in the middle of the street. A man and woman, both dressed in heavy coats and carrying steaming thermoses, followed a pack of kids bubbling over with excitement. Some had plastic pumpkins rattling with candy, others clutched half-full pillowcases. They circled the end of a residential neighborhood, ready to plunder another street with bouncing flashlights, red, dripping noses, and nonstop chatter. The adults were quieter, but enjoying themselves, too. They told the kids to steer clear of Jasper, sipped their drinks, and smiled at me as they passed.

I watched them go with an ache I could barely contain, gut-punched by the careless laughter of those kids. They had no idea what walked behind them, anchoring them, because they had never been unmoored. And they shouldn’t have to know.

THE NEXT DAY at work, while I led a new group session with four nonverbal women, Lucas tried to escape again.

We were doing deep-breathing exercises and humming out our breath, or at least I was and maybe one patient. The other three sat in their wheelchairs staring at the walls. Hard to blame them. Staring vacantly at the walls was pretty much what I’d done all night after getting home to a dark house and Dad’s closed bedroom door. He’d already left by the time I got up this morning, but there was a note on the counter next to a paper bag. The note said, ‘Going out for one last run at the Bannockburn . Maybe we’ll get lucky this time.’ I opened the bag and found copper-plated drawer handles, polished on the edges and shimmering with deep mahogany and streaks of gold. She would love them, if she ever came back.

I stopped humming and looked around at the group.

‘It doesn’t get better, does it?’ I glanced from face to wrinkled face, searching for any hint of reaction. Their expressions sagged, unresponsive. Only one woman, the one who had been breathing with me, met my eyes. Tears leaked out of hers, but she didn’t look away. She kept breathing, the exaggerated deep inhale that lifted her shoulders, and then hummed the air out in a noise that turned to a lament, her tiny, soprano ode to sorrow. I crouched in front of her wheelchair and held her hands.

‘Maybe coming here was your only way out.’

The tears fell silently off her chin. Her fingers rustled underneath mine like little birds in a cage.

‘Let’s just breathe.’

And that’s how the attending day nurse found me, kneeling in front of a crying woman as we whistled our breath in and out together.

‘Maya! Your boyfriend’s trying to escape again.’

‘Jesus Christ.’

I shot up and out of the ward, shouting at the nurse to help the women back to their rooms. I ran down a flight of stairs and sprinted through a vacant corridor of offices. As I neared ward two a thought almost sent me stumbling.

Whose side was I on?

The badge slapping against my thigh was a Congdon badge. I was a Congdon employee, here to rehabilitate and protect patients, especially from themselves.

But everything in me wanted to find Lucas and keep running.

Just as the realization hit, two orderlies rushed out of another stairwell and the three of us barreled through the door into the high security men’s ward. A crowd of people had gathered at the far end of the ward near an emergency exit, crushing any impulse I had to do something crazy. As I slowed to a walk, I noticed nurses kneeling in the center of the huddle and a surge of fear shot through my chest.

‘What happened?’ I elbowed my way to the front. ‘Who’s hurt?’

‘I believe that would be me.’ Blood covered the side of Dr Mehta’s head, dripping from a place in her hair where one of the nurses applied a compress.

I scanned the bodies, searching for any sign of Lucas.

‘Get out of here, Maya.’

‘But…’ My attention snapped back to Dr Mehta.

‘You don’t have clearance for this ward. Go.’

The rest of them shifted uncomfortably, glancing at me then away. The two orderlies who’d arrived with me worked their way through the crowd to the emergency exit. Had Lucas gotten that far? Was he gone? I took a step toward the exit, but Dr Mehta’s look stopped me. Even with blood streaks smeared over her face, sprawled in the middle of the linoleum floor, she still managed to impart that shrinking, piercing stare. Like she knew exactly what I’d been thinking.

I swallowed and nodded, withdrawing from the group, and walked slowly back down the hall.

After my shift ended, I pretended my sprained ankle was hurting again and went to the medical ward where the gossipy nurses reigned. One of them set me up on a bed and examined the bone while the others filled us in, peppering the story with knowing glances in my direction. By now, everyone had heard about the incident on the boat and my demotion.

‘According to Stan, all he would say during his session was, I have to go find my father. ’

‘Nothing else?’

‘Nope. Totally silent after that, wouldn’t answer any questions about where his father is so other people could, like, actually go look for him. Only glared at Dr Mehta and stared out the window. He won’t even talk to Carol when she brings him meals now, and you know he used to ask her about… other people… a lot.’

Nurse Valerie, the information queen, pointedly ignored me as she parted with this tidbit. I kept my expression neutral, focusing on the narrow bone boxed in one of the other nurse’s hands.

‘So when Dr Mehta tries to give him a book, the kid bashes Stan over the head with it and takes Dr Mehta hostage.’

The other nurse wasn’t even pretending to examine me anymore. She gasped, putting a hand over her mouth.

‘He got a lot farther without this little firecracker’ – Nurse Valerie nodded toward me – ‘around to stop him. He handcuffed Stan to a table, took his badge, and forced Dr Mehta through the ward to that emergency exit that leads out to the parking lot, but the nurse’s station saw him right away and the guards met him at the door. He threw – literally threw – Dr Mehta at them and took off. Fell down a flight of stairs and kept going, until three of them tackled him at the main door.’

I closed my eyes. The guilt doubled and redoubled as I sat on the hospital bed, oblivious to the continued chatter of the nurses around me.

‘Where is he now?’ I asked, opening my eyes to look around. ‘Doesn’t he need medical treatment?’

‘Dr Mehta wouldn’t let him be treated here.’ The nurse who was wrapping my perfectly healthy ankle replied, glancing up with a smug look, like she thought it was obvious I’d come to the ward to see him.

Nurse Valerie piped back up. ‘I’ve been given clearance to visit him three times a day in his isolation room – where he is in full restraints, mind you – to administer pain medication and check for infection and swelling. That is, until I leave for my Cancun trip.’