Patricia McCormick: Cut

“I don’t think I have anything to talk about today,” I say to you.

You nod.

“I mean, things are going really well,” I say.

You smile.

“I talk in Group, at dinner, I’m getting along with the other girls.”

“Good,”you say.

“We all watched TV together last night.”

You seem to be waiting for more.

“Oh,” I say. “We watched that show I told you about. Rescue 911.”

Your expression doesn’t change. I wonder if you’ve ever watched Rescue 911, I wonder, again, what your life is like outside Sick Minds, if you watch TV like other people.

“Everyone loves that show,” I tell you.

You don’t agree or disagree. I wonder if you think it’s stupid to talk about a TV show in therapy.

“It’s really good. But it’s also like a home video. You know, the camera is shaky sometimes, like when they show the paramedics carrying the person to the ambulance.”

You don’t seem especially interested; I want you to understand about this show.

“They make the ambulance sound really loud on the show. Sam says you can’t hear the siren in real life.”

“Sam rode in an ambulance?”

“Yeah.” Now you seem to be paying attention; I decide to tell you more. “Actually I gave him CPR before they got there.”

“Before the paramedics got there?”

“Before my parents got there.” I stop a second, confused. We’ve entered new territory here, talking about Sam and the ambulance and the paramedics and my parents; I can’t quite remember what I’ve told you before. I need to change the subject, quickly.

“You may have saved his life,”you say plainly.

“Huh?” The idea crosses my mind idly that saying Huh is bad manners; I should have said Pardon me.

“You may have saved Sam’s life.” You say this so simply, it almost seems sensible.

“No, I didn’t.”

You lean forward. “Why do you say that?”

“I don’t know. That only happens to kids on TV.”

“Like the kids on Rescue 911?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“You gave your little brother CPR. You got help. Why isn’t that like the kids on Rescue 911?”

“I don’t know. It just isn’t.”

“Well,” you say. I see a distinct glimmer of impatience in your eyes. “I disagree.”

I’m having trouble taking all this in: this new, sort of annoyed look in your eyes and this odd new idea.

It makes sense, then it doesn’t. It seems right—here in a shrink’s office in a loony bin called Sea Pines where there’s no sea and no pines—but it can’t be right in the real world.

“Callie?”

I try to focus on you. You seem very far away.

“What are you thinking about right now? Will you tell me?”

I’m thinking about the other day when you told me how people get asthma, how you said they can get it from having an infection.

“Sam had an infection,” I hear myself say.

You wait.

“He wasn’t feeling good that day. The day he got so sick.” I can picture him, wiping his nose and rubbing his eyes. “A cold or something. When my mom called about it, the doctor said to keep an eye on him.”

“The day Sam had his first asthma attack, he was already sick?”

I nod.

“And the doctor said to keep an eye on him?”

I wonder why you care about this so much. I nod once, slowly this time.

“But your parents went out.”

“My mom had to go see Gram at the nursing home.”

“And your father?”

I shrug.

“He was out?”

“Yes,” then quickly, “No. Well, I guess. He had to. It’s OK.”

“Where did he go?”

I bite my lip. “Out.”

“Callie, we’re out of time for today, but I want you to think about something.”

I glance at you, then away.

“Please,” you say. “Please try to see that day from a slightly different perspective. Try to imagine it as if you were on the outside looking in. Try to think of yourself in that situation as someone else, just a girl, a thirteen-yearold girl on her own, alone, with a sick little boy.”

I don’t see what good this will do, and I don’t plan to do it, I plan to forget about everything and go watch TV with the other girls, but I agree.

“Good,”you say. “Good work, Callie. Excellent.”

No one’s in the dayroom; the TV’s broken. I wander around and end up in Study Hall. No one’s in there either, except Cynthia, the attendant with the large multiplechoice workbook. She smiles, goes back to her work.

I take my old seat by the window and watch the dog behind the maintenance shed. He barks, trots to the end of his chain, barks, trots back down the dirt path to his doghouse. I wonder if he’s the dog I always hear barking during Group.

It’s cold in here studying. I wrap my arms around myself and wish Debbie were here with her sweater. I wish Debbie were here, and Sydney and Tara, even Amanda I pull my shirt close to me and think about going back to my room for a sweatshirt. I can do that now that I’m a Level Two; I could just get up and leave. I think about it, think about walking past the chair where Debbie draws her ball gowns, past the chair where Tara was sleeping when I slipped her the note from Sydney, past Amanda’s chair. Amanda’s chair: the one with the staple underneath.

I breathe out with a little shuddery sound. Cynthia looks up.

“You cold?”

I nod.

“Look at you, you’re shivering,” she says. “Why don’t you go get yourself a sweater.”

I don’t move.

“You’re a Two now, right? It’s OK for you to be on your own.”

I rise to my feet, but I don’t go anywhere. I’m thinking about you, about what you said about me being a girl on my own, alone, with a sick boy.

“Go on,” she says.

I wonder suddenly if you’ll tell my mom what I said about my dad being out when Sam was sick. My mom’ll get upset, then Sam’ll get upset, they’ll get sick. Sam could even die. He could be having an attack right now and I’m not there. What if Sam is having an attack right now and I’m not there?

“Go on,” Cynthia says again, insistent. “You’re always in here. It’ll do you good to get out of this place.”

I know what to do then. I know exactly what to do.

I get up and go down the hall. Past the attendants’ desk, past Rochelle on her orange plastic chair. She puts her finger on the page of her magazine to mark the spot, looks up, goes back to her reading. I pass the dayroom, which is still empty, and our Group room, which is also empty. I go by Amanda’s room, the phone booth, my room. Down the stairs to the laundry room, past the fire exit with the YOU ARE HERE sign. I stand in front of a door marked EXIT.

I push the handle and wait for it to hold fast. To refuse to budge. But it opens. Easily and noiselessly. There’s a tiny metallic clink as the latch gives way, then a clank as the door falls shut behind me. Then silence. The only sound after that is the soft crunching of grass as my feet travel across the lawn.

I start running. The motion of running—the cycle of one foot appearing as the other disappears, the forward swing of one arm, then the other—comes back to me effortlessly. I feel good. I put more distance between me and the YOU ARE HERE door. Then I feel a hundred eyes on my back, so I stop and turn around. The large picture window in the Group room is dark. Next to it, there’s a narrow box of cold purple light—the bathroom window, where the light is always on. After the bathroom comes a row of black squares, dorm windows where no one’s home, then a square of yellow light, which I think is my room, where Sydney has probably just come back from Art Therapy and is sprawled out on her bed, listening to her headphones, before the chimes sound for dinner.