Anna Quinn - The Night Child

“I can handle it,” she says softly, as if she doesn’t want to scare the words away. “I’m ready to go home, to start again.”

David sighs. “I understand, but I can’t sign you out today.” He pauses and looks out the window, his breath making a foggy patch. “I won’t. I’m sorry, but this is too rushed.” He turns to look at her. “You have to be sure, Nora. You are strong. But you have to be sure.”

“You think I’ll run out into the street again,” her voice narrow and watery. “Throw myself through a window.”

“I just suggest you have at least one visit with Paul, Fiona, and James like you planned,” he says. “Then see. If all goes well, we can talk about you going home, create an outpatient schedule—”

“I don’t need you to sign me out,” she whispers. “I’m a voluntary patient, and I can leave whenever the hell I want.”

“Nora,” he says in a weary voice. “Voluntary or not, there’s a process that must be followed. You cannot simply sign yourself out. If Dr. Brinkley and I feel you might be a danger to yourself or others, as much as we’d hate to do it, we’d get a court order. He pauses, inhales, exhales slowly. “Being committed is, well, once you’re committed, it’s much more difficult to get out.” His large fingers shove hard through his white hair. “That’s the reality.”

Silence except for metal carts clanking down the hall. Silence except for the whine of country music floating slow in the background and an occasional muffled cry or scream. She feels like a child. Elation drained out of her. She leans back, exhausted, fights anger, says slowly, “How sure do I have to be, do you have to be, for me to get the hell out of here? How complete does the healing have to be?”

“Nora, we’ve talked about this. There’s no such thing as complete healing.” His ears, neck reddening. He walks to the nightstand, grabs a water glass, and heads for the bathroom. She hears him fill the glass. Guzzle the water. Now he stands in the doorway, says, “This is—”

“What? This is what?”

“It’s lifelong work, Nora. Lifelong. Look, when your feelings stabilize—”

“I’d like to call John,” she says abruptly, a sudden panic rushing through her. A need for an outside ally, another solution. “I want to ask him to visit tomorrow.” She’s a bit breathless now and pauses to calm down, doesn’t want to lose her new voice. “Will you at least sign off for that? Make sure he’s on the okayed-visitors list?”

“John?” he says. “The principal of your school?”

“Yes.”

He arches his brows again, rubs his forehead, but before he can say anything else, she says, “And I want to see him alone . Without you or a nurse or Dr. Brinkley. Seeing him will …” but she doesn’t finish the sentence because she doesn’t know what seeing him will mean. She just has the need to see him and prove she can handle things. She wants to test herself. “The nurses will be in the hall anyway, right?”

When he frowns, she says, “Look, if something goes wrong I’ll stay another few weeks, okay? I promise.”

She sits by the window. Below her, a line of people board a city bus one by one. Their faces, out of focus, make her heart fold inward, and she quickly looks past them between the buildings to the Puget Sound. A subdued blue sky darkened by clouds.

“Nora?” And now, John.

He holds a bouquet of yellow roses in one hand and a small book with a red ribbon around it in the other. His face ramshackle and open like an old house. For a moment, she feels like they’re on the set of a play and she’s become flustered and forgotten her lines, but then she remembers.

“Hi,” she says and stands and walks toward him. She is wearing her red socks because they seem festive, and she doesn’t want to be reminded that her running shoes don’t have laces.

“Hello,” he says, a bit formally, and she thinks the nurses have told him that whatever he does, he shouldn’t mention what day it is.

So she says it. This is, after all, a test. “Happy Valentine’s Day.” She waits to see if something bad will happen, if Margaret will come out, but she only feels herself standing there, and the lightness of her singular weight both startles and thrills her. Maybe Margaret will keep her promise. Maybe she’s exhausted her purpose.

“It’s good to see you,” he says, presenting her with the roses.

She arranges the flowers in a plastic glass on her nightstand. “Beautiful,” she says, heart pulsing nervously.

He hands her the book he brought. The Book of Light by Lucille Clifton.

“Thank you. She’s one of my favorite poets—but I don’t have this collection.”

He hugs her then. It surprises her that she puts her cheek on his coat. After a few moments, she steps back, blushing, and it’s hard to know what to say.

“Shall we sit?” he says, motioning to the chairs. He walks over to the same chair David usually sits in—the one by the window. She settles into the one opposite him, the book on her lap. She stares at it momentarily as if she might untie the ribbon, but she is really just trying to find words.

“This is weird, isn’t it?”

He unbuttons his raincoat, leans over, and takes her hands in his. “People go through shit. You’re just taking care of things, trying to make things better. That’s all that matters, right? That we try to make things better?” He is wearing a green flannel shirt, a shirt you might wear on an easy Sunday while you read the Times and listen to Etta James. The image relaxes her. His words relax her. Things will be better from now on. She knows it. She will leave this place, move into an apartment with Fiona, and get back to teaching. Get back to her life.

For an hour, they talk. He tells her funny stories about the kids at school, and she nods and laughs. He tells her how much her students miss her, and she asks questions about the ones she knows he keeps his eye on. They talk about Elizabeth. She sets the book on the windowsill then, and begins to cry. He pulls her to her feet and holds her and walks her to the bed and they sit on the edge of it, arms wrapped around each other, her head on the rise and fall of his chest, and they say nothing at all.

When it’s time to go, he asks if she needs anything, asks if she’ll call him tomorrow. She says no, she doesn’t need anything, and yes, she’ll call. He kisses her on the cheek, and she actually wants more and tilts her mouth up. But then she is on a stage again, and Billie Holiday is singing “All of Me,” and the whole thing feels so corny she bursts out laughing. And suddenly, Carol is there asking, “Are you alright? Are you okay?”

“Fine,” John says, laughing too, and because he says that—“ Fine ” — even though he doesn’t know why she is laughing, it is like being transported into normal.

“Bye,” he says to her with a boyish wave when it’s time to go. “I look forward to talking tomorrow.”

“Me too.”

Once he’s gone, she picks up The Book of Light and unties the red ribbon. Lets it float to the bed. She sits in the chair by the window. Stares at the cover of the book. There’s a woman, not old, not young, with green hair, head bowed, eyes closed. Near the woman’s head, a blue-green light in dark space. A revelation? A hole in the sky? Nora opens the book to the first page. An inscription: You are not alone. With you always. John. Her finger traces his words. She smiles, turns the page. Synonyms for light, stream-sparkle-flicker-spark-fire-blaze, radiate off the page and saturate her skin. She reads the words over and over and over again. She’s made it through Valentine’s Day.