Joanna Rakoff - A Fortunate Age

With her face in repose, Emily was alarmed to see that Lil looked old. Her bright beauty—black hair, fair skin, large eyes, like an Italian film star—appeared to be hardening into a caricature of beauty: containing all the proper elements, but lacking the harmony to fuse them into a lovely whole. For years now, ever since college or marrying Tuck or leaving Columbia or something , she’d been in a state of constant movement, running glibly in conversation from one thing to another, eternally thrusting the focus of her attention on some minute detail of another person. She was a perfect, devoted, obsessively attentive friend, who could spend hours dissecting Emily’s or Sadie’s or Dave’s problems; who always remembered birthdays and bought too many perfectly chosen gifts; who would meet for coffee at the drop of a hat—and yet over the years somehow those virtues had hardened into something akin to flaws. The light of her affection shined too brightly for any one friend to bear, and she demanded too much in return, more than anyone could give. It was not that she wanted the same—the birthday surprises, the days of rapid-fire conversation—all of that would have been bearable and easily, if not agreeably, accomplished. No, Emily thought sickly, what she wanted was complicity. She wanted her friends to swallow her own willful misconceptions about her life: that Tuck was a genius and she his happy muse. Or, in a different mood, that Tuck was a monster and she his unwilling victim.

“What happened with the psychiatrist?” Emily asked.

“Oh.” Lil waved her hand dismissively. “He was really nice, actually. Indian. Skinny. Kind of good-looking.”

“Dr. Mukherjee,” Emily said.

“Yes! You know him!”

Emily nodded. “Just a little. Josh used to supervise him.”

“He was great. He just sat and talked with me for a while. And then he said it seemed like I’d been through a lot and asked if I would want to have a rest for a day or two. And I said that sounded okay to me. I figured they’d move me to the OB-GYN floor. I thought I could just sleep a lot—I’m so tired—and maybe Dr. Mukherjee would come by and talk to me. I’ve just had so much going on.” Lil sighed gravely. “Well, he said he’d make some arrangements and I should try to sleep. I thought I wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep, but I did. And when I woke up I actually felt much better. Tuck finally came in and sat with me for a while and I told him I thought I was okay to go home. But then when I sat up, I had those spasms again. I stupidly told Tuck and he said, ‘Well, then don’t sit up.’ And I just burst into tears, because why did he have to say that? I mean he could have thought it, but he didn’t have to say it.”

“Of course!” assented Emily, who thought he didn’t necessarily have to think it either.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with him,” said Lil quietly, and Emily braced herself for more tears.

Just then, an awful shriek came from somewhere in the corridor, followed by a metallic crash. “Nooooooo, nooooo,” sounded the voice. The girls looked at each other, eyes wide. Rubber soles squeaked quickly by, followed by an electronic bleep and buzz. “Yikes,” said Lil, with an ironic smile, but Emily could tell she was scared. “It’s probably just an anorexic. They cause most of the scenes. They’ll, you know, pretend to eat for a while, then just sort of lose it.” Lil nodded warily. “It’s kind of interesting, actually, they’re—the anorexics—well, they actually have borderline personality disorder, like Clara. It’s a personality disorder—not a mood disorder, like depression—which is why it’s so hard to cure.” Lil, she saw, had begun to shiver. She stared out the window, an odd, unreadable expression on her pale face. “Are you cold?” asked Emily, snapping herself back to attention. Lil nodded, her eyes still wide with fear, her mouth a grim, rigid line. True, honest fear, Emily thought, with a sudden clarity, was not something with which she and her friends had ever had to cope. They lived in such comfort, such luxury. In college, they’d been aware of their position of relative privilege. But now, well, now they got annoyed when their cappuccinos arrived without the requisite amount of foam. Oh, shut up , she told herself. That’s not true.

“Take my sweater,” she instructed Lil, taking off her lab coat and unbuttoning her cardigan. She had forgotten the extra sweater she kept in her desk. “Tuck is coming this afternoon with some clothes for you. They told you, right, that the patients in the clinic wear their own clothes. They—you—have to get dressed every day.” Lil nodded again and slipped the black sweater over her hospital gown. “Lil, there’s really nothing to be afraid of,” Emily started. “This isn’t like The Bell Jar or Girl, Interrupted or whatever.” She smiled a little and, before she could correct her expression, was pleased to see Lil smile back at her.

“Or The Snake Pit ?” offered Lil, with a weak smile.

“Definitely not The Snake Pit . It’s really small and private and everyone is here voluntarily. And short-term. The longest stay is maybe six months. Most people are here for a few weeks or a month or two. And it’s totally normal people. A lot of depression. A lot of bipolar disorder. A lot of anorexics.” There were also, she knew, a number of schizophrenics, but she thought it better to leave them out for the time being.

“But I’m not depressed. I don’t want to take Prozac or Zoloft or whatever—”

“You won’t have to—”

“They gave me some pills when I got in this morning. I don’t know what they were.”

“They were probably just sleeping pills or—”

“I didn’t need them. There’s nothing wrong with me.” Lil’s voice had started to rise in volume. “Tuck just put me in here so he’d have something to hold over me for the rest of our lives. So we wouldn’t have to have a baby. He doesn’t wa—” Here she began to cry. “—want one. He doesn’t. He always says that I’m crazy. Whenever we get into a fight about something, he says I’m crazy, that I need help . But I’m not crazy . I just get upset , because he doesn’t listen to me. It’s like, he can’t have anyone be upset . We all just have to be happy all the time and accept whatever he says, even when he’s wrong .”

“I know, I know,” said Emily, taking Lil’s cold hand.

“He wanted to get rid of me. He doesn’t care about me. What kind of person would do this to his wife? I should be at home and he should be taking care of me.”

“Maybe he thought that they’d take better care of you here,” said Emily, when her friend had lapsed into small, calm sobs. “Maybe he was really worried about you.” She ran her hand over Lil’s thin back, the knobs of her spine protruding from Emily’s sweater. “Lil,” she said tentatively, unsure if the information she had to impart would make Lil feel better or worse. You know, this is—” She paused. “This is a voluntary facility. Tuck didn’t put you here. He couldn’t make you stay here without your consent.”

She had thought that, hearing this statement, Lil would utter a sigh of relief and brighten a bit. Instead, her face turned wooden. “Voluntary,” she said dully.

“Yes. You don’t remember signing any forms?”

“No.”

“Well, it was late and you were tired and scared and in pain.”

“Yes,” Lil said, but now she was looking at Emily as if she was the enemy. Oh, God , Emily thought, I’m an idiot. Why didn’t I see it? She want s to blame Tuck. She wants this to be his fault.