Alice LaPlante - Turn of Mind

When the elevator comes, she shepherds you inside and punches the number 2. The doors are dented and pocked, and inside it smells of stale smoke. The whole compartment trembles and shakes before slowly beginning its ascent.

When it opens, you blink at the sudden bright light. You are in a long, cream-colored hallway humming with activity. Pipes run across the ceiling and down to the floor. Posters and flyers are tacked to the walls, ignored by the people streaming in both directions down the hall. The woman you’re with starts walking, jingling a ring of keys, and you go on for some time, getting jostled by men and women, some in uniform, some dressed as if for the office, many casually, even sloppily attired. You wonder what you look like in your white doctor’s coat, but no one gives you a glance. The woman finally stops at a door marked 218, inserts a key into the lock, opens the door, and gestures you inside.

Cool gray walls. No window. A gray steel desk, nothing on it except a cylinder holding a number of sharpened pencils and some photographs. The subjects range from faded black-and-white daguerreotypes of grim-looking men and women in clothes from a century ago to contemporary men and women, many of them holding children and many in uniform. No pictures of the woman herself, except one in the exact middle of the collection, of her and another woman, slim, with long ash-blond hair, standing next to each other, their shoulders slightly touching.

Sit down, the woman says. She pulls out a hard wooden chair. She then opens a corner cupboard, pulls out two bottles of water. She hands one to you. Here, drink this.

You gulp it down. You hadn’t realized how thirsty you were. The woman notices the bottle is now empty, takes it from your hand, and offers you the other one. You are grateful. Your legs and feet ache, so you slip off your shoes, wiggle your toes. A long day of surgery, of holding steady, of not allowing your attention to flag.

The woman settles herself on the opposite side of the desk. Do you remember anything at all of the last thirty-six hours?

I’ve been at work. First surgery, then on call. A busy week. I’ve been on my feet for fourteen hours a day.

You bend your knees and lift up your feet as though presenting evidence. She doesn’t look at them. She is intent on what she is saying.

I think you’ve been at the New Hope Clinic since this morning. But before that you were having quite an adventure.

You’re not making much sense, you say. But then you realize that nothing much does. Why are you sitting here with a stranger, wearing clothes not your own?

You look down at your feet and realize even the shoes are not yours: They are too wide and the wrong color: red. You never wore anything but sneakers and plain black pumps. Still, you slip them back on, struggle to stand up, fight the comfort of having firm wood support your thighs and buttocks.

It is time to go. Home again, home again, jiggity jig. You have a vision of a train speeding past a small plot of parched earth, of a clothesline strung between wooden poles from which hang a man’s trousers, a woman’s housedress, and some frilly dresses that belong to a young girl.

A tall dark man, a sweet melancholy face, kneeling by your side as you dig a hole in the dirt. He puts his hand in his pocket, brings out a fistful of coins, opens his hand, and lets them fall into the hole. Then he helps you push dirt over them, pat it down so there’s no trace.

Buried treasure! he says, and laugh lines appear around his eyes. But you know what you need? he asks. A map. To remind you, so you can retrieve the treasure when you need it. I won’t forget, you say, I never forget anything, and this time he laughs out loud. We’ll come back in a year and see if you can find it, he says. But you never did.

It’s time, you say, and begin to push yourself up.

The woman leans over, puts a hand on your arm, and gently but firmly pulls you back to a sitting position. You went away for a minute, she says.

I was remembering my father, you say.

Good memories?

Always.

That’s something to be grateful for. She sits for a moment, motionless, then shakes her head.

There was a disturbance at your old residence last night. A neighbor reported an attempted break-in. Was that you?

You lift up your hands, shrug.

If it was you, you weren’t alone; the neighbor saw two and perhaps other people at your former house. By the time we got a car there, everyone was gone.

There is a burst of music. A sort of cha-cha. The woman gets up and retrieves a small metal object from a table, holds it to her ear, listens, says some words. She looks at you, and says something else. Then puts down the device.

That was Fiona, she says. She’s on her way.

Who’s Fiona? you ask. The visions come and go. You would prefer them to come and stay, to linger. You enjoy these visitations. The world would be a barren place indeed without them. But the woman isn’t listening. Suddenly she leans forward. She is focusing everything on you. She vanquishes the last remnants of your vision with her gaze.

It’s time for the truth, she said. W hy did you do it?

Why did I do what? you ask.

Cut off her fingers. If I understand that, I can put the rest together. If you killed Amanda, I believe it was for a reason. But I don’t believe you would kill and then maim gratuitously.

Maim. An ugly word, you say.

An ugly business all around.

Some things are necessary.

Tell me why. Why was it necessary? Tell me. This is for me. Once I take you in, once you are committed to the state facility, that’s the end of it. Case closed. But not really. It will never be, in my mind, unless I know .

She didn’t mean for it to go that far.

What? What didn’t she mean?

It was coming a long time.

Sometimes things build up. I understand. I do.

There’s a knock on the door. The woman gets up, lets in a young woman with short hair.

Mom! She rushes over and hugs you, won’t let go. Thank God you’re all right. You had us all so worried. Detective Luton has been a godsend.

We’ve been going over things, says the older woman.

The young woman’s face tightens. Yes? Does she remember? What has she told you?

Nothing yet. But I feel we’re close. Very close.

That’s great, the young woman says mournfully. She has not let go of your hand. If anything, she is clasping it even tighter. Mom, shhh. You don’t have to say anything. It doesn’t matter anymore. There’s nothing worse they can do to you. You will not be judged fit to stand trial. Do you understand me?

A messy job.

The older woman speaks up. Yes, it was a messy job. How did you get rid of the bloody clothes?

Mom, you don’t have to say anything.

They were taken away.

Who took them away?

You shrug. You point.

Mom . . . The young woman puts her hands to her face, sits down heavily in a chair.

Jennifer, what are you saying?

Her. There. She took the bloody cloth, the gloves. Cleaned everything up.

Detective Luton—Megan—I don’t know why she’s saying this.

But it’s too late. The middle-aged woman has raised her head, the intelligence in her face aroused.

Three women in a room. One, the young one, deeply distressed. She has taken her hands away from her face and is clasping them tightly in her lap. Wringing them. Wringing her hands. A rough motion, this grasping and twisting of the metacarpal phalangeal joints, as if trying to extract the ligaments and tendons from under the skin.