Alice LaPlante - Turn of Mind

The younger woman is now trembling. It is her turn to get up, begin pacing the small room.

Continue telling me about the fingers, please. Please, Jennifer. Try to remember.

But you are quiet. You have said your piece, nothing remains. You are sitting in a strange room, with two strange women. Your feet hurt. Your stomach is empty. You want to go home.

It’s time, you say. My father, he gets so worried.

The young woman begins speaking again. I couldn’t pull the medal out of Amanda’s hand. She held it so tightly. Rigor mortis had set in. I panicked. I was certain someone was going to walk in. Then my mother just got to work.

Cutting off the fingers.

Yes.

She went back to the house, got her scalpel and blades. Washed her hands just as if she were performing a procedure in the OR. She found a plastic tablecloth and a pair of rubber gloves from the kitchen. The tablecloth she positioned under Amanda’s hand. Then she inserted the first blade in the scalpel and cut off the fingers, one at a time, changing the blade after each amputation was complete. She had to sever all four fingers before she was able to free the medal.

And then what did you do?

Took her home, washed her, put her to bed. Came back and cleaned up. It was easy—I just rolled up everything in the tablecloth and drove to the Kinzie Street Bridge. Then went home to Hyde Park and waited for the police to show up. I thought there was no way they couldn’t know.

The middle-aged woman doesn’t move for a moment.

Jennifer?

You wait for her to ask something else. But she seems to have run out of words.

Some things stick, you say.

Yes. Some things do. She looks miserable. Defeated.

For myself, I don’t care, you say. But Fiona.

The woman takes her hand away from you to watch Fiona, still pacing. Ten, twenty, then thirty seconds. A painful half minute. Then she makes her decision.

No. It’s not necessary to mention any of this. Not to anyone. The worst has happened. Nothing will make a difference for Amanda. Nothing will change what will happen to your mother.

Mom. The young woman is openly weeping. She comes over and kneels by your chair, puts her head in your lap.

Thank you, she says to the middle-aged woman.

It’s not for you. I have no loyalty to you.

No one is looking at anyone else. You reach out and touch the brightly colored head. You plunge your fingers into the hair. To your surprise, you feel something. Softness. Such silken luxury. You revel in it. To have regained your sense of touch. You stroke the head, feel its warmth. It is good. Sometimes the small things are enough.

FOUR

She is not hungry. So why do they keep placing food in front of her? Tough meat, applesauce. A cup of apple juice, as though she is a baby. She hates the sticky sweet smell, but she is thirsty, so she drinks. She wants to brush her teeth afterward, but they say, Not now, we’ll do that later. Then, much later, the sloppy hard scrubbing, the rasp of the bristles against her tongue, the cup of water brought to her lips and then taken away too soon. Rinse. Spit.

The bulky diaper, the shame. Take me to the bathroom.

No, I can’t, we don’t have the staff today, everyone’s on sixteen-hour shifts. Someone will change you later. Janice. I’ll send her in when she’s off break.

Jennifer, you are not eating. Jennifer, you must eat.

She shares her room with five other people. Four women and one man. The man sucks his toes like an infant. The nurses refer to them collectively as the Lady Killers.

There are no niceties. There are no soft edges. There is no salvation.

Once a day, they are let out of their room, allowed to walk around a cement courtyard. It is chilly, the season must be turning. Better than the suffocating heat. She takes care to stay away from the others, especially the contortionist, who is prone to bumping hard into people then daring them to complain.

She walks back and forth across the courtyard, head down, not seeing, not talking. It is safer that way. Sometimes her mother walks with her, sometimes Imogene, her best friend from first grade, chattering about monkey bars and ice cream. Mostly she walks it alone. She is having visions. Angels with flame-colored hair singing in that unending hymn of praise.

She’s doing it again. A voice nearby.

Stop it! Stop her! Another voice, a smoker’s voice accompanied by a cough.

The angels continue singing. Gloria in excelsis Deo. They are sending a savior. A very young man, but able. He will bring three gifts: The first gift she must not accept. The second gift she should give away to the first person who speaks to her kindly. The third gift is for her alone. This is the word of the Lord.

Her mother, her beauty known through five kingdoms, had three royal suitors. On Good Friday one brought her a rabbit, the symbol of fertility and renewal. Not to be outdone, on All Souls’ Eve the second suitor gave her a black cat, emblematic of the witches’ Sabbath. On the night before Christmas a donkey was found tied to a tree in the front yard. A donkey in Germantown! Let that be a lesson to you, her parents said. But she accepted none of these suitors because she was waiting. And then He came.

The laying of hands upon her, roughly. Now Jennifer, you have to stop that noise or we’ll have to put you in solitary again. Yes. What are you wailing about this time? Can you use your words? Not today, huh? Okay, then you can just stay quiet. That’s right. Shhh.

But when all is done, when the end is near, what is left? What is one left with? Physical sensation. The pleasure that comes from relieving one’s bowels under hygienic conditions. From laying one’s head on a soft pillow. The release of the straps after a long hard night of pulling and pushing. To awaken from nightmares and find that they were, comparatively, the sweetest of dreams. Now that it is over, now that it’s near the end, she can think. She can allow herself to drift to places that before she would not go.

It’s the visions that make the waiting possible. And what visions! In glorious color, all senses activated. Fields of blooming, perfumed flowers, gleaming sterile operating rooms ready for cutting, beloved faces that she can reach out and caress, and soft hands that caress back. Heavenly music.

Jennifer, your visitor is here. Time to get up. Let’s clean you up. You know the rules. Stay quiet, no yelling, keep your clothes on, do not grab or hit. That’s right. Here we are. Now I’ll just park you here. And look here is your visitor. You have an hour. I’ll be back.

She does not know this person. Is it male or female? She cannot tell anymore. Whoever it is, they are speaking.

Mom?

She doesn’t answer. She thinks something has happened, something important, but she can’t remember what.

Mom? Do you know who I am?

No, not really, she says. But your voice is comforting. I believe that you are dear to me in some way.

Thank you for that. The person takes her hand, tightly. It is reassuring. It is something tangible in a world of shadows.

She’s still not sure who this young person is, but she cannot stay here too long. There are a rabbit and a cat to feed and a donkey to ride.

How are things today? I’m sorry I’m late. Work’s been insane.

Yes, she knows how insane work can be. One patient after another, bones bursting out of skin, how fragile the human body is, how easily penetrated and broken, how difficult to put together again. But the work doesn’t need to be so sloppy. Who made this mess? She cannot believe it. She cannot believe her eyes. Who would do such a careless job.