I walk back to my room, head down as I pass Old Doctor’s morning Group session. It’s nearly ten-fifty and I only have ten minutes to get everything ready before my final session with him.
As I approach my room, I feel my lungs seize up. My breath rushes out. It feels like all my blood has dropped to my toes and suddenly I’m a little dizzy, enough so that I put my hand on the wall for a second. If I hyperventilate, and it wouldn’t be the first time, they will never let me get on that airplane. Steady, Jane.
I look back over to Group, which is breaking up, and watch Old Doctor, who is giving his full attention to a private discussion he’s having with BS. I close my eyes and concentrate on taking one very deep breath. Then another: in through the nose, out through the mouth. And I feel my body settle down and the dizziness dissipate.
I pull my hand from the wall and slip into my room and stuff my travel bag with the essentials. Obviously I have no need for a travel bag, but I don’t want to be found out by a nosy nurse: “If she’s going home for a week, why’d she leave all her stuff here? Doesn’t she need a bag? Red alert, put out an APB!” They are trained to spot that kind of shit, but I’ve trained myself not to give them anything to spin their wheels about. In five hours and seven minutes, I’ll have won that battle.
I look around my room and nausea swirls in my stomach. The pink comforter my mother gave me for the winters lies wrinkled and wasted on my bed, full of old sweat and sad energy. Why does every depressive bed always look the same?
I feel a bead of sweat trickle down my back. Nerves, I tell myself. Buck up and buckle down, Jane.
I look at my window, where I have spent endless hours in manic thoughts about the time I was wasting here at Life House. I walk over to the night table and pull open the drawer and take out a photo of me and my father at Christmastime.
Nobody knows I have this photo. I took it from one of my mother’s photo albums. She has millions of photos all over the house, and mostly I hate them all. I’ve told her this, and during check-in at the hospital I made a point to tell Old Doctor this in front of her. It made her sniffle, which made me feel sad inside but smile on the outside.
I hold the photo up. I love his face. His skin was olive and smooth, and his eyes were chocolate brown. A big sob rises in my throat, so I kiss Dad’s face, and a tear drops onto the glossy finish. I quickly wipe it off and place the photo on the bottom of my bag.
Nurses or not, I do need a few things. A pad of paper to write my mother a goodbye note. I’ll tuck it between the netting and upright tray table on the back of the seat in front of me.
I need my wallet to get from town to the airport and to get my plane ticket from the automated ticket machine. My mother bought the ticket on a credit card and mailed the credit card to the hospital. It was given to me with great ceremony yesterday. “Jane, this is for the pickup of your ticket only-your mother is bestowing great trust in you, and I think you’ve earned it.” Oh yes I have, with every lie and fake tear you swallowed, sir. Don’t worry, Dr. Gallus, going wild with a credit card isn’t in my plans.
I open my wallet. I have a hundred bucks in cash. (Money my mother gave me to use, just in case.) I pull my dad’s watch from my pocket and check the time. Three minutes to my last session.
What am I going to say to him? It has to be perfect because Old Doctor isn’t stupid. If he catches a whiff of the Plan or of anything out of whack, I’m done. No pass. No flight. No oblivion. But if I can give him a faux revelation that’s not too big, but not too small, he’ll get happy and animated with his own genius and forget about me. He’s human, after all. Notebooks out, people: This is how you can fool all adult beings. Make them think they are genius. They are even more vain than we are.
And, frankly, I’m not a genius myself but I am a very good liar.