“Isabel? I was wondering if you would like to read my journal.” Ben is standing in front of Isabel, who is sitting in the Adirondack chair looking out over the grounds.
Maybe if I don’t answer him he’ll leave me alone.
But Ben is not adept at interpreting subtleties. “I know you can hear me, Isabel. Here’s my journal.” He shoves the notebook at her. “Read it and get back to me.”
Ben walks back to the unit. Both his arms hang down at his sides. Isabel watches him go.
Fundamentalists should look at Ben and then try to argue that we did not descend from apes.
Dear Diary:
Herein lies my journal, which I will revisit at least once a day for the duration of my life…
She turns the page.
I would like to begin by addressing the nature of wild animals. They make me very angry. They do not even attempt to adapt to the man’s world. They don’t even care about you. When you break your arm, they don’t care. When your feelings are hurt, they don’t care about you. If you miss a train, they don’t care about you. In short, they don’t care about you….
Isabel flips ahead through the pages, all of which are crammed with Ben’s nearly illegible scrawl.
I have come to believe that Northerners are evil. Especially New Yorkers. But Northerners in general. They don’t care about you. Southerners, now that’s a different story. Southerners are the only truly great people. They really care. The food they cook is the best, by a long shot. They must care about you if they’re cooking like that for you.
Why does Ben want me to read this, for God’s sake? I don’t give a shit about this twisted journal.
“Isabel?” Connie the night nurse is smiling apologetically as she approaches Isabel.
“Larry’s here and wants everyone to get together in the living room for an emergency group session. We need you to come inside now.”
“I don’t want to go to group. I want to stay out here,” Isabel replies.
“I know, sweetie, but Larry says it’s important for everyone to be there.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. He wants to talk about ‘how Lark’s death affected us.’” Isabel mimics Larry’s somber tone. “I don’t feel like talking about it. Sorry, Connie, but I’m not going.”
Connie crouches down in front of Isabel’s lap.
“Honey, we know you saw Lark. You were the only patient to see her like that. That’s an incredibly traumatic thing. Larry really wants you to come talk to him.”
“What’s there to talk about? Lark killed herself. You guys all screwed up. All the bed checks, the flashlight checks, the sharps closet. All of that and you can’t keep a patient safe in broad daylight right under your noses. Larry wants to take the heat off the staff—no offense to you, Connie. I don’t want to hear it. I just want to be alone.”
Isabel gets up and walks down a sloping hill into the middle of the field below. Connie goes inside presumably to get Larry.
Larry pushes through the unit doors and heads straight to Isabel, who is sitting cross-legged on the grass.
“Larry, don’t even waste your breath,” Isabel calls out to the therapist, who is trudging down the hill. “I know you want me to come to group and I’m not going to, so you can just turn around.”
“I just want to talk with you for a second, Isabel. Is that okay?” Larry is trying to sound nonthreatening. “After that, if you want to come to group, fine. If not, no problem.”
Yeah, right.
Larry exhales as he plops down beside her on the grass.
“I’m not going to beat around the bush. You’re a smart woman. You know why I want to talk to you. I’m worried about you witnessing something like Lark’s suicide. That can be a jarring thing to see, even for a professional. I wonder what you thought when you saw her?”
I didn’t think anything. Not one single thing.
“Nothing.” Isabel shrugs.
“You realize, don’t you, that you are probably still in shock. That was a horrible thing to see.”
“I don’t know. I just really want to be by myself, Larry. I don’t have anything to say.”
“Okay. I’ll leave you alone for now. One more question and then I’m out of your hair, so to speak.”
“Yeah?”
“Were you aware of the extent of Lark’s mental illness?”
“What? Don’t you have doctor-patient confidentiality to think about? Should you be telling me stuff about Lark? Jesus.”
“You didn’t hear me. I am not telling you anything about Lark. I am simply asking if you knew the depth of Lark’s illness. Did you?”
“No,” Isabel replies. “Not like you knew about it, I’m sure. We weren’t close friends, Lark and I, if that’s what you mean.”
“Okay. Well, I suppose, then, if you didn’t know how deeply troubled Lark was then you couldn’t have been expected to save her, right?”
“Point taken.”
For a few moments neither of them say a word. Isabel tries to concentrate on an industrious line of ants carrying specks of dirt away from their M*A*S*H unit.
“Isabel, I’m going to be direct. You’re going to have to decide whether this forces you to sink or whether it helps you swim. None of us can decide that for you. There are a lot of Larks here at Three Breezes. There always have been and there always will be. You are not one of them. You are in the unique position to be able to help yourself. Many of the patients here will never be able to do that. This is tough to hear, I know, and please don’t mistake my bluntness for a minimization of your pain. But I sense that deep down inside you know you don’t belong here much longer. You can lift yourself up. Lark was never going to be able to do that.”
Tears are falling down Isabel’s cheeks as she turns to Larry.
“Maybe you could’ve helped her. Maybe I could have,” she cries. “She could have lifted herself up….”
“Never,” Larry says gently.
He stands up, stretches and shades his eyes from the sun. Isabel looks out across the field and wipes her nose.
“Goodbye, Isabel.”
She twists around to watch him make his way back up the hill to the unit. Waiting for him on the smoker’s porch are Ben and Kristen, who, Isabel can just make out, is scratching at her wrist. As Larry approaches them Ben jumps to his feet and claps his hands together like a child at Christmas. They follow the therapist inside and the door shuts tightly behind them.