Hemlock Bay

“Oh? We will consider an institution? What sort of institution?” Why wasn’t she afraid of that word that brought a wealth of dreadful images with it? But she wasn’t afraid. She was looking at him positively bright-eyed. She loved morphine. She was tiring; she could feel the vagueness trying to close her down, eating away at the focus in her brain, but for this moment, maybe even the next, too, she could deal with anything.

He squeezed her hand. “I’m a doctor, Lily, a psychiatrist, as is Dr. Rossetti. You know it isn’t ethical for me to treat you myself.”

“You prescribed the Elavil.”

“That’s different. That’s a very common drug for depression. No, I couldn’t speak with you like Dr. Rossetti can. But you must know that I want what is best for you. I love you and I’ve prayed you were getting better. One day at a time, I kept telling myself. And there were some days when I knew you were healing, but I was wrong. Yes, you really must see Dr. Rossetti or I’m afraid I will have no choice but to admit you for evaluation.”

“Forgive me for pointing this out, Tennyson, but I don’t believe that you can do that. I’m here—I can see, I can talk, I can reason—I do have a say in what happens to me.”

“That remains to be seen. Lily, just speak to Dr. Rossetti. Talk to him about your pain, your confusion, your guilt, the fact that you’re beginning to accept what your ambition wrought.”

Ambition? She had such great ambition that her daughter was killed because of it?

She suddenly wanted to be perfectly clear about this. She said, “What do you mean exactly, Tennyson?”

“You know—Beth’s death.”

That hit her right between the eyes. Instant guilt, overwhelming her. No, wait, she wasn’t going to let that happen. She wouldn’t let it happen, not now. Beneath the morphine, beneath all of it, she was still there, hanging on, wanting to be whole, wanting to draw her cartoon strips of No Wrinkles Remus shafting another colleague, wanting…Was that the great ambition that had killed her daughter? “I can’t deal with this right now, Tennyson. Please go away. I’ll be better in the morning.”

No, she’d feel like hell when they lessened her pain dosage, she thought, but she wouldn’t worry about that now. Now she would sleep; she’d get better, both her brain and her body. She turned her head away from him on the pillow. She had no more words. She knew if she tried to speak more, she wouldn’t make sense. She was falling, falling ever so gently into the whale’s soft belly, and it would be warm, comforting. Move over, Jonah. She wouldn’t have nightmares, not with the morphine lulling her.

She stared at the IV in her arm, upward to the plastic bag filled with fluid above her. Her vision blurred into the lazy flow of liquid that didn’t seem to go anywhere, just flowed and flowed. She closed her eyes even as he said, “I will see you later this evening, Lily. Rest well.” He leaned down and kissed her cheek. How she used to love his hands on her, his kissing her, but not now. She simply hadn’t felt anything for such a very long time.

When she was alone again, she thought, What am I going to do? But then she knew, of course. She forced back the haziness, the numbing effect of the morphine. She picked up the phone and dialed her brother’s number in Washington, D.C. She heard a series of clicks and then the sound of a person breathing, but nothing happened. She dialed a nine, then the number again. She tried yet again, but didn’t get through. Then, suddenly, the line went dead.

She realized vaguely as she let herself be drawn into the ether that there was fear licking at her, from the deepest part of her, fear that she couldn’t quite grasp, and it wasn’t fear that she’d be institutionalized against her will.

3

Lily awoke to feel the touch of fingers on her eyebrows, stroking as light as a butterfly’s wing. She heard a man’s voice, a voice she’d loved all her life, deep and low, wonderfully sweet, and she opened to it eagerly.

“Lily, I want you to open your eyes now and look at me and smile. Can you do that, sweetheart? Open your eyes.”

And she opened her eyes and looked up at her brother. She smiled. “My big Fed brother. I’ve worshiped you from the time you showed me how to kick Billy Clapper in the crotch so he wouldn’t try to feel me up again. Do you remember that?”

“Yes, I remember. You were twelve and this little jerk, who was all of fourteen at the time, had put his hand up your skirt.”

“I really hurt him bad, Dillon. He never tried anything again.”

He was smiling, such a beautiful smile, white teeth. “I remember.”