Crazy Bitch (Bitches and Queens) (20 page)

“Really?” Sam muttered in
disbelief.

“But you already know what a
sweetheart she is. I’m sure you are just as excited to see her as she has been to
see you. It’s all she been talking about this week. Come through the door, and
I’ll take you back.”

They found her sitting on an
elegant terrace that overlooked the red rock mountains. Sam privately thought,
If
you had to lose your mind, there couldn’t be a better place to find it.
Hannah appeared vibrant, energetic, gorgeous as ever, and most importantly,
animated. She said all the right things, well, maybe not exactly the right
things for Hannah to say, but she was very polite, warm, and welcoming. Still,
Sam couldn’t help but think something wasn’t right. At first, he couldn’t put
his finger on it, but as the conversation continued, he realized that she spoke
exclusively to Kate, only casting him a few furtive glances. Had anyone come
along and seen the two of them chatting away about the honeymoon, they could
have naturally assumed they were long-lost friends. Sam knew Kate was just
being polite. He could tell by her rigid posture that she was just as thrown by
Hannah as he. At one point, Hannah even reached for her hands and held them on
her lap. The entire time Hannah said his name, not once but repeatedly.

Finally, after several minutes,
Hannah looked up shyly but held Sam’s probing stare. Looking once again to
Kate, she explained, embarrassed, “I’m so sorry, Sam. I know I have met your
husband, but I can’t seem to remember his name.”

Five minutes later, a very
irate Sam was taken to the director’s office. Before the door shut, he shouted,
“What the
hell
did you do to her?” Catching sight of Willow sitting
across Dr. William’s desk, he added just as heatedly, “And what the fuck is she
doing here?”

“Mr. Montgomery, please, you
must calm down,” Dr. William’s pronounced, sounding very stately.

“I won’t calm the fuck down
until you tell me what the hell is going on,” Sam snapped.

“Sir,” Dr. Williams said
succinctly, “you will calm down or you will be escorted off the premises.

Growling under his breath, Sam
took the empty chair beside Willow. His eyes narrowed to slits as he looked her
way. “You know what this means,” he gritted menacingly between his teeth.

Instead of looking anxious or
even remotely concerned about her future, Willow flipped him the bird.

“Please, I ask both of you to
remember that we are here for Hannah. You were both invited here today to
discuss her long-term prognosis,” Dr. Williams declared diplomatically. “First,
I would like to begin by discussing her diagnoses…”

“Wait,” Sam interrupted, “I don’t
want her in the room while we discuss this.”

Unruffled, Dr. Williams
searched through Hannah’s file and handed over a signed copy of her medical-release
form. Both Sam and Willow’s name were clearly printed on the document.

Sam carelessly tossed the paper
across the desk. “This doesn’t mean a thing. I am Hannah’s legal guardian, and
I don’t want her in here.”

“You
were
her legal
guardian,” Dr. Williams corrected. “It was a provisory guardianship contingent
on Hannah’s mental competence, and I can most assuredly say she is now capable
of making her own decisions regarding her health.”

“Says who?” Sam questioned
lethally.

“Hannah’s mental competency was
evaluated by a panel of experts with a combined experience of over one hundred
years,” Dr. Williams answered.

“All right then,” Sam jeered, “maybe
one of those experts can explain why she doesn’t know who I am? Or why she
thinks my wife is me? Yeah, clearly she aced your test.”

“There may be some confusion,
but if you would allow me to continue, I would be more than happy to explain
why…” Dr. Williams paused momentarily. When Sam didn’t provide any further arguments,
he continued, “When Hannah arrived, she had suffered from a complete mental
collapse, or what you might refer to as a nervous breakdown.”

“She was crazy,” Sam added, seemingly
unable to stop himself.

Willow held out her hand to
silence him. “Would you just shut up and let him continue,” she hissed.

“You shut up,” Sam demanded as
he swatted at her hand.

“I’m not the one providing
color commentary,” Willow snapped.

“After a thorough evaluation…”
Dr. Williams declared loudly to silence them both, “…it was determined that
Hannah suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. As you are both no doubt
aware, Hannah was physically, mentally, and sexually abused as a child. In all my
years of experience, I have never heard of a more severe case. To say she was
abused, in my opinion, is an understatement. What she encountered in childhood
was nothing short of a psyche massacre. Yet, she somehow managed to persevere.”

“Hannah has been very compliant
and earnestly seeks to heal herself. She was very open and honest when
discussing her flashbacks. During these periods of psychosis, she has
hallucinations of her deceased mother. Hannah believes that her mother has
returned to murder her. These delusions stem from real events in her past. As a
young child, she displayed behaviors that are very typical of someone who is
sexually molested. Whenever Hannah acted out, her mother threatened, on
multiple occasions, to kill her.”

“Good God,” Sam muttered in
disgust. He had always known her childhood was horrible, but what Dr. Williams
described was the stuff of nightmares.

“Hannah also admitted to
self-medicating over the years,” Dr. Williams disclosed.

“No, that isn’t true. Hannah
has never used drugs,” Sam denied.

“Drugs, no,” Dr. Williams
agreed. “The terms she used interchangeably were ‘pets’ and ‘dolls.’ She said
that she believed they helped keep the flashbacks at bay. In my professional
opinion, she never intentionally sought to harm anyone. She was trying to
construct a world where she gave what was not given to her—unconditional love,
a mother’s love for her child. This, I also believe, is the key to Hannah’s
long-term health. Her motherly instincts are remarkably strong as evidenced by
a number of our other patients and staff members.”

“Hmmp,” Sam snorted with scorn.
“The fact that everyone is so taken with her couldn’t have something to do with
the fact that she is very famous?”

“No, you are mistaken,” Dr.
Williams answered firmly. “The Hannah Fairbanks persona has yet to make an
appearance. Here, she is just like anyone else, but she has taken several
patients under her wing, so to speak.”

“So, you’re a miracle worker,”
Sam spat. “But I’m still not sold. I don’t believe she is anymore mentally
competent than the first day we came here. Obviously, this isn’t the best place
for her.”

“I agree,” Dr. Williams conferred,
surprising them both. “That is why I am recommending she be released to the
care of her sister.”

“Her sister?” Willow questioned
warily.

“You, of course,” Dr. Williams
said.

“Me?” Willow gasped.

“Jesus Christ,” Sam chuckled
mirthlessly. “It just keeps getting better and better. First, she doesn’t know me
from Adam. Now, she thinks Willow is her sister.”

“Wait a minute,” Willow shouted,
trying to wrap her brain around what was just said.

“You can’t be serious,” Sam
groaned as he turned and glared at Willow. “And when Hannah comes to and
remembers she had been fucking her
sister—
that might not be traumatic?”

 “Sorry, now I am the one who
is confused,” Dr. Williams said, perplexed. “So, you are not Hannah’s sister?”

“No,” Willow confessed. “I was
her intern.”

“Oh,” Dr. Williams muttered. “Given
her course of treatment, some confusion is to be expected.”

“Yeah, speaking of that, you
never did get around to telling us what the hell you did to her,” Sam said
heatedly.

“Considering the severity of
her disorder and the fact that it can take some medications several weeks to be
effective, it was determined she needed a more direct and immediate approach.
She was given electroconvulsive therapy,” Dr. Williams answered.

“You fried her fucking brain!”
Sam shouted.

“No, Mr. Montgomery. We didn’t
fry anything. The use of ECT is standard practice and highly overdramatized in
the media. Hannah was under general anesthesia during the treatments. She doesn’t
remember any of it.”

“Obviously,” Sam growled. “It’s
not the only thing she forgot. How long will this confusion last? When will she
get back to normal?”

“This is the
new normal
.
Hannah hasn’t really forgotten anything. Think of her memories as a deck of
cards. They have been reshuffled in a way that she can comprehend.”

“So you’re saying, this is
permanent?” Willow questioned grimly.

“For now, yes,” Dr. Williams
answered. “But that isn’t to say that she can’t or won’t form new memories. My
suggestion to you both is that you give her time and patience. Although not
factual, what she believes about you, and your roles, is very real to her.”

Willow had been ecstatic, if
not slightly confused, when the call came from Sedona. Having neither the
knowledge nor the resources to find Hannah from wherever Sam had hidden her,
the conversation that lasted less than two minutes was her only confirmation
that Hannah was alive and well. Of course, the news media had been relentless.
Hannah’s image was splashed everywhere—the television, the internet, and all
the tabloids that lined the grocery store checkout lanes. Some of the more
reputable sources stated that she was being treated for exhaustion and
dehydration at an undisclosed facility. The more nefarious gossips brandished a
variety of speculations from
unnamed sources
. Willow had a few ideas
about who some of those unnamed people might be.

Yet, when the call finally
came, it hadn’t been Hannah on the other end. Instead, it was Dr. Williams,
director of the Sedona Wellness Clinic, on the phone. He phoned to request her
presence for Hannah’s final evaluation conference. Willow couldn’t say no, but
the conversation afterwards with Zachary didn’t go well.

“You’re kidding, right?” he
scoffed.

“I’ll only be gone a few days,”
Willow insisted.

“That woman is crazy,” he
bellowed.

“She is sick, and she needs my
help.”

“She shot a fucking gun at you.
No, Willow!”

“No?” Willow questioned in
disbelief. Zachary had said
no
. No wasn’t even part of their vocabulary.
She had sat back countless times and watched him pursue other women and that
word hadn’t even crossed her mind—just as he had watched her leave with other
lovers. Where was this coming from? Flabbergasted, she pleaded, “Please, don’t
force me to choose between you and her.”

“What choice?” Zachary shot back,
waving his arms wide for emphasis. Shaking his head with disgust, he muttered, “You
made your decision months ago. If you go back to her now after everything she
has put you through, we’re finished.”

“Zachary, you don’t mean that,”
Willow whispered.

“You have a month to move your
stuff out. After that, I’m moving back in and anything you’ve left behind I’ll
either trash or donate to charity.”

“Please, don’t do this,” Willow
begged through quivering lips.

“Willow, I love you, and a part
of me probably always will. I hope you have a good life, but I just don’t see
that happening if you stay this path.”

Now, four days later, Willow
was officially homeless, jobless, and broke as she had spent the last bit of
her savings on the plane ticket. On the bright side, it wasn’t her first time
in this position and she had always managed to get by in the past. On the
not-so-bright-side, Hannah believed they were sisters. Even though it came
straight from a highly trained, medical expert, Willow had a hard time
believing it until she stepped out on the terrace.

Hannah let out a loud, girlish
squeal, crossed the distance in a few exuberant leaps, wrapped her arms tightly
around Willow, and began twirling them around in circles. After several
dizzying moments, she came to a sudden stop. They had to lean against each
other to keep from falling down.

Speaking to an elderly woman
who was sitting close, Hannah said, “See Margaret, I told you my sister was
real.” She looked down at Willow with an impish grin and explained, “She
thought I was making you up because she has tons of imaginary friends. I’m so
happy you finally here, but…” Hannah paused as her vibrant expression fell
flat. Looking both confused and hurt, she continued, “…where have you been?”

“I, hmm, I had some things I
had to take care of,” Willow mumbled. Even though she wanted to do nothing more
than flash Sam an
I-told-you-so
glare, she refused to look his way.

How she hated him! If he was
Hannah’s definition of a well-adjusted, adult child, she was just as deluded
about that as she was about everything else. Sam was a self-indulgent, whiny,
little bitch. But for Hannah’s sake, she would play nice, even if it killed
her.