Undertow (15 page)

Twenty-Three

T
he neuropsychologist peered at her intently over the wire rims of her reading glasses. “Let’s try another one,” she said in her creepy monotone. “Which of
these
,” she pointed to a row of abstract drawings at the bottom of the page, “belongs
here
?” Her finger rested on the empty box at the top of the page.

She’d been at this for a couple of hours already. Asked to decide which face among a group of others was the one she’d seen earlier, like a police lineup, Marissa felt like snarling, “Was there a crime or something?” but was afraid to aggravate the woman. No sense dragging it out any longer. She repeated numbers, took a vocabulary test, even puzzled her way through a set of mazes, something she hadn’t done since grade school. Next she’d toss fish into the air for her to catch, Marissa thought.
She giggled, imagining the scene: Dr. Summer, clipboard in hand, glasses pushed down her nose, looming over the water; herself, splashing in the pool and barking like a seal.

“Yes? What’s so amusing?”

“Nothing.” Marissa said. “Random thought.”

“Hmm. I see.” The woman pushed her chair back and removed her glasses, setting them carefully beside her stopwatch. Collecting the booklet and pencil from Marissa, she arranged everything in a neat pile. “Well, we’re all done now anyway. That was the last item.”

Marissa rubbed her eyes. “That’s it?” She refrained from adding:
Finally
.

“Yes.”

“And?”

“And what?”

Fidgeting, she wondered how to ask what she was dying to know. Dr. Summer wasn’t helping; she had that impassive mask on again. “Well . . . what’s the verdict?”

The doctor gave her a blank stare. “Verdict? This isn’t a trial, Miss Johansen.”

“You know—my brain. Is it okay?”

The woman blinked at her for a few seconds before answering. “So far, your cognitive abilities seem unimpaired.”

Marissa pressed on, “So, there’s nothing wrong with me?”

 “Miss Johansen, your performance on the auditory and visual memory portions places you in the average range,” she said. “Your processing speed and problem solving abilities are somewhat higher, at what we classify high average.”

“Well, that sounds good.” She was more relieved than she’d expected. What if she’d been told she had brain damage? Maybe she
had
been lucky, in a way.

“Yes. It does sound good.” Dr. Summer smiled that weird pseudo-smile of hers, like somebody grabbed hold of her lips and pulled them straight out toward her ears. “Unfortunately, we can only assess how well you are performing in the present. We cannot determine what your abilities may have been before the . . . incident.”

“What do you mean?”
Average is good
, Marissa thought. Her whole life she tried to be average. In fact, most days even that seemed like a really high bar to reach.

“Marissa.” The doctor adopted the same tone her professors used whenever somebody asked a particularly stupid question in class. “You are a college student. Your parents are educated. Generally, one would anticipate higher overall intellectual functioning than your scores indicate. But, without baseline data, it cannot be determined whether any of these scores represent a decline. All we can say is that you aren’t currently demonstrating any cognitive deficits.”

It took her a minute to realize that the woman was suggesting Marissa should be smarter. She wanted to laugh. Her professors could have told Dr. Summer that and saved them both a lot of trouble.

Back in her room, Marissa lay down and stared at the ceiling without actually seeing it; what really danced around in her average brain were three men, like variables in some algebraic equation she couldn’t solve. One, the sea creature with blue-gray eyes who haunted her dreams; two, Drake, the man she imagined would belong to her forever but who ripped her heart apart instead; and three, Jim, the friend who said he loved her. She knew she had loved Drake. What about the merman? Or Jim? Did she love them, too?

“Hey, sugar, sugar.” Jim dropped in Sunday morning. Marissa told everybody else—her mom and dad, even Kelly—to stay away, and they did. She was glad. They just made her feel worse anyway. But she liked Jim’s company. Liked
him
. It was different than she was accustomed to, though; her affection for him flowed like a brook over smooth pebbles, rather than like the torrid rivers and boulders that characterized her relationship with Drake.

“Sorry your dad went ballistic yesterday,” Jim said, calm like always. There was something soothing about Jim. Whenever he was near, everything seemed right, like the whole world was okay, or would be. He never pried or judged, not even after the train wreck he witnessed at Erin’s.

“I love you, babe. Wish I could hang here longer, but class starts at eight tomorrow. I need to get on the road soon.”

He seemed reluctant to leave, and for a moment, the playfulness vanished. Just as quickly, it returned. “Now, promise to be good and keep your hands off all these male nurses I see all over this place. You just remember that I’ve got something that’ll cure you!” He winked and kissed her goodbye.

She wondered if she really loved him, or if he was just convenient, safe. With Jim, she finally felt like she belonged somewhere. He was like home base. One thing was certain: she missed him something fierce.

After a while, Dr. Spencer came to her room. Her mother trailed behind him and kept her eyes glued to his feet while rocking on her heels.

The doctor gave Marissa a professional smile and stood like a general about to give orders. “Good afternoon, Miss Johansen. You look very well today. How are you feeling?”

“Marvelous, thanks. Except that I’m still here.” Out of the corner of her eye she saw her mother look nervously toward the door. “So, when can I leave? I’m missing school.”

“I’m glad you’re feeling so well today.” He consulted the chart and met her eyes. “And, according to your tests, you seem to have physically recovered. There appear to be no adverse effects, cognitive or physical. Most likely, the near-freezing temperature of the water provided some neurological protection.”

“My brain, right? Dr. Summer said it’s okay. Average.”

“Yes, that’s what she noted. Still, if you had not been pulled from the water so quickly, you likely would not have survived. You were very lucky.”

“Yeah, that’s what everybody keeps telling me.” She couldn’t keep the sarcasm from her voice.

“And they are right. Walking into an ocean was suicidal. You are a very lucky girl to have escaped any significant injury.”

“Well, I’m still here.” She looked at him defiantly. “And you just said I’ve recovered. So I want to go home now.”
Home, to Jim
, she thought; he’d help her sort things out.

Dr. Spencer glanced at her mother. He coughed into his hand and said, “Marissa, since you’ve physically recovered, we can’t keep you here in the trauma unit. So you will be leaving in the morning. But you won’t be going home just yet; you’ll be transferred to the psychiatric unit for further evaluation.”

“What?” Marissa gaped at him, incredulous. “No!”

He didn’t say anything for a moment, allowing time for the reality of her punishment to sink in. Her mind spun.
The psycho ward?
Was he kidding?
He looked dead serious. And her mother stood still as stone and just as silent. “No! You can’t send me there. I’m not crazy!”

“We aren’t saying that you are crazy, Miss Johansen. But you attempted suicide and are considered at high risk for a repeat attempt.”

“Mari, honey.” Her mother stayed pinned to her spot behind the doctor. “You scared us to death. I don’t want to lose you.”

“You can’t put me there!” Marissa shouted. “I won’t go. I’m eighteen—you can’t make me.”

Dr. Spencer held up his hand, palm facing her. “Miss Johansen.” His voice was officious, like he was merely the messenger, and this decree was out of his hands. “State law authorizes emergency psychiatric holds if an individual presents a danger to himself or others.”

“But I’m
not
a threat! I didn’t
hurt
anybody!” Her heart felt like it might beat its way free from underneath her ribs.
This can’t be happening,
she thought. “School . . .”

“Just for a few days, Mari.” Her mother pressed her hands together like she was praying.

“Mom, please don’t do let them do this to me. Please.” She’d beg all day long if necessary, her pride was nothing compared to incarceration in a psychiatric hospital. “I’m fine now. Really, I swear. Please just let me go home.”

Twenty-Four

S
he is swimming, propelling herself through the endless liquid which surrounds her. One moment the water is pure, crystalline; in a flash she is thrashing in mucky water, decomposing detritus slimy against her skin. Revulsion ripples through her and threatens to overflow in a stream of vomit.

Clutching handfuls of crisp white sheet, Marissa woke, gasping. The blanket was twisted around her hips in evidence of the struggle she just endured. But it was hard to tell which nightmare was worse: the awful dream, or her dreadful reality? The bed was bolted to the floor and the walls were as white as the sheets. Other than the bed, the room was completely empty. Not even a mirror in the bathroom. A cell, not a room. Her cell.

The length of her sentence would depend on whether she could convince them she was not suicidal. Or crazy.

Which would be harder than she thought, if yesterday was any sign. A short bald man with a moustache circa 1978 and a wardrobe to match introduced himself to her as “Doctor Dave.” He stunned her with a set of enormous white teeth when he shook her hand. For a moment, she weighed the possibility that he was actually a patient who wandered into her room. The badge looked legit, though, and clued her as to why he preferred a first name basis. With a last name like Cummins, he probably got the hell teased out of him in middle school. Now there was a guy who should have taken his wife’s name when he got married, she’d thought. That alone was reason enough to tie the knot.

“Can you tell your full name, please,” he asked. “And where you are?

“Marissa Johansen. Nut house.”

Another blinding display of teeth. “And who is the president of the United States?”

“Lincoln.”

“Seriously.”

The inane questioning continued for a few minutes until Doctor “Dave” finally nodded, apparently satisfied. Then he caught her off guard.

“Why did you walk into the ocean, Marissa?”

Not:
Why do you want to kill yourself?
Not:
Do you plan to try to kill yourself again?
How could she produce a plausible answer to his question? Somehow, telling him about the merman seemed like a particularly bad idea if she hoped to get out of here soon. Even her best friend thought she was crazy.

“Research.”

He drew his chin back and looked at her curiously. His voice shrink-neutral, he said, “Tell me more about that, Marissa. What were you researching?”