But Inside I'm Screaming

“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.

Forty-Six

“What’re you doing?” Isabel asks Kristen.

“Shh! Keep your voice down. Want one?” Kristen whispers over her shoulder while reaching into the vending machine for a Snapple.

“No.”

“No one’s going to find out,” Kristen says defensively as she shakes the bottle of iced tea and breaks the safety seal. “I do this every day and no one’s said a word yet. They don’t even know. Plus, the dollar-feeder thingy is broken. Score!”

“You don’t pay for it?”

“I watch the nurses doing it. How come they get to do it and I can’t?”

“Well, let’s see,” Isabel says in a purposely patronizing tone, “for one thing, it’s in the staff cafeteria. Emphasis on staff. You know. People who are actually paid to be here. Get it?”

“Little Miss Goody Two-Shoes,” Kristen laughs as she takes a swig of her drink. “I always finish it before it’s time to get back to the unit.”

“What an accomplishment,” Isabel mutters. “Who are they to say that we can’t have something good to drink?”

“You’re a regular Norma Rae.”

“Who?”

Isabel turns and walks away.

Larry’s right. I don’t belong here. I’ve got to get out of here.

Thirty minutes later she signs herself out for a walk.

Without planning on it she finds herself outside Peter’s unit. There she settles on a large rock and watches the door, wondering what Peter is doing on the other side of it.

Maybe he’s coloring something. Maybe he’s reading. Harry Potter? I hope so…I hope he has some way to escape his madness.

“I want to get out of here,” Isabel says as she sits down in her therapist’s office. “How do I go about doing that? Seriously. Tell me.”

Dr. Seidler smiles. “It’s about time.”

“How do I do it?”

“First things first,” Dr. Seidler begins. “Let’s talk about how you’ve come to this decision.”

“I had an epiphany…I woke up on the right side of the bed…I had a good dinner…I don’t know.” Isabel does not want to go into detail. Her mind is made up. “Just tell me what I’ve got to do.”