“We . . .” I begin.
Not we, you idiot, do you want them to think you’re schizoid?
“I—I’m feeling a little better.”
Not quite the Gettysburg Address, but a respectable start. The goal here is to get them to ease back on the medication a little. Try asking a normal question.
“Can I see my baby?”
Good! Way to play the concerned-mother card!
“You’re not allowed visitors until you’re doing a little better, but I’m sure once you are, Mr. Hobbes will bring in little Chloë.”
“Not that Chloë,” I say.
Careful, Laurel’s voice warns, but I don’t listen.
“I need to see my Chloe. I need to know I didn’t drown her. I—” I taste salt. The sea is taking me again. I struggle to make the nurse understand. “I don’t care that I’ve drowned, but I need to know she is all right.”
The nurse gives me a puzzled smile and writes something down on her clipboard.
Patient exhibits delusion that she’s dead. Up medication by a gazillion percent, Laurel snarks.
“I’m sure your baby’s perfectly fine, Mrs. Hobbes. I’ve just written a note for Dr. Hancock to check in with you.”
Then the nurse adjusts something on the balloon that floats over my bed and I’m sinking again. But this time I’m not alone.
AT THE BOTTOM of the sea Laurel whispers in my ear, her voice the echo of my own bloodstream held in a conch shell.
They think you’re me. You’ll never convince them otherwise as long as you’re doped up and lying around in unflattering PJs. You have to make them think you know you’re Laurel Hobbes. So you had a teensy break with reality when you found your bestie floating in a pool of blood—
I didn’t! I wouldn’t!
Sure, if you say so. It’s much, much more likely that rich, beautiful Laurel Hobbes offed herself than poor, pathetic Daphne Marist. Hey! No more tears now. We’ll never get out of here if you can’t turn off the waterworks. Of course, I didn’t kill myself either. Someone killed me. Stan is my guess. But how are we going to prove that with you stuck in here? And the only way you get out is if you start acting sane—and to do that you have to pretend to be me.
But I don’t know how.
My head fills with the sound of Laurel’s laughter. Excuse me? What have you been doing at Schuyler Bennett’s house other than pretending to be me? Do you think these doctors and nurses are any smarter than Schuyler Bennett?
No, but—
No buts! Shape up! Grow a backbone! Here, they’re coming, you’re on!
But—
I try to call her back, but her voice is lost in the roar of the surf. I open my eyes. Dr. Hancock’s face floats over me, bobbing like a buoy. I swallow back the bile in my throat. He moves his mouth but I can’t hear him. My ears are full of water. I shake my head to clear them and he frowns. He thinks I’m saying no to whatever he just said. He’s turning away, motioning to the floating jellyfish, telling the nurse something.
“Please,” I manage, “what did you say?”
He turns back, looks down at me, and this time I can make out his words. “I said, ‘Good morning, Laurel. It’s good to have you back with us.’”
I swallow back a gallon of saltwater and try to smile, but it must look like a grimace. I try speaking instead. “Good morning, Dr. Hancock,” I say. The words echo in my head. I hear another voice far below me, calling to me, begging not to leave her at the bottom of the ocean, drowned.
I’m sorry, I tell Daphne, letting her go, watching her sink to the bottom of the sea. I lick the salt off my lips. “It’s good to be back,” I tell Dr. Hancock.
Laurel’s Journal, June 25, 20—
If I hadn’t already known that motherhood turns women into nut cases, I’d have the proof today. What a bunch of wackjobs! They all sat around sharing their stories of losing their minds as if having a baby was an excuse for slovenliness. One woman confessed to walking around with her shirt unbuttoned. Another thought it was really funny that she had poured breast milk into her husband’s coffee. They tell these stories pretending they’re embarrassed while really they’re reveling in their dysfunction. I saw the same thing in group therapy at MacLean. The crazies egg each other on, trying to top one another.
I noticed, though, that Doormat Daphne wasn’t sharing. Instead, every time someone spoke she glanced over at me, as if wanting to see what I thought of it. I decided to try a little experiment. I told my own little story—I made up one about leaving the car keys in the refrigerator—and quelle surprise! DD let loose with an entire saga of coming to last week’s meeting with the bottles she’d made up to leave home with her husband. Which only confirmed again what a sad sack she is.
But then she surprised me. One of the women said she heard voices and I thought, Oh good, at least now we’ll get something a little juicy, but even the voices were boring, reminding her to buy orange juice and iron hubby’s shirts. Estrogena said something soothing like the voices were at least sensible and Daphne whispered to me: Sure, all the voices sound sensible at the time. Ha! Maybe she has potential.
I invited her back here and gave her some wine, hoping she’d loosen up and let go of her nice-girl act, but instead she tells me her whole life story. And what a pathetic little life it is! Her mom was a drunk who killed herself driving home drunk from a bar. Daphne put herself through state school working, like, three jobs, got a library degree and a job in a dinky suburban library. Then she snags a hedge-fund manager, but the one hedge-fund manager in the world who
