I could tell that Stan was a little annoyed, though, by how he started looking at his phone. He said this bullshit about the Asia office when I know full well that he hasn’t had any consulting work for months. He says that’s because he’s had his hands full with taking care of me but I think that’s an excuse. I think this whole conservatorship thing has been more about giving him a sense of purpose than about my mental-health issues and that’s why he became defensive when we talked about it. He’s using it as an excuse not to find other work, which isn’t good for him either.
Maybe he could get some deal going with Peter. They seemed to hit it off really well, which surprised me because Peter, quite frankly, has all the charm of a used-car salesman. He was so obviously trying to impress Stan with his financial acumen. The two of them vanished into Peter’s study for ages to “talk business.” Which I figured was Peter trying to get Stan to invest in his fund. Ha! I bet Peter was surprised to find out Stan doesn’t control the purse strings. When Stan came out he had on his Grinch face, which he gets when he remembers the money’s my money. He always compensates by getting bossy. So while Daphne was calling the taxi for Vanessa he went into the nursery and was fussing with Chloë in her portable crib. He said he wanted to make sure she was all right, like I wasn’t capable of putting her in her car seat. I got a little mad and he left in a huff.
I stood for a few minutes to get my bearings and looked around the nursery. It’s really too frilly for my taste but I could see all the work Daphne had put into it. There’s a whole bookshelf of children’s books and all the pictures of Chloe in her first few weeks and a Baby’s First Year calendar on the wall. I flipped through the calendar and saw all the silly things Daphne had written down in it, like Baby’s First Bath! And Baby’s First Trip to the Park! And then I started to cry because I couldn’t remember any of that with Chloë. It made me want what Daphne had so badly!
Which maybe explains what happened next.
I took Chloë out of the portable crib that Daphne had set up and put her in the car seat. My eyes were all blurry from crying, so maybe I just couldn’t see very well. But you’d think a real mother would know her own baby just by touch and smell. But I didn’t. When we were ready to leave Daphne noticed that the baby I’d taken was her Chloe. I was mortified. I tried to make a joke of it but you could tell everyone was shocked. Stan just stared at me. When we got in the car he said, “Are you sure you’re ready to be evaluated by a psychiatrist right now?”
I cried all the way home.
Chapter Seventeen
In the days leading up to my evaluation I am given more freedom than I’ve had yet. I’m released to my own room and given permission to spend time in the recreation lounge. I’m even allowed to go outside with an escort. At first I don’t know what to make of the sudden change in treatment but then, as my meds are reduced and I can think clearly again, I realize that Dr. Hancock must be worried about how the outside evaluators will look at my treatment.
Which tells me two things. One, my treatment so far—isolated, confined to the Green Room, and doped up to the gills—has not been standard. The question is, why has Dr. Hancock treated me differently than he would another patient? The answer must be that someone wants me kept here. Stan, no doubt. But how has he been able to influence Dr. Hancock? With money? Laurel’s money?
It scares me to think of the power of Laurel’s money marshaled against me. But then I realize the second thing: if Dr. Hancock is worried about my evaluation, there is a chance I can convince the two other doctors that I’m not crazy. Maybe I can even convince them I’m not Laurel Hobbes.
I work on my strategy while sitting in the recreation lounge, a large, sunny room on the ground floor with big windows and glass doors overlooking the lawn and gardens. It resembles the lobby of a resort hotel, complete with bucolic watercolor landscapes of the grounds and surrounding mountains. Anyone visiting Crantham would think it’s a model of humane treatment for the mentally ill, albeit one with a rather strange clientele. My fellow patients look harmless enough, lounging in wicker chairs, playing cards, doing jigsaw puzzles at folding tables, or strolling back and forth on the terrace. Only when I get closer do I see the flaws in the scene. At the card table a young unshaven man in his twenties keeps shouting, “Go fish!” to the complicated bridge bids of a gaunt old woman with owl-like eyes. The sullen teenager writing in a journal is writing the same line—I HATE EVERYBODY—over and over again. The professorial gentleman reading on the terrace never turns a page of his book. When I get close enough to overhear conversations I learn that the bridge player thinks she’s at her country club waiting for her husband to finish a round of golf, her unshaven partner is telling an invisible companion that the
