The Forgetting Place (17 page)

This is taking too long. I'm going to get caught
.

Don't think about that. Keep looking
.

My right forearm ached incessantly. Beads of sweat clung to my face, then cast themselves into the grass as I moved—hunched over, eyes sweeping back and forth—along the fence. Finally, I found a stouter branch on the ground some sixty feet away.
This has
got
to work,
I told myself, returning to the spot closest to the keys. Getting back down on my knees, I reached with the stick through the space between the pickets. Distance was not an issue now, but the ground's surface was irregular. As I hooked the ring and began to move the keys away from the rock, I had to concentrate on maintaining contact between the stick and the earth. Halfway to the fence, the tip of the stick briefly lost contact with the ground and the ring started to slide away once again. I jabbed for it, striking the ring itself, pushing it farther away, then lunged again, catching not the ring this time but a single trailing key. I froze in place. My heart walloped inside my chest.

Careful. Don't lose it.

My index finger pushed down hard on the top of the stick, pressing the key into the ground at the other end. This, I hoped, would be enough to stop its slide during the fraction of a second it would take me to lift the tip of the stick off the key and reposition it within the ring. The word
please
formed silently on my
lips, then the far tip of the stick flicked up, down, and into the circle where it was meant to go.

“
Now slowly,
” I whispered, and pulled the ring toward me. It reached the fence. I placed a knee on the thing to hold it until I could let go of the stick and grab the ring with my good hand.

I exhaled the breath I'd been holding, scooted back from the fence and the sloped ground beyond, the keys clutched to my chest. “
Okay, now which key?
” I mumbled, thumbing through them, unsure about which ones I'd already tried.

There's a small padlocked gate at the rear of the hospital property. You know the one?
Paul had asked as he hovered close to unconsciousness.
You can get out there. It's the one on the far right.

The one on the far right,
I thought, looking up at the rear gate from where I sat in the grass. But there was only one gate back here. For Paul to stipulate that it was the one on the far right made no sense. Unless . . .

The men's voices were closer now, approaching from the other side of the building behind me. They didn't know I was back here—
not yet
—but they were methodical, searching every corner of the grounds.

“Unless he wasn't referring to the gate, but the keys,” I said, and looked down at the collection again. The keys were strung along the ring in a circular fashion. There would have been no reference point for right versus left if not for a flat rectangular piece of metal—engraved with the hospital's name—attached to the ring. If I positioned it at the top of the ring with the keys hanging below, then the far right key would be . . .

“This one,” I said, grasping the key's silver handle between my thumb and index finger. I stood, moved to the gate, inserted the key in the lock, and tried to turn it.

It wouldn't budge.

“
Shit,
” I hissed. In another few seconds the men would be rounding the corner—would see me, shout for the others, break into a run. I started to pull the key from the lock. Paused.
No, no, this must be the right one. It
has
to be.
With my thumb, I nudged it deeper into the cylinder, felt a small click as it settled home, and this time when I turned it the key rotated begrudgingly and the padlock sprang open.

“
Thank God,
” I whispered for the second time, removing the lock and swinging the gate open. The hinges had endured many seasons of rain and snow over the years and moaned loudly. I winced, looked back at the building behind me, then stepped through the opening, closed the gate, looped the Master Lock through the latching mechanism, and snapped it shut.

The earth sloped away quickly, and I made for the woods, knowing that, in all likelihood, I would never set foot in Menaker State Hospital again.

T
he woods were thicker than I'd expected, the brush thorny and difficult to push through as I descended the slope, listening for sounds of approaching footsteps or voices—and certain that at any moment the men who'd taken Jason would realize where I'd gone and enter the forest in search of me. There was no escaping the persistent throbbing of my shattered forearm, the image of Paul lying on the concrete platform of the administrative building, his eyes rolling up at me, the skin of his right cheek purple and swollen, the gash in his scalp flowing freely.

They got Jason. I'm sorry. I tried to stop them,
he'd told me, and this realization I wanted to escape most of all: that I'd been charged with the responsibility of protecting him, and despite all the warnings I'd been given, failed to do so.

I will find him,
I told myself, but it was an empty promise, devoid of any real hope or conviction.
You will
not
find him,
said a small voice inside my head, and I suspected that it was right.
He's gone
.
You will never see him again. And
that
is something you will have to live with for the rest of your life.

There was nothing to say to that, so I snaked through the trees, my body bent slightly at the waist, shoulders hunched low,
trying not to jostle my right arm too much as I stepped over fallen limbs and focused instead on the sound of moving water coming from somewhere down the hill and to my right. It was hard to tell how long I continued that way. It couldn't have been more than a few hundred yards, but it was slow going and there is something slippery and unreliable about gauging distance in the woods. The sharp tines of bramble and holly leaves snatched greedily at my arms and legs, snagged my clothes, biting through the fabric like they had a score to settle. Halfway down the embankment, I walked face-first into a spiderweb. My body twisted and danced in revulsion, my left hand flying to my face to yank loose the sticky strands of silk. The pain in my right forearm had settled into a dull ache, but the sudden movement caused the agony to rise up, an angry white geyser. I got down on one knee, shut my eyes, and forced my way through the pain until it was something manageable.

My plan was to follow a straight path through the woods—down into the ravine and up the other side—until I made it to Old County Road to the east. From there I could flag down a car, and then try to get in touch with Linder and Remy. It was early enough in the day that the sun was still positioned in the east, and I used that as a rough compass, reminding myself to keep my bearings, to not get turned around.

The murmur of the stream grew louder, becoming a chuckle as the water pitched and tumbled across its bed of uneven stones. There was something nasty in that sound, almost berating, accusatory. Twice I stopped to listen, wondering if there were voices coming from the ravine's lip high above me. I didn't think so, although it was impossible to say for sure. My line of sight was
blocked by the foliage, and the stream did its best to muddle the sounds of the forest.

Before long I came to the stream, its tortuous course stretching through the woods like a vein, the water casting sporadic glints of sunlight from its restless, rolling surface. I got down on my knees along the bank, dipping my cupped left hand into the steady flow, then splashed my face to wash away the dirt, sweat, and grime. The water was shockingly cold against my skin, making me shiver as tiny rivulets twisted their way down my neck and disappeared beneath the collar of my shirt.

I looked down at my right forearm, studying it more fully. Beneath the swelling, I could tell there was an angle to the break of about twenty degrees. It would need to be straightened if I wanted the bones to heal correctly, if I wanted to regain full function of my arm. I still had good sensation to my fingers, could move them all right, and the color and warmth of my hand was normal—a sign that the nerves and blood supply were intact.

I sat there considering.
Should I try to straighten out the angle of the fracture myself?
I didn't think I could do it, not only because of the incapacitating pain I'd endure in the process, but also because it would be difficult to get the bones straight with only one hand to use for the manipulation. And then the arm would need to be splinted.
What would I use for that? Some sticks with vines for lacing?
That might work in a movie, but in real life the bones would shift and heal at an angle. The arm would never be the same. No, I needed medical attention—an emergency department—and the longer I waited, the more difficult the repair would be.

Again, I listened for the sound of voices, for the rustling tramp
of feet through the woods. There was nothing, only the indignant shriek of a blue jay from its perch on a branch above. The relative silence made me nervous. I rose to my feet, moved downstream to the point where the water grew shallow and a series of stones protruded through its surface. The bird screeched once more, a flutter of wings behind me as it moved from one branch to the next. I picked my way across the stones. When I'd reached the other side, I started upward along the far side of the ravine. Getting myself to a hospital, keeping a low profile, making contact with Linder and Remy—these were my goals.

The ache in my arm was blossoming once again, the skin stretched tight from the swelling beneath.
You can do this,
I told myself.
You can find him. Just take one step at a time.
And I did, concentrating on each step as I made my way up the hill. Before long, I was thinking of Uncle Jim—which was no surprise. The woods were our special place that summer. And even now it was hard to be here without searching for him in the shadows.

“W
HATCHA LISTENIN' TO
, honey dew?” Uncle Jim asked as he walked into my room and plopped down on the bed next to me. I was sitting on the mattress, legs crossed Indian style, my back against the wall.

“‘Step by Step,'” I told him, surprised he didn't recognize it. It had been at the
Billboard
#1 spot for the past three weeks, and was playing on the radio, like, all the time. The cassette had come from the record store a week ago, bought with money I'd earned helping Mom around the house.

“Who sings it?” Uncle Jim asked, nudging me lightly with his elbow, then settling back against the wall.

“New Kids on the Block,” I said. My fingers fiddled with the
scrunchie I'd pulled from my hair, twisting it this way and that, my body moving in time with the music. I offered him the case and he studied the picture on the front.

“Oh yeah, I've heard of these guys,” he said, although his tone wasn't convincing.

“Donnie Wahlberg is pretty cute.” I pointed him out on the cover.

“I'll take your word for it.”

“He has a younger brother, Mark, who was part of the band for a little while, but then quit.”

“Why?”

I shrugged. “Guess he didn't wanna be famous like his brother.”

He nodded.

We sat together for a while as the song finished and the next one began. Outside, I could hear the plastic tires of my brother's Big Wheel rolling down the driveway, the machine-gun spray of the sprinkler firing away in the front yard.

“What kind of music do
you
listen to?” I asked—not that I had a wide selection to choose from: Madonna, Bon Jovi, Duran Duran, some Cyndi Lauper . . .

“Oh, I don't know,” he said. “I grew up in the sixties and seventies, listening to stuff from The Beatles, The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan . . .” He motioned to the small collection of cassettes I had in the tape rack next to my bed. “I don't suppose you've got any Dylan in there.”

“I don't even know who that is,” I admitted. “What kind of stuff does he sing?”

Uncle Jim ran a hand along the stubble on the side of his face. He didn't shave every day like my father did. Some of the whiskers were gray.

“Well, he's not a new kid on the block, I'll tell you that,” he said. “Kind of an old kid, I guess. Like me. Been around for a while.”

I opened my mouth to tell him that he wasn't
that
old—not ancient, anyway, like Grandpa—but my eyes fell once again to the gray in his beard and all at once it occurred to me that there are different kinds of old, that sometimes it's not the years but the stuff you've been through that makes you old. I had the feeling that Uncle Jim had been through a lot.

“He's sort of a poet, Bob Dylan,” he continued. “Uses his songs to talk about human nature, about the way we live—the way people treat one another—things that aren't right and ought to be changed. He . . . he sings about a lot of things.”

“I don't understand most poems.” I'd gone across the room to turn down the volume on my stereo, and now I climbed back onto the bed and sat beside him, our feet dangling off the side.

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” he agreed. “But sometimes it's not important to understand
everything
about a poem. Sometimes a good poem is like a fun-house mirror: it shows you the same world but in a different way. It offers you a different perspective.”

“And you get to see how you look.”

“To other people, maybe. Or you get to see how
their
world looks to them. You can learn a lot by seeing things through other people's eyes.”

A car pulled up outside at the end of our street. For a moment I thought it was my father, returning home from wherever he'd been this morning, and I could feel my body tense, draw in on itself as it often did when he was around. I hopped off the bed
again, went to the window, and looked out in time to see the neighbors' car pulling into their driveway across the street.

“Sometimes I wish people weren't so different,” I said, turning from the window. “In school, the kids tease you if you don't act like everyone else, if you're interested in different things. And I think: maybe it would be easier if we were all the same.”

“Wouldn't be any fun that way.”

“I know, but . . .” I went to my dresser, took the loose knob on the top right drawer in my fingers and gave it a spin. “I mean,
you're
different, right? You know what that's like.”

“Yeah. I guess I do.” He turned his eyes from me and looked across the room and through the window at the oak parked in the front yard just outside. “Your parents told you about me, I guess, how I'm a little off my rocker.”

I shrugged.

“Well, it's true.” He sighed, the fingertips of his right hand drumming lightly on his blue jeans. “The doctors call it schizophrenia.”

“What's it like?” I asked, my ears turning red like I was asking him something that maybe I shouldn't. His face looked tired now, the eyes cast downward at the rug between us.

For a long time neither of us spoke, and I thought that maybe I'd gone too far, that it was something he didn't want to talk about. Through the thin walls of my bedroom I could hear the springs on the front screen door squeal as it opened and slapped shut again, the sound of my brother's footsteps making their way down the hall into the living room.

“The first time I was admitted to a psych hospital the doctor asked me if my mind sometimes played tricks on me. And I re
member thinking,
Yes, that's it exactly
.
Sometimes my mind plays tricks on me
.” His eyes flicked up toward my face, then down again at the floor. “I hear things, mostly. People talking to me who aren't there. They say . . .” His face contorted a bit, grimacing. “They say horrible things.”

“Do you hear them now?”

He shook his head. “They're not always there. They come and go—like headaches, Lise. Or sometimes I get so used to them that I can tune them out, ignore them for a while. But there are other things, too. I'll get an idea in my head that I can't shake, something that isn't right but
seems
right at the time. That's the hell of it, you know: separating out what's real from what's not real. Trying to keep things straight. Knowing when your mind is playing tricks on you.”

“Can they fix it? The doctors?” I asked.

“No,” he responded. “I mean . . . they can't take it away. Some of the medicines make things better for a while, but . . . it will always be there. I'll always be fighting it.”

“Are you scared?”

“No, not scared,” he answered. “I've been living with it a long time. It's just . . . part of who I am now.”

“It sounds lonely.”

He nodded. “It can be.”

The last song on the cassette had ended. From the living room, the television was playing the opening song for
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,
a show my father had proclaimed
idiotic
.

“
Hey, Lise,
” Uncle Jim said, brightening. “How about you and I take a walk down to the record store. We'll see if they have any Bob Dylan albums. Or The Doors—I think you'd like them. If
they do, I'll buy something for you, let you take a listen and see what you think.”

“Okay,” I said, stooping to gather my shoes. “We should tell Mom we're going.”

“Maybe she'd like to come with us.”

“She's lying down in her room,” I told him. “I don't think she feels well.”

I followed him into the hallway, waited while he rapped lightly on the bedroom door, then poked his head in to check on her and tell her where we were heading. She wouldn't come with us, said she had a headache and needed to rest with the lights off and the shades closed for a while longer, but to have a good time, and we
did
end up finding that Bob Dylan album on sale. Also
Strange Days
by The Doors—“You're going to love this,” Uncle Jim told me—and Madonna's new single, “Vogue.” When we got home Mom was up and out of her room—feeling a little better, she said—and that made me happy because tomorrow was her birthday, and everyone should feel good on their birthday.