Beneath Sanity and Salvation (excerpt)
The sound sparrows singing in the bush beneath the open kitchen window made the damp, grayed morning feel more alive for Dean. He sat at the lacquered table, nestled in a small nook wrapped by a bay window, and stared into a tree-lined backyard sprinkled in fall oranges, reds, and yellows. His eyes fell upon the Eden-esque oak, but focused on nothing but the dimmed liveliness of the day beginning. The idea of the word ‘liveliness’ made him chuckle through a sip of his coffee. Six weeks he craved dull liveliness and silence in his home and sky. In all those weeks, he had been up early enough to have the sun rise infront him and each day its shine grew more and more oppressive. Today, it rose behind the mass of clouds, behind him, without deafening glare. It just seemed to get lighter, not brighter. Like removing of your hands from your closed eyes but your eyes remain closed. It was a lethargic morning full of liveliness all because of silence filled with a flock of birds’ morning song. But it could not last.
As Dean chuckled in his coffee, a skin curling scream from the master bedroom caused the sparrows to scatter in a cacophony of flapping wings that rattle and snap branches. Dean was taken a bit off guard by the scream and wings, spattered a bit of coffee on to his shirt, but he was oddly unruffled - concerned, but numbly moved. This isn’t the first time Izzy (Isabella, his wife) has awaken like this – six weeks of booming sunrises. Today’s lack of shine had him optimistic about the pessimistic beginning of the day, hoping without faith that today would be different.
Settling into his S.S.D.D. attitude, he took his time getting to the bedroom. Took his time to become the comforter of his wife’s nightmares.
Mornings. Izzy’s waking. Each had taken on a dress of living-nightmare for him. He paused at the doorway, hidden to gather his strength, and heard Izzy mumbling to herself and fidgeting about. No, no, no, she kept saying to herself. Coming out of hiding, he catches Izzy, still in bed, quickly jerking the blanket to cover herself from the waist down. Without a word, and with growing whimpers and soft repetitive sorry’ from Izzy, Dean draws back the blanket. Izzy’s legs, from mid-thigh to mid-calf, are covered with bloody scratches, oozing welts, and purple-blue bruises.
“My God, Izzy,” Dean says low and away from Izzy. He should have known from today’s beginning it would not be SSDD. Six weeks – six weeks. He’s hoped, prayed, even ignored the obvious, but did not except the obvious until tears fell from his eyes at the sight of his wife. Today was anything - everything – but a Same Shit Different Day deal.
“What have you done,” he held Izzy’s cheek in his hand.
“I didn’t I’m sorry I’m sorry I didn’t do it I swear I didn’t!” Izzy stammered out before she fell into a wild cry.
“We have to get you help. Real help.”
“Why won’t you listen to me It’s the dreams They’re getting worst more vivid They’re real!”
Izzy’s manic behavior made Dean level his. “Listen to yourself, Izzy. Look at your legs. You can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep doing this. We can’t keep ignoring -”
“Then quit ignoring me!” Izzy snapped.
Dean, hand still on her cheek, calmly rose from Izzy’s bedside, and silently left the room. He will call their church’s crisis center. They will come and coax Izzy out of the bathroom she’s locked herself in when she heard Dean open the door for the two sterilely dressed strong men. She will kick and scream and cry and plead to Dean to not let them take her. She will beg him, the reverend, the sterile strong men, to believe her – the dreams are real. Dean will watch them drive away in an unmarked van with his delusional, screaming wife, on the advice that he follow them to their facilities. Dean will follow, but not too close. He will make a right when the van makes a left. He will have a long shot of whiskey to settle the morning before the afternoon takes him.
Dean arrives at St. Benedict’s Crisis Center well after the transport van. He returned to the house after leaving the PubGrub, wanting to shower off the whiskey and smoke, figuring he’d be gone well into the night, maybe the next. He sat in his car in the parking lot for twenty minutes before heading to the center’s entrance, grinding his mind and memory for when and where things went wrong. How could Izzy have lost connection to reality and what was most important.
As he approached the area where the receptionist instructed him Izzy was being held, Dean felt a sense of drowning. Every step closer to the room seemed to stick to the floor then sink beneath it. His heart jumped to his throat at a pace that quickened his breath and made it difficult for him to swallow rapidly forming saliva. He hesitated at her door, as he had done too many times before, as he had done a few hours before, then forced himself to his wife’s side.
Izzy lay on a thinly padded aluminum scaffold with castors. Her arms were at her side, still, palm side up, and held in place with belted leather cuffs. Her feet, palely peeking from under the rough white cotton sheet, were daintily restrained at the ankle by the same. He went to touch her, to hold her clammy, tranquil hand, to stoke her once full dark hair now damp with sweat and thinned and matted from fear and despair, and kiss her silent lips. He thought of the first day they met and the horrible morning they just had interchangeably, and felt his knees weaken with his love for her.
The shift nurse entered just in time to interrupt his desire to fall. “We gave her a strong sedative. She’ll be out for the rest of the day” she said meddling with Izzy’s chart, “The doctor will be in to decide care and therapy with you momentarily.”
Dean thought that was an odd statement – that he and the doctor would decide Izzy’s care and therapy - about as odd as the contained and orderly short word ‘crisis’ for something not so contained and orderly. Not that the doctor would help, or even that he would offer options for Dean to decide from. No. The doctor would be part of the decision. He guessed that’s what happens in a crisis, at a crisis center: Someone else would become part of the equation, become the head of the house, take over. After all, he was there because he couldn’t handle the crisis on his own in the first place. It gave Dean the illusion that he wasn’t alone, though he knew everyone involve, he and Izzy and the doctor, were all alone, separated, in their endeavors.
Six weeks passed before the doctor would talk to Dean about Izzy’s sessions. Another six weeks passed before the doctor would let Dean sit in on Izzy’s talk therapy sessions. On this cold, gray-hazed familiar morning, he’s allowed to sit in an adjacent room joined by a two-way mirror so he could see and hear Izzy, but Izzy would not regress or not participate due to his presence – she always cries and pleads with him to take her home whenever she sees him, followed by her cursing his name for not doing so.
Izzy’s not herself, not totally. She’s medicatedly calm while being eerily alert and aware. She stares at mirror on her side, fixing her hair with a girlishly smile. Her actions are haunted but Dean dismisses them as grooming. He stares back at her with a boyish grin stuffed with love. Then she waves and his smile disappears.
The doctor begins with his litany of repetitive questions, some geared to receive the same answer but poised to trick the patient into revealing her sanity of insanity. Izzy doesn’t fall for the trap. She’s occupied with the mirror’s reflection.
“I know how this all end’s, doc.” Izzy monotonically sings, still smiling at the mirror.
“Really,” the doctor says unmoved, “and how is that?”
“Just like my dreams, in blood and fire and screams. That is, if I you don’t let me out and I stop it.”
The doctor, unmoved by Izzy’s expected remarks, patronizes her into a game of mimic. She repeats everything he says to her, as he says it to her. Now she has his attention. And Dean’s.
“What the hell?” Dean whispered to himself.
Izzy smile brightens at she gazes deeper into the mirror, leaning in closer to what is her reflection, “Don’t worry, Dean. I can make it alright. Hell has very little to do with it.”
