Elena Vanishing (22 page)

Gradually, it starts to come over me again: that old feeling of racing to meet a deadline. My flight's in a day and a half. A lot of things need to get done. My lists keep getting longer—books to order, worn-out clothes to replace. I'll have to take everything I need with me. Who knows how long they'll keep me there?

You'll spend six months in an institution
, says the voice in my head,
with a tube up your nose to feed you.

Well, maybe I do need to spend six months in an institution. Maybe I really do need a tube up my nose.

Dad goes to bed. Then Mom goes to bed. Amazingly enough, I'm the one who's still awake. In the middle of the night, I'm sitting at my computer, sorting through photographs that I want to take with me.

I always need photos, if only to look at them and say, “Back then, I was happy.”

Valerie calls. “Hey, slut puppy,” she says. “Whatcha doing?”

“What up, ho. I'm printing out photos to take with me, for my bulletin board or whatever.”

“It's not like boarding school, duh,” she says. “They won't let you have pins. You'd probably try to swallow them or poke your eye out or something.”

“We don't eat, duh,” I answer. “This isn't a psych ward like you went to.” And I don't let myself think about the harsh rules at Drew Center.

Maybe Valerie's right about pins and bulletin boards. But the old routine of packing for boarding school, left over from a simpler time, keeps me from asking myself questions about what I'm doing.

Because—am I really going to a treatment center? Really? Am I really going to go through with this?

They'll pump you full of calories
, says the voice in my head.
They'll get you just where they want you.

“It's two in the morning,” I say to Valerie. “What are you doing up?”

“The Braxton-Hicks thingies are keeping me awake,” she says. “They're kinda starting to hurt.”

Instantly, my nursing instincts come to the fore.

“Braxton-Hicks contractions don't usually cause pain,” I say. “How often are you having them?”

“I dunno. Every few minutes.”

“Maybe you're in labor.”

She yawns. “Like I'd get that lucky. I don't think this kid's
ever
getting born.”

“Well, tell me the next time a contraction comes.”

We chat while she watches reruns and I work on photos. Contractions interrupt, then interrupt again. They're coming five minutes apart.

“You're in labor!” I say in excitement. “You need to wake up Clint. Five minutes apart—you guys should go to the hospital.” And I wish she lived closer so I could go, too. I wish I could be there.

“Nah,” says Valerie, still the procrastinator, even while giving birth. “If it's labor, Clint'll need his sleep. They say this stuff takes forever. I'm going to go back to bed, too.”

In the morning, she wakes me up to say that the contractions are strong and four minutes apart now. Yes, they're going to the hospital, but not right away. First, she wants to take a shower.

“It's what the doc would want me to do,” she says. “Trust me.”

While she's in the shower, I talk to Clint. He's so nervous, he's not making any sense. I hope he lets Valerie drive.

Mom and I hit the stores, and I hunt for treatment center clothing: comfortable, stretchy pajamas and sweats.

Those sweatpants won't stay stretchy for long
, says the voice in my head.
They're going to blimp you out. You'll be fatter than ever, you obese binge-eating whore.

But I don't listen. I set my teeth and buy the clothes. I'm going to do this.

I was wrong, and they were right. I killed my baby. If they fatten me up, I deserve it.

I deserve to suffer.

The busy hours pass with occasional cheerful update calls from Valerie and occasional semi-incomprehensible update calls from Clint. Then comes the text we've been waiting for:

SHES BEAUTIFUL!

And she is.

Gemma is pink and perfect—a compact little woman, ready to take on the world. Valerie holds her as if brand-new motherhood is the most normal thing in the world, and Clint gazes at them both as if he is eyewitness to a miracle. The bonds of love and trust that tie them together almost show up on film. The hospital room is crowded, but they see no one else.

I look at the photos, and my heart bursts with love and joy and grief, and the future that I've been unable to imagine for weeks suddenly comes into focus. I want this for myself someday. I want a future in which I hold my baby. And I want to be a positive force in my new niece's life.

I don't just want to be the kind of aunt who sends Gemma a birthday card once a year. I want to be a part of her world. I know that nothing is going to hold this amazing little person back. She's going to achieve anything she sets her mind to. But one day, she'll find herself struggling. Valerie and Clint will be there for her, but there are things she won't want her parents to hear.

When that day comes, I want Gemma to know that she can call me, and I know I need to get ready for that. I need to be able to tell my niece that things will be okay—that I know she can defeat her demons.

That means I have to defeat my demons first.

I stare at the wall while it's happening. It's better if I stare at the wall.
A week at Clove House hasn't made this any easier.

“Let's talk about what happened at breakfast,” Emily says.

“Let's not,” I say.

The worst part of being in treatment is getting picked apart in therapy. Except for all the other worst parts.

It isn't that I'm trying to derail my recovery. I want to get better—I really do. But there's getting better, and then there's all the stupid and painful stuff they want you to do because they
think
it will make you better. So, okay, I'm an educated person. Show me a medical study that demonstrates how this will help. But they can't, or they won't. They want me to take it on faith.

A lot of what goes on at this place is bullshit.

“I know what we can talk about,” I say. “Let's talk about your wedding photo over there. Let's talk about why it doesn't show your face.”

Emily is a young woman with limp blond hair and a discouraged expression. She's fresh out of school, and during our first therapy session, she made a fatal blunder: she confessed that she hated her nose so much, she got a nose job.

I can't believe she was stupid enough to tell you that
, says the voice in my head.
She's as big a loser as you are.

“This isn't about me,” Emily protests.

Well, it isn't going to be about me, either.

I fold my arms. That's a sign of hostility. I would wear armor if I could. “I tell you what,” I say. “You can give me that speech again about how I should learn to love myself just the way I am.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I notice that Emily's face crumples a little more.

She thinks you're a bitch
, says the voice in my head.
She wishes they would kick you out. She's only doing this for the money.

“I'm here to help you,” Emily says.

“You're here to get paid.”

“I just wish you'd tell me why you're so angry.”

“Because I hate it here.”

This seems promising. Emily perks up. “Tell me what it is you hate.”

“I hate therapy.”

“I can tell.”

This is the first sign of fight Emily has exhibited. Mentally, I give her props. But I don't uncross my arms or look her direction.

“What else do you hate?” she asks.

“I hate the eating.”

But there it is—I might as well not bother. Emily can't know what it means to an anorexic to have to force down food six times a day. It's torture. It's terrifying! It's irresponsible medicine.

And Emily wants me to start eating even more.

The session ends. I drag myself out into the main room. It's a big square with a kitchen in one corner. Long tables line up near the kitchen, and Foofs—giant fluffy beanbags—cluster near a fireplace on the opposite side of the room. Big old-fashioned windows fill the wall by the fireplace and let in gray light from the cloudy sky. Outside, the February day is gloomy, and snow is flickering down.

When I first got here, I would stand at a window to watch the snow fall onto the parking lot. Now I don't. The outside world is losing its meaning.

I automatically head toward the fireplace. It won't help, though. No matter what I do, I can't seem to get warm. I can feel the fire heating my skin now, but the heat can't seem to get inside.

About twenty other patients lie curled up in Foofs or bend over art projects at the tables. Bright, amateurish patient art covers the walls. We even have cutout snowflakes on the windows.

The whole place feels like a kindergarten. Sometimes I find that comforting.

That's because you're pathetic
, says the voice in my head.

I collapse into a Foof, worn out by the stress of therapy. Ms. Carter, the nurse on duty, comes over with a Dixie cup in one hand and a glass of apple juice in the other. She says, “Dr. Greene wants you to start this immediately.”

“Another one?” I say. “I'm already taking two pills in the morning and two at night. I can barely stay awake.”

“This one is different.”

I sit up and take the Dixie cup from her. A half of a white pill sits in the bottom of it. I pick it out and take the glass of juice.

I used to hate pills. Now I don't even ask what they're for. Like any invalid, I long perpetually for a miracle drug that will reach into my aching body and erase the anguish inside.

Apple juice, one hundred calories per serving
, warns the voice in my head.
You're not going to drink that, are you?

“Is this coming off my lunchtime calories?” I ask. Ms. Carter stops herself from rolling her eyes, but I see the look. So I take the pill with only the tiniest sip of juice.

Ms. Carter walks back to the kitchen, past two scrawny little girls who are giggling and clowning around at a table. One of them
jumps up and executes a cartwheel. Ms. Carter says, “Sam! No exercise!” The little girl collapses into her chair again, shrieking with laughter.

Just like a kindergarten.

And you're pathetic.

I lower my head into the Foof, curl up tighter, and try to fight back the tears. But in another second, they're spilling down my face.

Warm, thin arms curve around me in a supportive hug. A fragile girl my age nestles beside me, smiling kindly when I look up. It's Evey. Evey knows not to ask what's wrong. So I put my head down again and sob into the Foof while Evey pats my shoulder.

The dull drowsiness of the medications pulls me down. After a few minutes, I drift into a doze.

“I like your tattoo,” says a high clear voice.

I lift my head. Evey isn't patting my shoulder anymore. She's in a Foof nearby, working on her crochet project. The cartwheel girl is standing beside me. She has long brown hair, big soulful brown eyes, and bright green fuzzy pajamas with googly-eyed creatures on them.

The pajamas are way too big for her. They flop along the floor as she fidgets. And her name is Sam. When I was little, I had a cat named Sam.

“Who was he?” she asks. “He's dead, right? Was he your brother?”

She's pointing at the tattoo on my upper arm, the only one she can see. All my tattoos are beautiful, but I'm really proud of this one. It's a simple grayscale portrait of a young man's face, so delicate that it might have been sketched in pencil. I glance down at that face gazing sadly out at the world: the handsomest man in England.

“Did he die in Iraq?” Sam asks.

“No, he died in World War I,” I say. “His name was Rupert Brooke. He wrote poetry.”

“So was he your grandfather?” she asks as she fidgets in a nervous little dance.

“Sam! No exercise!” calls Ms. Carter again, and Sam flops into the Foof next to mine.

“No, I love his poetry,” I say. “I've loved it for a long time.” Sam looks at me, baffled but respectful, so I go on. “He wrote, ‘If I should die, think only this of me: That there's some corner of a foreign field that is forever England.' And there is. He died in Greece. He's buried there under some olive trees.”

Evey sets down her crochet project and leans back in her Foof. In her brittle hands, even crochet looks like hard work.

“I like that,” she says. “I like it that it came true. How does the rest of it go?”

As I say the poem, Sheila wanders over. Sheila has shining honey-colored hair and an imperious expression. She's been a patient forever, and she has a PEG tube through her abdomen straight into her stomach. While the rest of us struggle to chew up and gulp down our meals, Sheila's nourishment flows in without her even noticing.

“Whatcha doing?” she demands as she takes over a free Foof.

“Poetry,” Evey says.

Sam bounces up and down in her Foof. “Do you know any more?” she asks me.

Residential treatment, with its long boring days under house arrest, is about the only place outside of my mom's house where anyone would ask to hear more poetry. But I'm prepared. Since boarding school, I've kept Rupert Brooke's poems close by.

As I fetch the book from my basket, I seem to skim over the floor. Was I feeling this lightheaded earlier? I glide rapidly back to my Foof and sink into it, and the book swings open automatically.

“I HAVE been so great a lover,” I read out loud, and instantly, I have their attention. So I read on, pulling my favorite parts of the poem together.

“I HAVE been so great a lover, filled my days
So proudly with the splendour of Love's praise,
My night shall be remembered for a star
That outshone all the suns of all men's days.”