1.1 This Was All a Mistake

Claire wondered why they had needed to put her into a hospital gown for this. It was all a mistake; all a misunderstanding. It would all be cleared up soon enough, once the Doctor had seen her. Maybe they would send her home, maybe they would hold her for a few days. 72 hours was what she’d always heard on TV.

So there was no need for the gown, she thought. There was also no need for the zip ties that the officer accompanying the paramedics had placed on her hands. “For your own protection,” he’d said. Protection from what? From who?

This was all a mistake that would be corrected soon, she hoped. Perhaps even in time to get back to work. This is what she thought as she sat in the waiting room, her hands tied, the gown’s thin fabric feeling strange and unfamiliar.

The hospital itself was strange and unfamiliar. The walls of the waiting room were utilitarian, painted cinder blocks. Like a high school cafeteria, she thought. She sat on one of those metal-legged, vinyl-cushioned benches that looked like three chairs fused together — the kind of furniture that existed only in waiting rooms and nowhere else. There were metal bars over the cross-hatched shatterproof glass windows. Fluorescent lights buzzed in the drop-ceiling overhead. The place was, in a word, institutional.

The hospital staff went about their business, paying Claire no mind. She detected some murmured voices from the direction of the triage desk. She could not hear words, just sounds. The tile floor was scuffed but very clean under her feet. Why didn’t they give me socks, she wondered, don’t you usually get socks in a place like this?

This was all a mistake, it will all be OK once I see the Doctor, she told herself, and waited.

At that moment, someone called her name to the desk.

Claire got up as elegantly as one could in her style of dress and state of helplessness, and walked up to the front desk slowly. A woman sat looking at a computer — presumably some kind of nurse. “Claire?” she confirmed without looking up.

“Yes.”

“What’s your date of birth?” the nurse asked. This was the universal medical question. Claire was used to being asked this repeatedly at every checkup, lab test, and occasional trip to the ER. Nobody ever seemed to remember it from the last time, no matter how many times she told them. In this unfamiliar environment it was almost comforting.

“September 23, 2000. I’m here because…”

“No need, I’ve got it all right here in the computer. You’re already in the system. We’ll get you to a room as soon as your doctor does your intake exam.”

Hesitatingly, Claire asked, “Room? I don’t think I need a room, I’m not going to be…”

“Don’t tell me,” said the woman, “talk to the Doctor about it.”

The nurse gestured at two large men, orderlies or assistants of some kind, very muscular, with tattoos, standing on either side of a pair of large metal doors. The men looked like football players, or bouncers. The same kind of guy probably had both of those jobs, at different times in his life. From tackling opponents to wrangling drunks, a natural progression. And some of them, she thought, ended up here. Seems a bit much, she thought, I certainly don’t need wrangling.

“She’s going to 423,” the nurse said to the orderlies, who nodded in acknowledgement. The nurse pressed a key card against a card reader on the wall. It was the kind of modern electronic fixture that always looked out of place in an old building like this.

The door beeped, and opened under its own power. Claire knew it was not the kind of door that she would be able to reopen, once she was on the other side of it. The orderlies flanked her and stood silently waiting to follow her through it.

One step at a time on the cold hard floor, she stepped through. With a pneumatic whoosh, the door closed behind her.

The hallway beyond the door looked even older, as if she had stepped through a portal from a DMV office into a historical site. The walls were now brick, and the windows looked like they might have once opened, before the hinges were painted over. There were rusty bars on the windows. Opposite to the windows, wooden doors lined the hallway. The doors had numbers on them, but nothing else to indicate what was in the room. They did not have windows, but wooden slats that looked like they once tilted open to allow light and air in. These too, of course, were long since painted over.

The orderlies led her to a room numbered 423, and opened the door. It was a non-descript little medical exam room. It looked like it had been repainted many times. The furnishings looked old but not as old as the building itself. There was a medicine cabinet, a metal exam table, and a mirror on the wall.

The men left her alone without saying anything and closed the door. The lights in this room also buzzed. The room smelled faintly of disinfectant. She sat down on the chair to try to wait for the doctor.

Her eyes drifted around the room, not really seeing anything until something caught her peripheral vision. A shape? A figure? Someone?

The mirror! Claire did not mean to look in the mirror, as she did not want to see her reflection. There it was anyway, before she had time to brace herself. Her own blue eyes stared back at her, bloodshot and filled with fear. Her brown hair was mussed and uneven from everything she’d been through. The baby-blue hospital gown hung on her casually, nearly falling off one shoulder. Her legs were bare and goose-pimpled in the clammy hospital air.

She saw the nervousness; the anxiety. She felt sorry for that girl in the mirror, before she even had time to realize it was herself.

A knock came at the door. Doctors always knocked before entering a room, but then came in anyway before you had time to answer. The door opened before Claire could even turn her head.

A man in his mid-30s entered the room, wearing a white lab coat over a crisp dress shirt and business slacks. The hard soles of his leather shoes clicked on the floor. This was not the kind of doctor who went around in scrubs all the time, to show the world that he was someone who got his hands dirty. This was not the kind of hospital where a doctor needed to make that kind of performance.

He had a serious, composed look on his face, and the five o’clock shadow of a man who shaved once a day in the early morning and considered that enough even though it wasn’t. His brown hair was cut short, neatly combed. He moved with a confidence that made him seem taller than he was.

He removed his glasses, which were apparently single-focal and not fit for close vision, and glanced over Claire’s chart with hard, piercing brown eyes. Then the eyes turned on Claire.

For a brief foolish second, something fluttered in Claire’s chest. She felt something like relief. Finally, here was someone who knew what he was doing. Someone who would see the mistake, the misunderstanding, the absurdity of all this.

Surely he would see what was going on.

“Name and date of birth, please,” he demanded. There it was, asking for the same info again and again.

“Claire Allman, September 23, 2000,” she answered.

“Do you know what today’s date is, Claire?” he asked.

Another routine question. His voice sounded as if he asked it a dozen times a day. There was no urgency, no recognition that she’d been dragged into something bizarre and terrifying. He wasn’t tired, or bored, or disinterested. He sounded professional enough. But there was no sympathy in it, no flicker of understanding for what she was going through. He was just too calm, she thought.

But the date? She knew the date! This was her chance — her chance to explain everything to this man who looked like someone with authority. Someone who could fix this, make everything normal again.

But something about him — the white coat, the neat stubble, the click of his shoes, the way his eyes seemed to take in everything at once — pressed down on her. She couldn’t get the words out.

She hesitated, then blurted, “December 20… no, I mean, December 4. 2023.”

The Doctor didn’t react. He simply wrote something on the chart.

“Are you pregnant, or think you might be pregnant?”

“No.”

“Do you know why you’re here?”

“Of… of course! I can explain everything. I’m not supposed to be here. They only called 9-1-1 as a precaution, it’s company policy.” As an H.R. generalist in the same office where her supervisor had made that call, Claire could have recited the policy chapter and verse.

“Let’s get started with your exam,” the Doctor said, as if she hadn’t spoken at all.

“What’s going on? What are you going to do with me?” she asked. Her voice was thin, shaking with fear.

“Claire.” He focused his eyes on hers. Calm. Stern. Unshakable. “Cooperate.”

She said nothing, lowering her eyes, avoiding his gaze like someone backing down from a confrontation before it even happened. He motioned toward the exam table and patted it once with his hand. “Sit here,” he said.

Silently, she moved from the chair to the table. The shift felt wrong. Chairs were normal life. You sat in them every day. The exam table was different. Cold paper. Metal edges. A place for patients.

It was difficult to get up onto the table with her hands still tied. Fortunately there was a small footstool, which partly made up for the inability to use her hands to pull herself up. Her bare legs brushed the crinkling paper as she climbed up. She wasn’t supposed to be on a table like this. She wasn’t supposed to be someone who belonged here.

The Doctor stepped closer, the chart tucked under one arm. “Look straight ahead,” he said.

She did as she was told. He lifted a small penlight and shone it briefly into each eye. “Good.” He added a note on the chart.

He moved to her side, took out a stethoscope, and fitted the earpieces into his ears. Then he leaned toward her.

He pressed the stethoscope to the bare skin of her upper back, at a spot where the gown already left her exposed. The metal was shockingly cold. “Breathe in.” She shuddered, silently, trying to hold herself together. Another note on the chart.

Without changing his stance, he shifted the stethoscope to her front, over her heart. She closed her eyes. She tried to will her heartbeat to slow, terrified he would write something down — something that would make all this worse. She didn’t know the word tachycardia, but she knew the feeling of her pulse racing when she was anxious. She was shaking. Another note.

He took her hands — still bound by the zip-ties — and lifted them slightly. He felt for her pulse and timed it with his wristwatch, for what seemed like a long time. Even through his latex gloves, the prolonged contact made her acutely aware of the warmth and firmness of his hands. Another pen-scratch on the chart.

He took out a chrome-plated reflex hammer with a rubber head. “Uncross your legs, Claire.” She hadn’t even realized she’d crossed them. She shifted and uncrossed them, her bare legs dangling off the edge of the table.

He placed his hand on her knee to steady her leg and tapped just below the kneecap. Her leg jerked; her bare foot twitched. He repeated the test on the other side, identical, then wrote another note. “Excellent,” was all he said.

Claire waited for more — perhaps a chance to explain herself — but he simply closed the chart with a soft snap.

“That will do,” he said.

She blinked. “That’s… that’s it?”

“For now.” He didn’t elaborate. “You’ll be taken to your room shortly.”

“Room? No, I — I don’t need a room. I shouldn’t even be here. There’s been a mistake, you can see that. If you just talk to somebody, just check something, you’ll see. Call my boss. Call my sister — Liz. You have her number, she’s my emergency contact… They’ll tell you, I don’t need to be here, I don’t need a room. I just want to go home. Please…”

Her voice cracked. She was close to breaking down. This man had been her last hope. He placed his hand on her back. It was the kind of gesture that some people might have called comforting.

“Claire,” he said calmly, “you are not in charge here.”

She looked straight ahead, said nothing.

“Stand up,” he ordered.

He waited as she sat still for a few seconds, with some residual defiance against doing what she was told simply because she was being told. He waited, as if he had all day to wait, and she stood up.

He opened the door, looked out into the hallway, and nodded at whoever was out there. In came a different female nurse, a middle-aged red-haired woman, and another one of the orderlies. They said nothing. Presumably they’d come to take her away, but now they too were waiting for whatever would happen next.

“Turn around.”

She turned around, facing the table, and leaned her hands on it slightly to steady herself. At least, she thought, they’d tied her hands in the front, so she could at least partially use them. She could see herself in the mirror again now. She looked paler. Her eyes were wide open. She looked down, to avoid staring into her own face too long.

“Let’s get something straight, Claire,” he intoned, his voice still oddly calm, calmer than his words would normally indicate, “I am in charge of your treatment here. I decide how long you stay, I will decide when you will leave. Your time here could be pleasant, or unpleasant, depending on your behavior.”

Claire said nothing. She was finished talking to this man. He was not going to help her. Was not interested in helping her. And she knew, somehow, that unlike the others he saw her. The others didn’t even notice her unease, her humiliation, her overwhelming wish to be somewhere else. He saw it, he just didn’t care. With just a few words from him, all of her hopes had been dashed. She had nothing to say to him.

“Not talking at all, are we?” he said, still with that eerie calm in his voice, “I do not normally do this to new patients on their first day, but you need to be shown that your behavior has consequences in this facility.”

Claire was frozen. What kind of consequences?

“Typically, you would be shown to your room now and provided with a change of clothing. Pajamas, robes, slippers, that sort of thing. You’re going to stay like this for a while. Additionally…”

Her heart sank. She did not like the word “additionally,” how much worse could it get?

“Additionally,” he continued, “You are not authorized to wear any outside garments. The gown is enough for you, until your behavior improves. Let’s get these off you now.” He looked at the nurse.

What? she thought, what the hell does that mean? What garments?… he doesn’t mean they’re going to…

“Hold still, sweetie,” the woman whispered in a thick Southern accent. She untied the lower of two pairs of strings on the back of Claire’s hospital gown, so that its two sides now kept her covered up only by gravity. She reached inside the gown, without fully opening it, and pulled Claire’s underwear down off of her hips.

Oh my god, I was right, they took my… I’m going to have to walk around this, with my…, Claire could not even finish the thought, it was so horrible.

Her panties fell to the floor around her feet. Gingerly, she stepped out of them and left them there, not sure what to do with them now.

“Show her to her room, Pam,” said the Doctor to the other two.

Claire, mortified, said nothing. She could not believe what was happening.

“Come on, honey,” said Pam, “this way.”

Claire followed her through the door, and suddenly realized the gown was still untied. There was nothing back there keeping it closed except gravity and good luck. Had they left it like this on purpose, or just forgotten to retie them? She was afraid to ask. How was she supposed to walk like this? Very slowly and carefully. She placed one bare foot in front of the other, and tried to move as stiffly as possible, keeping her back completely straight. If only, she thought, if only they’d tied my hands behind my back.

The hallway was long, with many more doors like the one she’d just been in. She followed the employees at some distance, due to her slower pace. They did not seem to mind; they did not stop and wait for her or scold her to speed up. They acted like this was normal. Was it normal here? What kind of place was this, where this might be normal?

They rounded a corner, turned right. For a few seconds, she couldn’t see them, and they couldn’t see her. How did they know she was even still following? She continued following them, she had nowhere else to go.

“Well, well,” said a male voice from the hallway behind her, “you must be new.”

She turned her head, and saw a man in greasy janitor’s overalls, carrying a mop and pushing a wheeled bucket. He looked to be in his forties, with a beard going gray in uneven patches. A grimy red bandana covered his hair — whatever hair he still had — the kind of thing that looked like it doubled as a rag when he needed one. He wore thick yellow cleaning gloves, the industrial kind, not the thin medical ones the Doctor used. Everything about him said maintenance, janitorial, the people who came in after hours to empty trash cans and mop floors.

At her office, people like this didn’t talk to her. They moved around her, silent and invisible, doing their work while she did hers on nights when she worked late. That was the unspoken arrangement. And yet here he was.

“You must’ve really done something to get your hands tied up like that on the first day! Usually Doc’s nicer to the new ones. He must have something special planned for you.”

Claire said nothing, and continued to walk. Slowly. Trusting her slow pace would keep the gown in place in spite of nothing physically holding it. How long was this man going to be back there, watching her walk? Now she really wanted to get around that corner, where the others had gone. But she dared not speed up.

Oh God, oh God, please let the gown stay shut, she thought.

“Name’s Bill, by the way,” the man continued, as if oblivious to her unease, “Ol’ Bill, the gals all call me. Don’t mind me, I’m friendly! It’s the other patients you need to look out for. They might get jealous once they see Doc has a new project going!”

Claire tried not to even think about these words. She continued to place one foot in front of the other. The gown stayed in place, she thought.

As she rounded the corner, Bill got in one last parting shot, “it’s gonna be nice having a new pair of cheeks peekin’ out around here!”

1.2 Accepting Reality

The slow march down the hallway continued, Claire walking even slower now that she’d had external confirmation that something was “peeking out” the slit of the back of the gown.

That guy saw me, she kept thinking, He saw my…, but again she couldn’t even bring herself to think the thought. She was too mortified, too humiliated. He was so… how can anyone talk to me like that? What did I do to deserve this?, she thought.

The nurse and the orderly came to a door at the end of the hallway, another metal door that required badge access to open. It opened into a room that was slightly less ancient in feel than the hallway had been. Unlike the hallway, the floor was carpeted. She instinctively curled her toes into it, but it did not give, it was worn and crushed from years of other people walking on it. Still, it was warm and welcome after the cold tile.

“This is the wing you’ll be staying in, sweetie,” said Pam, “it has everything you need — bedrooms, bathrooms, cafeteria, common areas…”

They were in a break room and sitting area with multiple chairs and tables and couches. There was an impossibly old TV, muted and tuned to some shopping channel. There was a large commercial coffee pot, that had clearly been sitting turned on for hours, filling the room with the smell of burnt coffee. The couches had a worn look, like thrift-store furniture. There was a shelf of books, all of which appeared to be heavily-used romance novels, and a rack of magazines, all of which were the kind of thing you normally see on supermarket checkout aisles, also years old and heavily used.

It looks like an Old Folks’ home in here, Claire thought, remembering the times years ago she’d visited her great-grandmother, They wouldn’t let her leave without supervision, either. It was for her own good, they said. She was 90 and she’d been in there for years and years. Oh God, I could be here until I’m 90…

There was a murmur of female voices. At the other end of the large room, too far away to hear clearly, Claire could see a group of other patients sitting around talking to a nurse. She felt a weight in her stomach. She wasn’t ready to sit in a group with a bunch of strangers. She wasn’t ready for anything.

“That’s the group therapy session, sweetie,” said the nurse guiding her, “you’ll be joining it soon. But first let’s continue the Grand Tour!”

They walked over to another area adjacent to the common room, Claire feeling somewhat relieved she did not have to join the group session just yet, but also wishing she could simply sit down. It contained a sort of counter, or desk, behind which another nurse was seated.

“This is our nurse’s station. This is where you can find one of us if you ever need anything, sweetie, day or night. This is also where you’ll get any outside prescribed medications, like allergy medicine and birth control, but only after they’ve been reviewed and approved by the Doctor. Any new psychiatric medications might be given here, depending on the prescription, or they might be administered directly by a nurse. All of that is in review right now.”

They walked down another hallway. Pam took Claire right up to the door of a room, with “217” in metal numbers on it. “This is going to be your room, honey.”

Pam opened the door, and Claire was taken aback by the state of the room and its furnishings. Even by the standards of this hospital, it looked like it had been lived in too much and cared for too little. There were six metal beds, not modern hospital beds, the old kind, thought Claire, the kind with metal rails, not plastic. There were six small wooden dressers, very scuffed and scratched. There was a small table with some chairs around it. The room was kept warm by ancient metal radiators along the wall. There were large windows, metal-barred of course.

“How many patients live in here?” Claire asked. She imagined the room crowded, filled with noise and chatter. And she had no idea what her roommates were going to be like. Were they like her, sent here for the wrong reasons, or did they belong in here? Was she going to feel safe sleeping in a room with five strangers?

“Just you and one other young lady, about your age,” said the nurse, “we have a lot of vacant spots in the hospital these days. There’s not as many girls that need to be here, as there used to be.”

I don’t need to be here, thought Claire. She sat down on the nearest bed, eager to get something solid under her. The mattress felt thin, more like a pallet than a bed. The metal rails were cold against her thigh. She could smell the rust.

“Don’t get comfortable yet,” said Pam, “I’ve got more places to show you.”

“When do I get issued clothes?” asked Claire, “to put in my dresser?”

“Oh, sweetie, you don’t get any until the Doctor says you can have them. Until then we’ll change you into a new clean gown whenever you need one. You’ll be allowed to have your hands free while you sleep, and for bathroom breaks — but until the Doctor says otherwise we have to put the cuffs back on after. Here, honey, let me see your hands.”

Claire held out her bound hands for the nurse to see. “Change these,” the nurse said to the orderly, “so she sees how it works.”

The orderly reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of scissors, and cut the tie on Claire’s wrists. Involuntarily, she shook her wrists, feeling the freedom. Then she remembered, like a person remembering a briefly-forgotten problem upon waking up from sleep, and her hands moved automatically around behind her back. Her fingers felt the fabric of the two sides of the gown and held them tight together, making sure it stayed closed. She fumbled for the strings, trying to find them and tie them while she had time. It’s like trying to tie your shoes behind your back, she thought, I don’t think I’m going to have time…

“That’s right baby, stretch out for a minute. But don’t get used to it,” said the nurse, “here hold them back out for us!”

The orderly produced not another pair of zip-ties, but a pair of stainless metal handcuffs, and put them on Claire’s wrists. In spite of the weight and the clanky metal, these were better than the ties, she realized. They allowed slightly more freedom of movement of the hands. Not enough to get her hands behind her back, though, as Claire soon discovered.

Claire was not surprised at all by this, at this point. She simply nodded and then hung her head, and followed the nurse back out the door.

“Now, honey, you’ll be able to leave your room whenever you want, and go to the other patient-accessible areas. That includes the breakroom that we just saw, and the bathroom. Now for the bathroom you’re gonna have a towel, a bar of soap, a little bitty bottle of shampoo, a toothbrush, a tube of toothpaste, sanitary supplies, and a hair brush. It’s your responsibility to keep track of all these, and to hang your towel up to dry after use so it doesn’t get moldy. You get new towels on Tuesdays and Fridays…”

While Claire recoiled at the thought of moldy old towels, and also at the idea that she was going to even be here long enough to need all of this stuff, Pam led her into a large and very “institutional” bathroom. The whole room looked like the inside of a drained swimming pool, like it was designed to be flooded. The walls and floor were all made of the same tile. There were several toilets and showers, each mercifully in their own little stalls, just like at the gym, Claire thought, but there’s no lockers. Clearly someone in her position was not allowed to have anything that needed to be locked up or kept safe. Suddenly, she remembered, in all the commotion she did not know where any of her stuff was. Her phone, purse, wallet, money, identification, it was all missing. It was all taken from her in the ambulance, when they made her change outfits. She wondered if it was all sitting somewhere in the same laundry bag with her clothes. I’ll never see my phone again just like I’ll never see my panties again, she thought.

The room also had another feature that Claire had not seen in a gym, and which gave her a sinking feeling to behold: a row of old, metal, clawfoot bathtubs along one wall. These had both faucets and showerheads on flexible metal hoses. They had no curtains around them; anyone using them would be exposed and public for everyone to see. Claire shuddered. The tile felt very cold under her feet. She wondered who used these, and if they did so of their own will.

Next was the cafeteria. It looked exactly like the cafeteria of every school Claire had ever been to: Formica tables, stacks of plastic trays, the bustle of kitchen staff, the smell of hot food. The nurse announced, “this is where you will have three meals a day. A schedule of the meals and today’s menu is written here,” she gestured at a whiteboard on the wall, “make sure you do not miss meal time or you will have to wait for the next one.”

Claire was hungry but it did not seem to be meal time at the moment. Her ambulance had arrived at her job shortly before lunch, and now lunch was over — she’d missed it. She’d have to wait for dinner.

“And now,” the nurse announced almost excitedly, “it’s time to go meet the other girls!”

Claire had a look of silent dread on her face.

“Don’t you fret, sweetie,” reassured the nurse, “I’m turning you over to your group now. Nurse Laura will take it from here. But, if you need me, just ask for Nurse Pam. I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow anyway, you’re one of my special patients. I take care of all my little babies.”

Claire took a good look at Pam. She looked about 60, her dark reddish hair was clearly not naturally that color anymore, and it nearly matched her burgundy scrubs. “Take care, honey,” said Pam as she and the silent orderly walked away. She patted Claire on the back. The touch was gentle, and that somehow made it worse. It reminded Claire of the gown, as if she needed a reminder.

She knows, thought Claire, she could have tied those strings. It must be written down on my chart not to do it. In spite of her empathy, Pam was clearly not someone who was going to bend any rules.

Cautiously, Claire approached the group. She felt like she’d just been dropped off for her first day of school. Eight women sat in a loose ring of chairs. Some slouched, some sat upright, all facing a nurse who stood at the edge of the circle in green scrubs, holding a clipboard. This nurse was younger than Pam — maybe forty, dark hair pulled back, sharp face. She didn’t smile.

She turned, and her eyes quickly looked over Claire — the gown, the handcuffs, the bare feet — and then she nodded as if Claire’s condition was something she expected. She gestured to an empty chair. “Have a seat, Claire.” Her voice was calm, clipped, professional, and disinterested.

Claire sat down, the carpet rough under her feet, the metal handcuffs clinking softly as she laid her hands in her lap.

The other patients glanced at her. The patients were wearing an assortment of pajamas, bathrobes, even scrubs like the ones the nurses wore. No one was wearing just a hospital gown. No one was barefoot. Everyone wore socks, bedroom slippers, or both. No one was in handcuffs.

One girl in particular caught her eye. She was pale, not unhealthily so, but like the natural paleness of someone who spends most of their time indoors, in dark places like basement bars and the public library. Her dark hair looked too black to be natural; clearly it was dyed. She wore a white terry-cloth bathrobe and matching slippers, and that seemed to be all. No pajamas were visible under it. The robe’s belt was tied in a single loose half-knot — a knot Claire wouldn’t have trusted for one second — and the girl plainly didn’t give it a thought. Claire couldn’t decide which she envied more: the robe, or the unconcern. She leaned back in her chair, in a posture that was both relaxed and defiant, taking up more space than the other women, like she was in her own living room and everyone else was the visitor.

She looked like she was waiting for something. Her legs were crossed, one slipper dangling precariously from her toes, as if she didn’t care whether it fell. How can anyone be that relaxed in here? Claire wondered. She looked about Claire’s age, maybe a little younger. Her expression was flat, but her eyes — the kind of grey-green eyes that looked a different shade under every kind of light — were alive and watchful. Briefly, those eyes turned on Claire. They took her in just like the nurse had, as if this mind also was analyzing her.

Laura turned to the black-haired stranger. “Misty, why don’t you continue what you were saying.”

The black-haired girl remained silent. A few of the other patients glanced at her. She didn’t look at Laura. “I wasn’t saying anything.”

Laura made a small note on her clipboard. “Avoidance. That’s alright. We can come back to you.”

Claire didn’t understand what had just happened, but all the other patients had turned to stare at Misty. Her slipper dropped on the carpet with a slight thud, where it lay a few seconds before her foot slipped back into it.

Who is she?, Claire wondered.

Laura moved on, her tone smooth and practiced. “Now, as I was saying, today we’re focusing on acceptance. Accepting where we are. Accepting the help we’re given. Accepting responsibility for our choices.”

Claire swallowed. The words felt like they were aimed at her even though Laura wasn’t looking at her. Without warning, Laura turned directly to Claire, “And now for our newest member. Is there anything you’d like to share with the group, Claire?”

Claire was like a deer in headlights. She folded her hands in her lap, the cuffs cold against her skin, and tried to shrink. She didn’t know the rules here yet, like everyone else presumably did. She didn’t know what she could say that wouldn’t make things even worse.

“I… ugh…”, she stammered.

“Start with the basics, Claire. Tell us who you are, your age, where you’re from, what’s been going on in your life. School. Work. And then tell us how you got here.” All of the other patients were now staring at her, except for the black-haired one, Misty, who seemed to be looking away, her mind somewhere else.

Claire suddenly found herself unable to look anyone in the eye, and spoke to her own feet:

“My… name is Claire M-Michelle Allman.” She rarely spoke her middle name, and hearing it out loud reminded her of her mother telling her that it was like a little magic spell to give her strength. She felt like she needed it. “I’m… 23. I work at… I work at… J. Dunbar and Company… Human Resources… I’m… I help people, I answer people’s questions about their benefits… I help people file claims for… for… mental health…”

With the words “mental health,” she felt tears filling her eyes, and buried her face in her hands. She knew they were all still looking at her.

Someone must have looked like they were about to say something, because Claire heard the Nurse say, “Give her space, ladies. Let her finish.”

When she could collect herself enough to speak, she continued, “I’m here because I made a mistake. It was my mistake, but it was a little one, and I don’t need to be here because of it! You must know someone who can… fix it? Get me out of here?!”

“Thank you, Claire,” said Laura as if Claire had not just asked her a direct and concrete question. “As you all can see, we all have a ways to go towards accepting reality as it is. We’re all going to be working on it together.”

1.3 You’re Not the Only One

Claire remained sitting in the breakroom after Laura had dismissed the group. All of the patients were “free to go,” to go back to their rooms or mill about the wing. As they shuffled off they could hear faint echoes across the room and down various hallways. She thought she could hear them talking about her.

“Did you see how scared she was? I wish Laura would be nicer to her, she doesn’t look like she could handle much…,” said a voice.

“Shh. She’ll hear you!” said another.

The voices faded away, until the only sound left was the buzz of the lights overhead in the drop-ceiling and the occasional metallic clank of the radiators.

There was no planned activity until dinner. Claire didn’t know what to do, so she just stayed where she was. She thought about going to her own room, but this would involve extra walking, and walking meant worrying about the gown. It was better to stay here. She sat in her chair, staring at her hands in the metal cuffs, and contemplating her situation.

In spite of her state of exposure — bare feet, bare legs, the gown hardly covering her thighs, short sleeves, the open back — she was not cold. Quite the contrary, she was if anything feeling a bit too warm. Like many old buildings with steam radiators, every room was either too hot or too cold, and this one was too hot. You could smell the heat. Claire had perspired more than usual during the ordeal of the group session, and the gown now clung to her sweaty skin in ways that made Claire even more concerned about how it might act if she stood up. Another reason to stay put.

While she was thinking about this, someone spoke her name. “Claire?”

She looked up. It was the girl from the therapy group. The dark haired one, in the white bathrobe. This outfit actually made a lot of sense in this room today. This person wasn’t dressed like this for no reason, she knew this place well, and she was dressed for the “climate” in here.

Claire took a second to respond. “It’s Misty, right?”

“That’s what they call me,” responded the other, “I prefer to go by Mystique, or Myst for short. And trust me, I can hear if you don’t say it with a ‘y’.” Claire chuckled at this joke, out of politeness.

Myst came and sat down near Claire, not in a chair but on the floor, taking off her slippers and crossing her legs like she was sitting around a campfire. This afforded her a closer position to Claire than even the nearest chair did. Claire looked down at her. She was all knees and elbows, like a spider-monkey. The robe accommodated all this movement, somehow. Claire wondered if she had anything on under it.

“So, new girl,” Myst asked with great curiosity but no detectable contempt, “I want to know. What did you do on your first day, to end up like this? Everybody comes in the front door in zip-ties and a hospital gown. The gown tells me you must be what they call a Special Project, I know because I’m one too. But the cuffs, those are probably punishment for something…”

“If we’re both the same kind of patient,” Claire asked, “why did they let you have a robe and slippers? Can I get a robe and slippers?”

“Every project is different,” explained Myst, her voice softened, “it just means we don’t get treated like everybody else. It doesn’t mean we get treated like each other.”

“Oh,” said Claire, her hope evaporating. She was off on the wrong foot already. She was already being singled out.

“Now, how’d you get those cuffs?” Myst’s curiosity was unsated. But Claire detected something else in her voice: not morbid curiosity, not pity, but empathy.

“Well, he said I wasn’t being cooperative. Said I needed to be shown who’s in charge.”

“Who said?”

“That doctor,” said Claire, “the one with the brown hair, and stubble. You know him?” she carefully avoided mentioning anything about his piercing eyes, or how his touch felt.

“Oh, I know all about him,” said Myst knowingly.

“Anything I need to know?” asked Claire.

“In due time, Claire. In due time. You’ve got a lot to learn about this place. You should lie down. Come on, I’ll walk you to our room.”

“Our room?”

“Yeah didn’t Pam tell you? They put us odd ones together. We’re gonna be roomies!” Myst sounded girlish, almost excited.

Claire was relieved that her roommate, if she had to have one, was at least going to be someone she felt like she could talk to. Someone who wouldn’t talk down to her.

“Myst,” she said nervously, “can you… can you help me tie my gown closed in the back? The strings have been untied since I got here, it keeps coming open…”

“Did you ask the nurses to tie them?”

“I… uh… tried, but I couldn’t. Nobody was listening to me about anything else, why would they listen to me about that? And it’s so embarrassing, I didn’t even want to have to talk about it…”

“You’re talking to me about it.”

“Yeah, but you, you’re like… a person.”

“Alright let’s get these tied,” said Myst, rising to her feet and leaning in, “here Claire, don’t get up, just turn sideways a little… there.”

Claire couldn’t believe it. Someone had just done the one thing for her that she’d been trying to get done for hours.

“Oh Myst, thank you…”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m sure I’ll end up owing you plenty of favors. Let’s get you down for a quick rest before dinner.”

“You sound more like a doctor or a nurse than the ones here,” laughed Claire as she got up and started to walk, and realized she didn’t need to worry about the gown now.

“I’ll be a therapist eventually, if I ever get out of here,” said Myst, “I was in my senior year at State, studying psychology. You know, back in the outside world.”

“Oh. State. That explains everything!” Claire joked. State University was her own alma mater’s in-state rival in basically every sport. Claire had spent four years cracking jokes at the expense of that school and its students, and it was a hard habit to break. It felt good to have something to joke about.

“Oh I see what your deal is,” said Myst with a smile, “you’re one of those stuck up rich girls from down at the U!”

“Hey, I’m not rich! I got a scholarship! I was a straight-A student once…”

“Oh yeah, I know your type. You’re one of those little goody-goody girls. Y’all gave me hell in high school,” the playful jests continued as they walked down the hallway. There was no malice in these remarks, just blowing off steam that seemed like it’d been boiling for a while.

“You said y’all! I thought I heard a southern accent! You’re not from around here.”

“You got me, I’m not! I’m a southern belle turned rebel. A runaway debutante. And you’re a good girl gone bad, don’t we make a pair,” Myst briefly dropped all pretense and let her natural drawl come through.

“That’s wild how you can turn that on and off,” said Claire.

“You have to. People make judgements, assumptions, when they hear that accent. Expect you to act a certain way,” as she said this they arrived in the room. Myst sat down on one of the beds. “This is my bed here, and that’s my dresser there,” pointing a toe at the nearest dresser, almost reaching it, Claire thought. “Take any other bed you want.”

Claire sat down on the bed directly across from Myst.

“Oh,” said Myst, “you really want to be that close? You seem like someone that needs your space.”

“Normally I am,” said Claire, staring at the floor and her own feet, “but here I feel like I might need someone to talk to when I’m trying to go to sleep. Not right now, though, I’m exhausted,” she covered herself with the threadbare blanket and turned away from the window which was the room’s only source of light as the ceiling lights were already off.

Myst lay down on her own bed, and stared silently up at the ceiling.

“How long have you been here?” asked Claire.

“Oh… about 9 months. Seems like a lot longer. I’ve been in and out of hospitals since I was 14, and none of them were as much of a shithole as this. Not even the ones that I thought were bad when I was in ’em.”

“Why? I mean, why were you in the hospital…”

“Oh, various reasons. Anxiety. Panic attacks. Always thinking people were out to get me. At one point I ran away from home, lived on the street…”

“Is that how you ended up here?”

“Nah,” Myst sighed, “I actually got stabilized. They put me on meds that worked, I got back to school, got back to life, went to State, decided to become, you know, a therapist so I could help other people too, and then…”

“And then what, Myst?”

“It’s a story for another time, Claire, you’re not ready to hear it yet.”

“I understand,” said Claire, “I don’t expect you to open up to a stranger on the first day.”

“I’m not protecting me, Claire, I’m protecting you.”

“Protecting me from what? From who?”

“Don’t worry about it Claire, just get some sleep. I’ve got some business to attend to while you doze.”

“Claire, Claire, wake up,” said Myst, “it’s time to eat. You don’t want to miss dinner.”

“Oh, already? I was out like a light!”

The cafeteria was a cacophony of clattering plastic trays, clinking silverware, and people milling about. Just like high school, thought Claire.

She wondered how she was going to eat with her hands still handcuffed.

The cafeteria worker saw her, and said, “Oh I see we have someone special with us today! Here, honey, we have this for you,” and handed Claire a paper bag instead of a tray.

Myst, meanwhile, received a tray with the normal evening meal, which in this case was a cube of meatloaf, a scoop of clearly instant mashed potatoes (no gravy available), obviously canned peas-and-carrots, and a dinner roll that had been slightly burned while heating it up.

Both of them were also given little paper cartons of milk.

They sat down at a table where no one else was sitting. While struggling to keep the clanking of her metal handcuffs to a minimum, Claire opened her bag, and found it contained a sandwich wrapped in wax paper, a small plastic bag of potato chips, and a chocolate chip cookie. Do they think I’m six?, Claire wondered. The sandwich, when opened, turned out to be bologna and American cheese on white bread.

Myst noticed Claire’s expression and said, “Oh it’s not you, this is just what they feed everybody that’s handcuffed, or if they don’t trust you to use utensils, or hold a tray.” It was not encouraging that this situation was common enough for them to have a special menu for it. “Eat,” said Myst, “it’ll make you feel better.”

Claire lifted the sandwich with both hands, and took a bite. The bologna smelled and tasted of childhood. There was no mayo or mustard to moisten the dry sandwich bread. The bread stuck to the roof of her mouth as she chewed. She wasn’t sure how much of this she was going to be able to stomach, but the taste of food — any food — reminded her how hungry she was, so she continued to eat.

Feeling a growing thirst, she picked up the little milk carton and contemplated it. It was exactly as she remembered, with the little cartoon cow and everything. She fumbled with it, trying to open it. The handcuffs clinked loudly.

Myst leaned forward, holding up her own carton, demonstrating, and muttered softly. “Pinch the corners. Not the middle, make the seams pop…” as she opened the spout.

Claire mimicked the motion, awkwardly, wrists bound close together. The carton resisted — then, suddenly, the seam gave a soft crack and opened.

“Oh!” Claire said, surprised. “It worked.”

“Told you,” Myst said, leaning back with a small, satisfied smile. “You did it.”

“Thanks,” said Claire, who was never more happy to drink 2% milk in her life.

Back in the breakroom, most of the other patients clustered around the TV, which had been set to the HGTV channel by a staff member who took the remote control away with her when she left.

Claire sat further from the TV, not looking at it, and tried to keep herself calm by reading an issue of People magazine from 2019. It wasn’t working. She set the magazine down and stared blankly in the general direction of the screen. A couple in a city that wasn’t identified, but you could tell was probably San Francisco, toured a renovated Victorian rowhouse that was probably worth more money than Claire would ever make in her life.

Myst sat on the couch next to Claire, legs crossed, dangling her slipper again and silently watching.

“Let’s do something,” she said, “let’s see if any of these still have anything in them,” pointing to a shelf of boardgame boxes next to the books.

“I don’t feel like playing,” muttered Claire.

“Come on, it’ll help you relax.”

None of the games were playable. The Monopoly box had no money in it. The Chess and Checkers box was missing a bishop, two rooks, six pawns, and only had five red and seven black checkers. The box that appeared to be a deck of cards contained no cards, but a folded up piece of paper. Claire unfolded it, and sighed when she saw someone had written, “Don’t forget — you’re here forever” on it.

They returned to the TV. The husband was sold on the house but the wife wanted something single-story because she didn’t think a house with stairs would be safe for any future child they may have. “If he makes her live in that house,” Myst muttered, “I bet she kicks him down the stairs.”

Later, they sat in their room, staring at the ceiling and talking idly.

With a click, the lights in the room turned off, as if someone down the hall had thrown a switch that turned off the lights in all of the rooms at once.

Claire didn’t realize she’d already gotten used to the buzzing lights in this building until the room fell silent. Now all she could hear was the sound of shuffling footsteps out in the hallway, and the occasional clanking of the radiator.

“10 PM,” said Myst. There was no clock in the room, or anywhere else Claire had seen, so she knew Myst actually told the time by these lights going out.

“Lights out, girls,” said a gruff female voice from the door. It was the night shift nurse. Claire could not really make out what she looked like from her silhouette in the door. She sounded like someone who’d been smoking cigarettes for 20 years. She stepped into the room and revealed herself to be a short, stocky, middle aged woman, with short cropped gray hair that had probably once been red, wearing short sleeved scrubs that revealed muscular forearms and tattoos. She wrote something on a clipboard. She looked at Claire, as if sizing her up, and said, “I see you’re our new one. I’m Jess, and I’ll get you through the night. Let me know if you need anything. Oh yeah, I almost forgot! Give me your hands…”

Jess removed a ring of keys from her pocket, and removed the cuffs from Claire’s wrists. “Thank you,” she nearly sobbed, it felt so good to get them off, even though she knew they’d be back on in the morning.

Jess left as abruptly as she’d entered.

“Myst, am I ever going to get out of here?” Claire asked softly, holding back tears.

“Sure you will. We all will.” And Myst drifted off to sleep.

Claire lay awake for hours, staring at the ceiling while Myst slept. Just when it seemed like she was drifting off, Jess barged into the room again, glanced briefly at both patients, and wrote on her clipboard again. “Go to sleep, sweetie,” she said to Claire in a voice that was half whisper, half cough. Myst didn’t wake up. Claire wondered how anyone could sleep in this place.

“Rise and shine, ladies,” said another voice. This time it was Pam again. The new morning sun’s first red rays were slanting in through the window bars. Claire guessed it was about 7:00 AM.

Myst sat up in bed, hair disheveled, eyes blinking to get used to the light, and stared at Pam with the annoyance of the unwillingly awakened. “Let’s get it over with, Nurse,” she grumbled.

“We’ll do your morning routine in a minute, Misty,” Pam said. Claire could see Myst tense up slightly at the mention of her name. Pam continued, “first, though, I’ve got a surprise for you, Claire.”

Claire, who’d already realized that a “surprise” in this place was unlikely to be anything good, said nothing.

Pam continued “I don’t have to put the cuffs back on you today!”

Claire was shocked. How? What had changed? She dared not ask. But she had to. She screwed up her courage.

“Am… am I going home?” she said meekly.

“Oh baby,” Pam said with what sounded almost like genuine sympathy, “that’s for the Doctor to figure out. All I know is your hands stay free until further notice.”

Claire realized that Myst was looking at her with something that looked like pride, accomplishment. Myst looked away when she realized Claire was staring at her. Did she have something to do with this?, Claire wondered.

Pam continued, “I do have one thing I’ve got to do. Stand up for me, sweetie.”

Claire carefully got out of bed. The gown was still tied in the back, but even tied it was more revealing than she was comfortable maneuvering in. She stood nervously, facing Pam.

Pam took a pair of scissors out of her pocket.

“Turn around for me, baby,” said Pam.

Claire didn’t know what else to do, so she turned around.

“Hold still now, let mama get it with the scissors…”

A snap, a click, and Claire realized that Pam had just used the scissors to cut the strings on the back of the gown. Her hands, thankfully freed, automatically raced back behind her to clasp it shut.

“W… what? Why?” she stammered.

“Doctor’s orders, baby,” Pam said, “I don’t make the rules. All I know is from now on whenever I give you a fresh one to put on, I’m supposed to do this to it.”

Claire said nothing. She realized that she’d merely traded one indignity for another. Now instead of her hands being imprisoned by the cuffs, they were going to be constantly busy minding the back of the gown.

“Ok, Misty, it’s time to get your medicine,” Pam said, “Let’s go, sugar.” Myst got out of bed and threw on her robe over the pair of blue striped pajamas she’d slept in. She followed Pam out the door like a sullen teenager.

“Claire,” Pam called back as they left, “you’re free to roam about. You can go to the breakroom for morning TV time, until breakfast.”

Breakfast, thought Claire, my hands are free! I’ll be able to eat real food, as she stood there next to the bed, her hands still tightly clutching the back of the gown. Her hands! They… they’re going to expect me to carry a tray now.

1.4 It Will Take as Long as it Takes

Claire did not dare to leave the room without Myst. She sat on the bed and waited for her to return, staring at her own feet. It was impossible to tell how long she waited, since she had no means of telling the time.

Am I allowed to just sit here like this? Could I just stay here all day if I wanted to?, she asked herself.

She lay back on the bed and tried to relax. Not go back to sleep, just relax. It did not help.

She tried staring out the window. Through the bars it opened onto a bleak courtyard, dead in the winter chill. It gave her no comfort to look at it. There was snow on the ground and ice on the park benches. She shivered in her thin gown, as if she could feel the cold in spite of the heat from the clanking radiator.

Finally, Myst returned, followed by Pam. Myst had a blank and slightly dazed look on her face, and she looked like she’d been sweating. Claire looked at Pam expectantly, as she assumed it was now her turn for whatever had just happened. Pam recognized her expression, and said, “Oh sweetie, your prescription isn’t written yet. I’m sure I’ll have something for you tomorrow.”

Claire didn’t know whether to be relieved or concerned. Maybe they weren’t starting her on any new drugs yet because they still weren’t sure how long they were going to be keeping her. Maybe it wouldn’t be