The Holding Place

Chapter Eighteen

Michael…





I have been in this hospital for a few months. Dr. Leahy feels that I just need a rest from the outside world and I cannot agree with her more. I’m spending more time with Norah away from her than I ever did when I was away from her. I never thought that I could enjoy myself for even a moment in a place like this.


Ever since my conversation with Catherine a few weeks ago I have started to let go of the animosity that I felt towards almost everyone in this place. When Norah came bustling through the door showing me the picture that she had drawn of all three of us a part of me, like an iceberg just fell off and melted away. I don’t even know which part it was. If I didn’t know better I would swear that when I looked away from that paper I saw a pair of shadows that I know didn’t belong to Catherine or me dance briefly in what seemed like a suddenly brighter room.


There is an hour to kill before dinner is served and I see that Reggie is sitting at a table alone in the common room. As usual she is scribbling furiously in a notebook, not aware of much else that is around her. I take a fresh sketchbook with me and take a seat not too far from her but not close enough to give it away that I’m watching her.


I have not yet been able to pinpoint what it is about her that fascinates me but I draw her so easily and she comes alive so vibrantly on the page. We are different from all of the others here. We still have that glint in our eyes that tells everyone who bothers to take an interest that we are not yet dead inside, that there is still a fight for life left in us. That is one of the dangers of a place like this. A person has two choices when they come here. They can die here or find the life within them again.


I am so engrossed in my thoughts that I do not notice that my sketchbook has slipped right through my hands and onto the floor in front of me. Reggie has moved from her table and is bending over in front of me to retrieve what it is that I have dropped. She studies her portrait on the page and I am suddenly nervous as she slows her hands to return back my drawing of her. She looks at me with those gold eyes and smiles.


She surprises me when she says to me, “Nobody has ever seen me that way before.”


Before I have a chance to think about what I am saying I blurt out, “Nobody has ever seen you as beautiful?”


Her cheeks stain pink slightly and she takes a seat beside me. “Someone used to.”


I’m in a state of shock right now. For months now I have heard this girl barely say more than a sentence to me and she is talking to me now as if we are close friends. She is regarding me with those strange gold eyes of hers and I cannot help but allow them to hypnotize me. Until now the only other person who could draw me into such a magnetic gaze was Abby and the reality of losing her courses through me all over again.


I shake off the thoughts of my late wife. I cannot continue to do this to myself. All I feel when she comes to mind is the heartache I have tortured myself with for the past five years. The happy memories are still there but I have kept them so deeply buried within that they are not the first ones to surface. Norah deserves to know that her mother was a happy person, giving me some of the best memories of my life. I need to start reconstructing my memory of Abby.


Every time she comes to my thoughts I must remind myself that she is the reason that I am here, that the hauntings of her memory has driven me to the brink of madness. I smile inwardly to myself as I catch the word I have chosen to describe what the memories of my late wife have done to me over the years. I could have chosen something like despair or likened my suffering to drifting in a sea without a horizon but without even thinking I am admitting to myself for perhaps the first time consciously or subconsciously that perhaps there is a reason for me being here after all.


It is so easy to lose count of the days when staying in a mental health. There is the early morning call for medications before breakfast, group or individual therapy in the mid-mornings, lunch time and then the afternoon is just another repeat of the morning. There is a rigidity to the schedule that can almost make one forget that they have a life to live when it comes time to walk through the front doors back into the real world.


I’m frightened that my progress, if it can be considered progress at all, is signaling the end of my stay here. During the first weeks I could not have made enough vows, promises and contracts to safety if it meant that I would be allowed to leave this place. Now that I am getting used to opening up what has been held so deep inside of me I am finding myself afraid that the real world won’t be as tolerant as the professionals who are so used to the madness that exists in the place day in and day out.


I pull myself out of my musings to realize that Reggie is looking at me with expectant eyes for some type of verbal confirmation that I have heard her utter rare words and that I will reciprocate her efforts with a reply of my own. My cheeks blush a little bit as the clock tells me that it has been several minutes since she has come up to me and looked over my shoulder at the drawing that was supposed to be for my eyes only. I want to use more than words to let her know how beautiful she comes across to the opposite gender.


There is something so unique about her physical attributes that words can hardly do her any justice. Touching is against the rules but I feel helpless to stop my hand going to her face. I am expecting her to flinch away from me as the slow movements of my arm give her plenty of time to see what my intentions are. My hand meets the smooth, warm skin of her face and I lightly allow my hand to gently cup the angle of her chin for just a fleeting moment.


She meets my gaze with a small smile and to my complete incomprehension she raises her hand to my retreating one to give it a little squeeze of appreciative acknowledgement. Everything that could have been said was wrapped up in that seemingly innocuous touch.


It is hard to describe what has just happened to me. If it is possible that my heart completely stopped beating for a full count then that is exactly what happened. I had no idea that a touch could be so magnetic and heart-stopping. I had always reserved those moments for the romance novels on the dusty shelves of old bookstores. I can hardly recall a time when even Abby affected me so.


“I think we are about to be late for dinner,” Reggie says quietly, still peering over my shoulder. I give an almost absent nod of my head as I get up to follow her to the cafeteria down the hall.


We join the several other dozen patients on the same ward in the line waiting to be served their dinner. By the smell that permeates in the air I can only guess that it is one of the several different variations of “meatloaf surprise” that is on the menu tonight. I let Reggie get a view of my puckered face and her face lights up quiet laughter. It is not wise to let the cooks in the kitchen know that the food that is being served is much less than sub-par.


Tonight I think that I will join Reggie at her normally lonely corner of the table that our section of the ward is assigned to. There are no less than five seats that separate her from the rest of the patients. On the sidelines are the nurses who take note of the patient’s social activity during the meal times. I have been here long enough to know that conversing and socializing with the other patients is a big part of what is considered “making progress.” Something tells me that the doctor who is treating Reggie wants to know if she is opening up or not.


After making our way through the line I follow her to her empty end of the table and sit myself directly across from her. I expect her to make some type of objection but she simply keeps her head down and concentrated on the sad excuse for a meal that lies before her. I’m not sure what my next move should be. I am not used to dealing with someone so fragile. In my daily job I am used to being a ruthless business man who uses harsh words and tones to get my meaning across.


Everything that is going through my mind comes to a grinding halt as once again I evaluate another new self-perception of myself. Some much damn time in this ward is forcing me to evaluate different angles of my personality that I never really thought about or had time to before. Being harsh was always just a part of the job. My father honed it into me that an attorney can never appear to be weak. He spent top dollar to send me to the best schools in the country to make sure that it could never be questioned where I learned the ins and outs of the law even thought I was always guaranteed a spot in my father’s firm.


My first case with the firm comes to mind quickly, something that I haven’t thought about in several years. I remember my father coming to my desk and slapping the thick file down on my desk, explaining to me that he no longer had time to give any more attention to the case and that I was to be ready for court in three days. I was fresh from passing the bar two months ago and up until this point had only be utilized for answering phones and setting appointments for my father.


The case was a custody battle between a wealthy business man and his soon-to-be ex-wife. My job was to represent the man in the case. Proof of his infidelity to his wife was clear throughout the file. He was going for full-custody of the children and to leave his wife of ten years without a dime or any alimony. Any first-year law student could see that the woman had every deserving right to keep her children and sue her husband for alimony. My father’s words echoed through my head the entire time I put my case together, “We are only worried about the outcome our client is willing to pay for,” and by the billable hours listed in the file it was clear that the client could afford to tie up the divorce and custody proceedings for years to come. It was quite possible that they children would be grown and gone by the time any type of resolution could be sorted out.


I did what my father always told me that I was brilliant at and that was getting to the heart of the matter and getting what was needed to win the argument, no matter what side I found myself on. I dug deep into this woman’s past and found out that she had been briefly hospitalized for an anxiety attack and understandably so as it was right around the time she had found out about the affair. I drew up the argument that she was emotionally unstable and that no matter how dim the background of the husband there was unquestionably no sign of mental instability in his past and that financially he could provide the home that a mental unstable woman without an education could not.


The day that I won that case in court the client shook my hand and gave me his card to call for an interview down at his own company. He was interested in having me work as counsel for his company; he was so impressed with my performance in court. As I shook his hand I caught the desolate blue stare of his wife. Never before in my life had I seen eyes so empty and defeated. I knew that this man who was my client would simply hire a nanny or send them off to some boarding school. His only aim in the case was to show his wife, to whom he had done all of the wrong, that he was untouchable.


A few months later, I found myself working in the company of this man, my father giving me his blessing to explore new horizons. One day there was a solemn silence in the air that told me that something was not right. The man who I had won the case for in court was not in the office and his secretary had tears running down her face. Some temp from downstairs was trying to console her. All around me I received dirty looks. I finally asked someone what was going on. It turned out that over the weekend that during a scheduled visit his now ex-wife had driven herself and her youngest child, only five at the time, into a river, taking both of their lives.


Almost instantaneously I remember the empty look of her eyes and I can bring myself to say nothing to my co-workers around me. I could have easily told myself that I had nothing to do with how that woman’s life ended but it was something that my conscious would not allow myself to do. For the days that followed after the news of her death I could think nothing but how I ripped apart her character in court, questioned her own children on the stand and made the man who had done her wrong look like he deserved a father of the year award. Without him every returning to the office I put in my notice and never came back to work for him, vowing to never step foot into a courtroom again.


“You look like you want to say something,” I hear Reggie saying.


She is looking at me intently now, absently pushing around the unappetizing food on her plate. Meals in this place are more an excuse to think than to fill your stomach. Thinking of my past has made me sick to my stomach and I push the plate of food out of my range of smell. If I have to smell any more of it I am convinced that I will hurl what little left there is in my stomach. Reggie is ready for me to talk to her and I am finally ready to talk back. The most amazing sensations come over me when I know that her golden gaze is upon me.


“This place gives you a lot to think about.”