to learn to embrace the simple joys of living again. But for Charlie, it was a journey into the blackest unknown, a retreat from the reality he had once thought unshakable.
Charlie passed through the entrance into a large foyer identified by a black-and-gold-leaf plaque as Saunders Hall. Nothing about the main foyer was clinical. The regality of it made it difficult for Charlie to believe he was even inside a mental health hospital. He had never been to this building before. The group therapy session he’d attended a few years back had been held in a much smaller campus building, about a quarter mile away. This was a mansion. It had been donated to the state by a successful psychologist and his wife, under the condition that it be used solely for the purpose of mental health treatment. The interior of Walderman Mental Health echoed a bygone era of civility and grace, and Charlie could imagine that it had once been the epicenter for the social elite. It would have made an elegant home to entertain and showcase jewelry, evening gowns, and culinary extravaganzas.
He marched along the checkered marble floor, past leather sitting chairs and mahogany tables that seemed swallowed by the cavernous, high ceilings. On the far right wall, directly across from a wide winding staircase leading to the second floor, was a mahogany reception desk. Charlie crossed toward it, his footsteps echoing loudly as he approached. The receptionist kept a firm gaze on him as he neared. What he would normally construe as flattery here seemed tainted with judgment. It would be better, he thought, if the place were bustling with patients and physicians. At least it would provide him some cover. He wouldn’t have to be the center of her attention.
She probably thinks I’m crazy, Charlie thought.
The receptionist was a cheery-faced woman, no more than twenty-five. Her brown hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail. Charlie found her large, expressive eyes to be unnecessarily sympathetic. She greeted him with a toothy smile and a slight conciliatory cocking of her head to the side.
“Hello. Can I help you?” she asked.
Charlie stammered for a moment, then pushed aside the unease. “I’m here to see Rachel. Rachel Evans.”
“You have an appointment?”
“I… I… I do. Yes.”
Charlie sensed movement behind him, turned, and saw a woman descending the staircase with quick steps and sharp clicks from her high-heeled shoes.
“Mr. Giles?” she said, hurrying down the stairs.
Charlie followed her approach as she reached the bottom step and moved to the reception desk to greet him.
“Yes,” Charlie said.
“I’m Rachel Evans,” she said, extending a hand. “It’s very nice to meet you. Joe has told me a lot about you.”
The first thing Charlie noticed was her eyes: warm, inviting green ovals that projected sensitivity without judgment. They helped to put him a bit more at ease. His hands, clenched in tight balls in his pockets, unfolded.
He shook her hand. Her grip was firm. Her eyes never looked away from his. She wore her auburn hair long, draped down her slender back. The smoothness of her skin suggested an age far younger than he assumed her to be, and he could not help but take in her willowy figure. For all her delicacy there was something rugged about her, even with her fine features and graceful manner. She exuded a quiet confidence that, he suspected, made her equally comfortable camping in the mountains and dining in the city’s best restaurants.
“It’s nice to meet you, Dr. Evans. I appreciate you taking the time to see me on such short notice.”
“It’s Rachel, and it’s not a problem. Why don’t we go upstairs to my office to talk?”
Charlie signed in with the receptionist, anxious about leaving a permanent record of his visit. He followed Rachel upstairs, through a set of swinging double doors—these with red vinyl padding—and down a long corridor with what appeared to be offices on either side, spaced evenly about every fifteen feet.
“Not exactly what I expected from a mental hospital,” Charlie said, quickening his pace to walk beside Rachel.
“It surprises a lot of people,” Rachel said. “But this is just one of three buildings, and it’s mostly administrative and physician offices. Some research labs. Our other buildings may be a bit more what you’d expect.”
“What is it that I’d expect?” Charlie asked.
Rachel turned to him, letting out a slight knowing smile. Charlie put his hands in his pockets and retreated from her gaze. He ran his left thumb over the tops of his fingertips, feeling the calluses. At that moment he wanted nothing more than to lose himself in guitar, practicing the Jim Hall melodies still fresh in his mind.
“We both know exactly what you’d expect,” she replied, her tone insinuating that she and Joe had devoted several sessions to Charlie. “Anyway, we are a fully functioning mental health institution. State-sanctioned, partially funded. Patients at Walderman come for all different reasons. Some are inpatient, some outpatient, and some are on our secured floors.”
“Secured?”
“Yes, Mr. Giles. Secured. We have facilities to address all our patients’ needs, thanks to the generosity of George Walderman.” As they walked past it, Rachel pointed to a large oil portrait of the late Dr. George Walderman, the only picture in the otherwise antiseptic corridor.
They reached Rachel’s office at the end of the long corridor. There she fumbled with her keys and unlocked her office door. Entering the dark, windowless room ahead of Charlie, Rachel reached to her left and flicked on the light switch, filling the space with a dense, sickly white light from two exposed fluorescent bulbs. She crossed over a deep red oriental rug, which, along with the black bookcases filled with medical and psychological texts, provided the only warmth to an otherwise claustrophobically small office.
Charlie took quick note of how she kept her office and appreciated her sense of order—the noticeable lack of decorations; paperwork filed, not messily left about; a single bamboo plant in a bubbling water fountain on a small wooden pedestal near her rectangular oak desk, nothing like the forest of plants some of his coworkers at SoluCent voluntarily maintained.
“Please take a seat, Mr. Giles,” Rachel said, pointing to a small cloth-covered armchair nestled in a corner diagonally from her desk.
“Charlie, please,” Charlie said as he took a seat.
“Yes, of course, Charlie. So now, you sounded very urgent on the phone. I should be up front in saying this is not an official visit. I’m not going to give you clinical advice.”
“No. No. Of course not,” Charlie said. “I’m just looking for some information and didn’t know where else to go.”
“Have you tried the Internet?”
Charlie laughed, quick and unsettled, more like a cough. In his panic, it hadn’t even occurred to him to research this on his own. Now, seated in front of Rachel, he was glad of the oversight. Reading faces was one of the attributes that made him such a successful negotiator. A few minutes with Rachel, discussing his situation, monitoring her reaction closely, would give him enough information to tell if there was real cause for alarm.
“I’m not sure I trust it entirely. I felt a more professional opinion was in order. In light of what’s been happening.”
Rachel
