fortunately strapped in, and no fire. She was busted up pretty bad, but reparable, except maybe for her head.”
“How bad?”
“Both her legs were broken—bilateral tibia and fibula fractures, fifth through tenth ribs, punctured lung, lots of lacerations. But nothing too bad inside; she’s healed well.”
“Except her head?”
“The tests show little permanent damage. She had a skull fracture and no doubt bruising of the brain, but no major bleeding. Frontal lobe okay, cortex—but next to no mental activity upon admission. Autonomic functions and reflexes fine. The exact nature of her trauma is puzzling. Now that she has recuperated physically, we can’t justify keeping her at C. U. Med Center any longer.”
The nurse considered this information. She frowned, tsked, then translated it for herself. “So her mind is lost?”
“Oh, Iris . . . who knows? There appears to be no physiological reason, but the psyche seldom consults physiologists. She doesn’t seem to know herself. It may be for life or for a month. In the meantime, we thought it best that she come here, where she can’t hurt herself.”
Mary Glanville, waiting in the nursing home’s office, listened to the others speak outside in the hall. She heard some of the words, but they made no sense. Wreck? All she had where the memory of these months should have been was a picture of mountains upon mountains.
“But why here, Dr. Ziegler? Does she really need to be here? She looks so much younger, brighter, healthier than most of our others. Can’t she recover somewhere else?”
“But will she recover?” asked the doctor. “She doesn’t speak or respond after three months. She has no advocate, no relatives we’ve been able to find, and no resources or insurance as far as we could discover. Her ID was never found, by the way—we know her name is Mary only from a girl’s charm bracelet she was wearing.”
“What about the automobile registration?”
“Licensed in Connecticut to some fly-by-night secondhand auto dealer, since flown. The temporary registration must be with her bag, somewhere down that canyon. No one has answered state patrol’s APB on her. Something will turn up eventually, I suppose, but not so far. So for now? Mary is a ward of the state, and destitute. That means here is it.”
Iris tsked. The doctor went on. “CU did all they could. Fort Logan wouldn’t take her without a specific psychosis or other mental diagnosis. So it’s either here, with Medicaid, or Pueblo, which I’m sure you wouldn’t wish on her—they’ve had nothing but budget cuts, and they house the hard cases, often violent. If she were my sister, I wouldn’t want her there. Anyway, if she gets better, she’ll be free to leave.”
“No one gets better here,” Iris muttered. “I think you know that.”
“Take care of her, Iris,” said the doctor. “Maybe she’ll be the first. Just vitamins for now; if she has any trouble settling in, give her Thorazine, one hundred milligrams, morning and night, for now.” He turned and left the facility for the clear night air. He felt relieved, but not happy about it.
With nothing else to do, the nurse led Mary to an empty bed in a bare little room. There were two other beds in the room. Across one lay a confused woman in an old robe who smiled childlike at their approach. “Can I go too, Iris?” she implored.
“We’re not going anywhere, Beth, we’re coming in. This is Mary, your new roommate.”
“Oh, goodie! Gotta smoke, Mary?”
“Mary isn’t speaking now, Beth, and she doesn’t smoke. Let her rest and move in in peace. Besides, I told you to stop bumming cigarettes.”
“Everybody smokes,” Beth said with certain sureness. She was almost right. The atmosphere was so thick with tobacco smoke that it almost masked the odors of urine and disinfectant. The residents couldn’t smoke in their beds, but the hallways and common areas were filled with puffing, vacant faces.
The second bed held an ancient woman who lay babylike, whimpering, toothless. At the sight of her, Mary started and opened her mouth, but did not speak. The third bed, nearest the heavily screened window, was hers. The nurse showed her to it, then pointed out her closet. “Watch your clothes, they tend to disappear. Showers in the morning at six. I’ll be back for you then to show you the ropes. Toothbrushes kept by the bathroom sink, toilet over there. Breakfast is at eight, lunch at noon, dinner six.” Iris had no idea if Mary was taking any of it in.
Then she said, “I’m so sorry you have to be here. Talk to me sometime, okay? My name’s Iris.” Then the floor nurse, a bulky woman with russet hair, black skin, and red lipstick, her face a mixture of weary officiousness and defeated tenderness, smiled at Mary. She squeezed her hand and returned to her station.
Mary Glanville lay upon the dorm-like bed, her back to the other four eyes in the bleak room. Until then her movements had been slow, tentative, compliant. Now she began, slowly, then gaining speed and violence, to shake. No tears came, just a dry, silent sobbing that wailed against the realization growing in her bruised brain. She shook and shook until she rolled off the bed onto the floor. Disinfectant spiked her nose, and still she shook and writhed. And then a new thing—new, that is, since the day three months before when her car left the black stripe on the mountain and arced over the falling, falling slope—her voice came.
It came first in a tiny, almost inaudible squeak, rose into a low howl, and grew to a shriek that for thirty seconds silenced the entire home. No words, just the scream, which seemed like words to Mary, demanding to know “What is happening to me? Why am I in this place? This is no dream and I realize what it is and this is the kind of place you VISIT only when you must and don’t stay any longer than you have to and then get out, and damn it I am HERE and staying behind and WHY? Get me out, oh, out, anywhere, OOOUUUT!” All this she wailed without words until the last ones, which came again, wailed, wailed. And she screamed it so loud that her temples swelled and her hands, gripping the bed legs, turned white.
All the nurses and orderlies came, bound Mary, gave her shots, subdued her into a dull, tormented semblance of sleep. For the next three days, every time she awakened, Mary wailed and shrieked “Why? WHYYYY? Get me OUUUUT!” Whenever the sedatives lost their grip on her savaged larynx, Mary keened. And then, on the fourth day, when the mental health agency ordered an ambulance to take her to the state asylum at Pueblo, Mary awoke becalmed. Iris called the doctor, who canceled the ambulance.
Hoarse, but silent, Mary was permitted to remain at Mid-Continent Care Center. She settled in. She took meals with the burned-out boys from Vietnam—overflows from the VA who seemed to age more day by day. And with the brain-shattered youths, the poor and vacant with dementia or drugs, and the menacingly or mildly mad for whatever reason. In self-defense, her eyes took on a shieldlike hardness. Her mouth turned up in a demi-smile below permanent furrows in her forehead. And she no longer shrieked aloud, only within, for all the others as well as herself.
Mary was free to go outside, but there was little reason to do so. This was downtown Denver. There were no living things to be seen, felt, or heard, other than a few street trees, weeds, pigeons, and blank-faced people. Or so Mary thought at first. But then one day, when the smoke sting grew too much, she stepped out to the back for air and found a vacant lot. Bachelor’s buttons, cornflower blue, bloomed profusely, and little checkered butterflies, bluish too, skipped among the green disks of cheeseweed. They intrigued her. Here was a fragment of peace and relief, entirely unexpected. She took to coming here often after that, sitting on an old aluminum-and-plastic chair from a dinette set that someone
