to me, and clutched me against her chest, as I cried silently. And then I watched them load her up in the back of the ambulance. I didn’t go to the hospital the next day with my parents to visit her. She didn’t want to see me anyway; she blamed me for how she felt about the world. Like her turning into a monster was my fault. Like it was something I had done to her, that I had made her that way. But I didn’t.
Two weeks later, they found her a permanent bed at Connecticut Psychiatric. It took me almost two months to get up the courage to go see her, and then I tried every week for three months. But she refused guests every time I went. She didn’t have any friends at school, so it was just me or my parents who went to see her, and I think my grandfather went a few times.
I missed her. I had a built-in best friend, and she abandoned me because her mind went sour. It wasn’t her fault. It was mine. I should have been there for her, listened more, something. Anything to save her. I would have done it. I should have.
Every day I missed her, until I didn’t.
SEVEN
I had my windows down, and the rough wind whipped around my face like it was trying to grab me and pull me out of the car. Looking up at the old stone building, I could feel it trying to pull me in, to tell me its secrets. It had once been an asylum, where they did horrible experiments on people, but now it was just supposed to be a friendly place where the mentally ill went to live out their days. Actually, I’m sure the brochure didn’t say that, but that’s what it felt like. When Leia was committed, there was no date when she’d be getting out. It was like my parents had sentenced her there. She wasn’t ever coming home. And, when they visited and talked with her, they never mentioned dates or times that she would come home to visit. They said they did it to protect me, that she harbored severe anger towards me… or so her therapist told them. Maybe it was jealousy, or maybe it was something else. I didn’t know anymore.
I turned my car off and walked up the front stone steps, looking at the huge trees on either side of me. The wind rustled through the new green leaves that were just beginning to come out. It was a brisk morning, so I had my sweater wrapped around me tightly. I had put on extra makeup, and I had my long hair in a braid off to the side. For some reason, I wanted to look put together, like, if I didn’t, that they would lock me away. Or worse, they would think I was Leia. It was unfair of me to think that. But I was judgmental, and I always had been. It was probably why I didn’t notice that Leia was going downhill as quick as she was. I was selfish, too.
I got to the front door and rung the doorbell with a little intercom box next to it. I heard a beep, and the door unlocked. I took a deep breath and entered.
There was a little round nurse’s station at the front entrance, before any of the other locked doors for the different wards. There was a pediatric unit all the way through elderly people. They kept all the patients separated. The nurse at the front desk was in scrubs with little teddy bears on them, so I guessed that mostly she worked with little kids. But, maybe she didn’t. I guess old people liked teddy bears, too. She smiled at me brightly as I approached, and, as hard as I tried to return it, I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
“How can I help you? Are you here to see a patient?” she asked in the encouraging voice.
I put my hands on the desk, feeling the cold Formica beneath my fingers. “No, actually. I’m here about a patient who is no longer with you.” Well, that was terrible. I made it sound like my sister was dead. I tried not to think about it. “Leia Kellan, she’s my sister. She checked herself out a number of years ago, and I- we haven’t heard from her since. I know my parents were here right after she checked herself out, and collected most of her personal artifacts, but I heard that
Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child