“It’s not like she’s going to strangle you or anything,” Matt allowed, but there was an edge to his voice hinting that he hadn’t completely ruled out the possibility. “She’s just . . . a bad person. I don’t know what you hope to gain from seeing her!”
“I just need to,” I said softly and looked out the window.
I had never been to the hospital, but it wasn’t exactly as I’d imagined. My entire basis for it was Arkham Asylum, so I had always pictured an imposing brick structure with lightning perpetually flashing just behind it.
It was raining lightly and the skies were overcast as we pulled up, but that was the only thing similar to the psychiatric hospital of my fantasies. Nestled in thick pine forest and rolling grassy hills, it was a sprawling white building that looked more like a resort than a hospital.
After my mother had tried to kill me and Matt tackled her in the kitchen, someone had called 911. She was hauled off in a police car, still screaming things about me being monstrous, while I was taken away in an ambulance.
Charges were brought against my mother, but she pleaded guilty by reason of insanity, and the case never went to trial. They had originally given her a cross-diagnosis of latent post-partum depression and temporary psychosis brought on by the death of my father.
With medication and therapy, there had been the general expectation that she would be out in a relatively short amount of time.
Cut to eleven years later when my brother is talking to the security guard so we can get clearance to get inside the hospital. From what I understood, she refused to admit any remorse for what she’d done.
Matt went to visit her once, five years ago, and what I got out of it was that she didn’t know she’d done anything wrong. It was inferred, though never actually spelled out, that if she got out, she’d do it again.
There was a great deal of bustling about once we finally got inside. A nurse had to call a psychiatrist to see if I would even be able to see her. Matt paced anxiously around me, muttering things about everyone being insane.
We waited in a small room filled with plastic chairs and magazines for forty-five minutes until the doctor came to meet with me. We had a brief conversation in which I told him that I only wished to speak with her, and even without persuasion he seemed to think it might be beneficial for me to have some closure.
Matt wanted to go back with me to see her, afraid that she would damage me in some way, but the doctor assured him that orderlies would be present and my mother hadn’t had a violent outburst in eleven years. Matt eventually relented, much to my relief, because I had just been about to use persuasion on him again.
He couldn’t be there when I talked to her. I wanted an honest conversation.
A nurse led me to an activity room. A couch and a few chairs filled the room, along with a few small tables, some with half-completed puzzles on them. On one wall, a cabinet overflowed with beat-up games and battered puzzle boxes. Plants lined the windows, but otherwise it was devoid of life.
The nurse told me that my mother would be there soon, so I sat down at one of the tables and waited.
A very large, very strong-looking orderly brought her into the room. I stood up when she came in, as some kind of misplaced show of respect. She was older than I had expected her to be. In my mind she had stayed frozen the way I’d seen her last, but she had to be in her mid-forties by now.
Her blond hair had turned into a frizzy mess thanks to the years of neglect, and she had it pulled back in a short pony-tail. She was thin, the way she had always been, in a beautifully elegant borderline-anorexic way. A massive blue bathrobe hung on her, frayed and worn, the sleeves draping down over her hands.
Her skin was pale porcelain, and even without any makeup, she was stunningly beautiful. More than that, she carried this regality with her. It was clear that she had come from money, that she had spent her life on top, ruling her school, her social circles, even her family.
“They said you were here, but I didn’t believe them,” said my mother with a wry smirk.
She stood a few steps away from me, and I wasn’t sure what to do. The way she looked at me was the same way people might inspect a particularly heinous-looking bug just before they squashed it under their shoe.
“Hi, Mom,” I offered meekly, unable to think of anything better to say.
“Kim,” she corrected me coldly. “My name is Kim. Cut the pretense. I’m not your mother, and we both know it.” She gestured vaguely to the chair I had pushed out behind me and walked over to the table. “Sit. Take a seat.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled, sitting down. She sat down across from me, crossing her legs and leaning back in her chair, like I was contagious and she didn’t want to get sick.
“That’s what this is about it, isn’t it?” She waved her hand in front of her face, then laid it delicately on the table. Her nails were long and perfect, recently painted with clear polish. “You’ve finally figured it out. Or have you always known? I never could tell.”