I am crying into my hands. He loves you and you’re hurting him. I remember Julia calling me one of the lucky ones. You have no right. I think of Valerie.
Sarah, missing her little boy. Emm, who has been here for four years.
You don’t have the right to send him away. You don’t have the right to give up. He’s asking you to eat. Eat, dammit! He loves you! You’re the luckiest girl here!
My eyes feel like they will burst. I look up at Emm. My voice is hoarse:
I do not know how.
In her business voice, she replies:
Well, you start by getting dressed. Vitals and weights, and then breakfast. Then keep going from there. Get that damn tube out of your nose. Get through your meals and snacks. And find a way to bring Matthias back.
I force my breaths calmer and longer and look at this girl saving my life.
Thank you, Emm.
Don’t thank me. Do it. Now let’s go downstairs. Come on, vitals and weights! We’re late.
In our patient robes, mine wrapped at the front, we go downstairs together.
70
I am not allowed coffee, and breakfast is infused, but I am out of bed, dressed, and downstairs. I wait in community space while the other girls eat. At eight thirty, they stand up and disperse. Direct Care clears the dishes from the breakfast table and then comes to me.
Your therapist wants to see you at nine, and your treatment team at nine thirty.
The other girls go on the morning walk. I remain on the couch.
The house is quiet, till the sound of a car pulling into the driveway. Doors opening, closing, a suitcase being wheeled to the front of the house.
It cannot be a new admission. Today is not Monday. The front door opens and in walks the sickest, thinnest girl I have ever seen.
What first strikes me is her suitcase; it looks very much like mine. Blue. Her worried husband, who looks a little like Matthias, carries it inside. She is dressed as I would be: in layers. She looks sick, cold, and old. I try not to stare, but her face stops me like a heart attack. Her eyes, her nose, the thin line where her lips are supposed to be.
Danielle?
Direct Care shakes both strangers’ hands. I hope she is gentle on hers. Even from a distance Danielle’s frail wrist looks ready to break.
Please have a seat. I will be with you as soon as I take Anna to her team.
Danielle jars me more than every book and article on anorexia I ever read. More than the numbers on the scale, those on my test results. More than all the other girls I met here. Perhaps it is the suitcase. Or her husband. Or that she looks like me.
Perhaps it is the blatant truth that this woman is dying. Bones and blue fingernails; this is anorexia. It is hideous. I cannot stop staring.
Something else is bothering me, but I cannot put my finger on what it is.
Then I do. Then my insides turn cold and there is no more air in the room.
Anna, are you ready?
Today is not Monday. Admissions are on Mondays. And yet Danielle is here.
Anna, did you hear me?
I understand what Danielle means.
Valerie is dead.
Anna!
71
Direct Care has to take me by the arm to the office with the gray suede couch. The force of her grasp brings some of the feeling back. The therapist is already inside, waiting for me. I do not sit down.
Valerie is dead.
I wait.
She does not correct me. I needed her to. I needed her to! I panic.
What the hell am I doing here? Valerie is dead. My words echo horribly in my ears. How can the therapist just sit there and watch me? Why can I not scream?
I cannot scream because there is no air. Only my face in the mirror. And Valerie’s. And Danielle’s. And the thought: We all look exactly the same.
Anorexia is the same story told every time by a different girl. Her name does not matter; mine used to be Anna but anorexia got rid of that. And my feelings, body, husband, life. My story will end as Valerie’s had.
Valerie is dead, and the therapist’s silence.
I collapse on the couch, sobbing.
The therapist sits quietly on the couch next to me. I can smell her peony perfume. Her name is Katherine. She wears summer dresses. She is human too.
I cry for a few minutes or a year, then the room and my feelings go mute. I let myself sink backward into the gray suede. I have no voice or tears or energy.
Katherine looks at the nothingness with me, then she sits up straight.
Valerie made a choice,
she says.
Not to have anorexia, but to die. You have a choice too.
Anorexia or Anna. Anorexia or Anna, except
It is too late. I no longer know how to live without anorexia. I do not know who I am without it.
Well, we can find out.
I am too tired. I tell her I am too tired.
Yes I know, Anna. Valerie was tired too. This is an exhausting disease. But you got out of bed, didn’t you? Why?
Because Emm made me.
Why else?
Because Matthias. Because Papa and Sophie. Because of what Julia said about me.
Why else?
Katherine repeats.
Because I have a reason: Matthias.
She nods and leans back next to me.
I do not have the right to give up. It is not fair to Valerie. Perhaps if she had had someone like Matthias she would still be alive.
She did not, and she is not, but I can still be. How had I told Matthias to leave? How had I gone to bed?
I have to bring Matthias back,
I tell Katherine. I have to fix this. If not for me, for Valerie, Emm, and every girl in that house, each one of them as deserving as I of a chance to live and be loved. I am not special. I am just lucky. The luckiest girl in the world. And happiness is a choice: I choose Matthias and Anna. I must bring Anna back.
My thoughts are interrupted by a knock on the door. It is already nine thirty. The rest of the team and Direct Care file in. They all sit down facing me.
I must speak before they do. I have no clue what to say, but the words come out to both their and my surprise:
I want to go on a date with Matthias.
Stunned silence. I clarify:
A therapeutic meal outing.
They exist in the patient manual.
They look at me like I am mad. I look at me the same way. This very meeting was convened because I had hidden cream cheese, refused to complete my meals, been intubated, run away, been returned, gone to sleep. I should be going nowhere but to a high-security psych ward. But I am not mad, not yet. I just have to explain that to them.
Please, let me explain.
I look to the stony faces for help. From Katherine, a nod to proceed. That is all I need.
There is a girl outside with a suitcase like mine. Her husband brought them both here. She is dying. I can see it. I have never seen anything so clearly. She is dying and I do not want to die like her or Valerie.
My words are not coherent but are the best I can do. I continue:
I know I made a mess. I was tired and suffocating and I am still tired and suffocating. But I cannot lose Matthias and I do not want to die. Please give me another chance.
No reaction or response. Perhaps it is too late. I want to cry. I try one last time:
I want to go on a date with my husband, please.
And then, I wait.
72
Direct Care pulls a patient manual from the shelves over Katherine’s desk, bulky and identical to the one I was given on my first day. She opens it and flips through the sections to:
“The Stages of Residency at 17 Swann Street.”
I remember those. She begins:
“Stabilization Stage: Patients admitted at this stage may or may not recognize their eating disorder is a problem, and may or may not experience a desire for recovery.”
Not. Definitely not.
“During this stage the focus is on medical stabilization, nourishment, and hydration. Due to the intensive level of supervision necessary, patients at this stage are not eligible for therapeutic passes, outings, physical activity groups, or daily walks.”