“Good!” he exclaimed, with more animation than Torri had yet seen him show.
“Well, it’s more like ‘not bad’,” she allowed. “But around here, that’s pretty much the best you can ask for.”
They ate the rest of their tacos in silence—Vic was very involved in putting his second one together just right—before coming to the rubbery cherry Jell-O with chunks of fruit cocktail suspended in its red depths.
Vic nudged his with his spork and watched it jiggle. He did it again and Torri saw he was frowning.
“What’s the matter there, Vic?” she asked him. “Problems?”
He shook his head, a look of concentration on his face, as though he was trying to think how to express himself. At last, he pointed to the rectangle of cherry Jell-O again and raised his eyebrows.
“Alive?” he asked, nudging it again.
“Is your Jell-O alive?” Torri wanted to laugh but then she realized it was an honest question. Poor guy—he really didn’t know. And who was she to laugh at anyone when she was being regularly tormented with visions of space aliens invading the Earth? “No,” she said, smiling at him. “It’s not alive—it’s dessert. Sweet—you eat it,” she added, seeing his confused look. “Watch.” Digging her spork into the Jell-O, she carved out a jiggly red clump and popped it into her mouth. Then she smiled at Vic. “See? Good!”
Doubtfully, he copied her motions. The texture of the Jell-O seemed to give him pause but after a moment he swallowed and smiled at her.
“Not bad,” he said.
Torri nodded back at him. Her face felt wrong—different—then, she realized she was grinning at him. It had been so long since she’d felt happy about anything, that the muscles she used to turn the corners of her mouth up felt dusty and unused. But there was just something about the guileless way the big guy was smiling at her that made her want to smile back.
“Are you from around here?” she asked, without thinking, then bit her lip. He might not want to talk about where he came from—or how he had gotten here. Though he wouldn’t be the first patient to come to St. Elizabeth’s after some kind of presidential attack. John Hinckley Junior—the man who had attempted to assassinate Ronald Reagan—had been a long-term patient on the Violent Offenders wing of the mental hospital.
Of course, Vic hadn’t actually attacked anyone, Torri reminded herself. And he didn’t look upset that she’d asked him where he was from, though he did have a thoughtful frown, as though trying to think how to answer her.
“Not…from here,” he said at last. “Not…not…” He shook his head, looking frustrated.
“It’s okay,” Torri said quickly, putting a hand on his arm to comfort him. “You don’t have to say right now if you don’t want to.”
“Do want to say. But can’t…words…won’t come,” he managed to get out at last.
Torri wondered what his diagnosis was. He seemed to have a really hard time communicating—was something wrong with the part of his brain that produced speech?
“You can tell me later when you find your words,” she said patting his arm again. “It’s okay—don’t let it upset you.”
Vic smiled at her gratefully.
“You are…kind…Torri,” he said slowly.
Torri was surprised—she hadn’t thought he had noticed her being introduced in Group Therapy. He’d been staring out the window so fixedly, she’d just assumed he was in his own little world. But apparently the big guy had been paying more attention than he let on.
“Thank you, Vic,” she said smiling up at him. “It’s nice to meet you.”
He looked like he was trying to formulate a reply, but the scraping of chairs as people got up signaled the end of dinner. Torri showed him how to dump his tray in the slot for dirty dishes and then they left the dining room together.
And though the new patient didn’t say anything as they walked out, she had the feeling that she’d made a new friend.
Ten
Torri got two pieces of good news that evening that brightened her life considerably. First, it appeared that Dr. Burrows had been called away to the Violent Offenders Unit for some kind of emergency, so she didn’t have to see him for one-on-one therapy after dinner. Instead, she got an extra free hour to do whatever she wanted.
The second piece of good news came when she stood in line to refuse her medication and heard two of the nurses talking in low voices. Maybe it was because so many of the patients were incapacitated, or the fact that they were behind the plastic window, but the nurses seemed to feel free to talk about whatever they wanted, as though nobody could hear or understand them. Torri picked up a lot of hospital gossip just by keeping her ears open and her head down.
“Where’s Mike tonight?” one of the nurses asked another as they doled medication into the little paper cups and passed them through the window.
“Oh, Kathy put him on a week-long suspension pending an investigation,” the second nurse murmured.
“What? But why?” the first nurse sounded shocked.
“Apparently one of the patients accused him of groping her,” the first nurse murmured. “And since this isn’t the first time, Kathy finally had to put him on report.”
“So he’s gone for a whole week?” The first nurse sounded incredulous. “Who’s going to wake up the screamer?”
With a shock, Torri realized they were talking about her. She kept her head down, though, pretending she couldn’t hear.
“I don’t know but it’s not going to be me,” the first nurse said. “I heard she kicked Mike in the head!”
“Well, he might have deserved it—he does get handsy from time to time,” the second nurse remarked. “But then again, he’s the only one who doesn’t mind handling the patients who won’t behave.”
At that point, Torri reached the front of the line, refused her meds, and left, so she didn’t hear the rest of the conversation. But just knowing that Mike O’Toole was going to be gone for at least a week—maybe forever if they decided to fire him for what he had done—lightened her heart considerably.
She might still have to worry about the night terrors tonight, but at least she didn’t have to fear that she would wake up with the molesting orderly on top of her.
It was shaping up to be a much better night than last night, Torri thought. Now if only she could sleep without the awful visions of the AllFather invading her dreams…
Eleven
But though her luck had turned a bit, it still wasn’t enough to stop the relentless night terrors from visiting her.
As soon as she drifted off, Torri felt the familiar frozen feeling come over her and then the creeping dread—the knowledge that something evil was coming for her and there was nothing she could do to stop it. Once more, she found herself standing in front of the vast gray metal doors with their neon-green etchings. Once more, she knew the doors were about to open and she would be pulled into the awful throne room where the AllFather waited to “taste her pain”…