He took one last look at Mrs. Stanton and pursed his lips as he turned away. The poor woman was a wreck, insistent that she had harmed her children. He had been trying for days to convince the father to bring the children to see their mother, adamant that she would see sense if she saw them. The husband hadn’t agreed though; he thought it would be cruel on the children to see their mother in such a state. Perhaps he had been right, and the doctor felt awful for going over the father’s head and gaining a court order for the children to be brought to her.
But it had been too late anyway, the poor woman was delusional now. He was unsure how long it would take to bring her back from that. Psychosis like this, so strong and defined in a patient’s mind, was sometimes impossible to break. But the bigger worry, the doctor thought as he passed the two small children sat outside their mother’s room, was her two attempts at suicide.
The doctor made his way to the nurses’ station and ordered them to give Mrs. Stanton another sedative. He made his way back to his office, needing to decide what needed to be done next for her. He had hoped to bring her back with medication and a couple of sessions with a psychiatrist, but it was becoming more and more apparent that she was only getting worse as time went on. That perhaps her illness had taken too strong a hold on her.
It happened sometimes. People slipped away into their minds and didn’t come back, no matter how hard their families and doctors tried to help them. It was like they didn’t want to be helped.
He leaned back in his leather chair, letting the soft material cushion his aching spine. The forms to submit her to an institution lay on his desk in front of him. It wasn’t something he liked to do, he reasoned, but sometimes it was the best place for patients with her type of illness. Sometimes an indefinite stay was the safest option for everyone involved.
Still, he surmised, perhaps with a little more time…
A long scream sounded out from the poor woman, though from this distance he couldn’t work out what she was saying. Doctor Watkins sighed and picked up his pen and read over the forms on his desk one more time. The image of her two children, sad faced and full of melancholy, strayed into his mind. He thought of the husband, and how much he had begged for her to be institutionalized, pleading that for her own sake she needed to be institutionalized, and that it was cruel on everyone to not do so. They were all suffering right now. And so, with pursed lips Doctor Watkins signed his name to have her committed.
Parkville Mental Hospital was the best place for a woman in her condition. It was the safest for her, and at least then her two children would be able to recover from this. And one day, she would be better and be able to leave, to live a normal life again.
He shook his head as he stared down at his signature, still feeling uncertain even as another wretched scream tore down the hallway. He had never known someone to be so quickly overcome by delusions. He had medicated her from the first day she arrived here, and her stomach was full of more medication than she should have ever been able to get hold of. Yet the strange thing, he thought, was that the amount of medication would have put down a horse within an hour, yet Delores had been found and brought to the hospital still breathing, still alive, though close to death.
Three hours she had been out there, dying from thirst, heat exhaustion and a concoction of pills. Three hours didn’t make sense, he frowned.
*
Anabel and Owen hugged each other and cried outside their mother’s hospital room.
Back inside the room, a nurse was injecting Delores with a sedative. She looked apologetically towards Mr. Stanton as his wife slowly stopped thrashing and pulling on her restraints. A calm came over her tortured face. The nurse couldn’t imagine anything worse than believing she had harmed her children. She didn’t think she would be able to live with herself either.
The nurse placed a hand on Mr. Stanton’s arm. “I’m so sorry,” she said as Delores’s eyes rolled. “This must be so hard for you.”
Mr. Stanton was a handsome man. The nurse wondered how he had ended up with a wife so broken. He must be kind, she decided, truly kind and caring to have stayed with his wife through all of this.
“Thank you,” Michael replied, giving the nurse a small smile. “We’ll get through this, somehow. We’ll get through this.” He looked back towards Delores on the bed, his features tight with concern.
The nurse nodded, giving him a sympathetic pat on the arm, and left the room.
Michael looked down at Delores on the bed. She was thin and pale. Her hair was greasy and full of knots. He hated that she had let herself go so much, while also knowing that he was to blame for her condition. Her eyes stared back at him unblinkingly, a haze to them as they watched his every move.
Michael leaned down over his wife, his face close to hers, too closer than would be comfortable for her. She blinked, his image blurry, her eyes straining. He placed his lips next to her ear and whispered to her. Tears sprung to her eyes, sliding out of the corners, and making slow, lazy rivers towards her neck.
“This is just a dream, Del’, you know this isn’t real,” Michael whispered, his words tickling against her neck. “Don’t forget what you did. Don’t forget that you killed them. They’re dead, Del’, they’re both dead, and you did it.”
Delores moaned in pain, her heart so full of aching that she wondered and even hoped that it would implode and put her out of this misery. Put an end to her torment.
“You killed them, Del’, don’t forget you need to be punished for that. Don’t forget, okay?” Delores nodded, a soft mewling sound hanging in the air between them. “They’re not really here, no matter what anyone says. They’re not really here. You’re insane.”
“They’re not really here,” she whispered in agreement.
“They’re dead.”
“They’re dead,” she replied with acceptance at the cruel words.
“And you need to be punished.”
“I do,” Delores replied with a wretched sob. “I do.”
There was silence as she let the words settle over her, and then she added. “But what about Elijah? He said—,”
“There is no Elijah,” Michael said, a dark look washing over his handsome features. “He’s dead too.”
Chapter Forty-Eight.
