Part 23 (1/2)

”I married him,” she said with a smile. She took her wallet out of the designer handbag next to her and opened it to show me photos of herself and her husband, and their two children.

”Wow,” I said.

Dr. Bergant put her hand on my arm and said, ”Sometimes, you have to follow your heart, and not your mother's heart. I'm sure your mom wouldn't like to hear me telling you this, so here's what we're going to do, okay?”

I nodded, feeling an incredible sense of relief that I wasn't in the clutches of someone who agreed with my mom, or even respected her having brought me here.

”You and I,” said Dr. Bergant, ”are going to have a few sessions like this, and I'm going to chat with you about life and love, and we're going to come up with some positive strategies for finding ways to coexist in your mother's world for the remaining time you have in it, so that she never forces you into anything like this again, and then we'll call her, and you'll go back, and everyone will be happy. How does that sound?”

I smiled broadly. ”It sounds really nice.”

”Good.” Dr. Bergant stood as if to leave. ”I think Debbie told you about meals, and the rules, and so you're all set there. You can eat with the others - but honestly, I'd recommend against it. The room service is quite good here. If you need anything, you call her. We have a TV in your room - not all the girls here get one. You can use the gym, and walk around if you like. Is there anything else I can help you with for now?”

”I'd like to let my best friend know I'm here,” I said. ”And my art teacher. My mom took my phone.”

”Sure,” said Dr. Bergant. She lowered her voice to a whisper, as she handed me her own smart phone. ”Use mine.”

”Are you sure?”

”Of course. I'll step into the hall for a moment to give you some privacy. We don't have to tell Debbie or anyone else, okay?”

”Really?”

”Sure.”

”Wow. Why would you do that for me?”

Debbie sighed, and smiled sadly at me. ”Because, Maria, and I'm going to be completely honest with you, just like you've been honest with me. We get a lot of hard cases here. Most of them are very serious. Schizophrenics, sociopaths, suicidals, m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.ts, severely bipolar. People who simply cannot function in the world. You name it, we have it. And I've seen enough and done enough to know pretty quickly when I'm facing someone who has a serious mental illness. That's what this inst.i.tution is for, young people with serious mental illnesses.”

”I realize that.” I felt guilty because I hadn't told the doctor the part about me believing in ghosts. I knew that if I did tell her, she might change her opinion of me, and quickly.

”Well, as a doctor and a professional, I will tell you - and I'd stake my license on what I'm about to tell you, Maria - you are a normal girl who has some disagreements with her mother about how to live her life. You don't belong here.”

”Then why don't you just release me?” I asked.

The doctor looked at her feet for a moment before locking eyes with me. ”Because, think of where you'd end up. Back with your mother. I hope to give you skills in your time here that will help you cope with her. Sadly, sometimes you have to go through the motions to a.s.suage the egos of certain people who think they know everything, just enough to calm them down, in order to avoid even worse situations.”

”Thank you,” I said, tears filling my eyes again.

Dr. Bergant smiled warmly. ”You remind me a lot of myself,” she said. ”More than you probably realize. Now, I'll just be outside for a few minutes. Call or email whomever you need to. Visiting hours are from four to six in the afternoons.”

I called Kelsey and Yazzie, and told them quickly where I was. Kelsey was mortified, and after professing her undying hatred for my mother, promised to fly back from New York early if her parents would let her, to help get me out of this place. Yazzie promised to come see me the next afternoon, adding that she'd seen all of this play out in a dream. ”Be very careful,” she said. ”There are shape s.h.i.+fters among you there.” It seemed an overstatement, considering the vast quant.i.ty of crazy people in the place.

After that charming bit of news, I called Demetrio, but he didn't answer. I texted him, to let him know where I was, and to warn him against texting or calling me on my phone, which was under my mother's control.

When Dr. Bergant returned, she had a small paper cup with two pink pills in it, and a gla.s.s of water.

”I know being here can provoke anxiety,” she said. ”I'm not saying there's anything wrong with you at all, Maria. But if you want to take the edge off, and just relax a little bit, these should help.”

I took the pills, and looked curiously at them, and at Dr. Bergant. ”I don't like to take drugs unless I really need them.”

”Oh, these are harmless. Not addictive or anything like that. If you don't want them, don't take them. I just thought I'd offer, since we have so many of them lying around.”

She smiled calmly, reclaimed her phone, and told me when to expect her tomorrow for our next session.

I got through the night, somehow, with the help of room service (filet mignon with garlic mashed potatoes, strawberry cheesecake with whipped cream) and cable TV. I was, however, horrified to see a story on the national cable news channels, about a local child who was missing - an adorable, big-eyed four-year-old girl named Nicole Archuleta, from Valencia County, whom no one could find. I watched in shock for a moment, and thought about my little half-sisters, who were roughly the same age. They were so defenseless. Who would kidnap such a tiny child? I quickly changed the channel, to a romantic comedy, and thought about Demetrio. I wondered if he was trying to reach me on my phone, and if he was, what my mother was saying to him when he called. I hoped he'd gotten my text.

Around eleven o'clock, I readied myself for slumber, the whole routine with brus.h.i.+ng of teeth and tossing of used clothes into my duffle to take back home. It took about half an hour after flipping off the light for me to actually drift into sleep, because I could hear someone crying violently in the next suite over, but it finally happened. I had the myoclonic jerk of electricity that was like a kick-start, and off I went, away from this horrible place.

At first, I suppose, it was a sleep like any other - blank and sort of numb. But then I felt like I woke up, yet didn't; I was still asleep, but I felt awake. I have seen this state described as a night terror. At first, however, there was nothing terrifying about it. More like uplifting, as I literally felt myself rising out of my body in the bed.

Before I knew what was happening, I found myself floating in the room, with my back against on the ceiling, able to look down and see myself there in the bed. I had no idea I looked so unattractive when I slept, with my mouth appearing unhinged and saliva dribbling onto my pillow. Oh well. That didn't matter. What mattered was that my soul was out of my body, or at least out of the version of my body down there; I had another body of my own, too, and it looked exactly like my other. It was very confusing. I wasn't willow and spirit like. I was solid and me-like. Dimensions, I thought. That's what it had to have been. I wondered then how many dimensions there actually were, and whether there were other versions of me out there right then. If there were, I hoped they weren't doing anything too stupid, like dancing the Macarena or running around with their underwear on their heads.

Honestly, and all joking aside, it panicked me at first to see myself sleeping below myself, as it should have, and I drifted down to get a closer look at myself, to make sure I was still breathing. I was. My hovering self breathed a sigh of relief, which meant there were two Marias breathing in the room. This brought me little comfort and much distress.

You ain't dead, mamita. Quit worrying so much.

I heard his voice, but couldn't see him anywhere. I felt him, though, as soon as I heard the words. I felt light and energy all around me, and a spinning, sort of like when I'd conveyed with him before, but different this time. The light and energy were Demetrio. I knew this. I will never know or understand how I knew it, only that I did. It was almost how I felt when I played piano or danced. I was within him, and he was soaking through me, and we were mixed and it was truly the most ecstatic and glorious feeling I'd ever experienced.

I was out, over the top of Rancho la Curacion, now, and then higher, higher into the sky about Pojoaque. The world moved beneath me, or us, and I watched as it blurred, day and night, day and night, backwards.

I have something to show you, so you can understand me better, mamita.

Slowly the spinning stopped, and I floated down again, toward the earth. The light and energy that had surrounded me dissolved, and reformed now, into a recognizable human body. His human body. Demetrio was at my side, his hand in mine, as our feet gently alighted upon the ground. We were no longer over my the mental inst.i.tution. We were landing, noiselessly, in front of a small, decrepit adobe house in the middle of rural New Mexico, the typical kind of place you saw but never stopped at when you were driving on any of the back roads of the state. A blanket with a cartoon character on it hung over the front window, covering it instead of a curtain. Trash and broken toys littered the small front yard. Nothing grew here. Everything was dirt and neglect.

”Listen,” he said.

From inside came the sounds of loud rap music, and screaming. Plates breaking. Fighting. A woman crying, a man shouting.

”What is this place?” I asked him.

”My home.” He flinched as he said it, and this was by far the most vulnerable he had ever appeared to me yet.

I looked at him with sorrow, and he met my gaze with a sort of pained peace of his own.

”It's okay,” he told me, though I could tell he still smarted from whatever this place meant to him. ”It's over now. Easier for me to show you than tell you, though. Come.”

He walked toward the house, and I followed. Then, astoundingly, he walked through the wall, and I hesitated.

You can do it too.

I stepped forward, and reached for the wall, but felt nothing there. It was like a hologram. I stepped forward, and instantly found myself inside of a filthy living room, with mismatched, stained furniture and piles of dirty clothes and rotten food everywhere. He stood to one side, watching as a man beat a woman in front of two filthy-faced young boys. The boys appeared to be about the same age, both wearing stained SpongeBob pajamas, holding onto a chair and looking about himself with deep, sorrowful eyes that had extremely long lashes. The slightly bigger child, who had shocking green eyes, huddled in a corner, watching with fear as the man pounded the woman's face with his fist, and bloodied the woman's nose.

”You can't do that to my mom!” the green-eyed boy screamed, finally, as he charged the man, grabbing him around the knees. ”I hate you!”

The man stumbled, and fell, nearly crus.h.i.+ng the boy. The other child began to cry.

The woman appeared to be unconscious.