Getting my stomach pumped superseded physical therapy as the
lowlight of my summer. Everyone seemed to feel I’d been terribly
“lucky” once again, in that I’d suffered no internal damage, but I failed to share their gratitude. Dr. Kauffman’s appearance on the scene only
provided the perfectly awful ending to the perfectly horrible day. When
she asked me how I felt, and I defiantly replied that I couldn’t be better, her
demeanor transformed from one of benevolent caregiver to that of harsh
disciplinarian. “This can’t continue,” she told me. “You need to
talk to someone.”
I wanted to ask her why she had bothered to save my life back in
May. Instead I said, “Fine.”
“I’m going to give Bryan the name and number of someone who I have
tremendous respect for, and who I think can do you a world of good. All
right?”
“Whatever.”
“I’d like to call her and give her some background, if that’s all
right with you.”
“Super.”
“I’ll have Bryan sign a confidentiality waiver.”
“You go right ahead.”
Dr. Kauffman patted my shoulder. I’ll bet no one had ever
warned her in medical school that there would be days like this. “He
loves you, you know,” she said, now resuming her benevolent doctor
persona. “I saw it, those three days. Everyone did.”
“Yeah, he can put on a good act.”
“It wasn’t an act. And before you argue, I know everything
that happened between the two of you.”
Not quite, I
thought acidly to myself, or she would have been legally bound to report him
for child abuse—something that Bryan the lawyer had assuredly kept in mind as
he confessed his sins to her.
“Raising a child,” Dr. Kauffman was saying, “you make
mistakes. You do things you regret. Sometimes your emotions get the
better of you. It happens to all of us.”
I just grunted.
“You’re only seventeen, Rachel—your whole life is ahead of you.”
That was just great. Why not plunge the knife straight into
my heart while she was at it? “Where’s Bryan?” I asked, uninterested in
hearing about how I had another good sixty years of misery to look forward
to. I hadn’t seen my great rescuer since he’d brought me to the hospital.
“Talking with one of our psychiatrists.”
“I am not going into the psych ward-”
“The hospital is going to release you tomorrow morning,” Dr.
Kauffman told me. “I pulled some strings, so this isn’t being treated as
a genuine suicide attempt. There are just some procedures we need to
follow first.”
Wonderful. Now not even my suicide attempts were being taken
seriously. But relieved that I would not be escorted to the loony
bin any time soon, I overlooked the insult and permitted Dr. Kauffman to
blather on about my rosy future until she at last gave up and left me alone.
Sometime later I woke up with a start. At first I couldn’t figure out why I
would be in the hospital again. Seeing
Bryan helped me to remember.
He was sitting in a chair a few feet from the bed, his head in his
hands. “What are you doing here?” I asked him.
*From my upcoming novel, The Last Confession of the Sun God, available soon.
