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Butterscotch
That wasn’t Tacoma.
Three words arrived with the sun. Shawn stumbled to his
desk and punched in the numbers. He got her answering machine.
He had her roommate’s number somewhere, for emergencies.
He dug through his drawers, then remembered the card in his wallet, the numbers
in Tacoma’s big, looping cursive. His call was answered by a bleary female
voice.
“Mmello?”
“Hi. Is this... Suzanne?”
“If you want it to be. Is this Shawn?”
The quick recognition surprised him. She traveled a lot –
he’d only met her once.
“She’s at the hospital.”
“Huh?”
“Tacoma. The hospital. I had to call the cops to take her
in. Not that she was dangerous, but when she gets into one of these Jesus
things, she’s...”
“Wait a minute. Jesus things?”
“Yeah. She gets hyper-religious. She won’t eat, says,
‘Jesus will be my food.’ Drives through red lights ‘cause Jesus will take care
of her. Last time she said it was some guy in Seattle, sold her bad tea. I had
to stay up with her half the night just to get her through it. I’m glad they
took her in this time. She really needs to have it checked out. When was the
last time you saw her? Shawn?”
“Oh. Sorry. This is a little... weird. Where did you say
they took her?”
“Not really sure. Some sort of mental emergency ward.
They gave me a number, though.”
Shawn wrote it down and thanked Suzanne for handling
things. He hung up, and the tiles clicked into place: the Seattle episode,
Tacoma’s phobia about the occult, last night’s bizarre behavior. It seemed
selfish to think so, but he was relieved to know it had not been a rejection
after all, that perhaps they still had a future together. And something simple
and serious to focus on.
He called the number and got a woman with a slight Nordic
accent, as if all her vowels had umlauts.
“No, I’m afraid you won’t be able to see her for a couple
of days. We’re keeping her under sedation until the doctors can get a clear
diagnosis. Why don’t I give you the number for the release clinic in
Steilacoom? She’s a pretty mild case, so they’ll probably send her there
tomorrow. I want you to call this number Tuesday morning, and they’ll tell you
what to do next.”
The next two days were sheer hell. He had no idea what
she was going through, if she understood that her brain had betrayed her.
Fortunately, he had work. Shelly was doing her upstairs library in butterscotch
yellow, with the same blood red for trim. Shawn spent the morning lugging books
into the hall, enjoying the rigor, the strain and stretch of his muscles.
Shelly had a bout of arthritis, so instead of making
sandwiches she treated him to lunch at The Spar, a bricky lunchplace in the Old
Town district. They stayed for two hours, resembling a man and his grandmother
out for a visit, as Shawn recounted his mystifying weekend.
After lunch, he called the clinic, and was informed that
he could come by at seven the next evening.
Steilacoom lay south of Tacoma, a comfy town centered on
a waterfront green and a ferry dock. Shawn was surprised that such a place
would allow a mental health clinic, but he could see how they snuck it under
the radar. It sat two blocks up from the water, three modest brick buildings
identified only as Steilacoom Acres. It wouldn’t surprise him if tourists
occasionally stopped in to ask about a room.
Shawn slipped tentatively through the twin glass doors of
the office and approached a large black woman seated expectantly behind the
reception desk.
“Hi. Um... I’m here to see...”
She did have a way of making an entrance: at the end of
the hallway, wrapped in a white bathrobe, her face scrubbed clean, her hair
hanging to either side in damp ringlets. She gave him a resigned smile, worn
down by life and medication, but having spotted the light at the end of her
tunnel. The light walked her way in firm strides, recording every inch of her,
the most beautiful vision he had ever encountered.
Photo by MJV
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