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“Ask her if she took anything,” BJ said from behind them.
“Sonja, did you take something? Medicine? Maybe a whole bunch of your magic herbs?”
She shook her head, remaining against the wall.
“Where’s George, Sonja? Has he gone to work?”
“George,” she said, shaking her head. “Poor George.”
“Sonja, what? What about George?” Gerri demanded.
“Get her to the hospital,” BJ said from behind them. “She’s having some kind of psychotic break.”
Gerri turned and looked at BJ. She was shocked that BJ would catch this before her, with her master’s in psych. But looking back at Sonja, it was obvious. Everything was all wrong—she wouldn’t have put on yoga clothes to walk in the morning, but she did have an afternoon class three days a week. She might’ve been like this since yesterday. But where was George? And the torn-up nails, the sweating face and greasy hair...
Instead of asking any more questions, she said to Andy, “Get your car. Pull into her drive. Let’s go.”
“Maybe an ambulance?” Andy asked.
“Get the car. Right now!” Then to BJ she said, “Help me here,” and they each took one arm and slowly lifted Sonja to her feet, urging her to walk. “You’re going to be okay now,” she murmured to Sonja, leading her out of the house. “It’s going to be okay—just come with me.”
BJ left them to take their friend to the hospital. Gerri sat in the back with a Sonja she couldn’t even recognize. She asked her questions all the way to the hospital, but didn’t get any answers. Sonja would sigh softly or whisper, “Poor George,” or just shake her head and turn unfocused eyes toward Gerri.
It took quite a lot of confusing explanations at the emergency room before they put Sonja in an exam room. Gerri called her house and Jed answered. “Listen, I didn’t walk this morning, I’m—”
“I know, Mom,” he said. “Some lady came to the door and said you had to rush Sonja to the hospital. But she didn’t say what was wrong. What’s wrong?”
“We don’t know, she hasn’t seen the doctor yet. It’s like she’s drugged or something. I have to find George. Get my address book out of the kitchen drawer and see if his cell number is there. Look under Johanson. I know I don’t have it in my phone.”
“Sure,” he said. “Want me to get Jessie and Matt to school? I can be late for class.”
“Please. I should stay here until—”
“Here it is,” Jed interrupted, reciting the numbers.
“Thanks, honey. You’re in charge. I don’t know when I’ll be back, but I won’t go anywhere else without calling your cell or leaving a note at home.”
“Want me to run your purse and phone by the emergency room?”
“Could you? That would help.”
It was a long, tense hour before George entered the E.R. and went directly to the nurses’ station. He produced his insurance information, asked questions, answered, nodded solemnly. Gerri crept closer to listen, but it didn’t take long for the nurse to pull George away from the desk just as a doctor was exiting Sonja’s exam room. Gerri would have liked to sidle up to them and eavesdrop, but the doctor was speaking in low, private tones, so she shrank back.
“Mom?”
She turned to see Jed standing there, holding her purse. “Oh, honey,” she said. “This is so good of you.”
He shrugged it off. “You know anything yet? Like what’s wrong with her?”
“No, we—” She stopped talking as George approached them, his head down. She turned her attention on him, touching his arm. “George, what’s wrong? What happened to her?”
He took a breath. “It’s a little complicated. The doctor has called for a psych consult. They’re going to be keeping her for a while. I’ll go see her in a minute. They’ve given her something to calm her down, but—”
“Calm her down? She was almost catatonic!”
“Not on the inside,” he said. “Her brain was on overdrive. She needs medication.”
“She won’t like that. Maybe they should tell her it’s herbs. George, where were you? Aren’t you usually home in the mornings?”
“Yeah, well that’s the complicated part. Sonja and I have separated. I left our home yesterday. It must have come as more of a shock than I anticipated.”
“What?”
“I imagine we’ll divorce, Gerri. Don’t worry—I’ll take care of her. It was never my intention to abandon her. I just can’t live in that loony bin any longer.”
Gerri got in his face. “You left her?” She felt Andy and Jed each grab hold of one of her arms, keeping her back before she launched on him physically. “Did you talk it over with her first? Air your...your... Did she know?”
“Oh, I talked, but Sonja never listened. Do you have any idea what it’s like, living in a temple? I thought I had prostatitis, I was peeing so much—but it was just all the goddamn fountains and waterfalls in the house. The candles, the meditation music, the herb-infested meals that tasted like lawn clippings...”
“She did all that for you!”
“I’m sure she thought so, but I asked her not to. There’s more stimulation on a mountaintop monastery in Tibet,” he said. “Really, I did my best. Sonja’s kind of nuts.”
Gerri was straining against the hold Andy and Jed had on her. “You know she can’t take that sort of thing! You should have given her a list to work from or a date to deal with! You can’t just leave her! She’s too fragile for that!”
“Mom,” Jed said, pulling on her arm. “Jeez, Mom. There are people...”
“I have to make arrangements for her,” George said. “Maybe we’ll talk later.” And he turned away from them.
“Jesus, Mom!” Jed admonished. “Calm down. People are watching.”
Gerri turned abruptly and sat down on one of the chairs against the wall. Her cheeks were flushed. She threaded her fingers into the short hair on top of her head, kneading a little wildly. How could George know so little about his own wife? Didn’t he realize Sonja clung to all that stuff to keep her steady? She had to have her bag of tricks to get through the days. It was her life raft. And organization, planning, they were her religion. She couldn’t cope with a shock like suddenly losing her husband, her marriage.
And then Gerri realized it was she who couldn’t cope with that. Her reaction to George was more about Gerri feeling her own marriage was gone, suddenly and without warning. Just as Sonja relied on all her woo-woo stuff, Gerri had always relied on Phil, on their marriage. “God,” she said. “I’ll apologize. I was emotional. Scared.”
She took a few deep breaths and put her hand on her son’s knee. “Go on to school, honey,” she said. “I’m not leaving till I see her.”
“Maybe I should hang around in case you...you know...”
“Nah, I’m fine. I’m not going to lose it. If I go berserk, I’m sure they can give me something.”
“You sure?” Jed asked. “I mean, you’ve been a little rocky lately.”
A huff of laughter escaped her. “Ya think?” she asked. Not only was her life falling apart, the whole neighborhood was hitting the skids. “It’s been a rocky few weeks. But we’ll be okay.”
“Okay, then. Andy, keep an eye on her.” Then he leaned over and gave his mother a kiss, something he never did in public and was loath to do in private.
“Whew,” was all Gerri could say, leaning back in her chair to wait.
Two hours later, the nurse let them in to see Sonja. She was lying back in the bed with her eyes closed, her arms relaxed at her sides. They stood there for a second, looking down at her. She looked fifteen, lying there. Small and vulnerable, weak and pale. Not their perky Sonja. While her energy and zeal drove them both crazy, this image was far more unsettling.
Sonja opened her eyes, saw them, but didn’t move a muscle. Gerri picked up one of her limp hands and said, “Oh, honey.”
A tear gathered and ran slowly down Sonja’s temple into her hair. She whispered something and Gerri leaned closer to hear. She whispered again. “He said I made him feel like a Chia Pet.”
four
GERRI AND ANDY left Sonja in the late morning, went home and then to their respective jobs. Sonja was going to spend at least a night, maybe two in the hospital, but she was becoming more lucid by the minute, back in reality again. Still, a break like hers was going to require supervision at the least, medication and psychiatric follow-up at the most.
Paperwork had been piling up on Gerri’s desk, with the distractions and crises in her personal life, and she called Jed’s cell phone to ask if he could get the kids home from school so she could stay late to tackle some of it. She was more than a little conscious that if she didn’t have her oldest son stepping in to help so agreeably right now, she’d be completely lost. She also took note that he was coddling her, trying to warm her up, get her more reasonable toward his father, as though all this inconvenience was her doing, not Phil’s.
By the time she got home, it was nearly eight. Phil’s car was in the drive and when she walked in, the first thing she saw was his briefcase and laptop on the table in the nook. Then he walked into the kitchen from the family room.
“What are you doing here? Did the kids call you?” she asked.
“Jed called, said you had a really bad day,” he said. “Is Sonja all right?”
“She scared me pretty good, but I guess she’ll be okay. You got the story?”
“I did,” he said. “Kind of feels like the whole neighborhood is coming apart at the seams. You okay?”
“I’ve been better,” she said, going straight to the refrigerator. “Kids eat?”
“Jed took care of that. He got takeout—their choice. I reimbursed him and gave him an extra forty bucks in case he has to do that again. Listen, it’s not working out, me staying in the city. I’m going to find something around here, closer to home, in case there’s some emergency. I don’t want to be so far away through the dark hours, when the goblins come out.”
She felt a smile threaten. The goblins, they called them—the problems kids had. The last-minute school assignment that was already late, a fight with a girlfriend or boyfriend, a ride that didn’t show up to bring them home, a disaster of any flavor. “Is that in their DNA?” she asked Phil. “Our children have never had any problem in their lives before ten o’clock at night.” She pulled out a bottle of cold white wine.
“Probably your DNA. You used to stay up late, get yourself all worked up over some problem with a coworker or family at risk and poke me at about three in the morning to work it out with you.”
“I’ll take the blame for that one,” she said. “Are you leaving right away?”
He eyed the wine and said hopefully, “I don’t have to.”
“Good,” she said. She grabbed two wineglasses out of the cupboard and headed for the door. “Hang out here for them if you can. If they ask, tell them I’m home, but had an errand. I shouldn’t be long.”
“Andy’s?” he wanted to know.
“Actually, no. A neighbor I barely know helped us with Sonja today. It’s reasonable to say that if she hadn’t stepped in, we might have left Sonja alone there, out of her head, for days. I think I should say thank-you, maybe try to get to know her better. If you have to go...”
“I can wait around awhile.”
“Because if you have to go, just let me tell the kids I’m home and where I’ll be. They stay alone all the time—they’ll be fine.”
“I’ll wait for you,” he said. “You sure you’re okay?”
“Work’s piling up,” she said. “You just can’t get separated, go to counseling, have medical emergencies and all that without some fallout.” She was about to leave, then turned back. “Are you going to counseling?”
“I am,” he said with a nod. He went to the table in the nook, opened his laptop and sat down. If he was staying, he’d get a little work done, she assumed.
“Getting anything out of it?” she asked.
“I’d rather have needles in my eyes,” he said. “I’d rather have another vasectomy. I’d trade two sessions for a colonoscopy.”
She smiled. “Those sound like good alternatives. I’ll think about that.” Once outside in the cold night she thought, that’s what I need—I need that Phil back. But he was damaged now and not the same in her eyes. She had never thought they were so different, but apparently they were. He was vulnerable to sex, she was vulnerable to a mere sixty seconds of understanding, support. Humor. Friendship.
She walked down the street to BJ’s house and knocked on the door. A young girl’s voice asked, “Who’s there?”
“It’s Mrs...it’s Gerri, from down the street.”
“Hang on,” she said.
In a moment a series of locks slid and BJ opened the door. She cocked her head, frowning, and Gerri lifted the wine in one hand, the glasses in the other. “I thought I’d thank you properly.”
BJ held the door open for her and over her shoulder said to a young boy and girl, “Can you go do homework in your rooms, please?”
They picked up books and papers from the dining table and exited quickly, quietly. “Wow,” Gerri said. “That was impressive. What do you have on them to make them obey like that?”
BJ almost smiled. “They’re good kids. Listen, you didn’t have to—”
“I thought you’d want to know about Sonja,” Gerri said. She put the wine and glasses on the table, reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a corkscrew. She went after the cork.
“I’ve been wondering about her,” BJ said. “Um...I very rarely drink alcohol.”
“Have a little sip of this, it’s good stuff. Unless you’re in recovery or something?”
“Just not much of a drinker. How is she?” BJ asked.
“Very unstable, but leveled out at the moment, thanks to drugs. They’re keeping her at least overnight to decide if she needs psychiatric intervention, medication, counseling, whatever. It turns out her husband left her yesterday. She went into a tailspin. Meltdown. You don’t know this about Sonja,” Gerri said, pouring, making sure BJ’s was just a small amount, a taste. “She’s the neighborhood health nut. She has a little business—she consults on all kinds of stuff—from feng shui to something she calls life patterning. She sells inner peace and tranquility, but she’s really always searching, always trying to find the answers. Herbs, exercise, meditation, holistic cures. She thought she had everything figured out. And yet—never saw it coming—he walked out on her without warning. She went down like a torpedo.”
“Wow. I thought she was just another suburban princess.”
“Yeah, that’s how she looks. Very superficial. But she’s the best person I know. She’d do anything for anyone. A few years ago, when she was still new on the block, I had a hemorrhoidectomy that just wiped me out. The pain was indescribable. My husband ran for his life, my best friend got weak in the knees and almost passed out just looking at me, but Sonja was there, giving me every kind of comfort she could pull out of her hat. Without her I don’t know what I would have done, and we were practically strangers. She removed the packing from my...” She stopped and shot BJ a look to find her smiling. BJ took a sip from her glass. “Well, suffice it to say, if not for Sonja, I wouldn’t have had a bowel movement in the past three years. She’s weird, but sincere. She believes all that shit.” Gerri sipped. “If it wasn’t for you today, we wouldn’t have rescued her. We would have left, waited for her to call.”
“I just thought the situation was strange. I’ve been watching you three for almost a year. She’d drive me crazy.”
“Yeah, she drives us crazy,” Gerri smiled. “Still...it is what it is.”
“You mind if I ask what you do? I know you work.”
“I work for Child Protective Services. Psychologist. I was a case worker for years and now, a supervisor.”
“No kidding? You’ve seen some stuff, then.”
“I’d venture to say I’m pretty desensitized. Life’s rough out there.”
“And you couldn’t see something was all screwed up with Sonja?” BJ asked, confused.
“I would have in a second,” Gerri said, defending herself. “But man, you got it right away.” She clinked BJ’s glass. “What do you do?”