Jake Undone(73)

She was standing there in the lobby with mascara running down her eyes, wearing her pajamas, her hair disheveled.

“What are you doing here, Ivy?”

She kept her distance and pointed at me, her index finger shaking. “You know what I am doing here. You know what you tried to do to me this morning. I know you tried to poison me!”

No.

I briefly closed my eyes unable to believe this was actually happening at work. Her words shouldn’t have shocked me, yet every time she accused me of something like that, it fucking ripped my heart out. This was the first time other people would witness it.

I looked behind me to see Rachel looking at us like a deer caught in headlights. I could only imagine what this must look like to someone who didn’t know my wife.

“How did you get here?”

She didn’t answer, but through the sliding glass doors of the lobby, I saw there was a cab waiting outside.

I grabbed her arm. “Let’s go. Now!”

“Don’t touch me!” she yelled.

I started to push her out the door when she resisted.

Her scream echoed in the lobby. “He tried to kill me this morning. He put something in my coffee before he left for work. He’s wanted me dead for a while.”

I looked over toward the desk and saw my three co-workers who were supposed to be meeting me to go to lunch, staring at us speechless. I shook my head at them to let them know this wasn’t what it seemed.

Bob, the office manager came out. “What’s going on out here?”

I started to sweat. “Bob, we were just leaving. This is my wife, but she’s ill and doesn’t realize what she is saying. She shouldn’t have come here. I apologize for the scene.”

She was crying, and I pulled her out the door, as she struggled with me. I held onto her arm so she couldn’t run away as I stuck my head in the open cab window. “Did she pay you?”

The cabbie shook his head, so I took out my wallet with the one available hand I had. “How much?”

“Ninety-seven dollars,” he said.

I didn’t have enough cash. Fuck.

Humiliated, I held onto Ivy, as we walked back into the lobby. More people were now standing there to witness the drama. Henry came up to me. I told him I would explain everything later and he gave me the extra cash to pay the cab driver. As Ivy stood there whispering to herself, I think he was starting to get the drift of what was really going on.

I paid the driver before dragging Ivy to the far end of the parking lot where my Jetta was parked. She was still trying to get away from me and was threatening to call the cops. Cars were speeding by on the nearby highway and I feared if she got away, she’d run into traffic and get herself killed.

Her spit sprayed my face when she said, “I fucking hate you, Jake.” I pushed her into the passenger seat and shut the door. Those words went right through me. As I started the car, she turned away from me looking out the window. I looked over at her, feeling helpless, not sure if I should take her home this time.

I just sat there with the car running. I couldn’t fucking do this alone anymore. Ivy’s mother died shortly before we got married. She had no father in the picture and no siblings. I was all she had. It was the reason I was still here.

Taking her to a hospital had been something I’d been avoiding. I was scared for her, what they might do to her there. Visions of padded white walls and isolation haunted me. I thought I could keep her safe myself, but I was losing control faster than she was losing her mind. My poor Ivy. This wasn’t her fault.

She turned and looked at me, and I knew she was coming out of it. Each episode was like a cycle. It always passed, but once she came through it, a new one was never far behind. Feeling defeated and hopeless, my chest tightened as I reached for her hand. I almost wished, this once, she stayed out of her mind, so that she didn’t realize what was about to happen. Because as we pulled out of the lot, I knew that this time, I wasn’t taking her home.





***





“Where are we?” she asked when we pulled up to a large brick building just outside Boston.

We hadn’t spoken the entire ride to the hospital.

I touched her hair gently. “We’re going to get you help, baby girl.”

I helped her out of the car, and this time, she didn’t resist.

A couple of days later, she was still admitted when the doctor pulled me into his office. I knew something was coming, but I was never going to be ready to hear it.

I was looking at the pictures of the doctor’s smiling children as he said, “Mr. Green, your wife has schizophrenia.”

I continued to stare blankly at the photos. A snapshot of a little boy lifting a fish on a boat would forever be etched in my mind as the image I was looking at when I heard those words come out of the doctor’s mouth. The rest of that one-sided conversation was a blur that I could only recall bits and pieces of.