In the End

Bloodied Hands On A Smoking Gun

Karen does not like the hospital all that much. The walls are all the same color, which are the same color as the bedsheets and curtains, which are the same color as the blinds and her furniture, which at this point, she feels is the same color as her life.

She sighs and swallows down her medication.

It's a dull off-white, as most psychiatric hospitals are. She wonders, briefly why they never bother to put up posters or framed pictures in her room, or anywhere else much for that matter. Schools had them all the time- motivational quotes, sweet and loving photos of children and families- but she supposed that it wasn't the same for adults. They were the kids that should have grown up by now. They should have had all their problems solved already. There are no stickers or encouragements for those who lag behind.

She hasn't told Andy yet. She doesn't know if he'll have the strength to hear, or if she'll even have the strength to tell him.

"Good morning, Mrs. Barclay," her nurse calls from the door. A sign to another start of her day. Her new personal assistant was sweet and attentive, but it was strange, having someone to have to look after her. As if she were a child. Mothering her as she should have mothered Andy.

"Good morning," she says instead, and swallows the guilt and the shame.

She lets the nurse busy herself while she stays deep in her thoughts, only responding when required. She'd like to think that it's not her fault – and truly, it is not her fault at all – but there were things hidden away inside of her that even she did not know until the first day she'd been taken, Andy ripped away from her as if she was a danger. As if she had been the one harming him.

Looking back, she realizes that even he had never hurt Andy. Not in the way some had. Not in the way they continued to, although he'll never admit it to her. She can see the hurt in his eyes, the scars that still affect everything he does.

After several weeks of heavy therapy, she held on to her story. The truth that she, Andy, and Mike Norris knew. No matter the medication dosage, the exercises and the charts she was given to complete, she did not change her story. She would not deny her son, ever. But after several weeks of therapy, they did find something. They caught it, but there was no guarantee they could completely cure it. The beginnings of dementia.

They would not have caught it so early on, had she not been admitted when she did. She spent the first week after the realization bitter, and angered. It wasn't fair that a wrongdoing against her had actually turned out for good. She did not want to find herself grateful that any of this had happened. She had violent fits and bursts of outrage, lashing verbally – and sometimes physically – at the attendees, the other patients, and once even at Mr. Norris. For some reason, she'd been particularly angry at him too, as if it were his fault that things had happened the way they did. She'd slapped his hands away as he'd tried to calm her, seeing him as patronizing and unsympathetic.

She remembers, with another flitting pass of guilt and admonishment, the way the hurt had sparked across his eyes. He hadn't reached for her again.

"Did you sleep well?" the nurse – Stacia, her name was Stacia – opens her curtains and blinds. As if she wanted to see the outdoors, gray and dreary as the inside. But she doesn't say this. She smiles and thanks her, and is genuinely grateful for her care, at least. She could be worse. She's heard plenty of frightening stories from some of the other patients who had been transferred to this hospital. Stories of ill treatment and neglect and abuse.

"I did, thank you," she replies, and she doesn't talk about her nightmares. The ones where Andy dies in varying and brutal ways, and she stands, frozen. Watching. Allowing it to pass. She always wakes in a cold sweat. It should bother her more, but she knows she won't remember them soon. She forgets more and more as the days pass.