Rules of Escape

Chapter 22 - Ana

A new person has been temporarily hired to replace Diane. Ana watches Ro clean the house out of the corner of her eye.

Ro is small, quiet, and not at all afraid of Ana. Balancing on her toes, Ro can just reach the top of the window she is cleaning. Using an old towel, Ro scrubs hard at the window to dry it. Slowly the window begins to shine. No streaks.

Ro moves to the next window. She reaches into a bowl of vinegar and water, pulls out a small rag, squeezes the water out of it, and uses it to clean the window. Ro's window cleaning method takes a long time. Ana ruffles the newspaper she is looking at.

"I'll read the paper with you as soon as I'm done," Ro says. "You have a lot of windows!" Ro takes off her sweater and tosses it on the floor.

Ro's arms are larger than Ana expects. Tattoos cover her shoulders and disappear beneath her tank top. Her short, dark hair, looks soft and silky against her face as she scrubs the windows.

Ana smooths out the newspaper. Looking carefully for words, Ana finds a few that she recognizes. The. Weather. And. Man. Today. Today's weather is sunny.

Ro finishes the windows and takes the cleaning supplies into the kitchen. "Try reading a few words out loud," Ro says from the kitchen.

Ana frowns. Why is this necessary? If Evan can read, why do I need to?

"It's really great you're learning to read," Ro says. "Once you can read, you won't have to rely on other people to help you so much." Ro sits down beside Ana. "I brought the journal out. I thought you might like to read what I wrote in it. It's about you, so I thought you might like to know what I wrote."

Ana looks at the thick journal. It is just one of many, many journals. Have people really written that much about me? She looks where Ro is pointing.

"I'll read," Ro says, "and you follow the words with your finger." Ro passes the journal to Ana. Ana looks down at Ro's slanted printing. She puts her finger on the first word and Ro begins to read. Ana's finger moves back and forth across the page, her eyes following the words as Ro reads them.

Abruptly Ro stops and looks at Ana. "So this next part I write about how you appear. I say that you seem tired. It's just my best guess based on your body language - I know I might be wrong and people reading this know I might be wrong."

Ana follows along as Ro continues reading. Does everyone guess how I feel? Why would they write it at all, if it is just a guess? Ana feels an overwhelming desire to take the journal and read what people have written about her. How do I appear? What are they saying about me? Who has read these things?

"If you want to keep looking at the journal, you can," Ro says. "I'll start dinner."

Ana takes the journal to her bedroom and lies down on her bed to look at the journal. She notices that staff have different types of handwriting. Ro's hand writing is small and half her letters are printed. Diane's writing is large and curvy. It makes reading the journal, challenging but slowly, she is able to pick out some of the words. She starts recognizing different patterns in her staffs writing. She flips back through the journal and finds a page with Diane's large, round writing. Diane's handwriting is hard to read so Ana takes the journal to the kitchen and holds the page up to Ro.

"You want me to read that page?" Ro asks.

Ana nods.

Ro begins reading, laughing a little at some spots where Diane's humour shows through in her writing. "Oh, that's sad that Diane had to leave because her mom was sick," Ro says. "Do you want me to continue reading what she wrote?"

Again, Ana nods.

"Ok. She wrote, 'Ana cried and cried when I told her I would be gone for a while. I explained to Ana that I would return and Ana felt better and stopped crying. I think she'll be okay. I'll return as soon as I can.' And that's it. That's all she wrote."

Ana clenches her fists. She goes to the kitchen drawer and searches through it until she finds a pen. She tries to take the journal from Ro.

"Ana you can't make marks in this book. It's for staff. It could be used as a legal document."

Ro's words make no sense to Ana. What Diane wrote was wrong. It should be corrected. Ana holds the pen out to Ro.

"I can't change what someone else wrote."

Why would Diane write something that wasn't true? I didn't cry and I wasn't sad that she left.

Ro watches the pot of boiling pasta. Ana fights the desire to grab the pot and throw it at Ro.

"Did Diane write something that wasn't correct?" Ro asks, looking at Ana. "Yes," Ro says and nods. "Or no," Ro says and shakes her head.

Ana nods.

"Did you cry when Diane said she would be gone for a while?" Ro asks.

Ana shakes her head.

"I can see why that would make you mad. She made it sound like she knew how you felt and she was wrong. Let me think about what else I'm going to write. I'll try to write something that shows this page that Diane wrote was inaccurate."

Ro returns her attention to the pot of pasta on the stove, her brow furrowed.

Ana sits down at the kitchen table and watches Ro make dinner. She feels tired. Lately, she has felt tired more often. She doesn't sleep well at night and during the day she has trouble concentrating for long periods of time. Learning to read takes all her effort. Even now, she feels she should be really angry but her energy is gone and all she wants is dinner before going to bed.

Ro hands her a plate of food. The food looks good, but Ana just picks at it. Ro sits down beside her and quickly finishes her own plate of food.

"I can save your dinner," Ro says. "You can eat it later when you're hungry. Here's your medication. You are supposed to take these pills with dinner."

Medication? For what? Aren't these pills vitamins? That's what everyone else calls them.

"These pills are melatonin to help you sleep. Most people take one or two occasionally. You get four every night. In the afternoon, once you're wide awake, you get Lorazapam to calm you down so you don't get agitated."

It's these pills that are making me feel terrible, Ana thinks. Why didn't anyone tell me? Everyone thinks I'm so stupid and won't understand. People write lies about me and nobody knows any different but me. Then people tell me lies and so how am I supposed to find out the truth?

Ana looks at Ro out of the corner of her eye. There is something about Ro that is different. She is so calm. This is her first shift with Ana, yet she seems perfectly at ease.

Ro looks carefully at Ana. "So here's your medication. Put it in your mouth and go to the washroom and brush your teeth. If you're tired, you should get ready for bed."

Ana returns Ro's gaze as she places the pills in her mouth. She stands up and goes to the bathroom. First she spits the pills down the sink, then she takes out her toothbrush and tooth paste and begins brushing her teeth.

There is something about Ro that worries Ana. It is as if Ro is trying to help her. But why would she? She is staff. And new staff at that. What could Ro possibly know? Ro is just filling in for Diane.

Ana sighs. Even without the melatonin, she is tired. More important than figuring out Ro, is getting to The Place.