Lovely Mary

Chapter 2

The doctor scribbled something a piece of paper, and looked up at her again, and asked,

"Your husband was murdered, correct?" He said, watching for a reaction. He got one. Mary's body froze, her dark eyes slowly came to his, and her throat seized up.

Yes. Mary remembered seeing his body, his shirt bloody with jagged knife indents. Charles was dead and gone. She shut her eyes.

"Mrs. Colt? Is there something you would like to say?" He asked her. This girl...woman, was rather interesting. It had been awhile since Dr. Earlson had gotten an entertaining case.

"Mrs. Colt?"

"Who found me?" She croaked. Mary hadn't spoken in three days, the day they let her out of her restraints. She had been here a week, and she felt like she had aged a decade.

He wrote on his paper and said, "A boy playing in the woods. Jimmy was his name."

Mary knew Jimmy. He was about ten, and a very kind boy. He lived down the road from where Charles and she lived.

"And my family?"

Dr. Earlson looked down suddenly, his face taut. He removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes roughly.

"Mrs. Colt, Mary, I am sorry to inform you that during the funeral, a fire sparked in the living room. The police are not sure how, but it did. I am sorry to say, no one survived."

Dr. Earlson saw Mary's body fall forward. He got up quickly and caught her body before it crashed to the ground. She was out cold.

"Dr. Branson!" He shouted.

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Mary was floating in between memories. Her childhood, her father, her husband.....

Her family was gone. Her life was gone. She was no one now. She was going to stay here for the rest of her life.

Mary felt a burning sensation in her chest. It burned in inferno in her, and it scorched her body. She startled her eyes open, and was her breath caught as she saw eyes staring back. A young man, not too many years older than herself, sat on the side of her bed, pressing a cold cloth on her forehead. He had the darkest eyes she had ever seen, and his dark brown hair fell gently across his temple. He was a handsome man. Charles had been a handsome man too. She trashed violently away from him.

Mary pulled her knees up to her chest, not caring that he could see her hospital protocol dress ride up to her thighs. Why? Why did everyone have to leave her? Her family was gone. Her friends. Her husband. She sobbed shakily and clenched her eyes shut.

From the side of the bed, Dr. Branson clenched the damp cloth in his fist and watched the patient cry and mourn for her family. He was new to the trade of mental health, and was unsure how to handle the situation. He wanted to comfort her, but he was unsure if that would be acceptable to his colleagues. She was a pretty thing too, even with her crisp blond hair cut severly short and her too skinny frame. He shook his head at his thoughts and then quietly slipped out of the room to talk to Dr. Earlson.

Dr. Earlson leaned against a dimly painted wall and was reading a report on one of the other patients due for a lobotomy. He wondered if Mrs. Colt was heading in that direction too. The patient he was studying now shared remarkable similarities with her behavior. Dr. Branson walked over to him rubbing his hands anxiously.

"Mrs. Colt is not doing very well." Dr. Branson said. Earlson glanced at the younger man. He was visibly shaken and distraught at the sight of the patients, not a good sign for a future doctor. Doctors needed to radiate confidence, and not sympathy.

" If she doesn't get better soon we'll need to lobotomize her. We have new patients coming in soon and we need the room."

"What do you mean?" Dr. Bransom asked him, perplexed.

"We need space for the other patients, so we can just give her a lobotomy and move her to the permanent facility. She doesn't have any family, so no questions will be asked."

"You can't mean-"

"I do. And stop asking so many questions and just follow my lead. I am the senior doctor. Remember that." Dr. Earlson nodded coldly to him and walked away. It was time to pay a visit to Mary.