her sad thoughts weren’t true. Things were good and not as bad as her thoughts were making them seem. And with this simple system, we had avoided the aliens and hospital visits and the lithium—stardust, Zoe called it. She hated the stardust.
We avoided it together until three years ago when she was fourteen. Zoe threatened to hurt herself, and that was the last straw for her mom. She checked her in at a mental hospital.
The next day Zoe had to stand in line to use a
pay phone
like
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
or something.
“I can’t have shoelaces. Or clips for my hair.” Zoe sighed into the phone. “They watch me go to the bathroom. So I pee standing up like a guy, just to freak them out.”
I didn’t know a lot about those places, but what I’d gathered from TV shows is that you should probably play by the rules. “The more you play by the rules, the faster they’ll let you out of there,” I told her. “Why no shoelaces?”
“They think I’ll hang myself with them.”
“Oh,” I said.
I could feel the weight of Zoe’s sadness on the other end of the line as she whispered, “Just a minute,” to the crazy lady behind her waiting to use the phone.
“When can I visit?” I asked.
When I got there the next day, Zoe was sitting on a couch in the lounge, reading a magazine. She’d crafted a braided, turban-like headband out of her pillowcase because they wouldn’t let her have barrettes.
The hospital walls were painted in muted tones of puce—the color of tongue and bologna. Those inspirational posters they sell in airplane magazines that define words like
Success
and
Responsibility
in corny ways hung in strategic locations. A spindly anorexic girl sat at the occupational therapy table in the corner gluing the Serenity Prayer to a wooden plaque with the dry noodle letters of alphabet soup.
“Are you being have?” I asked Zoe, using the special syntax we made up for
behave
.
She nodded and said, “Except I’m not taking these.” She held out a handful of pretty pink pills, like tiny Easter eggs, that she’d managed to hide beneath her tongue at meds time. I grabbed them from her and shoved them in my pocket.
“The shrinks don’t like it when I talk about them, but they’re real,” Zoe said.
“Who?” I asked.
“You know who. Aliens,” she loud-whispered.
“If you want to get out of here, you maybe should stop talking about them.”
“What should I tell them, then? They won’t let me out until I say something.”
“Do they have arts and crafts or something?” I had imagined it like a big summer camp.
“Uh-huh.”
“Draw some hearts and rainbows, write happy entries in your journal. Eat, even when you are not hungry. Always agree with them.”
“Okay.”
“And sit down when you pee.”
“Aww, that was fun.”
“Zoe,” I said.
“Okay.”
I looked her in the eye. And it turned into a staring contest. Zoe tried to make me laugh by crossing her eyes and sticking out her tongue, but I’d seen
that
a million times before, and I persisted, examining the turquoise part of her eyes and moving to her pupils to see if she’d closed them off to the world. But she hadn’t. She seemed back to normal. No need for all this incarceration business. What she needed was to stop acting like Pippi. Adults did not understand kids who acted like Pippi.
A bell rang, and the nurses started kicking people out. I hugged Zoe, her chickeny bones poking through her sweatshirt. She wasn’t eating or sleeping much, which was part of the thing that she had: the-thing-that-shall-not-be-named.
“Guess what?” I’d said to her.
“That’s what,” she answered.
“No, guess what for real.”
“What?”
“You’re going to get better,” I said.
Then, Zoe being who she is, said, “‘The final, and only, act of healing is to accept that there’s nothing wrong with you.’”
“Okay,” I said, looking around for the poster she must have been reading it from, but it
We avoided it together until three years ago when she was fourteen. Zoe threatened to hurt herself, and that was the last straw for her mom. She checked her in at a mental hospital.
The next day Zoe had to stand in line to use a
pay phone
like
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
or something.
“I can’t have shoelaces. Or clips for my hair.” Zoe sighed into the phone. “They watch me go to the bathroom. So I pee standing up like a guy, just to freak them out.”
I didn’t know a lot about those places, but what I’d gathered from TV shows is that you should probably play by the rules. “The more you play by the rules, the faster they’ll let you out of there,” I told her. “Why no shoelaces?”
“They think I’ll hang myself with them.”
“Oh,” I said.
I could feel the weight of Zoe’s sadness on the other end of the line as she whispered, “Just a minute,” to the crazy lady behind her waiting to use the phone.
“When can I visit?” I asked.
When I got there the next day, Zoe was sitting on a couch in the lounge, reading a magazine. She’d crafted a braided, turban-like headband out of her pillowcase because they wouldn’t let her have barrettes.
The hospital walls were painted in muted tones of puce—the color of tongue and bologna. Those inspirational posters they sell in airplane magazines that define words like
Success
and
Responsibility
in corny ways hung in strategic locations. A spindly anorexic girl sat at the occupational therapy table in the corner gluing the Serenity Prayer to a wooden plaque with the dry noodle letters of alphabet soup.
“Are you being have?” I asked Zoe, using the special syntax we made up for
behave
.
She nodded and said, “Except I’m not taking these.” She held out a handful of pretty pink pills, like tiny Easter eggs, that she’d managed to hide beneath her tongue at meds time. I grabbed them from her and shoved them in my pocket.
“The shrinks don’t like it when I talk about them, but they’re real,” Zoe said.
“Who?” I asked.
“You know who. Aliens,” she loud-whispered.
“If you want to get out of here, you maybe should stop talking about them.”
“What should I tell them, then? They won’t let me out until I say something.”
“Do they have arts and crafts or something?” I had imagined it like a big summer camp.
“Uh-huh.”
“Draw some hearts and rainbows, write happy entries in your journal. Eat, even when you are not hungry. Always agree with them.”
“Okay.”
“And sit down when you pee.”
“Aww, that was fun.”
“Zoe,” I said.
“Okay.”
I looked her in the eye. And it turned into a staring contest. Zoe tried to make me laugh by crossing her eyes and sticking out her tongue, but I’d seen
that
a million times before, and I persisted, examining the turquoise part of her eyes and moving to her pupils to see if she’d closed them off to the world. But she hadn’t. She seemed back to normal. No need for all this incarceration business. What she needed was to stop acting like Pippi. Adults did not understand kids who acted like Pippi.
A bell rang, and the nurses started kicking people out. I hugged Zoe, her chickeny bones poking through her sweatshirt. She wasn’t eating or sleeping much, which was part of the thing that she had: the-thing-that-shall-not-be-named.
“Guess what?” I’d said to her.
“That’s what,” she answered.
“No, guess what for real.”
“What?”
“You’re going to get better,” I said.
Then, Zoe being who she is, said, “‘The final, and only, act of healing is to accept that there’s nothing wrong with you.’”
“Okay,” I said, looking around for the poster she must have been reading it from, but it
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