Chapter 23
The hospital was in a suburb of Portland. Allison knew she could make it there and back to The Dragon before the end of the day. It would be very late when she got back, and it wouldn’t be easy accounting for her whereabouts, but she couldn’t worry about that now. She needed to see Antonio, and she might not get another chance like this.
Something had gone terribly wrong at The Dragon when she’d lived there, something much worse than one prank phone call and a fall that might not have been an accident. If she ever wanted to move past this, she’d have to learn the truth. She plugged the address into her phone’s map and headed east.
She survived the drive on coffee and determination. By late afternoon, Allison was nearing her destination. As soon as she took the exit off the interstate, she knew she was in money country. The houses were large and hidden behind high walls and old trees. The streets were clean, the sidewalks were in excellent repair and the children she saw getting out of school were being picked up by well-heeled parents and nannies who drove shiny SUVs. McQueen had said Antonio was in a private hospital. Those didn’t come cheap. She found her way to the road, which seemingly led straight into a forest. Once she passed through the outer perimeter of thick tall trees, she saw she was driving not through a forest but a park surrounded by forest. The signs that warned her not to drive more than eight miles per hour weren’t the ordinary black-and-white metal sorts on every city street in America, but elegant wooden signs, painted in cheerful colors.
The winding path went on so long, Allison wondered if she’d ever find the hospital. Then she saw it, the prettiest hospital she’d ever seen. It looked like an old English manor house. The exterior was gray stone with dark wood support beams here and there, possibly decorative. It was a three-story hospital, far wider than it was tall. She counted twenty windows in the top row, and that was just the front of the building. She could tell it stretched on far back into one or two other wings. The lawns were extensive and neatly manicured. People in regular clothes walked the paths in the park. The only signs that this was a mental hospital and not a posh private home were the abundance of people in wheelchairs and the dozen or so security guards keeping a close eye on the people taking their afternoon strolls.
Allison found the visitor parking section and went through the front doors to find the reception desk. Even inside, it looked like a luxurious private home. Everywhere she looked she saw comfy armchairs, cozy rugs, fireplaces and fine art on the walls. Soothing classical music played in the background. Was this a hospital or a boutique hotel?
Yet for all its surface beauty, nothing could completely disguise the building’s purpose. A woman in a white robe sat silent and still in a wheelchair that was parked near a window. With glazed eyes she gazed out at the park. From behind a heavy set of double doors Allison heard a low hopeless keening. A patient suffering? Or a heartbroken visitor?
Tucked away in the corner of the lobby was a grand U-shaped desk with a woman in a crisp white nurse’s uniform, a stack of files at her elbow.
“Welcome to Fairwood,” the nurse said from behind the desk. “How can I help you?”
“My name is Allison and my foster brother is a patient here. I was hoping I could see him. Antonio Russo.”
The nurse’s eyes widened slightly, as if Allison’s request was unusual. Then she politely held up her index finger to indicate this would take a moment before she disappeared into another room.
The nurse returned shortly, wearing a smile.
“I apologize for the wait,” the nurse said. “He’s never had any visitors before, so I was under the impression he wasn’t allowed any. But he is, I’ve been assured, so we’ll have an orderly come and take you to him. I’ll just need to see your ID and have you sign in.”
Allison had to sign more paperwork than when she’d bought her car. She barely read the forms she signed. They all seemed to be full of legalese. She had no intention of suing the hospital if a patient up and decided to throw a punch at her. She wasn’t scared of sick people. If she’d been living in a hospital for fifteen years like Antonio, she might feel like throwing a punch or two herself.
A young orderly in blue scrubs arrived shortly thereafter and led her through double doors into the main wing. She’d thought that behind the doors she’d find where the money ran out and the elegant lobby would reveal itself as a front for the cold, metal-barred institution she’d been expecting. But it wasn’t the case. Even behind the ward doors, it looked like a five-star hotel. The floors were dark wood and freshly polished. Windows let in light and the few rooms she could see into looked homey and warm. No bare cots in sight.
“This place must be expensive to stay in,” Allison said to Michael, her orderly escort. He gave her a tight smile.
“I’m just glad I work here,” he said. “I couldn’t afford to live here.”
“I guess it’s where rich people go when they get sick?”
Michael nodded, then lowered his voice. “Rich or important,” he said. “Safe to say we don’t take Medicaid.”
Allison had to wonder how Antonio’s family was able to pay for a place like Fairwood. She knew from personal experience rich kids didn’t go into foster care. At least, none of the kids she ever met in the system came from wealthy families. If the kid had money, there was a relative somewhere willing and ready to take them in. Did the same person who paid for Kendra’s house pay for Antonio’s stay here? Was that person Dr. Capello? Allison hated to think so, but she couldn’t deny it was the most likely answer.
Michael led her through another set of double doors into a narrower hallway and another wing.
“It’s quiet in here,” she said, glancing around. The silence was far more eerie than the noises of the other wards.
“This is the wreck ward,” he said in a low voice.
“Rec ward? Like recreation?”
“No, with a W. Wreck. Surgical wrecks. Mostly PVS patients.”
“PVS?”
“Persistent vegetative state. PVS sounds nicer than calling them vegetables. Wreck doesn’t sound very nice, either, but that’s what the docs call them.”
“So Antonio’s considered a wreck?”
“Yeah, you didn’t know? You’re his sister, right?”
“Foster sister. I haven’t seen him in a long time.” She hoped Michael wasn’t good at spotting lies. “Is Antonio...is he a PVS patient, too?”
“Tony? No. He’s here because something went wrong during a childhood brain surgery. Doc either cut too much out or didn’t cut enough. His mind wanders a lot and he’s got impulse-control issues now, which is why we have to keep him mostly sedated and in restraints. He’s a sweet kid, really. Can’t help himself. But keep a little distance from him, for your own sake.”
“Okay,” she said. “Thanks.”
He pointed at a door, dark wood, like the hallway. Michael knocked, and when there was no answer he scanned a key card on a panel, opened the door and went inside ahead of her. Allison peeked in and saw Antonio lying on his side away from her in a hospital bed. The room was bare of knickknacks or flowers or anything personal at all. Antonio wore gray sweats and white socks and what looked like cloth shackles on his ankles.
“It looks like a prison cell,” she whispered to Michael.
“His room and board is paid for. No money left over for decorating,” he said. “You can go in. He’s awake.”
“You sure it’s okay?”
“Tony’s good,” he said. “Just remember what I said.”
“Keep a little distance.”
“That’s right. Buzzer is by the door when you’re ready to leave. I’d say no more than fifteen minutes with Tony. He might not stay awake for you that long, anyway.”
“Is there anything else I need to know about him?” she asked. “I didn’t know he was here until today. I don’t want to upset him or hurt his feelings or anything.”
Michael gave her a kind but almost patronizing smile.
“He says anything and everything on his mind. Don’t take it personally. But as for hurting his feelings, he’s been stuck here most of his life,” he said. “And he’s probably going to die in here. You can’t hurt him more than life has.”
Michael held open the door for her and Allison went inside.
Nervously, she walked around the hospital bed until she stood three feet from where Antonio lay facing the open window.
“Antonio?” she said gently. “Tony?”
He was a normal-looking young man in his late twenties. A little pale from a life spent mostly indoors and a shaggy haircut that wasn’t very flattering, but otherwise he looked like anyone she’d see out in the world. He slowly blinked his dark eyes as if trying to force himself to focus. His gaze wandered the room, darting here and there, into shadows and corners, before it finally settled onto her.
“Hi, Tony,” Allison said again.
He grinned at her, which she hadn’t at all been expecting.
“You’re hot,” he said.
She blinked a few times at that. Well, Michael had warned her.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Or maybe you’re not,” he said. “I don’t see many girls in here. Bar’s pretty low. I’m desperate.”
“I would be, too,” she said. That got a smile out of him. “My name is Allison. I used to live with Dr. Capello and his kids. Like you did. I heard you were in the hospital. I thought I’d stop by and see you.”
“Been here a long time,” he said. His voice was as normal as his appearance. It seemed so unnecessary for him to be chained up and sedated, but it was clear there was something in his system keeping his mind and body in low gear, and he had the same sort of cloth shackles on his wrists as on his ankles.
“Yeah, I heard you’ve been here fifteen years. I would have come sooner if I’d known.”
“Liar,” he said.
She couldn’t argue. “Yeah, maybe I am.”
“Why are you here? You can fuck me if you want.”
“That’s not why I’m here.”
“Shit.”
Allison laughed.
“You came to stare at the wreck?” he said.
“No, that’s not why.”
“They say that,” Antonio said. “They say people can’t help but stare at train wrecks. But that’s not true. If people wanted to stare at train wrecks, they’d come stare at me. Nobody comes to stare at me.”
“You’re not a train wreck,” Allison said. “You seem like a nice person to me.”
“You don’t know anything about me.” He twisted on the bed as if trying to get a better look at her. “You’re not here to stare at me?” he asked.
“I want to talk to you. They say you don’t get many visitors.”
“No visitors.”
“Do you hate it here?”
He turned his head a little as if trying to find a more comfortable position on his pillow.
“They’re nice to me,” he said.
“That wasn’t my question,” she said.
“Hotel California,” he said. “Except you can’t check out or leave.”
“You like music?” she asked.
“The cleaning lady plays music when she comes in here, Seventies on Seven. Lots of Eagles. Who needs IV sedation when you have Easy Listening blaring in your ear?”
Allison laughed. “I’ll try to smuggle some Beyoncé in for you.”
“Please,” he said. “Anything.”
“Are you always in restraints?” she asked.
“There’s a room,” he said. “An exercise room. I get to walk in it.”
“Do you ever get to go outside?”
“They take me out in the chair.”
He nodded toward the corner of the room where a wheelchair was folded up near the wall.
“How’s the food?” she asked.
“Okay,” he said. “I bite my tongue so much I have trouble tasting food.”
At her quizzical look, he clarified, “I have seizures. They have to put stuff in my mouth to keep me from biting it off.”
“Stuff?”
“A bite guard. I’m special. Mikey says that’s old school Cuckoo’s Nest shit.”
“Is he your friend here?”
“We talk about girls. We’ll talk about you.”
“Go for it,” she said. “I’m sorry you have to be in here.”
“Not your fault. Shit.”
“What?”
“I’m falling asleep,” he said. “I don’t want to. Keep talking to me.”
“I’ll talk to you all you want,” she said.
“Were you really in that house?” he asked. “With the doc?”
“Yes,” she said. “A couple years after you were.”
“What did he do to you?” Antonio asked.
“Nothing.”
“Not nothing,” Antonio said. “If you were in that house, he did something to you.”
Antonio yawned again and Allison was terrified he’d fall asleep before she had any answers.
“Antonio? Can you tell me why you’re here? You were injured, right? From a surgery?”
“I was...” Antonio yawned hugely.
“What?” she asked.
“Butchered.”
The word inspired a visceral reaction in Allison. She felt it more than heard it.
“Butchered,” she repeated. “Dr. Capello? He butchered you?”
“Tried to fix me,” Antonio said, yawning again. She yawned, too, couldn’t help herself. “Like a cat.”
“Wait. He tried to fix you like a cat? Do you mean he neutered you?”
Antonio laughed. He had a nice laugh, a warm masculine chuckle. It was almost painful for her to keep her distance from him. This man, with a laugh like that, chained to a hospital bed for fifteen years... She wanted to run her hands through his hair, hug him, talk with him like anyone else.
“There was a cat at the house,” Antonio said. “The potato cat.”
“Brien,” she said. “Potatoes O’Brien. He’s still alive.”
“He’s a Ragdoll,” Antonio said. “They told me that.”
“Yeah, Dr. Capello got Brien for Deacon to replace his cat that died.”
Antonio snorted like she’d said something stupid.
“You’re an idiot,” he said. “You don’t know anything about it.”
Allison tried not to let that comment hurt. Michael had warned her not to take Antonio’s remarks personally.
“Tell me, then. I want to know. What about Brien?”
“He was a test,” Antonio said. “Deacon’s cat didn’t die the way a regular cat dies—being stupid, getting hit by a car or whatever. He killed it.”
“Who killed it?”
“Deacon killed it. Stabbed it with a knife, cut off its head, skinned it. And the neighbor’s cat. And the neighbor’s dog... Little asshole. Even I didn’t kill dogs.”
Allison couldn’t speak at first. She’d been shocked into silence.
“Say something,” Antonio said. “You look dumb just sitting there.”
“Deacon killed animals.”
“I just said that.”
“How do you know all this?”
“They told me,” he said. “Before they cut me. They told me it would make me better, said it worked before on other kids. Like Deacon.” Antonio grinned. “He was a monster like me. Then he wasn’t anymore.”
“A monster? How were you a monster?” Allison asked. She pulled up a chair and sat in it right across from Antonio’s face.
“I was bad...” Antonio whispered. “I hurt girls.”
She tried to imagine what a child could have done to hurt other kids. “Hurt them? You kicked them? Punched them? Pulled their hair?”
“No, I had to do...stuff to them.”
“What stuff, Antonio?” she asked.
“I started cutting off their hair when they weren’t paying attention,” he said. “And then I would rip it out.” Allison watched his hand open and close into a fist and then he jerked his hand, jerked it hard as if yanking out a hank of hair. “And other things.”
“Other things?”
“I was on top of one girl,” Antonio said. “Caught her on the playground. Teacher got to me before I could get started.”
“Jesus,” Allison said, clapping her hand over her mouth in horror.
“You look stupid,” he said. “Everything I say makes you look stupid. Not your fault. I’m tied up. I look stupid, too.”
She slowly lowered her hand. Her head swam. Her stomach was lodged in her throat.
“Why did you hurt all those girls?”
“I couldn’t stop,” he said. “I don’t know why. I wish I knew why. If I knew why maybe I wouldn’t have had to go under the knife.”
“You had brain surgery because you hurt people?”
“Nothing else worked.” He didn’t say those words so much as sing them. “Drugs didn’t work. Doctors didn’t work. Beating the shit out of me didn’t work.”
“Did you have a brain tumor?” she asked. She remembered Roland telling her about the famous patient with the brain tumor who’d turned into a sexual predator because of it and returned to normal once the tumor was removed.
“That’s what they said. Maybe I did. Maybe I didn’t. But they took something out of my head and, for a while, it worked, but then I had a stroke and all the wiring went...” He moved his fingers in a pattern of chaos, like a ball of yarn tangled up in a thousand knots. “Now I’m here forever.”
“You said he fixed you like a cat,” Allison said.
“The cat, I forgot the cat,” Antonio said. “It’s the drugs. I’m not as dumb as I look. The cat. It’s a Ragdoll cat. They’re nice cats. They breed them nice. Cats are killers, but with Ragdolls, they breed the killer instinct out of them so they don’t bite. You can’t breed people not to bite, but you can cut into their heads to make them not bite.” He smiled at her. “Nice cats can’t survive in the wild, you know. When you cut off a cat’s claws or breed a cat to be tame, you’re not doing it for the cat. You’re doing it for the cat’s owner.”
Antonio’s eyes fluttered. “I don’t bite anymore,” he said. “Except my own tongue.”
He went silent and started to breathe like a man asleep.
“Antonio? Tony? You asleep?”
“No,” Antonio said, rousing himself. “The cat was a test. A test to make sure Deacon wouldn’t kill any more cats.”
The article.
The article on the wall. What had it said? One of the kids Dr. Capello fostered compulsively harmed animals and children.
That was Deacon?
“I can’t believe it,” Allison said.
“Believe it,” Antonio said. “I don’t know how to lie. Maybe he cut that out of me, too.”
She shook herself out of her shock.
“Who took you to Dr. Capello?”
“He found me,” he said. “He was looking for kids like me. Fucked up. Violent. Incurable. A kid nobody wanted. A kid nobody would miss. That was me. Nobody wanted me. When we met...you know what he said?”
“No, tell me.”
“He said I was very lucky he’d found me, because he knew how to cure my disease.”
“What disease did he say you had?” Allison asked. “Tony, what disease did Dr. Capello tell you that you had?”
Antonio opened his eyes again.
“Evil.”
Allison looked away from Antonio’s wide, waiting eyes. She’d known that was what he was going to say. She might have known before she’d come here. Maybe she even knew from the day on the beach when Dr. Capello had said he hoped for the day it would be possible to cure evil. He’d spoken with such conviction, conviction that bordered on certainty. He was sure they could do it. He was sure because he had done it already.
He’d done it already.
To Antonio.
To Kendra.
To Deacon.
To Thora.
To Oliver.
And to Roland.
“Why are you crying?” Antonio asked. “You aren’t as pretty when you cry. No offense.”
Allison looked back at him and saw tears on his own face.
“Why are you crying?” she asked him.
“Because my head hurts.”
“You have headaches?”
“All the time.” Antonio’s face screwed up in obvious agony. “Will you rub my head? Just a little?”
His voice was so pleading and his pain so apparent that she reached out to him in compassion. Antonio jerked forward toward her with a sudden lunge. The bed lurched as he lurched. Allison screamed and jumped back in her chair. The restraints had caught him but she’d seen the expression of animal rage in his eyes as her hand neared his head. It was there in a flash and gone in an instant.
Antonio beat his head against the pillow, tears streaming from his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry...” He said it a dozen, two dozen, a hundred times, as Allison caught her breath. Antonio couldn’t seem to stop apologizing and she couldn’t stop weeping. She went to his hospital bed and walked around the side to stand behind him. This time, when she reached out to touch him he lay still. She ran her fingers through his shaggy dark hair and he quieted. The litany of apologies ceased.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“You’ll never come see me again now,” he said.
“No, I’ll come, I promise. You just gave me a little scare. I’m not mad. It’s not your fault.”
“I wish I was dead sometimes,” he said.
“No, don’t say that,” Allison said. “Please don’t say that. I’m so glad we met, Antonio. I like talking with you. And I do want to come see you again.”
“You do?”
“I do, I promise.”
His hair was so soft and Antonio so apologetic and helpless that she had to love him. She couldn’t help but love him. To her he was the boy in the photograph, the child of eight in the stupid bucket hat, not the man of twenty-eight who had to live day and night chained up in this hotel he could never check out of, never leave.
“He was supposed to make me good,” Antonio said. “He just made me sorry.”
“Oh, Tony,” she said, weeping with him. His back heaved with his sobs and she rubbed it as best she could, trying to soothe him. No one deserved this. No one. Not even a boy who’d hurt children the way he had. To be given a life sentence for crimes committed at age seven and eight...to be trapped in this place for decades with no hope of ever getting out, of ever getting well...no visitors and no one to touch him but doctors and nurses and orderlies. No one deserved this.
“Allison,” he said, the first time he’d spoken her name.
“Yes?”
“Hit the buzzer.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Hit it. I’m going to have a seizure. Hit it.”
She ran to the door and hit the buzzer. It wasn’t more than ten seconds, though it felt like an eternity. Allison stood in the corner of the room watching Antonio’s back rise off the bed like a scene from an exorcism movie. His face was contorted in agony and the sound that escaped his lips was that of a wounded animal or a terrified child. She wanted to help him but didn’t know how. Two nurses, one male and one female, burst into the room and rushed to the bed. One of them forced a mouth guard between Antonio’s teeth.
Allison slid down the wall to sit on the floor.
And she remembered what happened that day.
It played before her eyes like a scene from a movie. A horror movie. And she was the star.
Antonio seized, and Allison remembered. Everything passed by in slow motion, like the floor was covered in glue and the air in the room was as thick as molasses. Eventually time found its footing again and she came back to herself and to the present. The two nurses had finished with Antonio and now they stood calmly at his bedside, one wiping sweat from his face and neck and the other making notes in a chart.
The woman with the chart turned to her.
“You okay?” the nurse asked.
“Fine,” Allison said. She had never been less fine in her life.
“We gave him another sedative. He’s going to be out like a light soon.”
“Do I have to go?” Allison asked, still sitting on the cold floor.
The nurse shrugged. “Visiting hours are till six. You can stay if you want. He’ll be asleep, though.”
“That’s fine,” Allison said. Her voice sounded different to her, like it had detached from her throat and it was speaking outside of her body.
“Take it easy, Tony,” the male nurse said, patting Antonio’s arm. He looked at her and furrowed his brow. “You a relative?”
“I’m his sister,” Allison said.
“You never been here before?”
“I never knew he was here.”
“Ah,” he said. “That happens. Sorry.”
They both left and Allison forced herself up to her feet. She returned to Antonio’s bed, where he was on his side in the fetal position, a blanket over him, the shackles still on. His face was red and his lips looked swollen.
“Antonio?” she said softly. “Tony?”
“You still here?” he said.
“I am. They said you’re going to sleep.”
He nodded.
“Do you want me to stay?”
“Please.”
“I’ll stay.” She fetched a washcloth from his bathroom and put cold water on it. When she pressed it to his face, he exhaled with obvious pleasure.
“I love you,” he said.
“Can I get into bed with you?” she asked.
“God, yes.”
She carefully climbed into his hospital bed with him, spooning up behind him and resting her arm as gently as she could over his side.
“You smell like the ocean,” he said. “You smell like heaven.”
She smiled. “What does heaven smell like?”
“It smells like...” He yawned hugely, which made her yawn hugely. “It smells like a girl when she kisses you.”
Allison took the hint. She leaned up and over him and kissed him on the temple before lying down again a little closer.
“Allison?” He sounded half asleep already.
“Yes, Antonio?” she said.
“If I weren’t drugged up I’d have a boner.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” she said.
“Tits could be bigger, though.”
“It’s true,” she said. “They could be bigger.”
“You’ll come see me again?” he asked.
“Yes, I will,” she said, and it was a promise she fully intended to keep. “You were right, by the way.”
“About what?” Antonio asked. He sounded so tired she wondered if he knew what he was saying.
“Dr. Capello did do something to me in that house.”
“Ah,” Antonio said. “Told you so.”