Chapter Seven
Letty never did know exactly how long she was on the street after running out of the morgue; by the time she cared enough to inquire about the date, almost a month had passed. She never went back to the hotel.
First, she tried to drown her agony at losing Javier with booze, and when that didn't work, she switched to drugs – any and all, anything that promised relief from the pain. Nothing worked, of course; she was the most miserable, pathetic, crying, mean-spirited drunk-slash-junkie that ever tipped a bottle or smoked a bowl. Even the other junkies in the flophouse she eventually found (they still exist) avoided her, and the dealers pushed her away – sometimes literally – as soon as she'd made a purchase. The fact that she never changed clothes or washed didn't help matters any.
She had automatically loaded their remaining cash – almost five thousand dollars – and genuine jewelry – value uncertain – into her bag when she'd left for the morgue that day, leaving mostly clothes and trinkets behind. When she ran out of cash on her spree, she took all the jewelry out and dumped it on the counter at a pawn shop. She didn't care if any of it was flagged as stolen; she was never going to return. Nor did she care that she was undoubtedly getting less for it than she would have if sold piece by piece. She just wanted the next fix.
She refused to part with only three things. Her wedding ring she turned around on her finger, so the jewels wouldn't show and tempt a thief. Her phone, dead and forgotten (she hadn't brought the charger), was lost in the bottom of the bag. At some point their month-to-month prepaid service ran out; she neither knew nor cared. Who was going to call her, anyway? But it held all her precious photos, the only things she had left of her previous life. Someday she'd want to see them again, if not now. And the handbag itself, her old favorite padded one. She couldn't have said why she hung onto it so fiercely, perhaps merely having something physical to hold helped in itself. Later she would not be certain she'd never sold her body, but she didn't remember ever doing so – and her physical and emotional condition would have made finding a buyer extremely unlikely, even among her then-current "associates".
Ever after, she only recalled brief snippets, without rhyme or reason – but that was the whole point, to forget. There was one moment, though, that she always remembered with absolute clarity; a perfect gestalt of a particular scene, complete in all details. She was hunkered over in the filthiest alleyway imaginable, next to a stinking dumpster. The horrific smells of vomit, dog shit, rotten food, and urine made an almost palpable miasma, while distant blinking neon colors broke the yellow-white street lamps coming from the mouth of the alley to light the scene. Letty was hunched over, legs tucked under, holding a broken beer bottle in one hand as she applied it to her other wrist in fierce concentration. It was the only way left to kill the pain.
Of course, like all her other suicide attempts, this one didn't work either. Someone apparently found her in time and called an ambulance. She woke up – if that's the word – some unknown time later in a starched white hospital room, her wrists stitched up and securely bandaged – and held in restraints against the bed rails. She was a suicide risk, after all, and therefore (she found out later) had been admitted to a psych ward.
Unable to do anything else, she proceeded to make all the nurses and nearby patients as miserable as her previous neighbors in the flophouse; wailing and crying and begging them to "just let me die!" It took several long days for her body to work the remains of whatever all she had ingested out of itself, and she was hungover and withdrawing at the same time. The constant drip of IV fluids no doubt saved her life. But gradually, as she came out of it, she also quieted down, until she was nearly catatonic. She was undoubtedly "there", conscious and aware; she just refused to respond to anyone or anything, even after it was judged safe to let her out of her restraints and remove the bandages.
Finally, several days after she was admitted, Nurse Carole walked into her room one afternoon, finding Letty had raised the head of her bed and was staring out at the top of the majestic California live oak in the courtyard (they were several floors up) as she absently stroked the new scars on her wrists. Coming closer, Carole spied silent tears streaking Letty's cheeks. Not necessarily new in itself, but something about her patient was different. So she set her tablet down on the table, hitched one hip onto the bed, placed a hand on both of Letty's, and waited.
After nearly a minute of silence, Letty turned her head and looked at Carole. "He was the only one who ever believed in me. The only man I ever loved." Her voice was only a hoarse whisper, barely louder than the air blowing from the ceiling vent. It was the first coherent, rational utterance she had made.
Carole gave a sad, wistful smile. "I know, honey. I lost my husband eight years ago. You never fully heal, but... it does get better over time."
Two more tears appeared and began their descent, and Carole reached impulsively for Letty's shoulders and pulled her into a close hug. She'd been a nurse for thirty-plus years, but had somehow managed to maintain the balance of thick skin and compassion that let her know exactly what each patient needed and when, without getting so involved that she lost her sense of self. Sometimes it was just some human contact, human warmth.
Letty cried silently on her shoulder for a few minutes – a big improvement over the previous days' volume. When Carole was certain she had stopped, she gently pushed Letty back onto the pillows, and answered as though no time had passed. "You're just going to have to learn how to believe in yourself now."
"How? All my life..." she trailed off.
"It's never too late to learn," Carole said with all the love she possessed. "We'll help you get started."
She took her vital signs – the reason for her visit – and left, only to return a few minutes later, placing a pile of folded clothing and a towel as well as a plastic bag on the table over Letty's feet. "First thing," she began, "is to get you out of that bed, cleaned up, and into some new clothes. A nice long hot shower will do you good."
"Where did those come from?" Letty motioned vaguely to the folded clothes.
Carole grimaced. "Charity. But they're not bad." Shaking out the top, she held it up for Letty's inspection; a loose-fitting smock in primary blue and red. Letty just sighed. "Well," Carole agreed obliquely. "It'll do for now. And these yoga pants will certainly make you more comfortable than that hospital gown. Come on, girl." And with that, she pulled back the blanket and gently but very firmly guided Letty up onto her feet. "Do you need some help in the shower?"
"No," was the soft but definite reply.
"Okay, but make sure you use the chair. You haven't even stood up in days, you're going to be dizzy. Just pull the cord if you need help after all."
The bag contained toiletries, all in the tiny travel/sample size – enough for two or three showers. Letty dutifully – if mechanically – shampooed and washed, then stayed under the spray long enough for the water swirling down the drain to run completely clear again. She even brushed her teeth.
Coming back out – the clothes did fit, after all – she found her bed completely remade with fresh sheets, and Carole waiting with a tray of food. The nurse made her patient sit on the vinyl easy chair to eat, and coaxed her slowly through almost half before Letty just couldn't swallow any more. Then, taking the tray away, she came back with one more gift. "A little something to occupy your mind, since you don't want the TV on or to visit the day room." They had covered those subjects during the meal. "It may seem a little silly, but a lot of people enjoy it."
"It" proved to be an "adult coloring book" full of mandala designs, and a box of colored pencils. Letty idly paged through the book, just looking at each black-and-white design. Partway through, she paused at one that had been half-completed by someone else. Several pages further on, she suddenly backtracked. That half-colored page irritated her sense of balance. Sighing, she reached for the box of pencils, found the colors that had been used, and started filling in the blanks.
She finished some time later and sat looking at the now completed page with a tiny bit of satisfaction – and then abruptly shoved the book and box away. She turned and looked out the window again, but the chair was too low to see the tree properly out of the waist-high window, so she moved back onto her bed, raising the head again so she was half-sitting. She sat watching the tree branches swaying in the breeze for a very long time, not thinking of anything in particular. The movement reminded her for some reason of a vast, deep ocean, tossing a ship around on gigantic waves.
"Shhhhhhhhhhh. Shhhhhhhhhhh," Javier breathed in her ear – or maybe that was the leaves outside. Her eyes sank slowly closed, and she drifted off into a blessedly dreamless sleep.