Lakewood(26)

Lena couldn’t remember the man’s hands on her throat or the fear she must have felt.

Does this video make you doubt your commitment to Lakewood?

Lena pressed no.





10


Another day passed. The tablet disappeared while she slept. Lena made a mental list of all the things she would eat when this was over, repeating it every time she started to feel hopeless or wild: macaroni and cheese, chocolate donut, a salad to feel responsible, a pizza with green olives, a whole pound of really fresh red grapes, a chicken, another chicken, a tequila shot for every day I was in this nightmare. She kept dreaming about white chocolate mochas, though she didn’t like sugary coffee drinks. Drinking them, bathing in them, peeing them—between dreams of someone punching her in the face. Lena visualized a storm or a fire or a band of rogue beavers looking for wood to destroy this cabin and set her free. They could not penalize her for acts of nature.

Another morning, this one rainy. The sound of it on the roof made it easier to be alone. She was pacing back and forth trying to focus on her feet, her hands, pushing away all thoughts when the door to the cabin swung open.

“You can come out.”

She rubbed her eyes, let them adjust to the light coming in before stepping outside. Waiting for her was a man Lena didn’t recognize. She stepped out, slipped a little on the wet ground. He tried to grab her and hit Lena on the shoulder.

Later, she would consider what happened and realize he was trying to keep her from falling. That she had been more affected by being alone, by the video, than she understood. But in the moment, his hand ignited a flight instinct. Lena turned, ran. Darted between trees, ducked under branches. There were still leaves on the ground from the previous fall, white flowers and long blades of grass poking up, all slick. She fell. It took a moment to realize how she was suddenly on the ground, another painful half-second to register her right wrist had connected with a large root. And had there been a snap? Her throat and face were hot. Lena thought no, I won’t cry, but her eyes were already leaking.

She stood up. Her wrist stayed at an angle that made it look like something from a nightmare. Lena took a few steps. Every part of her wrist was keening, telling her to stop moving. She stood still.

The man approached her, taking large, slow steps. He was young, white, dressed more like he was going to a dive bar—hooded sweatshirt, expensive-looking boots—than like he was part of Lakewood. Lena considered whether he was a part of it; maybe he was just a local who had come across the cabin while hiking. Then she noticed the clipboard he had squeezed under his armpit. Her forehead was wet. Lena reached up with her good hand and felt it. Blood on her fingertips. The man’s eyes were dark beneath his glasses. He was saying, “Easy, easy, easy.”

Lena woke up in a hospital bed. At her bedside was Dr. Lisa in a rocking chair. She was reading a book, a pink blanket wrapped around her shoulders.

“Good morning,” Dr. Lisa said. She set her book down on a small table next to the chair. Murder in the Tropics. An old woman holding a large black cat and wearing a very big sun hat was on the cover. “How are you feeling?”

Lena’s wrist was in a plain white cast. She felt fuzzy, probably from painkillers and maybe too much sleep at once. It could have been an hour, or three days, later. There was an IV hooked into her arm. Her mouth still felt crusted over with dirt and bacteria.

“If it helps, I told them you weren’t ready for this one.” Dr. Lisa’s voice was wry—she was speaking like they were friends who could laugh about anything.

“Do you remember the words I told you? On the phone before you came here.”

Lena shrugged.

Dr. Lisa fished out a pen from a bag at her feet, flipped to the back of her book, wrote something on the last page.

“I broke my wrist?”

“A bad sprain. If I offered you a thousand dollars, would you tell me the secret?”

Lena coughed. Forced herself to speak lightly, as if she was joking. “Ten thousand.”

The doctor scribbled some more. “How would you describe how you felt in the cabin? If you were afraid, on a scale of one to ten, with ten being I thought I was going to die there, what would you give it?”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

The wall above Dr. Lisa’s head was so white, it almost glowed. There was dirt beneath the fingernails of Lena’s left hand. When she sat up, the IV pulled a little. She slouched and leaned her head against the pillows.

Dr. Lisa pulled the rocking chair she was sitting in closer to the bed, then sat back in it. She picked up her book, opened it for a moment as if she was going to read a passage to Lena to help her get back to sleep. Folded a corner of the page, closed the book. “It’s normal to be pissed. Healthy, even.” Her voice was low.

“What was the point of that?”

The painkillers took over. Lena rambled about quitting, about pain, and fear, and what it was like to get fucking slapped, and how did she know the bone wasn’t broken. How was it legal to treat people like this. It wasn’t. It wasn’t. They couldn’t do this. Dr. Lisa poured Lena some more water, then took the blanket off her lap and put it on Lena. A bin behind her chair was filled with blankets, another pillow. She pulled out the pillow, helped Lena prop up her wrist, putting pressure on the cast. That hurts, Lena thought. The doctor leaned over, still holding onto her cast. She whispered into Lena’s ear, “Before you talk like that to any of us again, think about your mother.”