I am NOT crazy, she told herself. Don’t let the bastards wear you down—keep fighting, Torri!
Despite her feelings of despair and wondering if she would ever get out of here, she tried to keep up the positive self-talk. It helped—sometimes.
The old-fashioned receiver was black plastic. It was heavy and cold against her ear as she listened to it ringing Chuck’s office. Finally, a familiar voice picked up.
“Hello, Director Morrison’s office, how can I assist you?” It was Amanda—Torri could just picture the slender blonde receptionist sitting at her desk on the other end of the phone. Her sleek blonde hair would be perfectly in place and her manicure—which she spent most of the day working on—would be beautiful. Her makeup would be just right.
I haven’t worn make-up in three months, Torri thought resentfully. It was one of those things that weren’t considered necessary here at St. Elizabeth’s. Plus, she hadn’t packed any when she first came, because she’d thought she was only doing an “overnight observation” and going right home in the morning. She missed being able to use make-up and talk on a phone without begging permission first. She missed freedom.
“Hello?” Amanda said again, sounding impatient and Torri realized she was just standing there when she ought to be talking.
“Hello, Amanda, this is Torri,” she said, trying to make her voice sound bright and professional—the way she used to talk to clients when she still had her job at First and Federal Bank. “Is Chuck available?”
“Oh, hi Torri. I’m afraid you just missed him. It’s too bad you didn’t call five minutes sooner. He—”
“Go get him,” Torri interrupted. She was fed up with excuses.
Excuse me?” Amanda sounded offended.
“I said, go get him. Now.” Torri put steel in her voice—a note of command she used to use on underlings at the bank when there was a discipline issue.
“I’ll go see if I can find him but I think he just stepped—”
“Into a meeting. Right—that’s always the excuse. Well, no more excuses. I don’t care if he’s meeting with the President himself, go get my husband and bring him to the phone.” She kept her voice level but stern—she wasn’t going to be put off any longer, damn it! Chuck couldn’t just dump her here and ignore her for the rest of her life.
“Fine,” Amanda snapped huffily. There was a clunk on the other end of the line and the sound of high heels tapping as Amanda walked briskly away.
In half a minute, Chuck’s voice came on the line.
“Hi there, Torri, what’s going on?” He sounded slightly impatient, as though talking to his own wife—the wife he had dumped in a mental institution and apparently forgotten about—was an imposition.
“What’s going on is that I’m still here,” Torri tried to keep her voice firm and cool, tried to take Peace Breaths, but she could feel the anger and fear bubbling up from inside. “It’s been almost three months, Chuck. When are you going to get me out of this damn place?” she demanded.
“Now, Torri—watch your temper. You know Doctor Burrows said—”
“I don’t give a flying fuck what he said,” Torri snapped. “I just want out. You don’t know what it’s like in here—it’s fucking horrible!”
She was losing it—she could feel herself losing it, but she couldn’t do anything about it. Even though getting angry made you look crazy suddenly she was so angry she felt like the top of her head was going to explode at any second!
“You made a vow to me when we got married five years ago,” she snarled into the old-fashioned receiver. “You said for richer or poorer, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health! Then the minute I have one little thing go wrong with me, you dump me in here like a dog you don’t want and forget about me! What would you do if I got breast cancer or something like that—take me behind the barn and shoot me?”
“Torri, be fair!” Chuck exclaimed. “It wasn’t ‘one little thing’—the police were called out twice and I’ve got a scar on my face where you stabbed me with a fucking butcher knife!”
“For the last time, I didn’t mean to stab you!” Torri cried impatiently. “You woke me up in the middle of a night terror and you looked like him!”
“Like him? You mean the alien overlord who’s coming to take over the Earth? Is that who I looked like?” Chuck snapped.
“Yes, all right?” Torri shouted. “Yes, you looked like the AllFather and that’s why I stabbed you! Are you happy now? Are you?”
A voice in her head whispered that she was going to deeply regret this conversation in the near future, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself. The aliens were coming—she knew it the same way she knew her eyes were brown and two plus two equaled four. They were coming and the one person who should have been willing to believe her—to at least listen, no matter how crazy it sounded—was her husband.
Her husband who had put her away—who had locked her up and tossed away the key.
“No.” Chuck’s voice sounded more tired than angry in her ear. “No, Torri, I’m not happy,” he said. “What would make me happy is if I could have my wife back. The wife I used to know—not the one who started blanking out at work and screaming the house down at night and sleeping with a knife under her pillow. I want the wife who didn’t believe in conspiracy theories, like that aliens are coming to take over the Earth and enslave us all. Can you find her somewhere? Can you bring my wife back—the one…that one I used to know?”
His voice broke on the last word and Torri felt like something was breaking inside her as well.
“It’s not a conspiracy theory,” she whispered. “It’s the Seeing Dreams. I can’t help what they show me, Chuck. My Nana had them too and they’re always, always right. Can’t you even try to believe me?”
There was heavy breathing on the other end of the line for a moment. Torri had never seen her husband cry—Chuck was a man’s man who didn’t believe in showing much emotion. But she thought he might be crying now—or at least coming as close to it as he ever had.
“Chuck?” she whispered, gripping the phone receiver so tightly she could hear its plastic casing creak. “Chuck, I’m really sorry. I wish I could tell you, it’s not true, but I just can’t. I wish—”
There was a click and the line went dead—he had hung up on her.
“Chuck? Chuck?”
Torri couldn’t believe it—couldn’t believe that he had cut her off like that. She pulled the heavy, old-fashioned receiver away from her ear and looked at it, as though she could somehow see through the tiny holes all the way to the other side where her husband was.
“Ms. Morrison, please hand me the phone,” the nurse behind the plastic window said.
“Call him back,” Torri said numbly.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. Please give me the phone now,” the nurse insisted.
“But…but that ended badly,” Torri protested. “I shouldn’t have yelled at him, shouldn’t have tried to—” She cut herself off abruptly but the thought went on in her head.