Chapter 23: Mischa, Saturday continued

Editor’s Note:
The next page is another extract from the journal of Mischa Doeple, dated Saturday December 4th.

Tara and Dan turned up a bit later with Angie and Mrs Baxter who is Bec’s grandmother. I was laid out on my bed trying to catch up on sleep and Bec was on her bed.

Angie came into the room ahead of the others. She scrambled up onto the bed and dived onto Bec for a hug. Bec was starting to sit up with Angie clinging around her neck by the time the other three came into the room.

I sat up and said, “Hello.”

Tara and Dan and Mrs Baxter each gave Bec a hug which included Angie because she was attached to Bec like a suction cup. Tara made a comment about Bec’s outfit that I didn’t hear.

Then Dan asked about what she was wearing so I told the story about the clothing fail and they all laughed. Then they came over to me and gave me a hug and said hello.

It wasn’t until then that Tara noticed the new painting. She stopped suddenly and looked at it and then she said, “Wow.” So then they all stopped and looked at it – all except Angie that is.

Then Dan said, “I remember those spotty flannel pajamas.”

Then Tara nodded and said, “Me too.”

Mrs Baxter sat down on my bed next to me and patted my knee. She said something but I don’t know what she said because she’s foreign.

Tara looked at me and saw that I hadn’t understood so she said, “When did Bec paint this?”

So I said. “Last night. It took her ages. I stayed awake and watched. It was pretty amazing to see.”

Tara nodded and looked back at the painting. “It’s Bec like she was back before we left England. She must have been about 6. I wonder why she painted that.”

Dan was looking at the painting and shook his head. Then he sat down on the bed beside Bec and Tara sat down beside her grandmother.

I said, “She did some drawings this morning too. First she did that one,” I pointed at the one of me above my bed, “and then a bit later she did that one.” I pointed at the one of the cat above her pillow.

They all looked at the pictures. After they looked at the one of me they looked at me and then back at the picture and then back at me and they nodded. All three of them did it, like there was some message there that they were seeing that I didn’t see.

Then Tara looked at the picture of the cat and then she looked over at Bec and she said, “Why are you so upset?”

I don’t know how she got that from a picture of a cat, but what do I know.

So I said, “She’s not talking much this morning.”

Dan looked at me and said, “What happened?”

I shrugged and then I said, “Her friend Liz came to visit last night. As soon as Bec saw Liz she went all white and collapsed. She hasn’t talked since.”

Dan turned Bec’s shoulders so he was looking into Bec’s eyes and he said “Did you remember something more?”

Bec nodded.

Then Dan said, “Did you remember stuff about Liz, at the end when Liz and her dad turned up?”

Bec nodded and then shrugged.

So Dan said, “It’s a bit fuzzy, is it?”

Bec nodded.

Then Dan said, “And what about before Liz and her dad? Did you remember that as well?”

Bec shrugged.

Then Tara said, “So now you remember pretty much everything?”

Bec looked over at Tara and she shrugged.

Tara looked around at the rest of us and she said, “No wonder she’s upset.”

Then Dan pulled Bec into a hug so that Bec’s head was on his chest and started rocking.

Angie untangled herself from Dan and Bec and climbed down off the bed so that she could come over to us. Angie looked at me and said, “You need to brush your hair,” so I said, “Oh.”

I reached up and ran my hands through my hair but I doubt if that did any good. Angie went over to the cupboard and looked inside. She picked out my brush and held it up.

She said, “Is this yours?”

So I said, “Yes.”

She climbed up onto the bed and walked around to stand behind me. Then she started brushing my hair. I didn’t know how to react to that. I’ve never had a little kid brush my hair before. At first it was weird but then it was okay. I guess she was pretty gentle but she knocked me with her cast a few times.

In the meantime, I noticed that Bec had unbuttoned Dan’s shirt and was pressing her face into his chest. At the same time, she was running her hand through the hair on his chest and curling little clumps of it around her fingertips. At the same time, Dan was running his hand up and down Bec’s mostly naked back.

I was also aware that Tara and her grandmother were sitting next to me with their arms around each other. They were having a quiet conversation but I couldn’t hear what they were saying. Mrs Baxter’s hand was still on my knee. Every so often she would squeeze my knee or rub for a moment but then she would stop and let it rest there.

I sat there and watched Bec and Dan hold each other while Angie brushed my hair and their grandmother rubbed my knee.

I guess I felt a bit jealous or whatever. Or maybe I was sad because when things were really bad I didn’t have people who would come and hold me like that. If only I had people like that, maybe things wouldn’t have been so bad. But that’s all over now. I’m mostly safe in here. I was always worried when I was in the group home that they would come and take me back. The shrink says that won’t happen. He said that with his testimony, the courts won’t allow it. But Uncle hasn’t always been too bothered by what’s legal and what’s not.

But in here, with the security door and everything, I’m mostly safe. All I have to worry about in here are the crazies. They’re mostly okay, but sometimes one or other of them can get scary. They brought another one in this morning. It looked like a boy but that’s about all I know about him except that he’s black. All I saw was the gurney being wheeled in. They put him in the lock-up room where Bec used to be. There’s another newbie too but she seems pretty quiet and has kept to herself all day.

I saw all of that because we all moved out of our room and sat around in one of the sofa sets. Bec and Tara clung onto Dan with Angie on Bec’s lap and Mrs Baxter sat next to me and held my hand. The conversation started up. Dan asked me how I was doing and I said I was okay. Tara asked me about the picture of me on the wall and I said that Bec drew it for me and I told them what it meant.

Mrs Baxter said something and I think she was asking me what do I do all day, so I talked about doing my exercises with the trainer and having sessions with the shrink and all of that – except that it’s the weekend so my trainer didn’t come in so I was supposed to do something on my own but I forgot until I told them about it. Then I said that there was the music to listen to or the keyboard to play or card games and books and stuff but I never got into any of that.

Then Tara said what games and she jumped up to look at the collection on the shelf. Then she came back with a pack of Uno and they taught me how to play Uno which didn’t take long and so we played that for a while. Bec didn’t play but she snuggled into Dan’s side and watched with a quiet little smile on her face. Angie was sitting on Dan’s lap and playing, with Dan looking over her shoulder and helping, and Tara and Mrs Baxter and me. We played three games of that with Tara winning once and Angie winning once (with Dan’s help). I won the second game so that made me happy.

While we were playing, one of the nurses came over with a clothing bag holding some fresh pjs for Bec but Dan told her to drop it on Bec’s bed and she could change when she wanted to. When the nurse left, Tara grinned at Dan and they did a little high-five together. It seemed like they were happy to keep Bec in her skimpy clothes until she did something about it for herself. Tara saw me watching and told me that they were trying to get Bec to be a bit less body shy and if we could keep her in those clothes when she came to then that would be a big step forward.

When we finished the second game I said I had to go to the bathroom and Tara offered to go with me. I took her over to the Nurse’s Station and explained that Tara and me were going to the bathroom. The nurse looked at me and then she looked at Tara.

The nurse said, “Did Mischa explain to you that she needs to have someone with her in the bathroom?”

And Tara said, “Not really.”

So the nurse said, “When Mischa first came to the hospital, she did some things that were harmful to her health. We don’t let her go on her own because we don’t want her to do anything like that again.”

Then Tara said, “Okay, no problems. I’ll look after her.” Then Tara took my hand and dragged me away from the nurse and over to the bathroom. Inside the bathroom we talked some more about Bec being body shy while we took turns using the toilet.

Then I said, “You’re a lot different from Bec. You might look nearly the same but your personalities are really different.”

Then Tara nodded and she said, “Bec can be a bit of a loner. She finds it hard to make friends. I’m much more outgoing than Bec.” Then she bit her lip and she said, “I have to admit that lately I’ve found out that Bec might not have many friends but the friends she does have are really good people. I might have more friends than her but I’ve found out that a lot of them aren’t very good friends.”

Then she sighed and she said, “I guess that means I have to make some new friends and be a bit more careful in who I choose.”

Then she grinned. “Also Bec is much bossier than I am. I don’t like pushing people around like she does. And also I’m not crazy like she is so there’s three ways that I’m really different from Bec.”

She said that last bit with a grin on her face so I figured she was making a joke.

Then we washed our hands and she slung one arm over my shoulder while we walked back to where the others were sitting so we could play another game of Uno.

After we’d finished that third game, Dan looked at his watch and said he should get home because he had some studying to do if he was going to catch up enough to get to school on Monday. They all stood up and got ready to leave. Bec looked sad but Tara said not to worry because Liz and her dad were coming in. Then they all hugged Bec goodbye and they all hugged me goodbye.

I sat with Bec and put my arm around her and we sat there doing nothing for a little while. Bec wasn’t talking and I didn’t have anything to say so we sat there doing nothing but hanging out together.

Then Liz and her father turned up. This time Bec didn’t freak out so that was good. Liz and her father hugged Bec hello and then they hugged me hello and we sat down to talk except that Bec still wasn’t talking so it was mostly me and Liz and Mr George – that’s Mr Davidson but he told me to call him George which was hard because I’m used to getting thumped if I don’t call a man Sir or Mr or whatever. Bec sat between Liz and Mr George and held onto them both like they would leave if she let go even for an instant.

I had to explain about Bec’s outfit and Liz giggled and told Bec that she looked good like that but Bec didn’t seem to react too much.

Mr George is funny. He knows lots of stories and he was in the army so he told some stories about being at training and being sent to different places overseas. I asked him if he was in any fighting and he said yes but then he started telling a story about going training in the Appalachian Mountains where things went wrong and how he was in a truck full of troops that got lost and he thinks they might have accidentally invaded Canada.

Then it was lunchtime and Mr George said they had to go and Bec looked sad but Liz said not to worry because Sam and his mothers were coming in after lunch. And then they hugged Bec goodbye and they hugged me goodbye.

So lunch was a pasta and tuna bake which was like pasta with little flecks of tuna all through it and some sort of sauce and it was all crusty around the outside. The crusty part looked gross so I scraped that off and ate some of the inside which was not so bad. Then I saw that Bec was eating the crusty part first and I remembered the shrink saying how stuff like that was all in my head so I tried a bit of the crust. It was kind of crunchy but it tasted the same as the rest so I guess it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. So I ate some more of that but not all of it. Bec finished all of her tuna bake way before I was even half way through mine but she didn’t seem to mind. She sat and watched me eat and it felt like she was rooting for me to finish mine. I didn’t but I ate most of it.

There was also a cup with fruit salad and a bit of yogurt on the top. The fruit salad was mostly melon and grape and pear and a few flecks of strawberry. I was going to ignore my fruit salad but Bec ate all of hers and she gave me a look which said I should try to eat some of it, so I did. I fished around and ate some of the melon pieces because I don’t mind melon. But then I saw Bec watching so I rolled my eyes at her and tried some of the banana and then some of the pear but I left the grape til last because the grapes in fruit salad are usually gross. So then I remembered about the shrink and tried a couple of the bits of grape and I guess it wasn’t so bad. And then I looked and saw that I’d eaten nearly the whole of the fruit salad and I remembered having eaten a whole donut before and I put the fruit salad cup down because I started to feel like my stomach was pushing out so much I looked pregnant and I didn’t want to burst like a balloon.

After lunch, Bec’s cousin Sam turned up and his two dyke mothers. They hugged Bec hello and then they hugged me hello – even the dykes – and I didn’t complain because they’d been nice to me last time and they didn’t try to grope me or do anything gross with each other so I figured maybe they were okay and not like normal dykes.

So they asked Bec how she was and she shrugged and I told them that she wasn’t talking much today but she was doing okay and they asked me how I was and I told them that I was doing okay and then they asked what we had been doing all day so I talked about doing exercises and playing Uno and doing sessions with the shrink. I had to explain about Bec’s outfit and this time Bec looked down and stroked at the shorts with her hand like she was straightening them up but Sam told her she looked beautiful like that and the mothers said nice things too but then they said she probably shouldn’t go out of the hospital dressed like that.

Then one of the mothers went and looked at the bookshelf and came back with a game called Carcassone and asked me if I had played this and I hadn’t so they taught me how to play it which took longer than Uno but not very long and then we moved to a table and played that because we had to have more space for laying out the tiles than there was on the little table at the sofas that we’d used when we were playing Uno.

So we played that for a while and it was kind of fun which I didn’t expect from a foreign game. The game took a while to play so we only played once and the mother called Penny won but I came second so that was pretty good. Bec played but we all ended up helping her out all the time because she wasn’t really concentrating.

Sam is like 9 or 10 or something but he’s as big as me and solid like a mini version of Dan or Mr Freeman. He’s kind of cute. It’s a pity he’s so much younger than me. Not that any boy would be interested in me anyway. Maybe if I looked more like the way Bec drew me in that second drawing I might have more of a chance with boys.