Page 28 of Good Half Gone

I nod.

“Good. Keep your guard up.” Crede eyes me. “We’ve got some real personalities in this place. Here is your security badge.”

I take the key card he hands me and clip it to the pocket of my scrubs.

“This is your access to…everything. Keep it on you at all times. Ready?”

I focus on his face and nod.

Crede motions for me to swipe my card. “After you. I’ll meet you on the other side,” he says.

I hold the card up to the reader, a red light reads the barcode, and the door buzzes open. I take a deep breath and step in far enough for the door to shut behind me. A second later I hear the same buzz, and Crede steps through. It’s a glum little room. We are in a box with no windows, only the guard’s cubicle, which is to my right and behind Plexiglas. I see a set of eyes staring at me through the glass.

“All personal belongings including cell phones into that basket,” Crede says.

“What? Really?” I stare at him. I’ve worked at hospitals before, and none of them has ever separated me from my phone.

“Really,” says a voice. The voice is deep, the tone flat. The source: the man with piggy little eyes and a buzz cut sitting with his arms crossed over his chest, staring at me. He is huge just sitting there, and I can’t imagine what he looks like standing up. He points to a white plastic basket with my name written in Sharpie. “You get it back when you leave.”

My mouth grows dry. I think of Gran lying in her hospital bed, Cal at school—“What if…there’s an emergency or someone from home wants to reach me?”

“They call here, and we page you.”

Pressing my lips together, I nod. Nothing bad will happen, I tell myself. I glance once more at my phone before dropping it in.

“Do you have kids?” the piggy-eyed man asks.

“Yes,” I say. “An eight-year-old son.”

Crede’s blue eyes are bouncing back and forth between us; our conversation is clearly taking too long.

He summarizes with, “You’ll be paged on the other side if there is an issue.”

I glance nervously to my left, where a solid metal door leads to the patients. What if something happens to Cal or Gran?

For a split second, I wonder if I am doing the right thing. Too late, I tell myself. Too late—too far—too deep.

“Oh, yes, all right…” I fumble with my pockets, pulling out some lip balm, a five-dollar bill, and my keys. When my pockets are empty, George (I see his name tag now) eyes me suspiciously like I am hiding contraband somewhere on my body, but he buzzes us through anyway.

“Ex-military?” I ask as soon as we’re out of earshot.

Crede grins and gives me a little side look. “He’s actually a pretty cool guy when you get to know him.”

I don’t feel hopeful.

He laughs when he sees my expression. “He warms up if you bring him snacks.”

“Don’t we all,” I comment. He rewards me with another grin. With Crede, it feels like I’ve just scored big in a game I don’t know the rules to yet. Small wins.

We are now on the other side of Shoal Island Mental Hospital for the criminally insane, or HOTI—it seems like everything has a nickname in this place.

“This is the oldest part of the building,” Crede tells me. It looks old. The ceilings are low.

“The soldiers’ barracks?”

He looks impressed. “Yep…they slept in this room. It’s just an antechamber to the walkway now.”

I’d seen photos of the walkway online. It is essentially a glass corridor between the historic house we just left to the stocky hospital wing, rebuilt in the two thousands.

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