Page 86 of Rook

“How is she doing?” I asked as we walked.

“She’s definitely a lot better with her new balance of meds. She’s out of her mania. We haven’t seen any signs of hallucinations or delusions. She’s definitely very medicated right now—”

“Understandably,” I said, thinking of what Rook told me about how she’d been behaving before they decided to change her meds again.

“Yes. It’s a long process to try to get the ratios right. Her doctors are thinking of lowering the dose of her antidepressants slightly to see if that helps motivate her to get out of bed. She’s definitely sleeping a lot. But we did manage to get her to go down to art therapy yesterday.”

Rook was going to love hearing that.

“Oh, wow. I didn’t realize she was functioning so well. Is that a first since she’s been here?”

“There were… two short periods where her team thought she was on the road to release. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. But we’re all very hopeful now. This has been a lot of progress in a short amount of time.”

The nurse stopped outside of an open doorway. Lorna, it seemed, did not get a closed door. But she did have a private room.

“Lorna, you have a visitor! Go ahead in, honey. And talk to her. Even if she doesn’t seem like she’s listening, she is.”

“Okay. Thank you,” I said, giving her a smile. “Rook wanted me to tell you how much he appreciates that you’ve kept him in the loop. Considering…”

“That parole officer of his is a stone-cold b-word. But you didn’t hear that from me,” she said, zipping her lips, then turning to walk away.

Lorna’s room was somehow even more depressing than the lobby had been.

The bed itself was a solid platform made of some sort of hard rubber material. There was even a rocking chair made of that same material. Nothing, I figured, she could break off to use to harm herself or someone else.

Lorna herself was on the bed, her back to me as she stared out the window.

I was struck by how small she was, how frail. If Rook was on the thin side, this woman was almost gaunt. Her reddish-brown hair was liberally streaked with gray, but it looked clean and brushed.

“Hey, Lorna,” I said, feeling strange talking to a woman who didn’t know me as if we were acquaintances. “I know you don’t know me,” I added, moving around to the other side of the bed.

She looked a lot like Rook. The same face shape, the same eyes. Even if hers lacked some of the light I so often found in her son’s.

“My name is Tessa,” I went on as she continued to stare out the window. “I’m, uh, I’m Rook’s wife.”

At the sound of her son’s name, her gaze flicked to me, something passing there for just a second before it disappeared again.

Rook had told me what method he thought would be best when it came to talking about him. Blunt and honest was what he felt would be the best approach.

“He wanted me to tell you how sorry he is that he hasn’t been allowed to visit. He’s been trying so hard to get his parole officer to let him come see you. But she’s, well, between me and you, she’s a raging bitch.”

To that, I saw just a hint of a spark again.

“So, as a get-around to her, Rook decided to send me here to check on you, see how you’re doing. He knows you’ve had a hard couple of years. But the nurse told me she thinks you’re on the road to recovery now.”

Was that the right thing to say? I mean, she would never actuallyrecoverfrom her bipolar. I’d never had to try to navigate a conversation about someone’s mental health before. I felt like there were so many landmines you could potentially step on without intending to.

“Rook spent the past few days online buying you some things to make you more comfortable,” I told her, setting my handle-less bag on the rocking chair, so I could pull items out. “We have fuzzy socks. Because who doesn’t like those? A new robe. A warm blanket. Rook said you’ve always run cold. Oh, and I snuck you in a sweet treat,” I told her, producing the little red and white wrapper with the pecan clusters.

That light came back to her eyes. This time, it seemed to stay.

“There’s a catch with these,” I told her, bringing them closer. “You have to eat them all while I’m here because I have to sneak the wrapper back out.”

When I held them out, she took them.

And I got to watch as she ripped the wrapper open and shoved a whole cluster in her mouth.

It should have beenRookgetting to see his mother like this. Still a bit slow, distant, but functional. He should have been the one watching her close her eyes in pleasure as she chewed. He should have been the one grabbing the blanket and spreading it across her frail body.

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