Page 19 of The Lost Girls of Willowbrook

CHAPTER 5

A shriek pierced the air. Sage startled and opened her eyes, the stark glow of fluorescent lights penetrating the thin blanket over her head. As she struggled to breathe through rancid air as thick as wool, a renewed weight of fear seemed to push her toward the center of the earth. Her shoulders and arms ached from hiding under the blanket, hunched up and praying the other residents would leave her alone. Marla had stayed in the Plexiglas cubicle after lights out but had done nothing to stop the other residents from crying and shouting and fighting and jabbering, on and on and on through the night. Instead, she just sat there, reading and dozing and taking sips from a silver flask. At one point Sage thought someone had been fatally injured, their screams going on for what felt like forever. She sat up and looked around the shadowy ward to see where it was coming from, but she couldn’t tell. Marla ignored it. Finally, the screams grew quieter and quieter, then stopped all together.

Now, anxiety rattled deep inside her, a jittering spark that quickly ignited into a flame. Her hands shook and her head throbbed. She needed a cigarette. She threw off the blanket and sat up, certain she was going to be sick. Something crawled on her leg. She brushed it off without looking to see what it was or where it went, then took long, deep breaths and tried to calm down. The girl in the next bed kept singing “Ring Around the Rosy” over and over and over again. Sage wanted her to stop.

On the other side of the ward, Marla stood in the entrance to the tiled room, yelling, “Rise and shine, ladies. It’s shower day. You know the drill. If you can walk and you can hear me, get undressed, come over here, and wait your turn.”

In front of the tiled room entrance, a dozen naked residents lay in steel trollies, while others swayed and cried and fidgeted in a cluster near the wall. More naked girls sat hunched over on the row of toilets, crying and moaning, or sitting with their heads in their hands. Others stood against the opposite wall with their arms up, shoulders bunched, turning round and round while a female attendant in a rain slicker sprayed them down with a hose. After a hasty rinse, the attendant in the rain slicker lined up the drenched residents, haphazardly dried them off—using the same towel for everyone—then ordered them back to their beds to get dressed. Limping as she moved back and forth, Marla helped the residents on the toilets wipe themselves, then took them over to the shower wall to get sprayed down. After helping another group get on the toilets, she steered one of the steel trolleys bearing helpless girls into the shower room so the attendant in the rain slicker could hose them off. When Marla came out again, she stopped, crossed her arms over her barrel chest, and looked down at a young woman who lay in a trolley, one leg splayed over the edge.

“Lordy, Sheila,” she said, laughing. “Where’s your pride?”

She picked up Shelia’s leg and pushed her knees together, then took her into the shower room on the trolley. When she came out with the first trolley-bound resident, she deposited that shivering girl on top of her bed, left her there naked, then lifted another girl into the trolley, undressing her and piling her clothes on the mattress. As soon as Marla pushed the trolley toward the showers, the woman in the next bed snatched a dress from the pile and hid it under her pillow. After loading more trolleys with residents and taking them into the shower room, Marla started going from bed to bed with a laundry cart, removing soiled diapers and clothes. When she reached Sage’s bed, she stopped. Sage was sitting up, the thin blanket around her shoulders.

“Come on, girl,” Marla said. “Don’t give me a hard time this morning. You know I’m not going to put up with it.”

Sage had to pee, but she was determined to hold off as long as she could. Hopefully someone would figure out who she was before she had to use those filthy toilets. “I don’t have to use the bathroom and I don’t need a shower,” she said. “I took one yesterday. At home. In my apartment.” It was a lie, but she wanted to make a point.

“Uh-huh,” Marla said, reaching for her. “Sure you did.”

Sage scooted sideways, out of her reach. “I’m not Rosemary. I’m her twin sister, Sage.”

“Oh yeah?” Marla said. “I musta forgot again.” She impatiently motioned Sage toward her. “Now get up and get undressed so you can use the toilet and get washed. God knows when we’ll have the next shower day.”

“I’m telling the truth,” Sage said. “Please, you have to listen to me. I know my sister is missing. If Dr. Baldwin calls my stepfather, he—”

Before Sage could finish, Marla grabbed her by the shoulders, flipped her facedown on the bed, and started yanking off her clothes. Sage twisted and kicked, trying to shove her away, but it was no use—Marla was strong as an ox. She put her forearm across Sage’s neck and pushed down hard, clenching her teeth and pinning her to the mattress like a moth under a rock.

“I told you,” she said. “Old Marla is not going to put up with it today. Now you can either cooperate and take your shower, or I can have Nurse Vic come give you something to calm you down. Which is it?”

Sage clawed at Marla’s arm, gasping and unable to breathe.

Marla pushed harder. “You gonna stop this crap?”

Sage nodded, her mouth opening and closing like a dying fish. Finally, Marla released her. Sage turned on her side, her hand to her throat, coughing and gagging.

“Get up,” Marla demanded.

Sage slid to the side of the mattress and stood on wobbly legs, still coughing and holding her throat.

Marla put her hands on her hips and glared at her. “Now, are you going to get undressed, or do I have to do it for you?”

Sage shook her head, then unbuttoned her skirt with trembling fingers, took it off, and laid it on the bed. She pulled her crocheted vest and her top over her head, put them on the bed, then unfastened her bra and slid it off, keeping one arm over her breasts.

“Speed it up, girl,” Marla said. “I ain’t got all day.”

Still covering her breasts, Sage pulled down her underwear with one hand and stepped out of them, shame and fear burning her face. Then she pushed her clothes under her sister’s pillow, trying to cover her pubic area with one hand. Common sense told her that no one but Marla was paying attention to her body and almost everyone else was naked too, but it didn’t help.

Marla pointed at the shower room. “Get yourself on over there,” she said. “And don’t be acting up again or I’ll get Nurse Vic after you, you hear?”

Sage nodded and made her way over to the tiled room, edging between beds and wheelchairs and carts and trolleys, snaking between naked, screaming, crying, laughing girls and women. Tears blurred her vision as she glanced down before each step to avoid the yellowish splotches and pools of dark liquid on the floor. Marla followed, limping and barking orders at other girls. When it was Sage’s turn to enter the tiled room, she held her breath and went over to the row of toilets. Marla tried flushing some of them, but they didn’t work. Toilet paper and feces filled nearly every bowl. Some were clogged by towels and cloth diapers. Cockroaches skittered along the edges of the floor. Sage stood frozen, trying not to breathe or throw up.

“Get yourself on over there,” Marla said, motioning at a free toilet. “This ain’t no time to be picky.”

Sage shook her head.

Exasperated, Marla started toward her, pressing her lips together into an angry, hard line. Before she could reach her, Sage went over to the toilet, closed her eyes, and sat down. She tried to pee but couldn’t, despite the fact that her bladder was full to bursting. Unable to hold her breath another second, she exhaled and filled her lungs again, the putrid stench of human waste burning her nostrils and throat. Tears of rage and disgust sprang up behind her eyelids. She squeezed them away and released her bladder. When she was finished, she looked around for clean toilet paper, but there was none to be found. Marla pulled a girl off a toilet and dragged her over to the attendant in the rain slicker, then headed for Sage. Sage stood and hurried over to the shower wall and waited to be hosed down.

When it was her turn, she spat and sputtered and tried to protect her face and breasts from the stinging torrent of icy water, but the attendant yanked her arms up and spun her around with rough hands. Sage turned toward the wall and put her hands over her face, the water slamming into her head and back and buttocks. When she was finished, the attendant patted her down with the soaking wet towel, then moved on to the next resident. Marla ordered Sage back to her bed and told her to get dressed.

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