Nibbling another spoonful, she looked through the chicken-wire-crosshatched window into the dayroom.
Several female patients lounged there, watching TV, mingling over children’s board games, playing cards, a few staring out windows on this sunny spring day. Despite a variety of ages, ethnicities, and medical conditions, the women had in common one thing: they were battling mental illness. All casually dressed — just no belts or shoelaces.
These were the doctor’s patients, and she had made — to various degrees — headway with them all... with one significant exception.
In her midtwenties — her raven ponytail and smooth features making her look much younger — Jordan Rivera sat on a sofa gazing up in silence at the wall-mounted television. She wore blue hospital scrubs, having already adopted that outfit by the time Donna arrived here two years after the girl’s admittance.
Girl, Donna thought, catching herself. That’s how I think of her. Not woman — girl.
Doctor and patient had spent countless hours in one-on-one sessions, and to this day the only voice Donna had ever heard in those sessions was her own. Group sessions found the girl... the young woman... equally unresponsive. There and in all situations, Jordan Rivera remained mute.
Not medically so — nothing physically wrong with the patient’s vocal mechanism. Hers was apparently hysterical mutism, resulting from the trauma of the crimes committed against her and her family, a decade ago now.
The layperson might mistake this patient’s silence for catatonia, but of course the doctor knew better. While Jordan might sit, unmoving, for hours at a time, she didn’t display any of the rigidity of a true catatonic patient. Though catatonia could be caused by post-traumatic stress disorder, which surely made Jordan a candidate, Dr. Hurst would never classify Jordan as clinically catatonic.
Still, in addition to not speaking, Jordan Rivera often spent her waking hours virtually immobile, as if every emotion had been silenced, stuffed into some deep, dark recess of the young woman’s mind — a private place that Donna had not yet been able to reach.
Yet in other key respects, Jordan was a normal young woman. Since she had been admitted to St. Dimpna’s, shortly after the tragedy, Jordan had kept to herself, but she was no human slug. She stayed fit, working out as best she could in the dayroom, doing laps around the yard when allowed outside, and reading books and magazines from the selection provided to the patients, a limited variety to be sure, since all reading matter was carefully screened. No use of computers was allowed. Television channels were monitored, too, although screening their content wasn’t always possible.
Jordan’s solitary ways were such that she rarely had problems with other patients. A significant exception involved Kara McCormick — an incident about nine months ago, in group.
Jordan, several other patients, and newbie Kara sat in a loose circle. All but Kara were accustomed to Jordan sitting silently throughout. Toward session’s end, Donna turned to Kara, whose only comments thus far had consisted of smug grunts and snorts as other patients spoke about their issues.
“Kara, as the newest member of the group, would you like to introduce yourself to the others?”
A reedy blonde with pink-and-blue streaked bangs, eighteen-year-old Kara had been sexually abused by her stepfather until she had finally resorted to slitting her wrists. She still wore the gauze bandages.
“Kara,” the girl said sullenly.
Donna waited, but Kara stared at her bare legs as if the answers to her problems might be found on her kneecaps.
Gently, the doctor asked, “Would you like to tell the others why you’re here?”
Kara exploded from her chair, bisecting the circle to loom over Jordan, finger-pointing. “Why doesn’t she have to talk? Everybody else has to, what’s so special about her?”
Before Donna could speak, Kara was leaning in at Jordan, fists balled. “Too good to speak to us? And how come you’re wearin’ scrubs? You’re no goddamn nurse! You’re just another loony tunes like the rest of us!”
Donna knew at once Kara was deflecting the attention from herself and her own troubles.
Jordan sat placidly, eyes on Kara. The doctor noted that not even verbal abuse brought this one out of her shell. It was almost as if Jordan didn’t hear Kara, although her eyes on the new girl’s face said otherwise.
“Kara,” Donna began, putting some edge into her voice, “Jordan is—”
“She’s what? Your frickin’ pet?”
Donna was rising, to put herself between the two patients, but Kara beat her to the punch, literally — launching a tiny fist at Jordan’s blank face.
The mute girl rose, blocking the punch with a martial arts move, then grabbed Kara in a hug, pinning the girl’s arms to her sides. The two patients were looking right at each other, Kara wild, eyes and nostrils flaring, Jordan as placid as when she’d been sitting there.
The mute patient was not fighting back, just stopping, containing the attack, though the skill of that kung fu — style move (where had that come from?) indicated Jordan could have done the new girl damage.
Kara was going berserk, flailing as best she could, even trying to headbutt Jordan, who continued to hug her, as calm as a monk at prayer, even if the string of epithets spewing from Kara would have made a real monk blanch.
And still Jordan maintained her embrace.
Donna stood frozen at the sight, not willing to enter in and turn this confrontation into something even more physical. Like the rest of the group, the doctor gaped as Jordan hugged Kara until the girl’s rage ebbed, her energy sapped, and finally Kara was reduced to tears.
As Kara’s rage melted, Jordan released her grip. Kara did not throw a punch — she was way past that. Instead, she threw her arms around Jordan, the embrace reversed now, and the two remained that way until Kara was cried out.
Dr. Donna Hurst had witnessed some amazing things in group sessions, but nothing to top this. And despite Jordan still remaining mute, she and Kara had developed a friendship and some means of communication all their own. Kara would talk to Jordan, and manage to find enough response in Jordan’s face to constitute a reply.
Before long, Kara had even adopted Jordan’s uniform of light blue scrubs.
In subsequent group and one-on-one sessions, Donna had intensified her own attempts to communicate with Jordan; but no discernible progress had been made. Today would be like the hundreds of other sessions, Jordan sitting silent, listening politely, Donna talkative, sick of her own voice by the end of the hour.
Ditching the yogurt container, then taking a quick hit from her coffee, Donna prepared for another bout of frustration. When she opened the dayroom door, the noise level went up — patients talking to others and themselves, chairs scraping on the tile floor, the professional voices of the morning show on the TV that Jordan watched from the sofa.
Sitting beside her patient, Donna said, “Good morning, Jordan.” She had long since stopped asking this patient, “How are you this morning?” It only emphasized the one-way nature of their conversations.
In any case, Jordan did not acknowledge the doctor’s presence, continuing to stare at the television.
Well, Donna thought, at least she’s engaged...
Following Jordan’s line of sight, Donna said, “Good Morning Cleveland, huh? Wonder if anything interesting’s happening in the Mistake on the Lake today.”