When timid housewife Aimy O’Neal visits Janet Lansing, incarcerated at Western State Mental Hospital for causing the death of her children under the stress of postpartum psychosis, secrets are revealed; ones that are keeping them both prisoners of their guilt.

Excerpt:

Chapter One

A

re you sure we’re going to stay together?” I asked Cheryl, tightening my grasp on one corner of my linen jacket.

“Yes,” Cheryl replied patiently. “I will remain by your side at all times.”

The navy blue fabric bunched in my fist. “And I won’t have to do any talking?”

“Aimy,” she sighed, “I told you not to worry. I’ll lead the discussion. You just sit and listen and nod your head. Oh,” she added with a grin, “and pretend I’m this knowledgeable and quite brilliant scholar that knows what I’m talking about.”

I laughed and loosened my grip. “That’s quite a stretch. I don’t think I’m that good an actress.”

She took her eyes off the road for an instant, looked at me, and shook her head. “And you call yourself a friend?”

We both laughed at that and then fell silent for a few minutes while Cheryl navigated the unfamiliar road. “Keep your eyes open for our turnoff,” she reminded me.

I watched for a sign indicating the Western State Mental Hospital. Cheryl had convinced me to come along as she started a new Bible study session with some of the patients. It wasn’t the first class she had facilitated, but it was the first one she’d ever done at a mental hospital and even my outgoing and confident friend seemed a little nervous.

On the other hand, it was the first Bible study class I’d ever attended, and if it weren’t for the fact that Cheryl was the nicest person I’d ever met and my best friend, I never would have agreed.

I still couldn’t believe I’d told her I’d go. I’d sworn I’d never get within a mile of a shrink again and yet there were bound to be plenty of them where we were going. Only Cheryl Hastings could have talked me into this. She was the one person I knew that attended church on a regular basis, studied the Bible, and managed to quietly perform what she considered her spiritual duties, such as conducting this class. She’d found out there was a shortage of facilitators willing to enter a secured facility and had wholeheartedly responded to that need.

I secretly wondered if she considered me one of her spiritual duties. Making friends was not my strong suit, but Cheryl had taken me under her wing several years ago when her daughter Kathy and my girls first started high school. They’d become best friends and, somehow, so had we.

Since we’d gone through a lengthy vetting process weeks before, today’s security checks were more stringent than I had anticipated. The boxes containing our supply of books had already been shipped and undergone the thorough examination required before they could be allowed onto the premises. We had also been informed about how to dress: no khaki or camel-colored clothing; no brown pants.

The guard post stood duty on the periphery of a compound the size of a football field, surrounded by a sturdy, chain-link fence and topped with several feet of barbed wire. Housing two guards, it resembled the cashiers’ booth at a gas station, with the same sort of protective glass window and pass-through tray beneath. There was also a small bank of lockers into which visitors could put their belongings.

After having been escorted by a community liaison officer, a middle-aged woman who had met us at the flagpole near the parking lot, we didn’t anticipate any problems whatsoever.

“Who are they?” The entry gate guard questioned our escort, all the while keeping narrowed eyes focused on us. Cheryl and I glanced at each other and tried to look inoffensive as our appointed guide explained that approval had been granted for our visit weeks before. Cheryl managed even better than I. Her periwinkle cotton dress with purple stenciled fish screamed suburban housewife. With her blonde curls and freckled button nose, she had a perpetual girlish look. Added to that, she barely reached four-foot eleven and may have weighed all of one-hundred pounds. And that on a day she was retaining water.

On the other hand, I stood a gawky 5-foot, 8-inches tall and looked as if I regularly retained about a gallon. Even though I wore an inoffensive white blouse over navy blue pants, the guard must have thought I looked capable of springing one of the patients.

“I don’t know anything about them,” he insisted, giving us the once-over again.

Cheryl whispered, “We are not off to a good start,” as the two argued.

After a few minutes of bureaucratic wrangling, the guard made a corroborating phone call. He hung up and addressed Cheryl and me for the first time. “I need to see some ID.”

We each surrendered our driver’s license before we were issued a visitor’s pass. “You’ll get these back when you leave,” he said. At last we were buzzed through.

We went through several locked doors until we reached the conference room we’d been assigned. The condition of the building wasn’t at all what I expected. Although constructed in 1917, there were shiny linoleum floors and sunny rooms instead of dust and grime.

Cheryl kept her promise to stay by my side as we sat down at a large circular table in the ward’s conference room. Unfortunately, that left my other side wide open for the male patient who sat there. His doughy face and beefy hands reminded me of the boy who had chosen me as his partner to kick off a seventh-grade dance. Back then, I had hesitated, turning as bright a shade of red as his hair, before moving into his clumsy arms-length embrace. Sweat ran down my arms as we swayed back and forth, feeling the merciless gaze of the student body upon us. Even without looking, I knew they were smirking at us two perfectly-matched outcasts, the fuel for more jokes from then on.

“We seem to be short a study guide.” My stomach tightened when Cheryl spoke, and I realized my seatmate had just taken the last one. I knew what was coming.

“You don’t mind sharing, do you, Aimy?” Cheryl spoke in her usual sweet manner. It wasn’t really a question.

“No, of course not.” I dutifully leaned close enough so I could see his book. I could also smell his breath and body odor—like burnt rubber with a generous helping of raw onions.

Not wanting to hurt his feelings, I averted my nose but didn’t move away. Instead, I glanced around the table, feeling trapped and a little nauseous. All of the patients wore similar clothing: loose-fitting brown pants with elastic waistbands and v-necked shirts in drab, institutional tan. Only one patient caught my immediate attention. She had long, ropy brown hair, a thin face, and startling blue eyes, a light glacial hue that some people might call demonic or alien, a genetic anomaly that was striking and seldom seen in people with dark hair.

She had been slumped into her chair, head down. Her hair shielded much of her face. Cheryl had requested that we introduce ourselves, and now it was her turn. The woman looked right up at me then, her eyes like a cat’s, with the same feral, otherworldly look.

It wasn’t only their color that disturbed me. It was the look of sheer panic and desperation I saw there.

Cheryl and I had undergone a training course that prepared us for what to expect. We wouldn’t be shut into a room with rapists or murderers, with the exception of the blue-eyed woman. I even knew her name: Janet Lansing. Most people knew it. She’d been in the newspaper headlines for months.

I’d kept one copy, burying it at the bottom of the newspaper pile on our fireplace hearth. But it was like trying to drown a buoy; it kept forcing its way back up to the surface.

WOMAN SURVIVES SUICIDE PLUNGE

4 CHILDREN DIE

Janet Lansing was hospitalized under police custody after driving her car off an embankment in the La Vista Heights area. Rescue crews recovered the bodies of her children: Rachel, age 5, Samuel, age 4, Benjamin, age 2, and Adam, six months.

Further down, another snippet of information had caught my eye.

Close family friend, Catherine Rodgers, revealed that Janet had been suffering from depression following the birth of her last child.

Within a year after being charged with the death of her children while in a postpartum psychotic state, the jury had accepted her not guilty by reason of insanity plea, a surprise verdict because media pundits had declared for months that her defense strategy wouldn’t work. A determination had been made that she was no threat to others. She had recently been taken off suicide watch, which meant she was no longer considered a threat to herself either.

Cheryl’s request wasn’t the only reason I’d left the safety of my home and come here today. I hadn’t read the whole newspaper story, mostly because I already knew what was inside—more details than any reporter could have dredged up. After all, it could have been my story, too.

Chapter Two

A

s I sat in the conference room, voices flowed around me but the sound had no meaning, my full attention now captured by the off-beat rhythm of my heart. My stomach ached as if I’d just done a hundred sit-ups, and there was a sensation I could only describe as my blood vibrating in my veins. My face felt flushed and it was hard to breathe—familiar panic attack signs.

Once, in a junior-high school English class, we’d been reading Sybil, a novel about a woman with multiple personalities. Excited by a revelation I’d just had, I’d overcome my fear of speaking out and raised my hand, asking the teacher my burning question: “Is it possible to choose to be crazy?” My idea was to live two separate lives, escaping from one into the other whenever I wanted.

I took one look at the puzzled expression on the teacher’s face and suddenly realized that just asking the question was suspicious, something only a crazy person would do.

Now I heard a ringing in my ears, and Cheryl was looking at me funny, just like that English teacher had. Had she asked me a question? My panic increased and my confused thoughts grew more tangled. What would a normal person answer?

Everyone else was looking at me now, and the pain in my stomach was so bad I knew I had to get out of there, get to the box of Pepto-Bismol tablets in my purse, but I couldn’t leave yet, disappoint Cheryl, whose sympathetic look of concern almost made me cry. I was always disappointing people, letting them down, letting myself down, but that didn’t matter now. All that mattered was getting out of there. Fast.

“Call me tonight, Aimy,” Cheryl called through her open car window when she dropped me off at home several hours later. “Tell me how you’re feeling.”

I waved from the front door, acknowledging I’d heard her, keeping the smile in place that was meant to reassure her I was all right, as I had several times on the drive home. Somehow, I’d made it through the rest of the session. If there’s one thing I do well, it is hide my inner turmoil from others. I’d kept my head down as if focused on the Bible and imagined myself at home, cocooned in a wing-backed chair with a romance novel.

My smile disappeared once the door to the house closed behind me. The panic had subsided, leaving cold and weariness as its aftermath. I hung my jacket in the laundry room and set my purse down on the dryer. Our Yorkshire terrier, Skittles, greeted me, yapping and spinning in circles. I gave him a perfunctory pat before heading into the kitchen.

My husband, Brian, must have dropped by for lunch. He was neat by nature and had put his dirty dishes and utensils in the dishwasher, but crumbs littered the tiled counter and mail was left strewn about, marring the perfection of my otherwise tidy kitchen. “This place is a mess,” I exclaimed, scooping the mail into a pile. “My life is out of control.” Then I burst into tears. The anger took me by surprise. The tears didn’t. I’d been holding them in all the way home. I wiped them away with the back of my hand, sniffing as I got out the Windex bottle and several paper towels and wiped up the offending crumbs. Then I sprayed the counter and rubbed it hard. When it was clean, I went into our bedroom and crawled between its sheets, only to find my fears had made it there ahead of me. I allowed Skittles onto the bed and held on to him for warmth, but it took a long while to stop shivering.

Cheryl phoned me that evening. I’d been delaying calling her for hours. “How’s it going?” she asked.

“Great. Good. Okay.” At first I couldn’t make up my mind what answer to give her, but then I remembered the cover story I’d thought up after she had brought me home. “I mean, I did feel crummy at the hospital, but I figured it’s because I hadn’t eaten anything beforehand. My blood sugar must have been off.”

“You should have said something. We could have gotten you a bite. I have the same problem when I’m hungry. I swear it turns me psycho.”

Silence hovered between us while I took in her words, analyzing them for hidden meaning. Did she expect me to admit the same? Or was I making too much of a simple remark? I gave up on figuring it out. “Hey, Cheryl,” I began, thinking now was the right time to spring this on her, “I gave it a shot, but I’m not cut out for this mental hospital thing.” I tried a partial truth. “It creeps me out going in there. I don’t think I can go back.”

“I understand.” She must have seen it coming, because she didn’t even hesitate. “That’s why I’ve come up with this great idea.”

“Oh, yeah,” I replied. “What’s that, lunch tomorrow?”

She laughed. “Close, but no, it’s about the mental hospital ministry.”

My heart sank.

“Look, I understand why going inside didn’t work out,” she went on. “It was hard for me, too, so I can understand why you got spooked.”

She thought I was afraid of the patients. I was afraid I should be one.

“That’s where the great idea comes in.” She paused. “Aimy…?”

“I’m listening,” I replied. “What is it?”

“It’s about Janet Lansing.”

If I had an old-fashioned telephone, I’d have been twisting the coils. Instead, I kept a tight grip on the cordless receiver and felt my stomach knot up.

“I spoke with her doctor late this afternoon,” Cheryl continued. “Apparently Janet found the Bible study group too overwhelming… or threatening…or something. Anyway, she won’t go back.”

Thank God, I thought. I don’t have to see her ever again, and in a decade or two I’m sure I’ll forget this ever happened.

Cheryl was still talking. “He thinks she might respond to a different approach. That maybe she’d find a pen-pal relationship a little less threatening at this point than a face-to-face one.”

“He what?”

“I said he suggested a pen-pal relationship,” Cheryl repeated.

“You mean you want me to write her letters?” I couldn’t help myself. It came out in the same tone I would have used asking: You mean…have a root canal without Novocain? Donate my sole healthy kidney to a stranger? I know, how’s about we use that blue baby blanket I’ve been hanging onto all these years as a cleaning rag?

Cheryl hesitated. “Well…yeah.”

She had obviously been taken aback by my unusual combative attitude but fear of being talked into doing something I really didn’t want to do kept me rambling on. “How can I? I don’t know her, except for what I’ve read in the newspapers, and she knows nothing about me. What would I write about?”

“Whatever you want, really. There are guidelines for you to follow, but I trust your judgment.”

“I’m not so sure I do.” I took a deep breath and when I let it out all the argument I had in me left with it. “Honestly, Cheryl, she scares me.” More than you know.

“She can’t hurt you through the mail.” Her voice softened. “Look, I’m probably asking too much of you. I just thought since you seemed so down lately—and Lord knows she must be in a lot of pain—that you might be good for each other.” Her laugh sounded rueful. “Dumb idea, huh?”

“Not so dumb,” I replied, thinking how happy she had sounded a few minutes ago, having found the perfect solution to several problems, one of them me. I had probably overreacted out of fear of the unknown, but now that I’d calmed down a little, I could see that Cheryl had come up with a way to ease my guilt over bailing out on accompanying her to Bible study. If she could continue going into that hospital once a week, I could at least write a letter or two. Besides, I doubted Janet would reply.

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