The Convert by Deborah Baker

Author:Deborah Baker
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-55597-028-4
Publisher: Graywolf Press
Published: 2011-04-08T04:00:00+00:00

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Nichols Cottage

New York Psychiatric Institute

White Plains, NY

August 1957

Neither Daddy nor Mother said anything about Dr. Kubie’s letter. From then on, Betty, I stopped going out, even to the library. I wanted only to sleep, to read Arabic poetry and Marmaduke Pickthall’s translation of the Qur’an. I neither wanted to see Mother and Daddy nor wanted them to see me. Sometimes, in the evenings, I overheard them talking with Aunt Helen in the drawing room. I would go to the door and listen.

Dr. Harper warned us to expect this, Daddy said.

She has become a human vegetable, Mother said quietly.

Coming out of my daily session with Dr. Harper not long after this, Betty, I was astonished to see Daddy and Mother waiting for me by the reception desk. My surprise was cut short by apprehension. What are you doing here? I asked suspiciously. Why aren’t you both at work?

Wouldn’t you like to take a drive in the country? Daddy had said in a sugary voice, doing his best to ignore my agitation.

I didn’t in the least want to take a drive. I wanted to go home. I wanted to return to my bedroom and lock the door.

There was nothing to worry about, Daddy told me.

I wasn’t taken in for one minute; I knew exactly what they were up to. Yet however much I wanted Daddy to know he wasn’t fooling me, I couldn’t actually bear to tell him that. I was afraid that if I said it out loud, it would cause my most dreaded fear to come true. In the time that had passed since that day when Dr. Kubie’s letter had arrived, I had allowed myself to hope that nothing would come of it. But the drive in the country had lasted no more than ten minutes before the car pulled up in front of the mental hospital. It was my absolute worst fear.

I would be staying for just a few weeks, Daddy promised in a futile effort to calm me, to undergo some tests and treatments. There was nothing to be ashamed of, he said.

I turned on him wildly. There was no point in keeping quiet. I no longer believed anything he told me but I wanted him to admit it would be years, if ever, before I was released. All he could say was that it was the best place for me. The best place!

After an interview with the hospital director, I signed myself in to avoid the degradation of involuntary commitment. I was assigned to Nichols Cottage, a fancy name for the ward for disturbed patients and, I soon learned, the lowest rung of the long ladder out.

Every time they visit, Betty, I beg them to allow me to come home. I swear I’ll be good. But Daddy is adamant. I have to do every­thing the doctors and nurses tell me to so that I will get well, he says. If you truly love me, I say to Mother, you will get me out of this place.

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