Miranda(kc)

NOTE: A deviation from the norm--this is partially written and I am asking my readers if it catches you enough for me to continue? 

SECOND NOTE: The short saga continues...

She was playing the right notes, the right chords, but her timing was ragged, as ragged as her chewed fingernails. Though some notes were jammed too closely together and others were too far apart; though the chords sometimes had an extra note or may be missing a note; though every now-and-then her twitching fingers caught an adjacent key, Miranda--or, as was her preference—Randi could still tell she was playing Vivaldi, but couldn’t remember which piece.

            She tried to concentrate, hoping she would recognize it by ear, if not by memory. Her fingers kept on playing, by rote, what her state-of-mind had seemingly exorcized from her consciousness. Randi had chosen Vivaldi, though his work was tied more to string instruments, because of its gaiety and life-affirming qualities, hoping it would offset the barely muted sobbing and muffled curses coming from behind her parent’s bedroom door. The more she focused, the more she strained, the further away move Vivaldi’s music and the closer, yet still indistinct, her father’s words penetrated into her head, much as the sunlight upon a lake’s surface diffuses as it passes down, to the murky depths below.

            “Miranda! Miranda”! She vaguely heard her name over the music, over her father’s voice, over her mother’s moans, even over the gunshot. The gunshot! Randi violently twisted away from the hand on her shoulder, started keening softly, then more loudly, as she moved from the piano bench and slumped to the white tiled floor, in tears.

            “Help me get her to the couch”, Dr. Fuller said to the nurse, now at the side of Miranda’s prone form. Each taking the nearly comatose woman under the arms, they gently got her to her feet and guided her across the dayroom to a drab, institutional-green couch. As they eased her down, the doctor directed the nurse to the dispensary for a sedative that would help calm her down.

            Within minutes of receiving the injection, Randi was docile, no longer crying, with a serene, almost blank countenance upon her face.

            “Shall we talk about it, Miranda”, asked Dr. Fuller? Both the compassion in his voice and eyes reached into Randi’s mind, nearly bringing on another bout of tears, but the medication was doing it’s job and her tears were held in abeyance—at least for the moment. She looked up, her face subtly changing much as a child’s when caught with her hand in the cookie jar: happy with getting a cookie, guilty from getting caught, angry and indignant that she had to steal cookies at all, and fear of the soon to be administered punishment. Her mouth worked at forming words, but none were forthcoming. As she strived to speak, her face now looked more like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car; eyes riveted upon the coming tragedy, but unable to move, or in her case, speak.

            The doctor, having played this exact scene out nearly every day of the five weeks Miranda had been under his care, quietly gazed into her frightened eyes, and tried to convey his concern without using words. He had learned that to continue on with words would just drive Miranda deeper inside herself, and that if he left all the words he wanted to say unsaid, the quiet would elicit her words, which were the signal that dialogue could safely commence. He looked on without wavering for three or four minutes before she spoke, in the tremulous, soprano of a small child.

            “Was I bad again, Dr, Fuller”? Randi asked.

            “No Miranda, You certainly weren’t bad, you were playing the Vivaldi, and it once again triggered memories that caused you to have another, shall we say, episode. This is the third time this week you chose the Vivaldi and had this occur. Are you up to talking about it? What you remember? How you felt during the Rites of Spring interlude”?  He paused to allow her to gather the words he could see struggling to come out of her mouth. This poor child has shoved Atlas aside and taken the weight of the world upon her shoulders, he thought to himself. He caught himself, again, thinking of Miranda as a child even though she was in her mid-thirties. It’s her projection of child-like innocence; something he best beware. His thoughts continued, do I truly think she is dangerous? This train of thought is not very professional of me, and quite premature, one way or another….

He pulled his pipe and tobacco from his pocket, began stuffing the pipe’s bowl, and more as an after-thought said, “Do you mind”? Holding his Dunhill pipe towards Miranda he awaited her response, knowing full well it would be in the affirmative.

            “No, go right ahead. I think you need that pipe as much as I do my meds”, she said, then added almost as though to her self “We’re both kind of on a more even keel when you smoke”. She sadly smiled, then went on “Father smoked a Meerschaum pipe, you know. I can still smell the vanilla in his tobacco when I think of him. When I’m not thinking of the “Other Him”, the one who…the one who did the bad thing”, her voice becoming fainter as the words petered off into silence. Dr. Fuller let the silence extend.

            Following an extended period of silence, Dr. Fuller asked “What is it you are so deep in thought about, Miranda? Can you, or will you talk with me about it”?

            “Mostly thinking how badly I miss my father. Your pipe really got me thinking about him. I loved my daddy”..., she said softly, trailing off into a muffled sob. She bent her head down, covered the back of it with her hands and continued to quietly cry, saying through the tears, “I hate Him”!

            This is new, thought the doctor, and to make sure he heard her correctly, he asked “Why do you say you hate your father? In past discussions you told me he was your hero and you loved him”?

            “You aren’t listening to me, at all! I said I love my father! I keep telling you it’s the “Other Him” I hate! I hate what he did to my daddy, my mother, and to me. I’m glad he’s dead! Glad”! Dr. Fuller could see her attempt to scream out the words, past the tranquilizing effect of the sedative, past her learned sense of decorum, past the tears again streaming down her cheeks. “I hate him! I hate him! I hate…” she continued the litany, barely taking time to breathe. The words finally trailed off and Randi appeared to slowly sink in upon herself; growing smaller and smaller as she began to curl herself into a fetal position.

            The doctor looked on with mixed feeling. He felt an almost admiration for the strength that allowed her to fight the sedative, both with her outburst, and now through her withdrawal. Conversely, he was more than a little concerned she might slip into catatonia; a catatonic state she might not able to rise from. He reached oven and gently shook her right shoulder, increasing the shaking until Miranda’s eyes opened and blearily tried to focus upon him.

            While this interaction between them transpired, the nurse had stationed herself just beyond Miranda’s line of sight, directly across from the doctor; giving them the privacy of their conversation, yet readily available to help, should the need have risen. She moved to them in response to Dr. Fuller’s beckoning hand, coming to a halt just behind Miranda, awaiting further instructions.

            “Please get Miranda to her room where she can rest. I think our time together has tired her out, and I want her strong enough to join the group-meeting after supper”, he looked to her name tag to remind himself of her name, and added “thank you for your help with her, earlier, Sharon”. With a pre-occupied look, he rose from his chair and headed towards the ward’s Attending Physician’s office. Entering the office, he did not turn on the light, rather he sat down at the desk, resting his chin in cupped hands and stared into the darkness, thinking about Miranda’s case.

            Though he had been brought into Miranda’s case barely five weeks ago, he had immersed himself into her files, becoming almost obsessed with her previous treatment, her past, and particularly with her actions during the ten days prior to his arrival to Mt Holly Long-Term Psychiatric Care Center. (This mouthful of a name had been shortened to Holly-Psy by some long-gone director, for all but legal paperwork and court appearances. Holly-Psy was a long-term forensic lock-up for the criminally insane and used for evaluating the mental state of those involved—or thought involved—in a criminal case). From a posh psychiatric practice to this bleak forensic facility was quite a step for Dr Fuller, but one he felt nearly coerced to take. The coercion came from within Dr Fuller, himself; in fact he fought for acceptance to this post, both to his own surprise, as to that of his partners in the Austin practice from which he had taken his sabbatical.

            Fuller had been a student taking his MCAPs prior to entering the medical school at Tucson’s University of Arizona campus when Miranda’s case hit the national media. A neighbor was walking by with their dog and heard what sounded like gunshots and hurried home to phone the police. Upon arrival, there was no response at the door and when an officer peered through a window, seeing a girl lying on the floor with blood pooled around her head, they broke down the door and entered the house. Inside they found the bodies of who were later identified as Miranda’s mother and father, and Miranda, unconscious with blood pooling from what appeared to be a gash on her head, but was later determined to be a groove extending from her upper temple area to the crown of her head, gouged out by a passing bullet. Miranda was rushed to a nearby medical center and the forensic detail went through the house.

             The police expected to find evidence of a burglary gone awry or rare at that time, a home invasion. Neither event proved out such to be the case. Evidence pointed towards murder-suicide, but there were loose ends that bothered the police, enough that they would not, or could not, say with any certainty just what transpired in the household that night. Three facts were established though: her father had committed suicide; someone had murdered her mother; and someone had shot Miranda. Any thing more was nothing more than conjecture and educated guesswork.