The Outpatient
(page two)
(page two)
"Would you like some tea?"
"No. What are you doing?"
Ingrid stood in the doorway: dark shirt and jeans, white-blond hair, and between them the usual glower.
Bergman, thought Margaret.
"I'm making bread."
"It smells like foot rot."
"That's yeast."
Ingrid shouldered past her to the fridge, took out a carrot and bit down without washing or peeling it.
"Is this supposed to be therapy?" she asked. "Are warm feelings supposed to flood my dried-up breast?"
Margaret went on kneading. "If you like."
Ingrid watched Margaret for a while, leaning on the door frame, crunching her carrot like an existentialist
Bugs Bunny.
"Why," she said, "do you do this crap?"
"What crap?"
"You know: long skirt, kerchief. Laura Ingalls Wilder costume. Freshly-baked bread."
She smiled unkindly.
"I bet you make your husband waffles every Sunday. I bet you're terrific with children and dogs. I bet
you won't buy eggs unless the farmer was nice to the hens. It's a pity. You seem so smart otherwise."
Margaret kneaded slightly harder. She would not twice be goaded into swearing. Ingrid moved closer.
"What do you do when you aren't volunteering?"
"I have a daughter. She's two."
"And daddy works all day before coming home to his little sweetheart while mummy looks after the crazy
people?"
"Yes! And I'm happy! What the hell is wrong with that?"
Ingrid stared at her. "I broke up with my boyfriend," she said, "because he didn't understand why I cried
all the time."
"Why do you cry all the time?"
"The doctors tell me it's bad brain chemistry. My mother says it's Swedish genes. Me, I think it's a
perfectly reasonable response to the world. Doesn't it ever horrify you?"
"'It?"
"Everything."
Margaret shook her head. She held Ingrid's gaze for a moment before turning back to her dough.
"Want to try kneading it?" she asked.
"I fucking hate cooking," said Ingrid. She sat down in a chair and swung her legs over its arm. "They
tried to get me to cook in therapy. I hate it. You make stuff, you eat it, and boom, half an hour later
you're crapping it back out."
Ingrid was sharp: nasty, but sharp. She had been right to call Margaret's clothing a costume. Margaret
had not realized it until Ingrid pointed it out; maybe it hadn't been true until Ingrid pointed it out.
But what was wrong with costume? What was wrong with making a display of your own brown peasant
good looks?
Still, the next morning she pulled on her striped skirt with clumsy hands, hesitated, and changed it for
jeans.
"Would you like some tea?"
"No."
"Then would you mind moving your easel a few feet back from the stove? I'd like to make some for
myself."
Ingrid grunted and complied. She was painting – the first time Margaret had seen her paint. Her dark
sleeves were rolled up, and there was a smear of yellow on her cheek. Her forearms – Margaret noticed
with appalled fascination – were scarred: not the uneven ladder-rungs of the habitual cutter, the flirter-
with-doom, but two straight simple white lines. She had known what she was doing.
"Have you eaten today, Ingrid?"
"Yes."
A quick affirmative to get Margaret off her back. No way to tell whether it was true. Margaret paused
behind the easel with the teakettle in her hand.
"That's extremely nasty," she said.
It was extremely nasty. Little figures, executed with daunting technical skill, staggered around the canvas
choking on loaves of bread.
"You wait 'til I've finished it," Ingrid said, smiling maliciously.
"Well, obviously, she's sick," said Raisa.
Margaret and Raisa worked in the bulk department of the food co-op on Friday afternoons. Raisa had pale
orange dreadlocks, a pine tree tattooed on her back, and six eyebrow rings; unless a supervisor was in
the room she kicked off her sandals and worked barefoot. Her son and daughter frisked around her,
giggling and shoving their hands into bins of lentils and kidney beans.
"She's a better painter than I ever was," Margaret said. "I can't say I care for her work. But it's good."
Raisa put a twist-tie on a bag of rice flour. "How much longer are you going to be looking after this girl?"
"Technically at least, it's very good."
"Why does that bother you?"
"Because for art to be moving, it has to be in some way true. And what she's saying with her work --"
"All she's saying, honey, is that she's sick." Raisa put a slim strong arm around Margaret's shoulder.
"She's being true to her vision, maybe, but that doesn't mean you have to make it yours."
"I can't write it off that easily." Margaret waited a moment for politeness' sake before shrugging out from
under Raisa's arm. "I can't divide it that way. All really good artists deal in generalities. All really good
artists tap into something huge and contradictory and…and true."
Raisa frowned. "You mean God?"
"I guess I mean the world."
"But the world always comes through a person's perceptions, hon. If that person's sick, her world is
going to be distorted."
"Death is a fact," said Margaret, so firmly she surprised herself. "You eat, you crap, you die: tell me that's
not true."
Raisa looked at her. There was a moment of silence. In the afterecho of what she'd said, Margaret
recognized Ingrid's voice: not just her word choice, but her intonation, her placement of stresses.
"Honestly, Maggie, I think you should try to let it go." Raisa patted her shoulder. "Stock up on positive
energy; don't let her negativity get to you. Excuse me a moment Mags. Chi! Chi, your sister was playing
with that, sweetheart. I know you want it too, but you must learn to say so in a peaceful way. Can you
tell her – gently! -- that you would like it when she's finished? Good; now, August, can you tell Chi very
gently that you aren't finished yet?"
Margaret watched. Raisa was a good mother: under the tattoos and the hippie rhetoric, she had a tough
pragmatic core – a core Margaret secretly feared that she, herself, might lack.
Ingrid's next attempt at suicide – her third -- was a success.
She had gotten hold of a man's shaving razor, explained Mrs. Clare; the doctors were not sure how.
They could have been watching her more closely; there were a great many patients at the moment;
spring was a difficult time of year, and Ingrid had been an outpatient, meaning she was not supposed to
need careful watching. Twenty-twenty hindsight and so forth. Mrs. Clare's manner softened. Had
Margaret been close to her?
It was a gentle question; and although the gentleness was professional, Margaret sensed it was also
genuine. She mumbled that she hadn't known Ingrid long, and left as soon as it was polite, passing out
of the climate-controlled reception room and heading down the sidewalk in a spring wind, under a wild,
surging froth of blossoms.
Afterwards she went for a long walk beside the river. She wanted to sort it all out; to get the whole
unpleasant business cleanly untangled, and then put it in a sort of storage compartment and close the lid.
She had not liked Ingrid; she did not like her any better dead than alive. It was hard to admit it. It felt
blasphemous. It was thinking ill of the dead – and yet Ingrid would have appreciated the ruthless truth.
To go on hating her, Margaret realized, was to pay her a tribute. To hate the dead Ingrid seemed,
somehow, to make her stronger.
She shivered, and turned west toward the point where the river's flow widened and relaxed. What would
the funeral be like? She supposed that depended on Ingrid's family. Swedish, probably. Religious?
Lutheran, perhaps?
Did they love her?
For absolutely selfish reasons, Margaret hoped they did; it was awful, like the scene in a horror movie that
forces you to shut your eyes, to picture an utterly loveless funeral. It was unbearable, like Ingrid's
painting. And yet it was quite possible.
A gust of wind shook flowers from the trees. Margaret picked one up; it was disappointingly unpoetic;
asymmetrical and bizarre, shaped like the head of a lizard. More of them were falling; a few clung to her
sweater with petals like tiny soft claws. Somewhere, a church bell rang, far enough away to sound hollow,
and she counted the strokes with mounting alarm: six o'clock; later than she'd thought.
She turned back and began to retrace her steps, walking faster now because the spring wind was brisk as
late autumn, and it was long past the hour she should have started cooking supper.
"No. What are you doing?"
Ingrid stood in the doorway: dark shirt and jeans, white-blond hair, and between them the usual glower.
Bergman, thought Margaret.
"I'm making bread."
"It smells like foot rot."
"That's yeast."
Ingrid shouldered past her to the fridge, took out a carrot and bit down without washing or peeling it.
"Is this supposed to be therapy?" she asked. "Are warm feelings supposed to flood my dried-up breast?"
Margaret went on kneading. "If you like."
Ingrid watched Margaret for a while, leaning on the door frame, crunching her carrot like an existentialist
Bugs Bunny.
"Why," she said, "do you do this crap?"
"What crap?"
"You know: long skirt, kerchief. Laura Ingalls Wilder costume. Freshly-baked bread."
She smiled unkindly.
"I bet you make your husband waffles every Sunday. I bet you're terrific with children and dogs. I bet
you won't buy eggs unless the farmer was nice to the hens. It's a pity. You seem so smart otherwise."
Margaret kneaded slightly harder. She would not twice be goaded into swearing. Ingrid moved closer.
"What do you do when you aren't volunteering?"
"I have a daughter. She's two."
"And daddy works all day before coming home to his little sweetheart while mummy looks after the crazy
people?"
"Yes! And I'm happy! What the hell is wrong with that?"
Ingrid stared at her. "I broke up with my boyfriend," she said, "because he didn't understand why I cried
all the time."
"Why do you cry all the time?"
"The doctors tell me it's bad brain chemistry. My mother says it's Swedish genes. Me, I think it's a
perfectly reasonable response to the world. Doesn't it ever horrify you?"
"'It?"
"Everything."
Margaret shook her head. She held Ingrid's gaze for a moment before turning back to her dough.
"Want to try kneading it?" she asked.
"I fucking hate cooking," said Ingrid. She sat down in a chair and swung her legs over its arm. "They
tried to get me to cook in therapy. I hate it. You make stuff, you eat it, and boom, half an hour later
you're crapping it back out."
Ingrid was sharp: nasty, but sharp. She had been right to call Margaret's clothing a costume. Margaret
had not realized it until Ingrid pointed it out; maybe it hadn't been true until Ingrid pointed it out.
But what was wrong with costume? What was wrong with making a display of your own brown peasant
good looks?
Still, the next morning she pulled on her striped skirt with clumsy hands, hesitated, and changed it for
jeans.
"Would you like some tea?"
"No."
"Then would you mind moving your easel a few feet back from the stove? I'd like to make some for
myself."
Ingrid grunted and complied. She was painting – the first time Margaret had seen her paint. Her dark
sleeves were rolled up, and there was a smear of yellow on her cheek. Her forearms – Margaret noticed
with appalled fascination – were scarred: not the uneven ladder-rungs of the habitual cutter, the flirter-
with-doom, but two straight simple white lines. She had known what she was doing.
"Have you eaten today, Ingrid?"
"Yes."
A quick affirmative to get Margaret off her back. No way to tell whether it was true. Margaret paused
behind the easel with the teakettle in her hand.
"That's extremely nasty," she said.
It was extremely nasty. Little figures, executed with daunting technical skill, staggered around the canvas
choking on loaves of bread.
"You wait 'til I've finished it," Ingrid said, smiling maliciously.
"Well, obviously, she's sick," said Raisa.
Margaret and Raisa worked in the bulk department of the food co-op on Friday afternoons. Raisa had pale
orange dreadlocks, a pine tree tattooed on her back, and six eyebrow rings; unless a supervisor was in
the room she kicked off her sandals and worked barefoot. Her son and daughter frisked around her,
giggling and shoving their hands into bins of lentils and kidney beans.
"She's a better painter than I ever was," Margaret said. "I can't say I care for her work. But it's good."
Raisa put a twist-tie on a bag of rice flour. "How much longer are you going to be looking after this girl?"
"Technically at least, it's very good."
"Why does that bother you?"
"Because for art to be moving, it has to be in some way true. And what she's saying with her work --"
"All she's saying, honey, is that she's sick." Raisa put a slim strong arm around Margaret's shoulder.
"She's being true to her vision, maybe, but that doesn't mean you have to make it yours."
"I can't write it off that easily." Margaret waited a moment for politeness' sake before shrugging out from
under Raisa's arm. "I can't divide it that way. All really good artists deal in generalities. All really good
artists tap into something huge and contradictory and…and true."
Raisa frowned. "You mean God?"
"I guess I mean the world."
"But the world always comes through a person's perceptions, hon. If that person's sick, her world is
going to be distorted."
"Death is a fact," said Margaret, so firmly she surprised herself. "You eat, you crap, you die: tell me that's
not true."
Raisa looked at her. There was a moment of silence. In the afterecho of what she'd said, Margaret
recognized Ingrid's voice: not just her word choice, but her intonation, her placement of stresses.
"Honestly, Maggie, I think you should try to let it go." Raisa patted her shoulder. "Stock up on positive
energy; don't let her negativity get to you. Excuse me a moment Mags. Chi! Chi, your sister was playing
with that, sweetheart. I know you want it too, but you must learn to say so in a peaceful way. Can you
tell her – gently! -- that you would like it when she's finished? Good; now, August, can you tell Chi very
gently that you aren't finished yet?"
Margaret watched. Raisa was a good mother: under the tattoos and the hippie rhetoric, she had a tough
pragmatic core – a core Margaret secretly feared that she, herself, might lack.
Ingrid's next attempt at suicide – her third -- was a success.
She had gotten hold of a man's shaving razor, explained Mrs. Clare; the doctors were not sure how.
They could have been watching her more closely; there were a great many patients at the moment;
spring was a difficult time of year, and Ingrid had been an outpatient, meaning she was not supposed to
need careful watching. Twenty-twenty hindsight and so forth. Mrs. Clare's manner softened. Had
Margaret been close to her?
It was a gentle question; and although the gentleness was professional, Margaret sensed it was also
genuine. She mumbled that she hadn't known Ingrid long, and left as soon as it was polite, passing out
of the climate-controlled reception room and heading down the sidewalk in a spring wind, under a wild,
surging froth of blossoms.
Afterwards she went for a long walk beside the river. She wanted to sort it all out; to get the whole
unpleasant business cleanly untangled, and then put it in a sort of storage compartment and close the lid.
She had not liked Ingrid; she did not like her any better dead than alive. It was hard to admit it. It felt
blasphemous. It was thinking ill of the dead – and yet Ingrid would have appreciated the ruthless truth.
To go on hating her, Margaret realized, was to pay her a tribute. To hate the dead Ingrid seemed,
somehow, to make her stronger.
She shivered, and turned west toward the point where the river's flow widened and relaxed. What would
the funeral be like? She supposed that depended on Ingrid's family. Swedish, probably. Religious?
Lutheran, perhaps?
Did they love her?
For absolutely selfish reasons, Margaret hoped they did; it was awful, like the scene in a horror movie that
forces you to shut your eyes, to picture an utterly loveless funeral. It was unbearable, like Ingrid's
painting. And yet it was quite possible.
A gust of wind shook flowers from the trees. Margaret picked one up; it was disappointingly unpoetic;
asymmetrical and bizarre, shaped like the head of a lizard. More of them were falling; a few clung to her
sweater with petals like tiny soft claws. Somewhere, a church bell rang, far enough away to sound hollow,
and she counted the strokes with mounting alarm: six o'clock; later than she'd thought.
She turned back and began to retrace her steps, walking faster now because the spring wind was brisk as
late autumn, and it was long past the hour she should have started cooking supper.
A.M. Heny's poetry has appeared in a number
of small magazines including Rhino, the Beloit
Poetry Journal and the Broken Bridge Review.
This is her first published story; her second is
forthcoming from the Pennsylvania-based
journal SLAB.
She is working on her first novel.
of small magazines including Rhino, the Beloit
Poetry Journal and the Broken Bridge Review.
This is her first published story; her second is
forthcoming from the Pennsylvania-based
journal SLAB.
She is working on her first novel.