Here I Am. Send Me.-Chapter Twenty-Three

Evelyn and Chris question Josey in the Psychiatric Hospital.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

"Wake up, sleepy head."

Chris jerked awake and immediately winced and placed a hand on his bandaged head. "I guess I fell asleep. Are we there?"

"Are you okay?"

He squinted against the bright sunlight pouring into the front windshield and read the sign on the side of the building in front of the car, Waterview Regional Psychiatric Facility. "Yeah, I'm fine, just a little headache." He opened the door and got to his feet without assistance. That was an improvement.

The visitation entry process was significantly less involved than it had been at the Metro Jail, and, in about ten minutes, Evelyn and Chris sat in cracked orange plastic chairs at a table in the cafeteria. The whispered discussions from two other groups in the room were drowned out by the sounds of meal preparation coming from the kitchen.

The smell of bleach stung Evelyn's nostrils, but the faded and discolored vinyl floor tiles belied that maintenance and upkeep were a high priority. It felt like a metaphor for something, but Evelen couldn't bring the thought to conclusion.

Chris got up and changed seats. When Evelyn gave him a quizzical look, he shrugged. "The light from the windows is bothering me a little."

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"You ask me that a lot."

"You're covered in bandages and have a cast."

"Valid point."

A door opened, and Josey walked in alone. Evelyn rose. "Hi Josey. How are things going?"

Josey's eyes fixed on Chris. "What happened to you?"

He smiled but made no effort to stand. "I had an accident. It's not important."

The brief glare Evelyn gave him showed that she disagreed. She turned back to Josey. "What is important is how you're doing with your therapy."

Josey sat, followed by Evelyn, and the younger woman looked straight down at the floor. "It's going okay. How is Leyla? I heard about the school shooting, but no one will tell me anything."

"I saw her at your church last Wednesday. She seemed fine."

"It's not my church. It's Rachel's church."

Chris spoke up, "Why do you say that?"

"I don't like it there. It makes me feel uncomfortable. Everybody is always gossiping about me behind my back." A brief pause. "I guess they have a lot to talk about now."

Evelyn was surprised by Chris's next statement. "Probably. People tend to do that."

Josey's fists clenched. "But they're church people. They should know better."

"Yes. They should."

Evelyn needed to change the topic to something less stressful. "Are you liking the doctors?"

Josey nodded. "They're okay. I understand now that I'm unwell and that I need to work to get better. They won't let me see Leyla or Cal, yet. He can visit me in three more weeks, but it will be longer for Leyla. They won't let her see me because... You know."

"What do you think about Leyla?"

Her unemotional tone of voice was wildly at variance with her words. "I believe she's evil and her eternal soul is in jeopardy. But the doctor told me that's a delusion and I have to understand that it's not true."

"That's a good start."

"I hope so."

"We're going to try and talk to Leyla again next week."

Chris couldn't help himself. "We are?"

Evelyn didn't even give him a sideways glance and kept her focus on Josey. "Yes, we are. But, right now, we want to ask you about Rachel and Cal and the church."

Josey pulled back into her chair and began fumbling with a strand of hair. She stuck the strand into the corner of her mouth. "Okay. I guess."

Evelyn leaned in. "When did you first meet Cal?"

"High school. We met when I was a freshman, and he was a sophomore. We didn't start dating until my junior year. We've been together ever since. Except..." Her voice trailed off.

"Except?"

"Well. It's stupid. We had a fight right before Spring Break of my senior year and broke up for a few weeks. We were fighting about what we were going to do during the break. It was stupid. But we got back together before I graduated."

"How did you meet?"

"I don't know. It was a big school, and it was full of kids, and we just kept bumping into each other. He was around and I was around."

"No common interests? Clubs? Sports?"

"He was on the wrestling team, but he didn't like it much. He didn't make first string until his senior year and then it was in a weight class heavier than he was because they didn't have anyone that weight. He didn't win much."

"What's his relationship with his mother like?"

"When we first met, he was really close to her. She had been away for a long time, and he had just gotten her back. Then something happened between them around the time I graduated and he couldn't wait to get away from her. He had a job in high school at Wendy's and, when he graduated, he got a job with better pay at the trucking company.

"Right after I graduated, we got married. Then we moved in with my parents. They kept me on my Daddy's health insurance until after Leyla was born. After she came, they couldn't help with the money anymore and we kept having medical bills..."

"What kind of medical bills?" Chris interrupted.

Evelyn reached out and put a hand on Josey's forearm. "You don't have to answer that if you don't want to. That's your private information."

Josey looked back and forth between the two. "I don't know. Just medical bills. I... we... I... had to go to the doctor a lot. I don't think I want to answer that question." Josey's voice began to strain.

Evelyn kept her tone calm and reassuring. "That's okay. You were telling us about Cal's relationship with his mother."

"We moved out of my parents' house when Leyla was a baby and moved into an apartment. It was on Murfreesboro Road near where I-24 and I-40 meet. It wasn't a good neighborhood, but we could afford it with some help from my parents. While we were living in the apartment, Rachel would come over to visit whenever she wanted. She didn't call in advance, she would just show up. Cal kept telling me that he would tell her to stop, but he never did. If he wasn't home, I would pretend I wasn't there and, sometimes, she would start screaming at me through the door."

Chris asked, "Didn't that wake Leyla? What would she do?"

Josey looked at him blankly. "Wake Leyla?"

"Right. If you were pretending to not be home, did Leyla ever start crying and give you away?"

The blank look continued. "No. Leyla was a good baby. She didn't cry." The agitation was returning.

Evelyn reached over and stroked Josey's arm. "Cal never spoke to his mother?"

"Not much. And he was never home. By that time, he was beginning to get longer runs with his work and he would be away overnight a lot. When he was home, he sometimes delivered pizzas to make extra money. He was talking about leaving the trucking company but then they made him full-time, which gave him insurance. It wasn't good insurance, but it was better than nothing.

"Around the time that Leyla started school, Cal was getting the best runs and getting paid better. But then he was gone for days at a time and traveling all over the country and even into Mexico. That was when he told me that we had to move in with Rachel to save money so he could buy his own truck."

"His relationship with his mother had improved?"

Josey nodded. "Yeah. It seemed to get better around the same time he got fulltime at the trucking company."

"And when you moved in with Rachel, that's when you started going to church with her?" Chris asked.

"I kind of had to. At first, they were real nice to me. I already knew Miss Claire... Claire Wilkins. Cal introduced me to her when we first started dating. And her daughter, Courtney, used to talk with me. She didn't like Rachel much and told me all sorts of things about her."

Evelyn pushed. "Like what?"

It was Chris's turn to provide the startled look.

Josey didn't notice and was warming to her topic. "She told me that Rachel left the church for years and didn't have any right to be calling anyone any names since she did a whole lot worse in her time."

Chris sidetracked the conversation. "How was your relationship with Courtney recently?"

"It was okay. She was Leyla's Sunday School teacher and would babysit Leyla sometimes so that I could get a break. We would go over to Courtney's place, and she would teach me things about the Bible so that I would know more about what was going on in church."

"It sounds like she was a pretty good friend."

Josey again began to show signs of anxiety. "I guess so."

"You guess so?"

"She was a lot nicer to my face than she was behind my back. Rachel would tell me the things that Courtney was saying about me." There was a pause. "And Courtney would tell me about things that Leyla did and said."

Evelyn leaned forward. "What things?"

Josey's eyes were firmly fixed on the ground now and her voice came out a low whisper. "She said that Leyla would brag about all the things she could do. About how pretty she was and how smart she was. About how she was going to grow up and do great things, and everybody would know who she was and that she would be famous. And then Courtney told me how Leyla was asking questions about Jesus as if she didn't believe that Jesus was God."

Evelyn was about to speak but Chris was faster. "You said that Courtney was teaching you the Bible. What books was she teaching?"

"Daniel, Revelations, and some other stuff."

"End Times."

"Yeah. It was real interesting."

He smiled. "Yes, it can be. Was she telling you these things about Leyla while going through these verses?"

"It wasn't like school. We would just talk. Sometimes about the Bible and sometimes about Leyla."

"And Courtney led these talks?"

"She was teaching me, so I guess so."

A door opened and a nurse entered and walked up to their table. "I'm sorry, but we can only give you another five minutes. Group therapy is about to start."

Evelyn nodded. "Thank you. We'll finish up."

The nurse left and Evelyn worked on a timeline for Josey's recent life. "So, Josey, you got married and then pregnant right after you graduated. You were eighteen?"

Josey nodded. "Almost. I turned eighteen a few days after I found out I was pregnant."

"And you and Cal lived with your parents for about a year after you graduated?"

"Leyla was about two months old when we moved out, so, yeah."

"How long did you live in the apartment?"

"About six years."

"And you moved in with Rachel a year ago?"

"Uh-huh."

"Then Leyla is seven." Evelyn knew this information but was trying to keep Josey engaged in the timeline to help her memory.

Josey nodded.

"She seems older than that." Chris said. "She's very precocious."

Josey bolted to her feet. "SHE'S NOT!" She shouted, staring daggers at Chris.

Evelyn joined her on her feet. "It's okay, Josey. You know guys. They don't know anything about kids."

Josey remained standing but the sudden tension melted away. "I suppose."

The door opened and the nurse rushed up to the table. "I'm afraid that your time is up."

"Of course." Evelyn nodded. Then back to Josey. "It was nice to see you again, Josey. Listen to your doctors, okay?"

"Okay." Josey mumbled as she was led away.