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When group therapy ended and our colleague returned, I found Annie.  I turned up the hot water for her shower and brought her a cheap pink hospital-issue razor.  She came equipped with a heavy white Turkish towel and her cosmetics kit, stuffed with miniature free-gift-with-purchase samples of expensive toiletries. 

Delicate white scars road-mapped her flesh; intricate patterns crisscrossed her arms, legs, and stomach, trails of superficial cuts that dead-ended before reaching the generous blood supplies of her arteries and deep veins.  I handed her the disposable razor.

“Not a pretty sight, is it?” she said.

“You look like my grandmother’s lace curtains.”

She giggled.  The bathroom filled with steam, and I couldn’t see her in the mirror.  I moved closer to watch as she stroked the razor easily up her long legs. 

“These razors are the pits.  I never get it all.”

*

When she arrived for lunch, she was meticulously made-up and neatly dressed in designer jeans and a bulky Aran-knit sweater, just a pretty young woman sitting down to lunch on a sunny afternoon.  She wolfed down two helpings of salad with ranch dressing, three portions of Salisbury steak and gravy, mashed potatoes with butter and sour cream, and four Styrofoam cups of ice cream for dessert.

When I walked past her room fifteen minutes later, I could hear her throwing up in her bathroom. 

“Are you okay?” I interrupted the unmistakable gagging noise she made as she purged her lunch.

Yeah,” she called.  “I’ll be out in a minute.” 

Several stuffed animals rested on her pink satin pillowcases.  She had taped photos to the wall above her bed.  One photo in particular caught my eye.  I leaned in to study it.  Annie stood at the center of a group of people jammed together in tree-dappled sunshine.  They posed for the camera, smiled and waved happily to an unseen audience.  Annie looked healthy and plump. 

When Annie emerged from the bathroom, her lips were raw.  She smelled of toothpaste and had changed into a hospital gown.  She slumped down on her bed and clutched a beribboned teddy bear. 

I looked from her image in the photo to Annie in her bed.

“Who are these people?” I asked.  “How old were you here?”  

“Sixteen.  My mother, my brother, my uncle, my cousin and my best friend.  Do I have to act out to get a shot?  I just want to sleep now.”

I searched for clues in the photo.  Nine years.  What the hell had happened to her?

“I’ll bring you something.” 

I injected a mild sedative.  She skipped dinner and slept through the evening. 

Sometimes that’s the best you can do for someone.

When I left the hospital that night through the sliding glass doors of the emergency room, I inhaled deeply.  There was a disconnect between 3 East and the rest of the world.  It’s an occupational hazard.  Inside, I often lost track of time.  I was reminded it was Christmas when cards, gaily-wrapped gifts, and an artificial tree decorated with soft ornaments appeared on 3 East. 

Now it was the end of February, dreary and cold. Plumes of vapor billowed from my nose and mouth.  It was a clear night, deep black with a dazzling array of stars and a sliver of bright white moon. 

I pointed my car home.  Christmas lights still lit up houses and trees in Portland.  I couldn’t decide whether my neighbors were lazy, crazy or both.  Maybe they were depressed by our long gray winters; maybe they were eccentrics who loved Christmas lights.  Whatever their reason, that night I was grateful.

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