Free Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen Page A

but since an entire family can’t go into the hospital, one person is designated as crazy and goes inside. Then, depending on how the rest of the family is feeling, that person is kept inside or snatched out, to prove something about the family’s mental health.
    Most families were proving the same proposition: We aren’t crazy; she is the crazy one. Those families kept paying.
    But some families had to prove that nobody was crazy, and they were the ones who threatened to stop paying.
    Torrey had that sort of a family.
    We all liked Torrey, because she had a noble bearing. The only thing wrong with her was amphetamines. She’d spent two years shooting speed in Mexico, where her family lived. Amphetamines had made her face pale and her voice tired and drawling—or, rather, it was the lack of amphetamines that made her this way.
    Torrey was the only person Lisa respected, probably because they had the needle in common.
    Every few months Torrey’s parents flew from Mexico to Boston to harangue her. She was crazy, she had driven them crazy, she was malingering, they couldn’t afford it, and so forth. After they left Torrey would give a report in her tired drawl.
    “Then Mom said, ‘You made me into an alcoholic,’ and then Dad said, ‘I’m going to see you never get out of this place,’ and then they sort of switched and Mom said, ‘You’re nothing but a junkie,’ and Dad said, ‘I’m not going to pay for you to take it easy in here while we suffer.’ ”
    “Why do you see them?” Georgina asked.
    “Oh,” said Torrey.
    “It’s how they show their love,” said Lisa. Her parents never made contact with her.
    The nurses agreed with Lisa. They told Torrey she was mature for agreeing to see her parents when she knew they were going to confuse her. Confuse was the nurses’ word for abuse .
    Torrey was not confused. “I don’t mind this place,” she said. “It’s a break from Mexico.” In Torrey’s mouth, Mexico sounded like a curse.
    “Mexico,” she’d say, and shake her head.
    In Mexico there was a big house with porches back and front, there were servants, there was sun every day, and there were amphetamines for sale in the drugstore.
    Lisa thought it sounded pretty good.
    “It’s death,” said Torrey. “Being in Mexico means being dead and shooting speed to feel like you’re not quite dead. That’s all.”
    Sometimes Valerie or another nurse tried explaining to Torrey that she could be in Mexico without going to the drugstore and buying amphetamines.
    “You haven’t been there,” Torrey said.
    In August Torrey’s parents called to announce that they were coming up to get her.
    “Taking me home to die,” she said.
    “We won’t let you go,” said Georgina.
    “That’s right,” I said. “Right, Lisa?”
    Lisa wasn’t making any promises. “What can we do about it?”
    “Nothing,” said Torrey.
    That afternoon I asked Valerie, “You wouldn’t let Torrey’s parents take her back to Mexico, would you?”
    “We’re here to protect you,” she said.
    “What does that mean?” I asked Lisa that evening.
    “Doesn’t mean shit,” said Lisa.
    For about a week there was no word from Torrey’s parents. Then they called to say they’d meet her at the Boston airport. They didn’t want to bother with coming out to the hospital to pick her up.
    “You could hop out on the way to the airport,” said Lisa. “Somewhere downtown. Get right onto the subway.” She was an old hand at escape planning.
    “I don’t have any money,” said Torrey.
    We pooled our money. Georgina had twenty-two dollars; Polly had eighteen; Lisa had twelve; I had fifteen ninety-five.
    “You could live for weeks on this,” Lisa told her.
    “One, maybe,” said Torrey. But she looked less depressed. She took the money and put it in her bra. It made quite a lump. “Thanks,” she said.
    “You’ve got to have a plan,” Lisa said. “Are you going to stay here or leave town? I think you ought to leave