Free Admissions by Jennifer Sowle

…I could …die …but … I …just have to get off Hall 5.”
    “You want to eat?” Isabel asks.
    “I don’t know.”
    “Luanne, you tried to kill yourself, right?”
    “Yeah. Like I said, I can’t really remember.”
    “My mom’s coming this weekend,” Autumn says. “They won’t let me see my kids yet. Mom said they made me some gifts in school.” She sniffs and wipes her nose on her sleeve.
    “I don’t want to see nobody.” Heidi picks at the skin along her hairline. Her eyebrows, drawn on by an attendant, are crooked. “I wrote a letter to my boyfriend, but I don’t have his address.”
    “I didn’t know you had a boyfriend,” Estee says, scratching her arms and legs.
    “Tripper. He’s nineteen. He’s lookin’ for work, so he probably won’t visit me. But he loves me like crazy. I met him in the park one night, and he let me stay with him in his trailer. It was a really nice place, had heat, real cozy.”
    “Were you out on the street?” Beth asks.
    “Yup. I kinda’ made the rounds with my friends, but I slept in the park a few times, had to.”
    “Thought you were living with your dad,” Isabel says.
    “Yeah, I was, but …I just couldn’t stay there anymore.”
    “Why’s that?”
    “My dad was getting weird …I don’t know.”
    “Weird?”
    “He was drunk or high a lot …just weird.”
    “Beth, are your parents coming this weekend?” Isabel asks.
    Beth pulls her turtleneck over her knees, sits like a crow on a wire. “Yes. But I have to talk to them about visiting so often. Dr. Murray thinks their visits upset me.”
    “Yeah?”
    “They ask about my weight …she …ah, the doctor …thinks that’s harmful to my progress. My mom always cries.”
    “Maybe the doc doesn’t know what she’s talkin’ about. Ever think of that?” Heidi says, “I haven’t had one fuckin’ visit from nobody. Neither has Estee.”
    “I’m sorry. You’re right. I’m lucky to have my parents,” Beth says quietly.
    “I don’t really want to see my husband. I don’t know why,” Isabel says. “I guess I’m ashamed of how I treated him.”
    “When you were drinking?” Autumn asks. “Dr. Murray says it’s a disease.”
    “Disease or not, I’ve got a lot of apologizing to do.”
    “To who?”
    “My kids, my husband. Everybody, really. My parents, they don’t understand …Jesus, I almost said my foreman.”
    “Foreman?” Heidi asks.
    “At work. The guy who supervised us. But I don’t owe my foreman an apology. He’s still an asshole, whether I’m drunk or sober. Which is beside the point, I guess. I was the one who screwed up. They fired me. I was a complete fuckup for three years. A big fat drunk who didn’t think about anybody but myself. My oldest boy told me I ruined his life.”
    “But you quit drinking, right?”
    “I’m trying this time. I love my kids.”
    “I wish I had somebody to visit me.” Estee’s mouth sticks together at the corners as she talks. “My grandmother would come, but she lives so far away. She writes me every week.”
    “What about your folks?” Beth asks.
    “My dad left when I was six, my mom is crazy, certifiable.” She arches her back and kinks into a contortion, her clawed fingers slide back and forth across her spine. By this time everyone in our group has earned the privilege of wearing street clothes. Heidi and Autumn’s come from the emporium of donated clothing in the basement of the patients’ library. Estee is back in state-issue after her breakdown a few days ago. I’d been sitting in the dayroom reading my letters again when I heard the racket from the hallway.
    “Who put this up? Who put this up here? Who put this up here?” Estee stomped her feet, pointed up at the bulletin board where a patient had put up a knitted peace sign she made in OT.
    “Settle down,” the attendant said.
    “Heretics! Devil worshippers!” Estee shouted. “That symbol is blasphemy, drawn by the devil himself. Take it down, take it