Free Admissions by Jennifer Sowle Page A

down immediately.”
    I hustled into the hall, placed my hands on Estee’s shoulders. “Estee, come on now. The peace sign is a good thing, means peace.”
    “Can’t you quiet her down?” Heidi looked toward the nurses’ station.
    “Peace symbol, my ass. Don’t you see it? The communists love to see this crap spread all over the place—people sticking up their fingers in a vee—don’t you see? Russia loves this shit, proves we’re being taken over by atheists and dark angels.”
    “All right, all right, calm down now.” The attendants took Estee by the arms, shooed Heidi and me back to the dayroom.
    We stood at the door, watching. “Damn it. She’s wigged out again,” Heidi said.
    The attendant stripped off Estee’s clothes, bent her over a chair. After they injected her hip with a tranquilizer, they slipped a state-issue over her head, and sat her down. I was worried. Estee hadn’t been making much sense lately, but at least she was quiet about it. Now she was ranting and raving. Within seconds, Estee’s head began to bob.
    When Autumn and I pick her up for dinner, she’s lying on the floor, legs splayed, out like a light. We each take an arm, lift her, steer her down the hall to the dining room. Autumn guides Estee by the arm, pulls out her chair, and helps her sit down. A small stream of saliva runs down Estee’s chin.
    “What’s wrong, Estee?” Isabel asks.
    Estee shifts in her seat and scratches her arms, then jabs her hands under her thighs, and rocks back and forth. “The itching . . .”
    “Can they give you anything for it?”
    The kitchen workers set trays on the table.
    “Why is the meat always gray?” Heidi pokes her meatloaf.
    “Don’t start. I’m trying to pretend it’s Mom’s,” I say.
    “I make a good meatloaf myself,” Autumn says. “Estee, can I open your milk?”
    Estee rocks on her chair as if she doesn’t hear her. Autumn presses back the sides of the carton top and squeezes until a spout pops out. She hands the carton to Estee.
    “Potatoes are fake.” Heidi slides a tan lump from her fork. “Beans are mushy.”
    “Just eat for God’s sake, Heidi.”
    “Eat your food, Estee.” Autumn hands Estee her fork.
    “I’m itchy. Can’t …”
    “Jeez, Estee. Sit still.” Heidi uses her finger to push the beans onto her spoon. “Can’t she sit still?”
    “No. She’s miserable. And stop talking about her like she’s not here.”
    “Is she?” Heidi asks.
    “Is she what?”
    “Is she here?”
    “Fuck you,” Estee mutters.

Chapter 15
    I huddle in the courtyard with the rest, over six hundred men, women, and children evacuating Building 50 in the worst blizzard of the winter, eighteen inches of new snow, winds howling off the frozen bay.
    Autumn shouts directly into my ear. “Where’s the fire?”
    “It must be here in Building 50,” I holler. Sirens cut the night. The attendants yell directions above the wind. I look around—all these crazy people out in a blizzard. No wonder there is no tap and count as we leave the building. Now attendants mill through the crowd, counting, sticking adhesive tape on each patient’s forehead as they cut us from the group. “Lift your face.” An attendant slaps the tape against my forehead. When the last patient is marked and released into the counted, I hear the attendant screaming at the top of her voice.
    “Nurse Reinbold, I think we have one missing.”
    “Who?”
    “We don’t know yet.”
    “Find out.” She leans close to the attendant, shouts into her ear. “Where is the fire?”
    “It’s definitely in 50. I saw flames over the patients’ library. Men’s wing, I think.”
    I push through the crowd. Patients scream and wave their arms. Attendants wrestle to turn the faces of the patients, identify them. I hear one of the nurses yell, shake Nurse Judy’s arm. “How long can we last out here?” She pulls her cardigan shut over the front of her thin uniform. “Some of the patients are in slippers or