A Grip on Reality Ch. 02

The next morning Gina arrived with another cup of Starbucks for Ben, and he acknowledged her thoughtfulness gratefully. She thought that he seemed glad to see her as well as her gift, and that encouraged her.

Despite the amount of time she had spent with Ben going over the early years of his life, Gina's review of her notes had uncovered many more questions she wanted to explore. As a result, it wasn't until after lunch that they got back to the subject of Elizabeth.

Gina had known that Ben had been previously married, but she hadn't known any details about their relationship or why it had ended. Despite her professional reserve, Ben's story touched her to an extent that surprised her. As a result, she was almost relieved when Ed came to escort Ben to his session with Dr. Adenauer. Once he'd gone she'd blown her nose and wiped her eyes, chastising herself for becoming emotionally involved with one of her patients.

The next morning, after Ben had had a chance to sip his coffee, he asked her an unexpected question. "What do you think of Dr. Adenauer?"

"Well, uh, he's a noted psychiatrist and has done very well for himself," she said, not wanting to reveal her personal feelings about his aloof manner and dictatorial attitude towards the hospital staff. "Why do you ask?"

"It just seems like he was going through the motions with me," Ben complained. "He seemed distracted and kept asking me questions that we'd already been over. Besides, I don't see how Freudian analysis is much use for a case like mine."

"I'm not a doctor, much less a psychiatrist, so I can't speak to Dr. Adenauer's methods," Gina equivocated. "But he's very well respected and I'm sure he knows what he's doing."

Ben nodded and took another sip of his coffee, but it was obvious that he wasn't convinced by her answer. Then he startled her again.

"Before we talk about me anymore, I want to find out something about you. You've been asking all the questions so far, so it only seems fair to give me a turn," he said.

"No, that's not appropriate. You're the patient and I'm the caregiver. You're the person who's in treatment, not me."

He winced visibly at her last remark, and Gina immediately felt guilty. There was an awkward moment of silence, but he recovered before she did. "It's just that I'm not used to all this attention. Besides, I really would like to know a little something about you. After all, you've been virtually my only companion for quite a while now."

She started to refuse him again, but then paused to consider. "Maybe," she thought, "I could learn something from the kind of questions he asks, the sort of things he's interested in. Besides, I don't know what the hell I'm doing in any case, so why not?"

She wound up spending most of the day telling her story to Ben. At first his questions covered the sort of things a new acquaintance might ask, but soon he was probing for her thoughts and motivations even as he asked about dates and facts. "Damn," she thought to herself, "he's better at this than I am!"

He was particularly interested to learn about her relationship with her ex-boyfriend, and he was angered to hear how the man had deserted her when Gina had gotten pregnant. As she described the episode, Gina found long-suppressed emotions rising to the surface. "It wasn't as though I tried to get pregnant!" she exclaimed angrily. "We used birth control; it just happened. But he accused me of trying to trap him into marriage, and then he just disappeared."

"Did you consider abortion or adoption?" Ben wanted to know.

"Absolutely not!" Gina snapped. "Angela's father may have been a rat, but my daughter is the best thing that ever happened in my life. It hasn't been easy trying to raise her on my own, but I wouldn't change anything that happened," she said forcefully.

"I wish my mother had felt that way about me," Ben said wistfully.

Just then there was a noise at the door to the room, and when Gina looked over her shoulder she saw one of the most striking women she had ever seen step into the room.

"Cilla!" Ben called out, and leapt to his feet.

Immediately, a look of consternation came over the woman's face, and Gina realized instantly what was happening. She grabbed Ben's arm and tugged at it. "Sit down, Ben," she said urgently. "You'll startle her."

Comprehension dawned on Ben's face and he reluctantly sat back down. Seeing him acting in a non-threatening way, the woman re-entered the room. "Ben, darling, it's so wonderful to see you," she exclaimed. To Gina it sounded half-hearted, but she realized that people can respond that way to mental illness.

Ben beamed at his wife. "It's so good to see you, babe. I've missed you so much."

Cilla smiled and then glanced over at Gina. "Who is this woman?" she asked.

Gina turned to face her. "I'm Nurse Esposito, Mrs. Mitchell. Dr. Adenauer assigned me to work with your husband on his recovery."

Ben's wife gave her a perfunctory nod, then added, "I see. Well, I don't think we'll need you at this time."

Gina was not to be cowed. "A staff member is required to be with a patient at all times on this floor," she said definitively. "They should have told you that at the desk."

"It's alright," Ben spoke up quickly, "she's my friend. She's been helping me a lot."

"I see," Cilla repeated. Apparently deciding not to make an issue of the situation, she turned back toward Ben. "Darling, I'm so sorry that I haven't been to visit you sooner. I knew you were in good hands, and things have been in such an uproar after your, um, unfortunate experience at the banquet. Anyway, I've been working closely with Perry to keeping everything going at the bank. It was really crazy for awhile there, as you can imagine."

Gina winced at her choice of words, but Cilla went right on. "In any case, Dr. Adenauer has been keeping me posted on your situation and I'm very encouraged. He says you're making marvelous progress."

Gina could see the skepticism in Ben's eyes at the mention of Dr. Adenauer, but she knew better than to say anything.

As they talked, it was clear to Gina that Ben was delighted to see Cilla, but she also detected a hint of disappointment. "I'm really glad to know you and Perry are keeping things going at the bank," he told her. "That's a real comfort. Hopefully I'll be able to get back in harness very soon." He paused and then added, "I do wish you could have visited sooner."

"I know, darling, and I'm so sorry. But here, I have a little gift to make it up to you." With that she lifted up the little brown bag she had brought with her and carried it over to her husband. When Ben opened it he found a cup of Starbucks and two packs of sugar. "I know how much you must have missed your favorite coffee, so I brought you some."

With that she reached up to give him a quick kiss, and before he could react she backed away hastily. "I'm sorry I have to dash now, darling, but it was wonderful to see you, and I'll be back as soon as I can."

With that Cilla turned and ducked out the door, leaving Ben holding the coffee and sugar with a bemused look on his face. Before the moment could grow awkward, Gina quickly spoke up. "Oh, that was so thoughtful of her to bring you your favorite coffee. She really must love you a great deal."

Ben nodded and gave her a little smile, but Gina saw him glance over at the empty Starbucks cup she had brought for him that morning. Still trying to boost his spirits, she added, "Your wife is gorgeous. I can certainly see why you married her."

"Thanks," Ben muttered, and sat down to drink his coffee. It was clear to Gina that he was disappointed by his wife's hasty departure.

At that point the 4:00-to-midnight nurse stuck her head in the door, alerting Gina that it was time for the shift change. Gina patted Ben on the arm and said as cheerfully as she could, "I'll see you in the morning. Enjoy your coffee."

As she drove home that night, Gina was fuming. "What a bitch!" she thought. "If Ben was my husband, I'd have been hammering on the hospital door every day to get in to see him. And then for her to disappear after five minutes!" She was so incensed that she told her mother and Marco, who had dropped by for dinner, all about the situation. "What is that woman's problem, anyway?" she fumed.

Immediately Marco began to tease her about getting so close to her patients. When he began to sing-song about lovers kissing in a tree, Gina could take it no longer. "Will you listen to yourself just once, Marco? You sound like you're back in high school. You don't know the first thing about the situation. This guy has been through a terrifying experience, and his wife treated him like crap. Anybody would be upset to see something like that, so just keep your opinions to yourself!"

Marco knew his sister well enough not to antagonize her further, but he couldn't keep the smirk off his face. Gina rolled her eyes and did her best to ignore him the rest of the evening. "I am not getting too close to my patient," she told herself emphatically after he had left.

Nevertheless, the next morning she found herself leaving early for work. After picking up a cup of Starbucks for Ben from the kiosk in the lobby of the hospital, she hurried to the ward. But before she entered, the night duty nurse stopped her. "You better not go in there," she warned. "He had another episode last night, and it was a real lulu."

"Omigod," Gina cried and rushed to look through the portal. Ben was enswathed in a straightjacket and propped up in the corner of the room. Clamping down on her emotions, she went back to the night nurse. "Tell me what happened," she said in what she hoped was a calm voice.

"Apparently, it came on shortly after the evening shift change," she told Gina. "The nurse on duty heard him cry out and observed that he was sweating profusely. Then he began raving and running about the room. The nurse said it was almost as though he was blind: he kept running into the walls and falling down. He'd blunder into a corner and crouch there like he was in fear, then the next moment he'd be up and groping about with his hands outstretched.

"Anyway, luckily Harold hadn't left yet, and he and Ed managed to subdue the guy and get him into the jacket. We hit him with a high dose of diazepam and that quieted him down, but this morning he's been moaning and weeping again."

Gina was distraught at this development but she tried her best not to show it. She walked back to the portal and looked at Ben carefully. He seemed to be awake but was totally passive. Gina opened the door and walked over to Ben's figure. Kneeling down, she began loosen the straightjacket.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" the other nurse asked anxiously. "He was pretty wild last night."

"I'm sure," Gina said, although in truth she wasn't sure at all what to expect. But she worked with determination until she finally had the heavy material off of him. Then she sat down beside him and put her arm around his shoulders.

He looked over at her with frightened eyes. "Oh, Gina, I don't know what's happening to me," he whispered in a hoarse voice. Then he put his head down in her lap and began to cry like a child.

Most of Gina's patients hadn't known they were ill. On the contrary, most asserted forcefully that they were fine but everyone else was crazy. For the first time Gina was dealing with a patient who seemed to fully comprehend that something was going wrong in his brain, and that realization shook him to the core. Seeing him like this affected Gina more than any other patient she had cared for, and she found herself shedding her own tears to see him this way.

She stayed with him for a long time until another nurse entered the room. When Gina raised her eyebrows in question, the nurse held up a hypodermic. "Clozapine," she said, "Dr. Adenauer's orders."

Gina nodded. Clozapine was an "atypical" anti-psychotic and the drug of choice in such cases. After Ben's second episode, it was obvious that he needed medication. "Ben," she said quietly, "the nurse is going to give you a shot to help you."

He looked up at her a moment, then nodded apathetically. It broke her heart to see that all the spirit had gone out of him.

After he was given the medication, Ben quickly slipped off to sleep. Gina left the room quietly, then paused outside to try to regain her composure. She was deeply distressed that Ben had had a second episode. He'd seemed to be doing so well, acting so normally that she'd dared to hope that what had happened to him at the banquet was some sort of one-off.

Then she remembered Cilla's remark about Dr. Adenauer's assessment of Ben's progress. "I'd like to hear what Adenauer says now," she thought angrily. She stepped over to the computer terminal and quickly called up Ben's records so she could see for herself.

What she found shocked her. Dr. Adenauer had written that "patient appears to be suffering from acute/transient psychotic disorder." Underneath that entry she found a second, dated last night, changing the diagnosis to "persistent delusional disorder with chronic primary hallucinatory psychosis." She had to look that up in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, and when she found it she was deeply distressed. The current research indicated that even the best pharmacological agents available could not eradicate psychotic delusions, only attenuate them.

Adenauer must have been feeding Cilla Mitchell a line of bull to keep her from worrying, Gina decided. Still, it wasn't her responsibility to enlighten the woman. That thought made her check the logs, and she found no evidence that anyone had called Ben's wife with an update. That too wasn't her responsibility, but Gina decided to do so anyway. She felt that Ben needed something to keep his spirits up, and it was clear that he wanted to see more of his wife. Maybe she'd come if she knew what had happened.

Hoping she wasn't going to get in trouble, Gina picked up the phone and dialed the number shown in Ben's emergency contacts. When her call was answered, Gina immediately recognized the woman's contralto voice. "Mrs. Mitchell, this is Nurse Esposito from the hospital. I don't want to alarm you, but last night your husband suffered a second major psychotic episode. I thought you would want to know."

"Oh, how dreadful!" the voice exclaimed. "How is he now?"

"We had to sedate him overnight, Mrs. Mitchell, but he woke up this morning and seemed relatively normal. Dr. Adenauer prescribed some additional medication and he's sleeping now. I'd guess he'll be awake around noon if you'd like to come and see him."

"Unfortunately, I won't be able to make it to the hospital today, but I'll come to see him as soon as my schedule permits," Cilla said smoothly.

Gina tried not to explode at the woman's attitude. "Mrs. Mitchell, I really think it would help your husband's state of mind if he could see you as soon as possible," she said.

Now the woman's tone was icy. "I'll come to see him as soon as my schedule permits. Thank you for calling." And with that she disconnected the call.

Gina stood there fuming. "What kind of wife is she?" she asked angrily.

She was still angry when she got home that evening, and after dinner she called her brother who, for a change, hadn't come over for a meal. "Hey, Marco, I want you to do me a favor. I want you to run a background check on Mrs. Benjamin Mitchell. She goes by the name 'Cilla.'"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, Sis, I can't just run a check on somebody without a good reason," Marco protested.

"Well I've got a good reason," Gina said hotly, and proceeded to describe her two run-ins with her patient's wife.

"She may be a cold-hearted bitch but that still doesn't mean I can run a check on her," Marco said after Gina had finished.

"Listen, I know you checked up on your ex without anyone finding out. Just do the same thing on her and let me know what you find out."

"You're going to get me in trouble one of these days, Gina, but I'll see what I can do."

Gina hadn't heard anything further from her brother by the time she went back to work two days later. She checked the patient log and was unsurprised to find that Ben had had no visitors during that time.

When she went in to see him, she found him calm but listless. "I feel like my brain is filled with molasses," he complained. "All my thoughts seem to be in slow motion."

She nodded reassuringly. "That's a known side-effect of the clozapine," she told him. "It tends to go away pretty quickly once the medication is discontinued."

"When will that be?" he asked hopefully.

Gina realized she had blundered, but she tried to cover her mistake. "That will be up to Dr. Adenauer to decide," she said.

She expected him to protest, but he seemed to lose interest. "It doesn't really matter anyway," he said morosely. "I don't want to be able to think if I'm going to keep freaking out."

Having Ben fall into depression was the last thing Gina wanted now. Desperately she cast about, trying to think of some subject they could discuss that would be neutral but still hold Ben's attention. Suddenly it came to her. "Tell me about banking," she said abruptly. "I know you got into it because your father was a banker, but there must be something more that's kept you there."

He looked at her suspiciously. "What do you care about banking?"

She was committed now. "It's not that I'm so interested in banking, I just want to know why you're so interested."

He shrugged his shoulders in resignation and began to tell her the story about the Christmas Day excursion with his father so long ago. At first he simply recounted the event and the conversation in a neutral tone of voice. But as he got into it Gina could see his passion building. She asked him for clarification and heard a note of enthusiasm.

As he went on, Gina was delighted. Not only was he coming out of his depression but his speech patterns and thought processes seemed to sharpen in the process. At the same time, to her surprise she found herself being caught up in his story. Who knew that such a boring vocation could have so much impact on people's lives?

Their conversation continued on through lunch and into the afternoon. Gina was just about to ask Ben a question when there was a commotion at the door. In walked Cilla Mitchell accompanied by a man in a business suit. Gina had already formed her opinion of Ben's wife and she was not much more impressed by her companion. The man was about Ben's age, but he was overweight and his hair was thinning. "Who is he, and why is Cilla Mitchell with him?" she wondered.

Ben stood up as though to rush over to Cilla but, perhaps remembering Gina's prior caution, held himself back. "Babe, it's so good to see you," he enthused. Then he turned to the man beside her.

"Perry, thanks for coming. How are you?" he said excitedly. "Gina, this is my business partner, Perry Bergen." Eagerly he began to quiz the man about the bank, but Cilla interrupted him.

"That can wait till later, darling," she said. "There's something else that we need to discuss with you. As you can imagine, all sorts of issues have been piling up at CFB that need executive action. We've deferred those as long as we could, hoping you'd be able to resume your duties as CEO. But now with this latest setback, it doesn't look like that's going to happen anytime soon."

Gina wasn't sure where this conversation was going, but one look at Ben's face told her he wasn't happy about it.

Perry picked up the topic. "That's right, Ben, there's a ton of things we've got to get done. We've got filings to make to the Securities and Exchange Commission, contracts to be signed, that offer from BankGroup that we haven't dealt with yet . . ."

"Wait a minute," Ben burst in, "we already agreed that we were going to turn down the BankGroup offer."