Keeping It Together

Chapter 2-2

“How do you think you’re doing this week, Cameron?” The doctor looked at her across his big oak desk.

“I feel fine but I’m a little confused; I don’t know why I’m here.” Cam looked back at him. This was a tidy office. Sort of like Maggie’s had been, only smaller. It had framed certificates, licenses, and diplomas hung across the walls. Obviously, this doctor was very important in his field.

He wrote something into her file. “Well, Cameron,” the doctor said, shaking his head. “Dr. Thomason said you seemed a lot better when she visited this weekend. We’re not starting to slip back, are we?”

We? Did he have a memory problem, too? Cam hated when doctors used this ‘we’ stuff.

Cam sat forward, a little straighter. “Maggie was here?” she asked, very surprised. Maggie was here! Maggie knew this was happening to her? Did she forget something that had happened?

“Of course Dr. Thomason was here. She comes to visit every weekend.”

Maggie had visited her every week when she was undercover in that prison so many years ago. It had been her job; she was the one who passed information back and forth to the agency. She was also the one who kept Cam stable and sane throughout the whole undercover ordeal.

Cam sat back and shook her head. Why wasn’t she remembering these things?

“Why am I here?” she asked.

“Because Dr. Thomason thinks it will help you. There’s no one out there who can care for you the way you need; she can’t do it all herself. You’re much too violent.” Dr. Feingold answered.

“Violent?” Cam asked, her eyebrows lifting questioningly. “Who am I violent against?”

“Whoever is around when the tantrums come. Why, you even hit Dr. Thomason once.” He watched as Cam thought that through.

Cam leaned forward, her hand over her mouth. I hit Maggie? I’d never hit Maggie. Why would I hit Maggie? I’ve only hit one person in my entire life that I had a relationship with and that was in prison! Why would I have been violent with Maggie?

“Dr. Thomason chose this place herself.” Dr. Feingold finally told her. His graying hair curled out over the ear pieces of his thick, dark-rimmed glasses.

“I don’t understand, though. Why was I violent? Why am I here in the first place? And why don’t I remember any of this?” Cam insisted.

Dr. Feingold looked at the file in front of him and read through the papers on top of a very thick stack of pages in the file.

“There was more residual damage from your time in South America; from your facial injury. You had more brain damage than anyone realized. You don’t remember things,” he read, “and you’re violent sporadically. No one caught it in time to stop the progression. It’s a form of TBI…Traumatic Brain Injury.” He closed the file and looked at her. “That accident did more than just break your cheekbone. They should have caught it when they did the operation, but they didn’t. There was much more bleeding inside the brain.

“We’re trying different medicines with you. We’re trying things to dissolve the blood clots. There is a lot of research being done nowadays.”

Cam rubbed her left cheek. The cut no longer hurt but she could feel the scar where the operation had repaired her face. “Drugs?” Cam asked, trying to put the facts straight in her mind.

“Some of your friends at the DEA are helping fund the treatment. You used to work for the DEA. Do you remember that much?” the doctor asked hopefully.

Cam thought it through. Her hand over her lips pressed against her mouth as she thought. Yes, she remembered working for the DEA as an undercover operative. But she’d left the agency well over three years ago. Could she tell the doctor that? Did she trust him? No. Trust no one! Wasn’t that the first rule she’d learned? The only people she’d trusted throughout her whole career were Maggie and Pauly.

Now what? No, stay with those original rules. Keep everything to myself.

Finally, Cam just shook her head.

“You’ve slipped quite a bit this week, Cameron,” the doctor finally said as he looked through a few small papers that were on his desk, “and I see that you’re not eating well. You have to start eating everything on your plate. The nutrition will help you. If you’re not going to help yourself, then we’ll have to do other things to help you. I don’t think you’d like that, would you?” The doctor studied her across his desk. “Do you really want to have your food given you through an IV?”

“No,” Cam asserted, much too hastily. “I’m not sure what’s happening here but I don’t think this is right.”

“What isn’t right, Cameron?”

“This whole thing,” said Cam as she gestured around the room. “I shouldn’t be here. Maggie would never send me to some place like this.”

The doctor sat back with a sigh. “No, you shouldn’t be here, but this is the best place for you. No one can give you the kind of care you need outside of here. Unless you start doing the things the nurses ask of you, I can’t sign a release for you, even to visit your home for the weekend. You have to show you’re trying.”

“I have to do everything the nurses tell me to do? That will show you I’m trying?”

“It’s a start. You have to remain calm. You have to start trying to remember things. Answer questions. Ask when you don’t understand.”

“Why can’t I remember any of this?” Cam asked angrily.

“This is the time to remain calm. I know you’re starting to get angry, but you can’t let it happen. I’ll have to get Dr. Thomason to prescribe a stronger ataraxic for you.”

“A what?” Cam asked.

“A tranquilizer; something to calm you.”

Cam sat back. She didn’t want medication. With the drugs she felt in her head it was hard enough thinking right now. She’d never liked taking drugs. Even when she had to use drugs when she was undercover to make it look like she was one of the gang, she always watched her intake so that it wouldn’t affect her performance.

“What am I on?” she asked.

“Dr. Thomason prescribed a combination of a depressant for the daytime and a mild sedative at night.”

“Do I have to take them both?” Cam asked.

“You’ll have to discuss that with Dr. Thomason. She left very strict orders that no one can change your medications without her authorization. You could ask her next week.” Dr. Feingold closed her folder.

“She comes every week?” Cam asked.

“Like clockwork. She’s here every Sunday morning. I don’t know why you don’t remember her being here yesterday. It usually makes you much calmer and happier.”

“I don’t remember a thing about it,” Cam said, her head down.

“Do you want to remember it?” Dr. Feingold asked.

“Of course I want to remember it. This isn’t my idea of a place or a way to spend my retirement.” She looked up at Feingold.

“Where would you rather spend it? With your old friends from the DEA?”

“I didn’t make friends at the DEA. I never met the other operatives.” Should she have said that? Should she have even admitted that she had worked for the government?

Dr. Feingold studied her; his lips pursed.

“Are you getting angry again?” he finally asked.

“Of course I’m getting angry. I don’t believe Maggie would do something like this to me.” Cam’s breathing seemed to catch in her chest. She looked down at the floor beside her.

“Do you want me to call her so you can ask?”

Cam looked up at him in surprise. “Yes!” she exclaimed. “That’d be great.”

“All right,” Dr. Feingold said. He opened the file, checked for a phone number, then picked up the telephone. Carefully referring to the file, he pressed the number. Cam watched carefully to see if he was hitting the right numbers.

Dr. Feingold sat silently as he waited for the phone to be answered. Finally he said, “She must be out, there’s no answer.”

“The answer machine should have picked up or it should have been forwarded to her cell phone!” Cam said. “It always picks up.”

“She might have turned it off. She does that from time to time.” Feingold placed the receiver back on the phone stand.

“No! She never turns it off! It’s always on in case Dan needs her.” Cam couldn’t understand that at all.

“She needs to have some quiet time to herself. She’s been very busy.” Dr. Feingold retorted. “She can’t be available to you all the time.”

That stopped Cam dead in her tracks. Maggie couldn’t be available to her? Maggie was her partner; her lover. They did almost everything together since they both retired.

“That’s not right! I want to know what this is all about!” Cam fumed. “Maggie’s always available. Can we try her cell?”

“No, Cameron. I think we should leave Dr. Thomason alone for a little while.” Feingold looked down at the pages in the file. He started to straighten them.

“I want to talk to Maggie!” It was important that Cam get this straightened out now. Now! Today!

“She’s obviously not available right now,” Feingold said as he closed the file.

“Maggie’s always available!” Cam jumped to her feet.

“Sit down, Cameron.”

“Not until you tell me what’s happening here. Maggie would never be unavailable to me or to her former patients.”

“Sit down, Cameron,” the doctor repeated.

“No,” she told him. “Tell me what’s happening!”

“All right,” the doctor said as he pushed a button on his desk. Within a few seconds, the door opened and Joseph and another man entered the room. It was like they were waiting just outside the door.

“Cameron’s having a bad day today,” the doctor told them. “I think she needs to go back and rest some more.”

Cam whirled around to face the two men. As the second orderly reached out to grasp her arm, she struck out and jammed the heel of her hand into his nose. Blood sprayed across the floor.

Joseph grabbed her from behind and wrapped his arms around her. He held her tightly, her arms pinned to her sides. She pushed back into him but couldn’t knock him off balance. She tried to bend forward quickly to flip him to the floor, but she couldn’t plant her feet firmly enough. He lifted her off the floor so that she had nothing to push against. She tried to kick back into his shins and rammed her head back into his. Joseph was at least six inches taller than she was and much, much stronger. Before she could struggle to get away, she felt a needle enter her arm and the room dimmed to black.