My Wife Sent Me to a Psych Ward, So I Gave Her a Big Surprise novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Just Sign It
At Larch Hollow, Rosalind and Brooks bring divorce papers and tell Damon she will get him out of there, and under the camera's red lamp he makes them say it all. He agrees to sign Friday at the company closing, and the night nurse tells him she has all thirty-six visits on one drive.
Rosalind put the divorce papers on the visiting-room table and uncapped a pen for me.
"Damon, honey, just sign it," she said. "I'll get you out of here."
Her voice was gentle, the voice she used on waiters and on her own mother.
Three years ago that voice had told two orderlies to hold my arms while she signed my admission papers on our front hall table.
A private psychiatric hospital had been my address ever since.
Brooks Teller stood behind her chair with one hand on its back.
He had been my business partner for fourteen years and my best man at our wedding.
Above the door, the red lamp on the camera was lit.
It was lit on every visiting day, because the hospital filmed family visits for the patient's file.
I always took the chair that faced it.
My packed bag sat under the bed in my room down the hall. It had been packed since last November.
"Read it through," Brooks said. "Take your time, buddy. Nobody's rushing you."
"Who gets the house?" I asked.
"You can't live there, Damon," Rosalind said. "It's mine now. Our lawyer says it's cleaner."
Our lawyer. I let the word go by.
"And the company?"
"Handled," Brooks said. "Harlan Route closes on Friday. Everything's signed under the power of attorney already. They only want your name on this page so nobody argues later."
I turned the pen over in my fingers.
"Tell me again why I'm in here," I said.
Rosalind sighed and glanced at the lamp, then looked at me. "Because you told me you didn't want to be here anymore."
"I told you I wanted to be anywhere but your cousin's wedding. Those were the words."
Her eyes filled right on time.
"You weren't well, honey. Every doctor said so."
"Every doctor you spoke to," I said.
"You scared me."
"You stood in our hallway and watched two men hold my arms while you signed."
"I did what I had to do to keep you alive." She reached across the table and covered my hand.
Brooks looked at the ceiling.
I let her keep my hand.
"Has my mother asked about me?" I said.
Rosalind glanced at Brooks.
It was quick, but I was sitting in the right chair.
"Hazel stopped asking in the first year," she said softly. "She said it was too hard to see you like this. I'm so sorry."
"My mother has never missed a Sunday of anything in her life."
"People change," Brooks said.
He moved his hand from the back of the chair to Rosalind's shoulder.
She turned her cheek into it.
She did it without looking, as if she had done it many times.
Then she saw me watching and straightened up. "Oh, Damon. Don't."
I put the pen down on the signature line without writing anything.
"Friday," I said. "I'll sign it Friday, at the closing, at the head of the table in the office I built. I want the buyers watching."
"Why would you want that?" Brooks said. It came out too fast.
"Because every person who ever shook my hand should see me hand it over."
Rosalind pulled her hand back. "They won't let you out of here for that."
"The doctor put a day pass in writing this morning."
That was true.
Brooks and Rosalind looked at each other.
Rosalind looked at the lamp over the door, and then she smiled at me the way she had smiled at our wedding.
"Friday, then," she said. "I'll send the car."
So I told them yes.
She stood and kissed the top of my head. "I'm going to get you out of here," she said again.
She smelled like the perfume I had bought her for our fourth anniversary.
Brooks held the door for her.
He nodded to me over his shoulder, kind and sorry.
The door shut.
The red lamp stayed on a moment longer, and then it went out.
I sat in the chair and looked at the empty one across from me.
At three o'clock Maura Garvey came in with the pill cart, the way she did every afternoon. She wore blue scrubs and a lanyard, and her dark braid was coming loose.
She read the lamp over the door and nodded at it.
"They always forget to look up," she said.
She set a paper cup on the table and sat on the corner of it, which was against the rules.
"She says she'll get you out of here at every visit," Maura said.
"Thirty-six times," I said. "Twice today."
"Thirty-six visits, Mr. Ostrow," she said. "Every word of them, on one drive in my locker."
She pushed the cup an inch toward me.
"Friday, other people get to hear it too."
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend