Always Watching

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The first time I saw Heather Simeon, she was curled into a ball in the seclusion room at the hospital, a thin blue blanket tight around her, the bandages sharp white lines circling her wrists. Her blond hair obscured most of her face. Even then, she still gave off a sense of refinement, something in the high cheekbones barely visible through the veil of her hair, the beautifully arched brows, the patrician nose, the delicate outline of pale lips. Only her hands were a mess: the cuticles raw and bleeding, the nails jagged. They didn’t look bitten, they looked broken. Like her.

I’d already read her file and talked with the emergency psychiatrist who’d admitted her the night before, then gone over everything with the nurses, most of whom had worked in the Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit for years, and who were also my best sources of information. I might spend fifteen minutes to an hour with each patient during my morning rounds, but the rest of the time I was at my office in the Mental Health building, treating patients who are out in the community. That’s why I like to bring a nurse with me when I first meet a patient, so we’re on the same page with the care plan. Michelle, a cheerful woman with curly blond hair and a wide smile, was with me now.

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