Her pupils contracted for a split second before her expression smoothed over.
"Ida, I'm begging you!" The words ripped from my throat. "Give me back my child!"
Seeing my reddened eyes, she pressed her lips together, seeming about to say something—
Humphrey cut in. "Ida, I think he's having some kind of psychotic episode. I understand he's grieving, but the baby is gone. You know that."
I snapped my head toward Humphrey. My mouth opened, but before a single word could leave it, I heard the coldest sentence I had ever heard in my life.
"Take him to the psychiatric ward for an evaluation. I won't have him making a spectacle out here."
I fought with everything I had, screaming at their retreating backs.
"I'm not crazy! You're the ones who are insane—"
The hospital's assessment came back quickly. I was "diagnosed" with a dissociative disorder.
Ida wasted no time arranging my admission for inpatient treatment and assigned extra personnel to "look after" me.
The doctors subjected me to electroshock therapy, session after session, until they'd nearly tortured me into the very madness they claimed to be treating.
When the treatments were over, I had almost nothing left. No rage, no grief, no will. I lay on the hospital bed like a husk, staring at nothing.
Then a faint signal chimed from the window.
I dragged myself off the bed, walked to the window with slow, steady steps, and looked down.
The instant I moved to jump, the door behind me swung open.
Ida walked in just in time to see me throw myself from the eighteenth floor.
Her pupils shrank to pinpoints. She lunged for the window, her hand clawing at empty air. "Roland! No!"
