THE PATIENT IN ROOM 13
THE FAMILIES
Thursday, October 19th – 2:00 PM
The conference room on the second floor of Meridian Psychiatric Hospital had not been used for family meetings in years. It was small, with a long table, uncomfortable chairs, and windows that looked out over the parking lot. The walls were bare, the paint a pale, institutional beige.
Sloane had chosen this room deliberately. It was neutral. Unthreatening. A place where difficult conversations could happen without the weight of history pressing down on the participants.
She arrived early, carrying a stack of files and a pitcher of water. She arranged the chairs in a circle, so that no one would feel cornered. She set out glasses and a box of tissues.
Then she waited.
The first to arrive was Margaret Holloway, Greta’s mother.
She was seventy-two years old, with gray hair and a face that had been weathered by grief. She walked with a cane, her steps slow and careful. Her eyes were red. She had been crying.
“Mrs. Holloway,” Sloane said, standing. “Thank you for coming.”
“Where is my daughter?”
“Greta is in her room on the third floor. She is stable. She is being cared for.”
“I want to see her.”
“You will. But first, we need to talk.”
Margaret sat down heavily in one of the chairs.
“Twenty years,” she said. “Twenty years I thought she was dead. I mourned her. I buried an empty casket. I visited a grave that didn’t have her body in it.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry doesn’t bring back the years. Sorry doesn’t undo the lies.”
“No. It doesn’t. But the truth can. The truth can help you heal.”
“What is the truth, Dr. Vance? Why was my daughter kept here? Why was I told she was dead?”
Sloane sat down across from her.
“The hospital has a history of hiding its mistakes. Patients who were difficult to treat, who didn’t respond to medication, who were deemed ‘incurable’ — they were moved to a special floor. The third floor. And their families were told they had died.”
“Why?”
“Because it was easier. Because the hospital didn’t want to admit that it couldn’t help them. Because the administrators were more concerned with their reputations than with the lives of their patients.”
Margaret’s hands trembled.
“Twenty years,” she whispered.
“I know.”
“Did she suffer? My Greta. Did she suffer?”
Sloane thought about Greta. About the years she had spent in her room, sitting in the corner, staring at the wall. About the pain she had endured. About the memories she had buried.
“Yes,” Sloane said. “She suffered. But she is healing now. She is starting to remember. She is starting to come back.”
“Can I see her?”
“She is not ready to see you yet. She needs time. She needs to heal. But she knows you are coming. She knows you never forgot her.”
Margaret nodded.
She reached for a tissue.
And she wept.
The others arrived over the next hour.
Vincent Cross’s sister, Elaine. She was a retired schoolteacher, sharp and practical, but her voice cracked when she spoke about her brother.
“We looked for him. For years. The police said he probably wandered off. That he was homeless. That he didn’t want to be found.”
“He was here. The whole time.”
“On the third floor?”
“In Room 13.”
Elaine’s face went pale.
“What is Room 13?”
Sloane took a breath.
“It’s a room in the basement. Sealed. Off-limits. Patients were sent there for experimental treatment. The treatment was not successful.”
“What kind of treatment?”
“The kind that involved confronting forgotten memories. The kind that drove patients deeper into their illness instead of helping them heal.”
“And my brother was subjected to this?”
“Yes.”
Elaine stood up.
“I want to see him.”
“Vincent is not ready to see you. He is still recovering. But he is getting better. He is starting to remember.”
“Remember what?”
“His daughter. Lily.”
Elaine sat down heavily.
“She died. Thirty years ago. Vincent never got over it. He blamed himself.”
“He didn’t cause her death. But he carried the guilt. The hospital used that guilt against him.”
“How?”
“They made him relive it. Over and over. In Room 13.”
Elaine covered her face.
Sloane waited.
The voices in her head were quiet.
The last to arrive was Patricia Holloway’s son, Daniel. He was forty-five years old, a construction worker with calloused hands and a gentle face. He had not known his mother was alive. He had been told she died when he was five.
“She left us,” he said. “That’s what my father told me. He said she didn’t love us. He said she ran away.”
“She didn’t run away. She was taken. Committed to this hospital. Kept here against her will.”
“Why?”
“Because she was different. Because she heard voices. Because she saw things that other people couldn’t see.”
“She wasn’t crazy.”
“No. She was sensitive. She was connected to something that most people can’t perceive. The hospital didn’t understand that. They called it mental illness. They locked her away.”
Daniel looked at his hands.
“Can I see her?”
“She is not ready to see you. But she knows you are here. She knows you came.”
“Does she know about my father? About what he told me?”
“She knows. She wants you to know that she never stopped loving you. That she never stopped thinking about you. That she never stopped hoping.”
Daniel wiped his eyes.
“Thank you, Dr. Vance.”
“You’re welcome, Daniel.”
The meeting lasted three hours.
Sloane answered their questions as best she could. She told them about Room 13. About the Watcher. About the tree. About the memories.
Some of them believed her.
Some of them did not.
But all of them listened.
When the last family member had left, Sloane sat alone in the conference room, the files spread across the table, the water pitcher empty, the box of tissues half-gone.
“You told them the truth,” Marian said. “All of it.”
“They deserved to know.”
“Some of them will not accept it. Some of them will need time.”
“Time is all we have.”
Sloane gathered the files.
She walked out of the room.
The corridor was empty.
But she could feel something watching her.
Not the Watcher. Not the tree.
Something else.
She turned.
A woman stood at the end of the hallway. She was tall, thin, with gray hair and sharp features. She wore a white coat and carried a clipboard.
“Dr. Vance,” the woman said. “My name is Dr. Helena Marsh. I’m the interim hospital administrator.”
“I know who you are.”
“May I have a word?”
Sloane walked toward her.
“You’re the one who sealed Room 13. You’re the one who told the families their loved ones were dead.”
Dr. Marsh’s face tightened.
“I did what I had to do to protect this hospital.”
“You did what you had to do to protect yourself.”
“This hospital has helped thousands of patients. It has saved countless lives. The mistakes that were made in the past —”
“The mistakes that were made in the past killed people. They destroyed families. They created a monster.”
“That monster was not created by this hospital. It was already here. In the land. In the graveyard. In the forgotten children.”
“Then why didn’t you try to stop it? Why didn’t you try to help?”
“Because I didn’t know how. Because no one knew how. Because the Watcher was beyond our understanding.”
“It was not beyond your understanding. It was beyond your willingness to understand.”
Dr. Marsh stepped closer.
“You think you can save these people, Dr. Vance? You think you can heal the Watcher? You think you can undo forty years of damage?”
“I can try.”
“Trying is not enough.”
“Trying is all I have.”
Dr. Marsh shook her head.
“You are making a mistake.”
“Maybe. But it’s my mistake to make.”
Sloane walked past her.
She did not look back.