[Issue 2026.75]

‘The Visitor’, Sylvie Althoff

Art © 2026 Leyelle M.G.

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I’d never been to a psych hospital before, but the visiting room of the St. Francis Behavioral Health Center was more or less what I’d imagined. A heavy plastic table and two cheap-looking chairs that proved to be bolted to the floor. A sickly yellow fluorescent light that harbored dozens of dead flies. Three walls were uninterrupted slick yellow institutional tile, the kind that was in every class I ever hated, save for two wide windows, the bottom halves of which had been boarded up at some point. The upper half of the fourth wall was thick glass crisscrossed with safety wire, revealing the corridor that had led me to this place. A patina of bleach masked a thousand smells but failed to erase them entirely.

Over the long, long minutes I spent waiting there, I found myself inspecting the smears and streaks across the glass. I tried not to imagine what exhortations of the human spirit had left these traces, what fluids, what sounds.

I wondered if any of those ghostly remnants were left by Marcus.

It’s a mistake, I thought, feeling my heart try to punch a hole through my ribs. It’s not him. It’s just a coincidence.

I closed my eyes and scrambled to remember any of my social worker training, struggled to recall what I told my clients to do to manage their anxiety. Inhaling and exhaling in carefully measured turns only had my head swimming with lack of oxygen.

The wait was made all the longer every time someone appeared in the glass and stole my breath away. One specter after another, snaggletoothed and semi-comatose or lean and snarling, each guided gently or accosted roughly by one of the three aides I’d seen around the place, one bald, one burly, one fat. It took everything I had not to recoil in horror from the fifth resident who walked by, the one in the sickly blue scrubs that were stained with something awful, the one with the knife-blue eyes, the one who mouthed something inaudible as he stared at me even as he was dragged out of sight down the hall.

Someone was screaming something a few rooms away, their voice growing hoarse but no less urgent with each exclamation. I half-stood and looked down the hallway to see if any of the orderlies had heard this bloodcurdling cry. Once I realized by the lack of response that this scream did not constitute an emergency, I sat back down and tried to ignore it, but my freshly painted nails drew pale lines across the plastic tabletop. This was a bad place, an unsafe place full of those who would hurt me or worse given half a chance.

Fucking pull yourself together, Vi, I chastised myself. They’re human beings; they’re not animals.

I felt my cheeks grow hot with shame. How completely my professionalism disappeared when faced with the slightest hint of a threat! Then again, I usually had the luxury of missing the crises that led to places like this. My clientele was mostly composed of depressed Millennials who rarely needed more than a friendly ear and a confirmation that yes, their problems are ultimately a reasonable response to a complete failure of the systems they’ve been taught to rely upon, and no, there isn’t much more they can do about that than Zoloft and stretching.

It’s all right to be unsettled by this place, I protested weakly to myself—it’s horrible. More failed systems. Besides, it’s hardly safe for a trans woman even on the streets of a blue oasis like Seattle, much less here; the gaze of that last resident sang the same song I’d been hearing for years on dark streetcorners and slurred into my ear at bars. If he weren’t confined here, I had no doubt in my mind just what he would like to do to me.

And somehow, they tell me Marcus Weissman—that Marcus Weissman—is here. Locked in this place, with that man. A terrible thought, even if it was impossible. I swallowed.

I almost hadn’t answered the call. The nasal voice on the other end introduced itself as Dr. Fielder, and after confirming my own name and qualifications, it informed me that my name had come up in connection with one of their residents, Marcus Weissman. He had a history of self-harm that had only grown worse after a stint in jail for battery, and had been developing further paranoid and antisocial behaviors since being committed by his parents. Given my professional background, Dr. Fielder thought I might want to come in to speak with him, possibly contribute a consultation to add to his care plan. I tried to make it clear that there was some mistake, but he only answered with something noncommittal and distracted and perfectly doctorly. It wasn’t until after hanging up that I cursed myself for my impulsiveness, wondered how I would explain the mix-up once I arrived.

The whole flight I wrung my hands raw, consumed with guilt over misleading whoever this other Marcus Weissman was. It isn’t really him, I reminded myself, sucking in another breath and looking down at my phone without seeing it. That’s not possible. It can’t be him.

Then I saw him before he saw me, and all doubt was wiped away with a sharp inhalation.

He was being escorted down the hallway by one arm by the same aide who had shown me into the interview room, Burly. He looked shorter than he did in my mind, smaller, though that might be because his shoulders were stooped, his eyes cast downward. He wore a stained gray T-shirt, its neck hole pulled out to an absurd slack ellipse. His hair was short and wild, like it had been bitten or torn rather than cut. But every cowlick, every mole was in exactly the right place.

My skin crawled with the certainty of this impossible thing. Blackness crept into the corners of my vision. I forced myself to breathe, unsure what would become of this dream if I lost consciousness.

The door opened and Marcus stepped through, his dark eyes lifting for the first time. He was used to meeting new professionals and disappointing them, I understood at once. He regarded me with a weary air of unease, searching my face for a long while. It was as though he was looking at me from the bottom of a well. I saw Mom’s brow so lined with concern, Dad’s too-small eyes ringed by circles black and terrifying.

He recognized me. He opened his mouth to speak, but all that came out was a choked gasp as his eyes widened, muscles tensed. If the aide weren’t standing right behind him, he would have backed into the hallway and run for his life or else fallen into a faint.

“I… wait, you…” Marcus stammered. Mouth agape, he looked at the aide, then at the doctor who’d followed him into the room, and finally back at me. “What the fuck is this?”

“Marcus, we talked about this, remember? This is Ms. Violet Butler, a social worker. She came to speak with you.” Dr. Fielder was older than I’d imagined, his face a tight mask of professionalism that was wearing thin at either side of his pale lips.

“But she’s…” Marcus trailed off, eyes darting to me and away just as quickly. He wetted his lips exactly the same way I do when I’m terrified. “This isn’t possible. This isn’t happening.”

“Why don’t you take a seat and have a little conversation with her?” asked the doctor in a kindergarten teacher voice.

Marcus took one more look at me and recoiled, his perilously thin muscles propelling him back into Burly’s massive frame. I was still frozen, unable to do more than hope that my own terror wasn’t plain on my face. “I can’t. She can’t be here. I can’t… I don’t…”

Dr. Fielder tutted quietly and shook his head. “Perhaps this isn’t a good time. I’m sorry you came all the way out here for nothing, Ms. Butler. Steven, would you please help Mr. Weissman back to—”

“No, wait.”

The three men watched as I took my seat and folded my hands in front of me, muscle memory summoning the professional woman I pretended to be six days a week. Whatever was going on, I wasn’t going to let it come to an end so quickly.

I forced a smile and looked at a point on the wall behind him. “Marcus, Dr. Fielder is right. I came a long way to see you, and I think there might be some things you want to talk about with me.” I held an open palm toward the other chair, fighting every impulse I had to flee.

I couldn’t perceive what Dr. Fielder said to Marcus or what Burly growled before sliding back out into the hall. The roaring in my ears was too loud. But then the door closed, and I was alone with Marcus.

For a long moment, neither of us spoke. We couldn’t even seem to look at one another without our eyes racing off into the yellow tiled expanse. I heard him breathing, noticed the distinct smoker’s rasp in his throat, cleared my own throat as if that would do something about it. I realized I was staring at his ashy brown beard, several days’ growth by the look of it. My stomach turned at the barrage of memories of all that I had done to eliminate that beard, to erase everything that was Marcus Weissman from myself.

“Huh!”

I looked up, surprised by the sound. He leaned back and opened his arms wide, letting his shoulders drape backward over the back of his plastic chair. The gesture was surprising to me in how unguardedly masculine it was. “So…” He gestured broadly in my direction. “What the fuck is this?”

“I don’t know any better than you do,” I said, wincing at the sound of my own voice. “All I know is that I got a call from Dr. Fielder, saying that I… that Marcus Weissman had been here for a while and they wanted to call me in for a consult. I don’t know where they got my name.”

He pointed to me, then back to himself. “Not to state the obvious or anything, but you’re me. Aren’t you?”

I shook my head, stopped. There was anger burning in his eyes, and it took a lot of effort not to mirror his emotional state. “I was. I think. I used to be, but I haven’t been Marcus Weissman for… for about eleven years now.”

Something lucid passed in front of his face, and he hunched forward with a cocky smile and a pointed finger. I wondered if that’s what I look like when faced with a problem I intend to solve. “Bullshit,” he said, spraying a dot of brown wet onto the table. “I don’t buy it. I’m me. No such thing as… as whatever this is supposed to be.”

“Ordinarily I’d agree with you. Kind of hard to argue the point under the circumstances, though.”

“I know what’s real and what’s not,” he said, the words sounding like a mantra that frightened him. “Where were you born?”

“Ladue, out in West—”

“Never mind, stupid question, anyone could look that up,” he snapped, waving a hand. “Uh, where did Nana and Papa take you for your fifth birthday?”

“They didn’t, their flight was cancelled,” I answered.

He thought for a moment. “Where’d we bury Pearly?”

I blinked in an attempt retrieve the memory. “Baloo’s litter box. Didn’t sleep for a week, I was terrified Mom would learn we killed that poor hermit crab. Don’t know if she ever found her there. I guess she probably just… scooped her and threw her in the trash.”

Marcus’ gaze flitted to the wire-crossed window, and I saw fear flicker through him for an instant. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table and his head in his hands.

“Seriously, what the fuck is going on here?”

“I told you, I don’t know any better than you do.”

“No, no way. Bullshit.” He slammed his palm against the table, causing me to jump in my seat. “Not possible. I don’t know who the fuck you are, but you’re not me, I know that much.” I kept my gaze on his, seeing the fear in him.

He saw that recognition in me, and with a snarl he kicked his chair, causing another clatter. This time I didn’t budge. “What are you saying, Marcus?” I asked, the name sticking uncomfortably to my tongue. “What do you think I’m—”

“Shut up! I don’t know who you are and I don’t know why,” he growled, “but you’re fucking with me, lady.”

Something hot flashed under the skin on my cheeks, burning away whatever good sense I still had. “Oh, sure, Marcus. I’m pulling an elaborate prank on you. You caught me. The boys down at the office had me learn everything about you, get a bunch of plastic surgery to get one over on you. You should’ve seen your face when…”

I stopped mid-rant, regretting every word I’d let out. Marcus’ head was down again, his leg bouncing against the underside of the table. Under his breath he was muttering, “No fuckin’ way. Keep it together, Marcus. I know what’s real and what’s not. Stay cool, breathe. Wait for it to pass.”

Motion out in the hallway—Burly gesturing to me, pointing to Marcus with concern. Maybe that sound constituted an emergency around here. Breath quivering, I forced a smile and gave him a reassuring thumbs-up, then with a shrug he trudged back to wherever he came from.

Jesus Christ, girl, what are you doing? I asked myself. I’d never lost my cool with a patient or let myself get so cruel, not with anyone but… well, myself.

I swallowed back my shame, ignored the crawling sensation on the back of my neck, and rested a hand gently on Marcus’ forearm.

“Hey,” I said, hoping to keep the shakiness out of my voice. “I don’t know what’s going on, Marcus. Maybe we don’t get to know. But I’m not here to hurt you, okay? Maybe this can be a good thing, a good… I don’t know, visit. Maybe we can learn something.”

After a long while Marcus nodded warily. “Sure. Whatever. Even if I’m imagining this, it’s a side effect of the new pills or whatever. Might as well play along until they come back to get me.”

The new pills? I wanted to ask. What have they been giving you? What’s wrong with you, really? I kept my mouth shut.

He leaned back, blew out a long sigh, then chuckled after taking a longer look at me. “It’s… weird, seeing myself looking like that. Y’know, a girl. Not that I believe you’re me.”

“It took me awhile for it to stop being weird for me, too. Even after I started being able to look myself in the mirror, I didn’t always see myself looking back from in there, but damn did it feel good once I did.” I raised a hand to my cheek at the memory.

“You look better than I thought you would. I would.” That same black cloud crossed his face, then dissipated into a wry smile and a shake of his head. “Whatever. So… Violet, huh?”

“That was easy.” I smiled. “The name I wrote in my notebook. The one I kept under my bed in the house in Creve Coeur.”

“My notebook,” he snapped, all sharp edges again. “My bed. Not yours.”

Social Worker Violet smiled placidly at Marcus. “Well, that brings us something I wanted to talk about anyway. Maybe we should compare our life stories? See where things… went different, you know?”

“You first,” said Marcus, folding his arms and eyeing me with suspicion.

I nodded. “Well, I’m a social worker. I live in Seattle, live in an apartment in Capitol Hill with my cat, Anais. I graduated from NIU with a Bachelor’s in social work, then completed my Master’s online after—”

“Oh, fuck that,” he interrupted. The frustration must have been clear on my face, because Marcus raised his hands in appeasement. “Sorry, just, I mean… that’s the same speech you give to your patients, right?”

“Clients.”

“Point is, that’s the same bullshit I hear from every doctor and counselor who wants to build fucking rapport with me. Politely selected personal details or else bragging about their degrees… I don’t care about any of that. Especially not now.”

I took in a breath and let it out slowly. I guess Social Worker Violet can only get so far through a conversation like this. “Fair. What do you want to know?”

The question immediately put Marcus ill at ease, though I couldn’t imagine how he didn’t expect it. He shrugged helplessly, looking even more frail than when he first walked in. “I don’t know. Just… something real.”

“You want to know about how I realized I’m trans, don’t you?”

“I dunno. Sure.” The look he shot me had years of bitterness buried just under the surface.

You’re already in the boat, dude. Afraid you’re gonna get wet? I choked back the sarcasm that was already on my tongue. “I’ve done a whole lot of thinking about that. Looking back now, I think I might’ve always known I was trans.”

He sniffed, met my gaze with a smile. “Guess we must be pretty different after all. I never once wanted to be a girl.”

“That’s what I used to think, too. Even if I didn’t realize that’s what was up, something was always wrong. With me, with my body, with the world.”

I stopped then, feeling silly for what I was about to say. I hadn’t uttered this to anyone but therapists, not even to girlfriends. “As long as I can remember I used to wish on every star, on every birthday cake, that I could change myself, be a shapeshifter. Not to be a girl, just to wish I was something other than myself. A bird, a tree, another person. Right around when puberty started, I would wish I could lose my body altogether, be a ghost or a being of pure energy or something. There were a lot of times I just… wanted to be dead.”

Before I could stop myself, I heard my voice add, “Didn’t you?”

Distantly, I noticed the sun had moved quite a distance across the sky since I last looked. Through the tears I began to wonder how much longer Dr. Fielder was going to leave us to talk.

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess that sounds pretty familiar,” Marcus murmured. “And you’re feeling better now?”

I smiled. “I didn’t know I could ever feel like this. It’s night and day. I was in the closet to myself for so long… It’s amazing what a difference it makes when you realize you’re worth taking care of. I wish there were some non-corny way to say that.”

“How…” Marcus looked out the window to the hallway. “How did Mom and Dad take it? When you told them?”

“About as well as I expected.” I couldn’t stop the chill from creeping into my voice at this. “They kicked me out. I was nineteen, still living at home and didn’t have anything in the way of savings. It was a rough few years after that.”

He frowned. “What were you doing living at home then? You didn’t go to college?”

“Not for a few years.” My frown mirrored his. “You went to CMSU, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. It’s not like I had anything better going on. It seemed like the smartest move at the time.”

“That’s exactly why I didn’t do it,” I said. “That, plus I realized I had some shit to figure out first. Dropped acid at Brad Posloski’s Halloween party and it cracked my egg.”

“I remember skipping that party.” Marcus leaned forward, eyes widening. “That’s where we split, isn’t it? You went one way and I went the other.”

“That’s it!” I answered, and for an instant we were smiling the same smile at one another, enjoying the rush of satisfaction that comes from solving a puzzle. Then the enormity of the situation hit and we both deflated.

“How are things with Mom and Dad now?” Marcus asked softly. “For you, I mean?”

“A few years after kicking me out they got back in touch with me. They begged me to bring their son back to them, told them I was killing them, was ruining our family.” I blew out a sigh. “I changed my number when they wouldn’t stop calling.”

“Which is why you changed your last name, too.”

“One reason, yeah. Nana’s maiden name. She’s the only one I still talk to.” I shook my head wearily. “How about you?”

Marcus laughed then—a real, sustained chuckle that echoed from the yellow tile. He raised his hands out to either side in a ta-dah! posture. “They’re the ones to thank for my current living situation. You tell me.”

This time the silence that filled the room had a very different color. Burly walked into sight again, prompting a sneer from Marcus before he looked away pointedly. The man nodded at me and tapped his empty wrist. I raised a finger, scarcely able to piece together what I needed to do now. All I knew is that Marcus needed help.

“Marcus.”

He looked to me sharply, loose-skinned fingers digging lines into the table. I lay my hands up on the table, inviting him to take them, then spoke after he didn’t do so.

“I won’t presume to tell you that what works for me is the right thing for you. But if something feels right, even if it sounds hard, I promise, there’s so much happiness that can come from letting your thoughts go there. Even if—

“No.” The word was simple, immediate as a gunshot. “I can’t. Not anymore. It’s too late for me.”

I smiled, remembering coming up with the same excuse. “You’re negotiating, Marcus. That doesn’t mean you’re not trans. It’s just one thing to—”

“Nuh-huh.” He wouldn’t meet my gaze, a childish pout crawling onto his lip. “Not for me, thanks. Must just be you.”

I drew a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “I don’t know what it’s been like for you, but we’ve both been through a lot of struggle. We both had to live with Mom and Dad’s shit for way too long. I got away from them and started to figure myself out, and there’s no reason you can’t—”

“I said no! Fuck’s sake.”

His face grew dark, the lines across his brow turning infinitely deeper. My mind conjured up every sordid detail I’d read in the case file sent to me by Dr. Fielder. The criminal record—assault, DWIs. The previous stays in mental institutions, only occasionally of his own volition. Chronic depression, antisocial behavior, self-harm, paranoia. Never really held down a job, lives with Mom and Dad back in Ladue when he’s not here.

Blinking away tears, I saw that he now appeared twenty years older than me.

“It’s so bad here,” he murmured, looking right through me. “My room is always so cold. They’re always talking about how understaffed they are. Some of the other guys here will just attack you with no warning. Sometimes they keep us locked in our rooms for hours. I can never sleep; I hear people screaming all the time. Dr. Fielder tells me it’s just in my head. He keeps trying different medications on me, antipsychotics, antidepressants. Nothing makes me feel any more like living.

He looked right into my eyes then, and I remembered what it was to look at myself with so much hatred. “And now you show up and tell me that I could’ve just been happy this whole time.”

“When… when can you go home?” I asked after clearing my throat.

A sound came from Marcus, an ugly, derisive sound. “When Mom and Dad say I’m better. And I’m never out of here for long before they tell Dr. Fielder I’m suicidal again. Or they say I’m having paranoid fantasies. Then I’m right back here.”

A manic smile curdled around his hastening speech. “Maybe I’ll just start loving myself or finally start examining my gender shit or… or something. Maybe I’ll tell them I was visited by another me who got her life together. That’ll probably do the trick, right? They’ll let me out of here and then I’ll be happy, huh?”

Breathing out a heavy sigh, I rubbed my eyes with my thumb and middle finger. When I opened my eyes a moment later, I saw Marcus was performing the exact same gesture. I found myself unable to stop looking at him, my eyes racing to one landmark after another on that face.

God, is that what I used to look like? I couldn’t help but think, self-hatred peeking through the pity. But no, I realized at once, there was surprisingly little familiar on Marcus’ face. His forehead was creased from years of scowling, his eyes sunken back into horrible black wells, his skin tight at the corners of his mouth. I could see that he was missing more than a few teeth. Life had been unkind to him, even unkinder than it had been to me.

It occurred to me that I wasn’t even all that sure what I used to look like. By the time I was able to finally start looking at myself in the mirror all those years ago, I was ready to see nothing but faults in the heaviness of my brow, the fullness of my chin, the menacing unibrow, the masculine shape of my eyes. A thousand problems to fixate on or fix with cosmetics or surgery. It was strangely compelling to see all those problems again in their unfixed state, like rediscovering a dry, papery scab on a long-forgotten wound.

“Violet.”

He lashed out right in front of my eyes, catching my hands in his own before I could flinch. His skin was surprisingly cool, his pupils grotesquely large. Someone was out in the hallway, but I couldn’t look away if I tried.

“You took care of yourself. You have to help me, too. Nobody else can help me. You have to tell them,” he said hoarsely. He seemed so tired all of a sudden.

“Tell them what?”

Marcus swallowed his lower lip and choked back a sob. His eyes darted around the room, unseeing, then fell back onto me just as the door opened. “I don’t know. Tell them you’re me. Talk to Mom. Get me out of here. Please.”

I don’t know quite what happened after he said that. I saw Burly and Fat wrench Marcus to his feet by either arm and pull him out of the room, though he didn’t appear to be fighting them. I don’t think I said anything or even moved from my chair. Then I was walking in that terrible hallway with Dr. Fielder.

“Well, Ms. Butler,” Dr. Fielder hummed through his nose. “I appreciate you coming by, even if it doesn’t look as though your conversation with our friend Marcus was very pleasant. You have a safe flight home, and we can confer again by phone once you’ve had a chance to gather your thoughts.”

I muttered something vague in response. I could barely hear it over the words repeating in my ear.

Tell them you’re me. Talk to Mom.

My shoulders lifted at a sudden touch—meant to be reassuring, I understood after a few heartbeats. “Don’t let it get you down,” said Dr. Fielder. “That one would’ve ended up here sooner or later no matter what.”

“Dr. Fielder, I—”

My sudden determination all dried up the moment he interrupted me with another pat on the shoulder. “Tell you what, I’ll wait for you to call me. No rush.”

A wink, the same wink I’ve gotten from the best of every stranger I’ve encountered for the last eleven years, from every doctor and landlord and store manager who didn’t clock me, who saw me, affirmingly, infuriatingly, as nothing more than a woman. Without waiting for an answer, he continued walking down the corridor. I followed him limply.

I lingered briefly at a moldering sepia photo on the wall, taking in the two rows of stern-looking nuns. I hastened to catch up with Dr. Fielder, but my thoughts remained in the past. How many St. Louis women had been committed to this place for talking back to their husbands, for the crime of being difficult? What horrors had been visited on freaks like me? How many freaks like me were still sent here, even now?

How much pushing would it take for me to be bricked up here, too?

They say I’m having paranoid fantasies. Then I’m right back here.

I stopped where our narrow hall met another one, paused to look both ways. The oppressive yellow fluorescent lights cast their heavy pall on the black-and-white floor tile. To the right I couldn’t see another soul outside their room, but the sounds echoing from behind the doors were muted and furiously alive. Looking left I saw a man who looked much like Marcus being carried bodily by two orderlies through a door, ignoring the flailing of his limbs, the protestations screamed at the top of his lungs. Then he was shut away behind the door, leaving only the memory of that scream.

Dr. Fielder stood impatiently, ready to remove this momentary bother from his life. Somewhere nearby I felt knife-blue eyes glaring their inevitable intention.

Get me out of here. Please.

“Thank you, Dr. Fielder,” I said at last. I shook his hand, readjusted my purse on my shoulder, and walked calmly toward the exit.

© 2026 Sylvie Althoff

[Issue 2026.75]

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