TINY VICES excerpt (Chapter 11, pages 74-48) by Linda Dahl
The neurologist, Dr. Oakman, a fleshy man, looked up sharply from his desk as Corina burst through the door.
“Mrs. Swanson, isn’t it? Please, take a deep breath. Here’s a tissue.”
“Not Swanson! I won’t use his name ever again!”
A nurse sidled in and raised her eyebrows. “Everything all right, Doctor?”
“We’re just a little upset. Shut the door as you leave, would you, Karen? Ms. . . . uh, take a seat. Just breathe in and out, would you, please.”
“I don’t want to breathe,” Corina said, but she sat down.
Dr. Oakman gave her another sharp look, then busied himself with her chart. “And I understand that you’re here because you disagree with your diagnosis?” he asked eventually.
“Because I don’t know what’s wrong with me and nobody else does either.”
He tapped the paperwork, frowning. She was crying, hiccupping sobs. The doctor pressed a buzzer, and the nurse came back in. “Would you get the lady a glass of water?
“Mrs. S—uh.” He paused, frowned. “You’ve had a thorough workup. I’m concerned, though, about these mood swings.”
“He wants to take the house from me,” Corina said between sobs. “How would you feel if you had to leave your home?”
Nurse Karen, who had returned with the water, patted her shoulder as Dr. Oakman leaned forward. “Now, now, Mrs. uh—is it Talley now?” He tapped her file. “You see, what concerns me are the mood swings,” he repeated.
“But Dr. Lorber says—”
He waved a hand. “More hard evidence, that’s what’s needed. Now, I want to run some tests.”
Corina jumped up and her chair fell back, striking Karen in the shin. “No more tests! I can’t!” She began to wail and abruptly sat down on the floor.
“Karen! Are you all right?”
“Just a slight bruise, Doctor.”
“Please get up off the floor, Mrs. Swanson, uh, Talley.”
Corina shook her head. “No, I can’t go on like this!” But she leaped to her feet, throwing out her arms as she did so and, this time, struck the nurse in the face.
Dr. Oakman, furious about having his office hijacked by a hysterical and potentially violent patient—twice now she’d lashed out at his nurse—decided he had a “10-56 A” code on his hands. He dialed the police.
Afterward, when Corina related the fragments of what she remembered of what followed, it seemed far-fetched, fantastic. And Corina was, well, given to flights of fancy now. But Imalia, in the waiting room, had witnessed the two silent cops who appeared, grim-faced and in a hurry, emerging shortly from an office with a flailing, whimpering Corina, and she followed them at a cautious distance to the parking lot, where she watched them put her employer in a police car.
Then she called Kathy. She was too upset to speak in English and hoped Kathy got the gist.
Kathy, who did, called Dr. Lorber, who was in a session but called her back soon after.
“What on earth? The police? What happened? And why did Corina go to him? She already has a neurologist. Now, did this man look at the assessment?”
“I don’t know exactly . . .”
Dr. Lorber sighed heavily. “I’ll call him and find out where she is. And then I’m going to give him a large piece of my mind.”
But Dr. Lorber got Oakman’s voicemail. He didn’t get back to her until that evening, and they ended up hanging up on each other.
Then Dr. Lorber called Kathy to let her know that Corina was in Pima County Psychiatric Hospital on a mandatory twenty-four-hour hold.
The next afternoon, in the middle of teaching a class at the community college, Kathy’s phone buzzed. She recognized Dr. Lorber’s number and stepped into the hall to call her back. Then she called Becca. “The psych hospital is releasing Corina. Can you come with me to get her?”
After ending the class early, Kathy drove to Barnaby’s Frames & More. There was a short delay while Becca organized a replacement; then they headed for the part of Tucson they never went to, populated largely by dollar stores; taco, auto-repair, and check-cashing shops; and the old hospital that loomed over the seedy landscape, equally run-down.
To Kathy, the ugly bland building seemed to be floating in the scorching heat that bleached the air.
“I think I’m still in shock,” she told Becca, cutting the engine in the parking lot.
“Me too, it’s a nightmare,” Becca said with a slow shake of her head.
They went inside, were frisked, and were told to wait in the depressing lobby with the ubiquitous hard plastic chairs such places provide. An hour went by before Corina appeared, shuffling toward them.
“Take me away from here!” she said hoarsely.
In the hot car, Kathy blasted the air conditioning, which feebly attacked the heat. It was another oven-like day in the desert, where you had to wear gloves when you first touched car surfaces. Kathy dug out water bottles from a little cooler. They all drank with abandon.
“Are you okay?” Becca ventured.
“No,” Corina said in a flat tone that indicated she was highly medicated. “Some woman with the worst red dye job made me take this pill that knocked me out, and then another woman woke me up and gave me a chicken sandwich. And orange juice. And another pill. Could I have a latte?”
“What? In a minute. Didn’t you see a doctor?”
“Maybe. Not Dr. Lorber. I want a latte.”
Kathy, mind on fire with outrage, drove out of the shabby parking lot of the psych hospital to look for a coffee spot.
After they got coffee at a drive-through, Kathy parked in some shade. She turned to look at Corina in the back seat.
“Why did you go to some random doctor? Dr. Lorber’s there for you, from what you’ve told me.”
Corina flinched as if she had been hit. “I don’t know!”
“We’re just trying to understand . . . the . . . situation,” Becca said soothingly.
“Because I got a letter from Tom. He’s getting married again. I got so angry.” Corina took a sip. “I really needed something to calm me down. Dr. Lorber said to take another Ativan, but it didn’t help. I just . . . I felt crazy. So Imalia and I googled neurologists and that guy had an opening.”
“Okay,” Kathy said with a sigh. “Well, that’s over. And just ignore the letter. Who cares what that shit does?”
Kathy and Becca exchanged looks. It was so unlike Corina, always meticulous about health care providers, to go to some random doctor. But, that was the old Corina, she reminded herself, feeling a twist of the familiar pain in her chest. Corina! She certainly was not fading away, as Kathy had naively assumed would happen with dementia. No, she was fighting a war in which pieces of her crashed and burned around her—and everybody else.
“We can sue that moth—man,” she said.
“No! I just want peace and quiet!”
“Ah, that,” Kathy said.
“Don’t we all,” Becca said. “Peace and quiet.”
Copyright 2025 Linda Dahl
A Novel
For fans of Anne Tyler and Jojo Moyes, a tartly compassionate and contemporary tale of sibling love and conflict, marital challenges, and what personal fulfillment looks like—or doesn’t—in middle age.
Mid-life: Its obligations and demands, its petty foibles and evasions. And sometimes, its crises. Dreams are deferred, shortcomings rationalized. Like favorite old clothes, petty misdemeanors may feel comfortable, but they’re not a good look.
The Talley siblings are planning a family beach vacation—all four of them together for the first time in years. They suspect it will be their last. And God knows they all need a vacation. But wait, is it really such a good idea? Corina, with her recently diagnosed Alzheimer’s, can hardly manage to get through a day without a debacle. Pete is a just-barely-walking catalog of medical calamities stemming from his longtime addictions. Becca is reeling from her teenage son’s latest misadventure. And then there is Kathy, the eldest. After firmly avoiding going back to Rincón Bay, the beach town just a few hours south of the Arizona–Mexico border that has haunted her since a college spring break trip three decades ago, she’s determined to go back and face her ghosts—though she might be better off facing the fact that her marriage is in serious trouble.
When the Talley siblings and their entourage (two spouses, added on at the last minute, and Corina’s Mexican housekeeper/caregiver) finally land in Rincón Bay, they all encounter unexpected consequences from the wounds inflicted by careless loving—but maybe, too, the seeds of healing and hope.
Women's Fiction [She Writes Press, On Sale: July 22, 2025, Paperback / e-Book , ISBN: 9781647429300 / eISBN: 9781647429317]
LINDA DAHL began writing as a freelancer about two passions, jazz and Latin America, before turning to fiction. She has written ten published books, including the novels Tiny Vices, An Upside-Down Sky, Gringa in a Strange Land, and The Bad Dream Notebook, and the nonfiction works Stormy Weather and Morning Glory. Her books have consistently garnered awards and praise, including a Notable Book of the Year nod from The New York Times Book Review for Morning Glory in 2000 and an IBPA Ben Franklin Awards Finalist in Popular Fiction for The Bad Dream Notebook in 2017. Linda loves reading, swimming, music, and doing volunteer work in her community. She lives in Riverdale, New York.
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