Unlikely Bedfellows
Wren nods. “Sorry. I was trying to break it to you gently, I suppose. The truth is - this isn’t Alison’s first time in a psychiatric hospital. We met during the year she went missing. When she was institutionalized.”
“When she was - what?” Emily says, stunned.
“A patient, at the mental hospital where I was interning outside of Chicago.” He looks at their shocked faces and tries to rearrange his face into more somber lines, but he can’t quite stop the edges of his mouth from quirking upward at the pleasure it gives him to be the center of attention.
“She was registered under the name of Vivian Darkbloom,” he continues. “She’d been pulled over for driving erratically, and tried to flee from the police on foot. It’s no wonder, really, since her license wasn’t valid. She pretended, quite convincingly, that she had amnesia and had no idea who she was. They sent her to us, where I think she imagined that she’d have a better chance of eventually escaping than if she’d been sent to jail.”
“But didn’t they run her prints?” Spencer asks, suspiciously. “Or recognize her face? Her case was all over the news!”
“Here in Pennsylvania, perhaps. But not in Illinois. And the Rosewood Police assumed she was a runaway. They didn’t bother to load her information into the national database of missing persons until she didn’t return after six months.”
“The Rosewood PD should be driving around in those tiny clown cars wearing those shiny hats,” Hanna declares.
“Shriner hats,” Spencer corrects her. “But point taken.”
“Unfortunately, Alison wasn’t fully cognizant of how grim the reality of life inside an institution would be. She was prescribed a medication regimen, and when she tried to refuse and resist, the staff had no choice but to restrain her. She started telling us she was a missing teenager from Pennsylvania, that she’d been attacked by an assailant and buried alive by her own mother, that she’d been pulled from the ground by a psychic. She was exhibiting classic signs of delusion. She thought her brother and his friends had been spying on her, recording videos through the windows. That she’d been receiving text messages from a faceless but omniscient enemy. You can imagine how it sounded! She seemed utterly paranoid, as if she were having a complete break with reality.”
“But you believed her?” Aria asks.
“After I got to know her, over the course of several months, I took an interest,” Wren admits. “She could be very - persuasive.”
“What kind of interest?” Emily asks, looking nauseated. “She was fifteen! You were her doctor!”
Wren has the good grace to look a little abashed, shifting his eyes to the floor. “Alison gave the impression of being...quite worldly. She listed her age as 22 on her intake forms.”
“Alright,” Mona says, rolling her eyes. “Let’s all pretend you couldn’t spot a vulnerable teenage girl from a mile away. What happened to convince you that her crazy story wasn’t so crazy?”
“She told me her name,” Wren answers. “Which, in itself, it’s not unusual for people with certain types of disorders to fixate and fully imagine a different identity for themselves that’s based on a real person. But she cajoled me into calling her mother, and the number she gave me really did go through to Jessica DiLaurentis. It was a bad call, she thought I was a crank, and assured me in no uncertain terms that her daughter was dead and I should mind my own business. Before she could hang up on me, I agreed that it sounded like nonsense and apologized for troubling her, but worked in the detail that the young woman in my care claimed to have been buried alive in the backyard. Jessica became quite agitated, of course. So agitated that it was clear I’d struck a nerve.”
“Why didn’t you call the police?” Emily asks.
“Alison begged me not too,” Wren replies. “She was very particular about who she felt she could trust. Again, she seemed quite irrational about it. Then, one day, her mother turned up.”
“Jessica knew?” Aria says, stunned. “She knew that Alison was alive?”
“Remember how she was acting? How she had her room all set up?” Hanna reminds them. “I mean, she gave away the parrot, but otherwise she might as well have been hanging up Welcome Home banners.”
“She did know,” Wren confirms. “But she refused to see Alison face to face, she settled for observing through a mirror of one way glass. She denied that Alison was her daughter.”
“Why?” Spencer muses, puzzled.
“Perhaps to keep her safely hidden,” Wren suggests, “Although I’ve never been entirely sure. But I saw the way she looked at her - the recognition. I lied to Alison, told her I hadn’t been able to reach her mother. She had me try to contact Cece Drake, but of course she had vanished as well. Carla Grunwald was in the hospital battling pneumonia, she wasn’t able to travel. Her grandmother in Georgia was in frail health, we didn’t want to risk the shock it would have caused.”
“Why didn’t she have you call us?” Emily asks. “We could have vouched for her. Our parents could have-”
“She wasn’t sure who her attacker was! Or who had been texting her! She suspected everyone: Spencer, Hanna, Aria’s father who she’d been blackmailing. She did trust you, Emily, but she couldn’t be sure that you wouldn’t let it slip to the others that she was alive.”
“We developed a plan. She slowly cut down on her insistence about the more salacious elements of her story, she pretended the medications and treatments were working. But we couldn’t release her until her identity was confirmed. Finally, she lit upon Noel Kahn, who came riding out to the rescue. He and his elder brother and one of their lawyers came down and signed notarized affidavits that she was Alison DiLaurentis, an old family friend with a history of mental health issues.”
“Once that was settled, the state was only too eager to release her, to get her off their hands. I was able to release her in June, and I was so intrigued by her story, so besotted, really - I quit my residency program and followed her back here. She spent the summer hiding out in the Kahn cabin, making lists and planning a strategy.”
Spencer takes a sharp breath. “She suspected me. She must have suspected Melissa.”
“She did,” Wren nods. “She sent me in as a spy. I was meant to find out if either of you had been behind the threatening texts. Meanwhile, Noel was trying to get close to Aria once she was back, and then Jenna and Mona later on.”
“Just like she sent Shana to Jenna,” Emily says, shaking her head.
“Yes,” Wren agrees. “Although Shana’s initial target was Paige McCullers, it was quickly apparent she wasn’t a player.” He notes the way Spencer’s eyes are flashing angrily, and rests a hand on her knee, familiarly. “I’m sorry, Spencer. Truly, I am. I shouldn’t have deceived you, you deserved much better treatment. I got caught up in the cloak and dagger of it all! Alison has such an electric theatricality about her, I fancied myself in the role of white knight. A better looking James Bond.”
“You torched my relationship with my sister!” Spencer says, accusingly. “As part of one of Alison’s little games!”
“It was never my intention to hurt you,” Wren insists, moving his hand a bit further up Spencer’s thigh. “And although my motives were questionable, my feelings were genuine.”
Spencer stands up and walks to the counter to pour herself a glass of wine. She leans against the arm of Aria’s chair instead of sitting back down. “Let’s not lose sight of why we’re here,” she says, swirling the liquid in her glass. “We need to get Alison out of Springhill. If Dr. Rollins is dead set against her release, it’s a good bet he already knows about her history.”
“Couldn’t we spin it?” Mona suggests. “If he has her records, they’ll show that she was treated successfully by Dr. Kingston, who is now willing to take her on as a patient again.”
“It won’t be good enough,” Wren says, his eyes still on Spencer. “He’s her psychiatrist and her next of kin. He has almost complete authority over her.”
“What if Alison had given someone else her Power of Attorney?” Spencer asks. “Before she signed herself in.”
“Someone other than Dr. Rollins?” Wren asks, pondering the question. “Depending on what type, it could make a difference. If it was durable, if it covered health care decisions, it would go into effect from the moment she became incapacitated - the moment she agreed to be committed.”
Mona raises her hand excitedly. “Are you thinking forgery? Because I am so totally your girl!”
“Thanks for the offer,” Spencer replies, quirking her eyebrows in Hanna’s direction. “But Ali had a document signed and notarized. She gave it to Emily.”
“Wait - what?” Emily says. “You’re just telling me this now?”
“There’s been a lot going on!” Spencer replies.
“Oh my god!” Aria exclaims, clapping a hand over her mouth, her eyes wide. “You’re right! It’s been so crazy I totally forgot!”
“Forgot what?” Spencer asks.
“I never filed the paperwork for them! It’s not official! Alison and Dr. Rollins - they’re not legally married!”