A Good and Happy Child (15 page)

A voice interrupted us:

“George Davies? Your mother’s here.”

My mother waited in my room, in her boots and blouse and long necklace, with touches of blush and eyeshadow I knew meant she had come from work. For one second I saw her before she saw me; and for an a g o o d a n d h a p p y c h i l d

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instant, I caught a glimpse of her face, the one she wished to hide from me. She was pale. She fidgeted with indecision, agitation; lines had been deeply etched around her rigid mouth.

Then I took one step into the room. A maternal smile and an embrace jangling with jewelry swept aside the conflicted creature of a moment before. Wisps of rosy perfume overcame the hospital smell. She stood back and looked me over. She saw my hospital pajamas, bad posture, greasy hair, skewed granny spectacles, and my imploring face.

“Sweetie,” she said, eyes full of pity, and she held me again, tighter. We sat down on the bed.

“I’m sorry to leave you here all day,” she said. “They told me they needed to examine you.”

“That’s—that’s okay.”

“It’s not okay. I feel terrible leaving you here. How was the doctor, Doctor—”

“Gilloon.”

She smiled. I tried to smile back.

“Funny name for . . .”

“I know,” I said. “He’s okay.”

“Just okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Mm,” she grunted, unhappily.

We talked this way a few moments, speaking softly, trading news. My speech slurred and slipped. I told her about learning spades. But I did not tell her about the girl, or the quiet room. I felt a strange need to protect her. Or maybe it was something simpler: shame, at having such children as my new peers.

“What did you tell them about Daddy?” I asked, at length. She drew back. “What do you mean?”

“You told them Daddy was crazy.”

“I said no such thing!” Mom was aghast.

I recounted the doctor’s questioning.

She sat erect, her neck wavering—a bad sign, I knew, with my mother. “I was afraid of that. The moment I said it, he latched on to it.
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Oh, George.” She looked into my eyes then, and a bolt of terror pierced me. My mother—my parent, my protector—was afraid.

“What did you tell them?” I asked.

“About spells your father used to have,” she said.

“He saw things?”

“It was no big deal,” she said. “Nothing . . .
debilitating.
” She shook her head. I watched her. “I can’t believe it. Well,” she sighed deeply.

“It’s too late now.”

She squeezed my hand.

“Mommy?” I said.

“Yes, sweetie?”

“I don’t want to stay here.”

I volunteered to walk her to the corridor. She balked, then conceded. I wondered why until we reached the waiting area and saw that the cavalry had been called—I must have truly been in trouble. Richard Manning leaned on the doorframe, his hair more disheveled and manelike than ever, his eyes dark and mopey over his mustache. He waved. Kurt sat on one of the benches. He stood, grinning, and extended his hand. That lone gesture of respect, normalcy, camaraderie, nearly brought me to tears.

“We going to bust you out of this place?” he said.

“Tomorrow, maybe,” Mom said. She was embarrassed. Mom and Kurt were sheepish; they stood formally before me, shifting between one foot and the other, staring straight ahead, but never at each other, the pause growing deeper. Even at eleven, I could read these signals. They sent off a chain of reasoning in my head. I felt the mental circuits fusing.

Mom never really mentioned the translation she was doing for Kurt.

Kurt accompanied Mom on an important family visit. And above all:

Kurt was kind to me.

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This rolled and pounded around my head, the resonances flowing. The simple conclusion arrived at last. Kurt, not Tom Harris, was my mother’s boyfriend. And judging from the way they instinctively touched each other—grabbing a finger, placing a hand on a back or elbow, then self-consciously pulling apart; two magnets alternately pushing away and snapping together—I saw that this was not the lechery I’d imagined at the Halloween party. This was vulnerable, tentative, teenage stuff. Even here, in a hospital waiting room, I saw that my mother was in love. I had been all wrong. I knew what I had to do.

“Mom,” I said.

“Yes, sweetie?”

“When we leave,” I said, “I’d like to see Tom Harris.”

“They’re ready for you,” said a TA.

Dr. Gilloon sat on the swiveling desk chair in his examining room—the same I’d entered so groggily that morning. Dr. Gilloon appeared weary. He offered me the metal office chair. My mother and Richard stood.

“Pencil . . . radio . . . butterfly,” I pronounced. They all stared.

“Oh,” said the doctor after a moment. “Right. We don’t need to keep repeating that.”

I opened my mouth to explain—he didn’t get my joke—but the moment was lost.

“Okay,” said the doctor. “Couple of things. I examined George this morning. I received reports from the nurses’ rounds today. I consulted with Dr. Manning,” he said.
Dr.
Manning? “I spoke to the Preston hospital, and police. About the car accident,” he added quickly, when my mother began to break in. “Also, speaking to Mrs. Davies, I understand there’s a history of mental illness here.”

“Now, about that,” said my mother, bristling. “I never said Paul was mentally ill.”

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The doctor nodded. “It’s hard to call it that, when it’s family.”

“He was a
tenured professor,
” countered my mother indignantly.

“He was high-performing,” acknowledged the doctor.

“They were
religious epiphanies.
”

“Accompanied by visual and auditory hallucinations,” added the doctor. His tone was brusque, condescending.

Richard gently reached across to silence my mother.
Let him finish.
But she wouldn’t.

“Do you classify anybody religious as mentally ill?” she demanded.

“Mrs. Davies, the point is not to judge anyone. Certainly not your late husband,” he said. “But it’s a factor in my diagnosis, okay? Not the deciding factor, if that makes you feel better.”

My mother drew back, silenced not by his reassurance, but by the word
diagnosis.

Dr. Gilloon tapped his pen distractedly on the clipboard. “Listen. These are difficult decisions. You’ve all been through a lot, especially in the last twenty-four hours. We need to work together. We’re here to make the best decision for George.”

The words had the intended effect: Richard nodded; my mother remained silent, her body language more acquiescent. I could not help but feel Dr. Gilloon had given this speech before. The grown-ups mollified, he turned his attention to me.

“George. You’ve had some problems adjusting, which is normal; had some emotional outbursts, which is normal, especially with a death in the family. And there’s the family history,” he said with a nod to my mother. “We’re probably dealing with some organic factors, triggered by trauma, manifesting themselves as persistent command auditory hallucinations. But what really concerns me is the car accident. A person was injured—severely.”

I gulped. What
had
happened to Tom Harris? I felt my palms grow damp.

“Our threshold, George, is whether you’re a harm to yourself or others. That’s the phrase we use: harm to yourself or others.” His tone was bored, a recitation. “That means, Is it safe for me to release a g o o d a n d h a p p y c h i l d

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you? Right now, with these facts, it’s hard for me to say yes to that. My recommendation is for you to be placed in a residential treatment facility.”

“Which one?” cut in Richard.

The doctor’s tone changed—calmer and flatter—when speaking to a fellow professional.

“I put in a call to Forest Glen,” he said.

“Where’s that, exactly?”

“Close to Lynchburg.”

Richard nodded. Richard, in casual clothes—slacks, cardigan—

suddenly seemed a powerless amateur next to Dr. Gilloon with his smock and clipboard and glasses. The doctor spoke to my mother now.

“It’s not as restrictive as an inpatient facility like this one—but George
will
have the care and supervision he needs. It’s a better long-term solution, in my opinion.”

“Long-term?” burst out my mother. “What’s long-term?”

The doctor furrowed his brow. “Until he’s ready, Mrs. Davies. Until he’s no longer dangerous or violent.”

“Are we talking about
keeping
him in Lynchburg?” she said, voice rising.

“It’s a residential facility,” confirmed Dr. Gilloon in his worst condescending voice.

“Jesus Christ,”
exclaimed my mother. “It was just one time.” She held her hands to her head as if she were going mad. “Richard?” she said, appealing to him.

“It’s his call.”

“I’m not sure about this, Doctor,” she said. “I’m not sure about this.”

“Mom?” I said. “I-I’d be there without you?” The conversation between the adults seemed to happen at an accelerated speed: I had watched the three of them like they were a champion Ping-Pong game. Inside, I felt my heart, my guts, crumple into a little ball. I sat there, my feet cold in slippers, under that fluorescent light reflected off the green paint and medical supplies cabinets, knowing I would be lonely from now on.
Even my mother is sending me away.

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“You’ve got some time,” said the doctor loudly, eager to head off more emotion. “We’re waiting for a bed.”

“A bed?” my mother asked.

“Sorry. That’s the jargon. A
space.
They have a waiting list. Could be a month before Forest Glen is even ready for him. Maybe several months.”

“Is it a top place?” she said.

Dr. Gilloon nodded—but without conviction. “It’s good.”

“What,” I managed, “will the kids be like? At the new place.”

“Like the children here. A real mix,” he said, with satisfaction—as if the diversity between feces-smearing suicidals, pyromaniacs, and the plain-old brain-dead was somehow a great democratic virtue. Until Forest Glen was ready, continued the doctor, he would release me into Richard’s care for continued therapy and testing; he would prescribe a low dosage of Thorazine—
25 milligrams can be effec-
tive at George’s age and size
—and would schedule a checkup in two weeks. “To see where we are,” he said with a tight smile. My mother knelt down next to me. She stared into my eyes, held my face in her hands. Whatever she read there—terror, betrayal, druginduced docility—did not reassure her.

“I’m not sure I can do this, Doctor,” she said at last, standing again.

“I’d like to reconsider.”

“Joan,” began Richard.

“No,” she stopped him. Her tone was resolute. She braced herself and faced the doctor. “I’d rather try to take care of him myself. Maybe take some time off work. I realize it’s a challenge for someone who’s not trained, but . . .” She cast a sorrowful look my way. “I don’t think I can just . . . hand him over. I know I can’t.”

My heart swelled again. My mother would take care of me. My mother and Richard.

“Maybe I’m not being clear,” said the doctor. “Mrs. Davies, the residential facility
is
voluntary. But if we deem a child dangerous . . . the hospital has a responsibility to the community.”

“What do you mean?” asked my mother.

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“We’ll commit him,” said Dr. Gilloon. “Involuntarily.”

A silence descended on the four of us. At last the drugs came to my aid. If I had been fighting to stay abreast of the discussion—clinging to a grate with all my strength to hear the words spoken—I now let go, and dropped into the chasm.
Involuntarily committed. Residential facil-
ity.
A future of days staring out of windows. Sleeping alongside strangers. Children pacing, and pacing, and pacing, exhibiting all the tics of the confined. I dropped into the darkness below. A chorus sounded in my head as I fell:
I can’t do it, I won’t do it, I can’t do it.
But behind all these incantations, a final phrase waited; an implacable killer behind a door, a certainty:
They’re going to make me.
February, This Year

The day my wife left me—the day she literally ran away from me—was a pale winter Saturday in New York. A late-rising sun exposed the dog walkers and the smokers making their tentative entrances to the weekend stage; ponytailed girls with fleeces and iPods strode to the gym. I leaned on the window, watching, willing my mind to drift.

“The blue one. The one with the booties.”

Maggie’s voice drifted into the baby’s bedroom. I was alone with our son. I was supposed to be dressing him. Instead I ignored him, and he ignored me. This was not surprising. He and I were rarely left alone together anymore. In that sense, we had reached equilibrium, a tacit conspiracy. The baby babbled and gripped his tiny pink feet. I glowered from the windowsill. Both of us out of sight, trying to evade Maggie’s Irish temper by avoiding a scene, a problem; staying on opposite sides of the room. Weekends were getting trickier.

“Okay,” I called.

Minutes later Maggie bustled in decked out in blue jeans, turtleneck, down vest, sunglasses tucked into her mass of black hair. The baby lolled on the changing table—just as she had left him—only now he squawked impatiently.

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“I thought I asked you to dress him,” she said to me.

“Yeah,” I agreed, still far away.

“So what are you doing?” she said, exasperated, moving quickly toward the baby. “You can’t leave him on the changing table like that. He could fall! Jesus, George!” Seeing my lack of responsiveness, her voice chilled. “You know what? Never mind.”

She grumbled as she squeezed him into an outfit and collected the bottles and the diapers and the wipes and the toys required for even a five-minute jaunt with a stroller. Sometimes the preparation seemed to last longer than the excursion, and if the baby pooped—
it’s too cold to
change him outside
—it would. I stared at the cabs in the street and laughed grimly to myself.
Booties,
I thought.
If you can’t handle booties,
what good are you?