Live to Tell

  After a while, I could tell Lucy was watching me. She wouldn’t draw closer, but she was curious. So I stretched it out five more minutes. I splashed water on my face, trickled it in my hair. Then I got up and walked out of the room, leaving the water and sponge behind.

  It was tempting to stop and watch. But she was a child, not an exhibit at the zoo. So I kept marching. One of our recent charges, Jorge, ran up to me. I agreed to play dominoes with him. Then it was craft time with Aimee, a twelve-year-old girl admitted for attempted suicide. She sat with her body collapsed on itself, drawing a black sky with black rain. I suggested she add color, so she dotted red on top of the black. Now the sky was bleeding.

  I hugged her before I headed back down the hall.

  I found Lucy, sitting back in the sunbeam. She had the water bowl beside her, the sponge in her hand.

  Her face was finally clean. She’d wiped off streaks of feces, used the water to smooth back her matted hair. She sat now, with her clean face held up to the sun, and the small curve of her lips almost made my heart break.

  The next time I checked in, she was gone. The empty water bowl and sponge were stacked neatly in the sunbeam. Otherwise, the room was empty. Lucy had flown the coop.

  I didn’t worry at first. We’re a lockdown ward, meaning Lucy was here somewhere. I just had to find her.

  I contacted the milieu counselor in charge of “checks”—accounting for every child’s position every five minutes. Greg had the duty, meaning he’d been roaming the unit for the past hour. He hadn’t seen Lucy—she was the exception to our five-minute check rule; her assigned staff member, namely me, was supposed to write down her location every twenty minutes. Greg passed the word along, and soon we were all on a Lucy hunt.

  Kids joined us. This was hide-and-seek on a grand scale, and the kids who’d been with us for a while knew the drill and were happy to help. Since our unit didn’t have video cameras, we took advantage of the silver globes in the ceiling, searching for Lucy’s reflection. According to the globes, she wasn’t in the main hallway, the dorm rooms, or the family room. Now we got serious.

  We went through cupboards, wardrobes, nightstands, bathrooms, and closets. The kitchen area was locked, but we checked anyway, just in case. The Admin space was locked; we tossed the warren of small rooms as well.

  By three-fifteen, when we still hadn’t found Lucy, the staff, not to mention some of the kids, started to grow agitated.

  Greg took charge of the kids. Time for afternoon snack. The staff peeled off, returning to the business of running the unit. Karen, the nurse manager, pulled me aside.

  “When did you last see her?”

  “Two-fifteen,” I reported.

  “What was she doing?”

  “Sitting in a sunbeam, making shadows with her fingers.”

  Karen arched one brow, intrigued. “When did you notice she was missing?”

  I hesitated. “Two forty-five.”

  Karen looked at me. “That’s thirty minutes, Danielle, not twenty. We agreed someone would check her every twenty minutes.”

  I had no good excuse, so I simply nodded.

  Karen regarded me for a moment. She’d been working most of her adult life with troubled kids and her gaze was penetrating. I could tell she’d finally noted the month and day and made the connection I thought she’d make at least a week ago.

  That’s the life of the sole survivor: You never escaped the anniversary date.

  “Is Lucy too much for you?” Karen asked abruptly.

  “No.”

  “We’ve always been willing to work with you, Danielle,” she stated crisply. “But you have to be willing to work with us. Understand?”

  “Lucy’s not too much,” I said, voice stronger.

  But Karen remained uncertain. She finally sighed, moved along. “Is Lucy still naked?”

  “Last I saw.”

  “Then she couldn’t have gotten far.”

  Karen made the decision to contact the medical center’s security. The full hospital went to lockdown, and I felt about three inches tall. I’d lost my charge. I’d breached protocol in a place where protocol breaches were unacceptable. And while my personal life wasn’t anything to write home about, I took my job seriously. I was a dedicated nurse. Some days, I was even a great nurse.

  Apparently, today wasn’t one of those days. We had an emergency staff meeting, with Karen briskly assigning hospital floors to each of us to search. Security was also making a sweep.

  I had the first and second floors. I headed out, feeling sick in my stomach.

  Where would Lucy go? What would she do?

  Then I had an idea.

  I bolted for the hospital solarium.

  Ten minutes later, I’d found Lucy. She was behind a potted palm, in a full-blaze sun, curled up like a cat and sound asleep with her head on her joined hands. Somewhere during her adventures, she’d found a green surgical scrub top and was now wearing it like a gown. She nearly blended into the floor, her dark hair obscuring her freshly scrubbed face.

  I radioed upstairs that I’d found her.

  Then, because this was the best rest I’d seen her get, I took a seat on the floor and waited.

  Greg eventually came down, sat beside me. “Tough day,” he said, after a moment.

  “She’s okay. That’s what matters.”

  “Bad luck, getting out. Must have snuck through the doors when an outsider was coming or going.”

  He said it casually, but we both knew there would be an investigation. It was extremely bad luck Lucy made it through two sets of locked doors. Such bad luck, it’d never happened in all the years I’d worked here, and I still couldn’t imagine how a naked nine-year-old girl had done it now.

  Heads would roll over this. Maybe mine.

  I felt anxious. I couldn’t lose this job. I loved this job, especially this time of year, when—Karen was right—I wasn’t altogether sane and they kept me anyway.

  Greg touched my cheek. For a change, I didn’t flinch. Greg and I had been coworkers for years. He was a good-looking guy. Tall, fit, a natural jungle gym for small boys bursting out of their own skin. He dressed like a football coach, and spoke with the best baritone on the unit. Even the worst kids shut up just to catch the timbre of his speech.

  He’d asked me out for the first time two years ago. I’d never said yes. He’d never stopped asking. I didn’t know how one guy could take so much rejection and still come back for more, but maybe that went with the job.

  Now I found myself thinking of Sheriff Wayne again. But I refused to cry, because that would be stupid.

  Lucy finally stirred. She raised her head, blinked her eyes, regarded us owlishly.

  Quickly, before she was awake enough to fight, Greg and I tucked her between us and hustled her to the elevators.

  I was still thinking of too many things. That it was three days away. That it shouldn’t matter anymore. A date on a calendar, a day that rolled by once a year. And I knew Karen had finally figured out my schedule, why I’d been logging so many hours. Because the date did matter, somehow it always mattered, and in another twenty-four hours or so, I’d have to disappear. I wouldn’t be fit for the kids. I wouldn’t be fit for adults.

  And I certainly wouldn’t be fit for a decent guy like Greg, who’d want to hold me and make it all better.

  Once a year, I didn’t want it to be all better.

  Once a year, I liked honing my rage.

  Because I am the lone survivor, and I’m still pissed off about that.

  The elevator took us up to the eighth floor. I waved my ID to enter the lobby. Karen was waiting for us, but not alone. A blonde woman with curly hair and a salt-and-pepper-haired man in a charcoal-colored suit stood beside her. Both were holding out police shields.

  “Danielle,” Karen began.

  And I knew, right at that moment, that it had started again.

  CHAPTER

  TEN

  VICTORIA

  What does it feel l
ike for a father to leave his child? Does he wake up in the morning remembering his son’s first smile? Maybe the way his baby used to fit in the curve of his arm, solemn blue eyes peering up, rosebud lips pursed thoughtfully?

  Does he remember the first time his boy said “Daddy”? Or the way Evan used to run to the door and throw his arms around his father’s legs?

  Does he torture himself with the what-ifs, the might-have-beens? The vision he had of one day coaching his son’s soccer team? The dream of attending their first Patriots game together, or maybe cheering for the Celtics at the Garden? Does he consider the gaping hole in his future where the driving lessons, man-to-man talks, and first shave should’ve been?

  Does he know that in the days and weeks afterward, Evan fell asleep still crying for the father who never came?

  When Michael and I finally brought Evan home from the NICU, we were convinced the worst was behind us. He sat up at three months. Crawled at ten months. The pediatrician was impressed.

  He cried, sometimes for hours at a stretch. Sleep was difficult, naptimes nearly nonexistent. I read books on various sleep techniques while reporting the challenges to the doctor. Babies cried, he assured me. Evan wasn’t exhibiting any signs of colic and was steadily gaining weight, always a concern with a preemie. As far as the medical experts were concerned, Evan was fussy but fabulous. Michael and I took that to heart. This was our son, our parenting experience, fussy but fabulous.

  Michael was hands-on in those days. When he came home from work, he’d take his turn pacing the house with Evan crying against his shoulder. He’d encourage me to take some time for myself. Read a book, indulge in a bubble bath, take a nap. Together we could handle this.

  At fourteen months, Evan made the transition from crawling to running. Suddenly, he slept much better at night, maybe because he raced around like a rocket all day. I went from endlessly soothing a baby to frantically chasing a toddler. Evan didn’t seem to have a sense of his own space. He ran into walls, fell off chairs, and walked in front of moving swings. At the playground, he was a threat to himself and others.

  He didn’t fear strangers. He didn’t believe other kids ever wanted to play alone. He ran into groups, elbowed his way into other children’s sandboxes. He had this hundred-watt smile and these brilliant blue eyes. At fourteen months, it was as if the world already wasn’t big enough for him. He had so much to do, so much to see, and so much to say.

  An older woman once sat beside me on a park bench just to listen to the magic of Evan’s laughter as he rolled in a pile of fall leaves.

  “He is an old soul,” she told me before leaving. “A very old soul. Watch him. Listen to him. He will teach you what you need to know.”

  Around this time Evan stopped wearing clothes. He’d always cried if we dressed him in anything other than cotton. Now he refused even that. I found shirts, socks, pants, diapers strewn down the hallway, and sometimes across swing sets. I put the clothes back on. He took them back off.

  We stayed home more often; naked eighteen-month-olds weren’t always welcome at a public park.

  Evan also started some new and alarming habits. For example, he took to climbing onto the kitchen counter so he could play with the knives. He liked to hold them by the blade, as if he needed to slice open his palms in order to understand how sharp the edges were. The same went with the stove. I gave up cooking unless Michael was home. Evan was obsessed with the burners. The more we told him they were hot, the more he needed to place his fingers across the glowing red coils.

  It was like living with a bull in a china shop. One day he broke all the eggs in the kitchen in order to hear how they would sound (I was on the phone). The next afternoon, he smashed every bottle of perfume I owned against the tile floor, to see how far the glass would shatter (I was in the downstairs lavette). I caught him climbing the china cabinet one afternoon, and wisely padlocked the doors (I’d been in the shower, but realized I couldn’t hear Evan and went bolting through the house in nothing but a towel).

  We saw our first expert, a child development specialist. We received our first diagnosis. Evan suffered from global Sensory Integration Disorder; his brain was properly receiving input from his five senses, but could not prioritize the sensations. Meaning he existed in an overstimulated state—a full cup, the specialist explained to us, where each new sound, scent, touch, smell, and taste was another drip, drip, drip into an overflowing vessel. Some things he could not tolerate at all: the rasp of a zipper, the feel of denim. Other sensations he fixated on, trying to get them to penetrate the clutter of his brain—what is sharp, what is hot, what is pain. He was like a moth, drawn to the flame.

  Evan started to receive occupational therapy. Michael agreed that I needed help, so we hired our first in a string of what would become fourteen part-time nannies.

  I went on walks to clear my head and refresh my body. Then I came home to my crazy, exuberant wild child. He would bowl me over with his hugs. Light up the world with the exuberance of his laughter. We would wrestle, tickle, and play endless games of hide-and-seek.

  Then he would scream over having to brush his teeth. Or fly into a rage over having been served pasta on the wrong-colored plate. He threw one of Michael’s golf balls through our family room window when we asked him to put on shoes. He slapped me across the face when I told him it was time for bed.

  Our first nanny quit, then the second, the third.

  When Evan was happy, he was so happy. But when he was angry, he was so angry, and when he was sad … he was so, so sad.

  We received our second diagnosis: Mood Disorder NOS (Not Otherwise Specified). At four, we put him on clonidine, a drug generally used with ADHD to help moderate impulsive and oppositional behavior. We hoped the clonidine would take off the edge, allowing Evan to find some measure of self-control.

  He improved in the short term. Slept better at night. Less manic during the day. Between the clonidine and a one-to-one aide, it appeared he might survive preschool.

  Time, Michael and I told ourselves. Evan just needed time. Time for the occupational therapy to assist with the hypersensitivity. Time to better develop his own coping skills. We had challenges, but all parents had challenges. Right?

  Evan started kindergarten. He interrupted the teacher. He laughed at inappropriate times. He screamed if told to stop doing an activity he wanted to do, and refused to engage in an activity he didn’t want to do.

  In the first eight weeks, Michael and I were summoned to the school nearly a dozen times. We sat there self-consciously. Well-groomed, professional parents who had no idea why our child was a five-year-old hoodlum. We loved Evan. We set boundaries for him. We fought for him.

  Still, Evan wanted to do what Evan wanted to do and he was willing to employ any means necessary to get his way.

  Third and fourth diagnoses: ADHD and Anxiety Disorder NOS. At the school’s insistence, we put him on the antidepressant Lexapro. Lexapro affects the serotonin levels in the brain. We were told it would calm Evan, help him focus.

  Your son’s brain is a busy, busy place, the specialist told us. Imagine standing in the middle of a parade and trying to remain still while hearing the horns blow in your ear and feeling the marchers sweep by. Evan loves you. Evan wants to do well. But Evan can’t exit from the parade long enough to be Evan.

  We dutifully filled the prescription. It’s the American way, right? Your child is disruptive, misbehaving, nonconforming. Drug him.

  Two weeks later, while quietly sketching a picture of a race car, Evan sat up and drove his pencil through the eardrum of the five-year-old girl sitting beside him.

  That was the end of kindergarten for Evan.

  Later, we learned Evan suffered from a paradoxical reaction to the Lexapro. A paradoxical reaction is when a drug has the opposite effect than intended. For example, a pain reliever causes pain. Or a sedative causes hyperactivity. Lexapro was supposed to calm our son. Instead, it sent him into a new orbit of agitation, and he acted accordingly.
/>
  We found a new doctor for Evan. Best Ph.D. in Boston, we were told. I hired nanny number nine and settled in to home-school Evan.

  Michael started working longer hours. Gotta pay for the specialists, he would say, as if I couldn’t smell the perfume that lingered on his coat, or see how many times he checked his cell phone for text messages.

  I wondered if she was young and beautiful, maybe with frosted blonde hair that didn’t suffer from neglected roots. Maybe her womb had never filled with poison. Maybe she could take her son to the grocery store without him hurling produce at the other shoppers. Maybe she went to restaurants without her child dumping pasta on the floor and making handprints out of red sauce.

  Maybe she slept through the night and read the newspaper each morning and could converse wittily on a variety of adult topics.

  Or maybe she just giggled, and told Michael he was perfect.

  You try as a parent. You love beyond reason. You fight beyond endurance. You hope beyond despair.

  You never think, until the very last moment, that it still might not be enough.

  It’s four in the afternoon on Friday, and the sky is dark with thunderclouds. Given the intense August heat, most people are grateful for the upcoming relief. I don’t care. I left the house five minutes late and now I’m driving too fast, trying to make up for lost time.

  I have only two hours. I get them twice a week. It’s not like I can leave my eight-year-old with the teenager down the street. But Michael pays child support, and I use that money for respite care, so that twice weekly a specially trained person comes to watch Evan. One of those days, I go to the grocery store, pharmacy, bank, doing all the things I can’t do with Evan in tow. That was last night. Tonight, my second night off for the week, I drive to Friendly’s.

  My daughter is waiting for me there.

  Chelsea sits in a back booth; Michael’s across from her. He’s wearing a light summer suit over the top of a striking blue Johnston & Murphy shirt. The suit drapes his muscled frame nicely. Obviously, he’s been keeping up with his weekly boxing habit. You can take the boy out of the neighborhood, but not the neighborhood out of the boy.