Hope and Other Luxuries (19 page)

That fresh July morning after Valerie's overdose, she came to stand with me, very close. She looked me in the eye, as if the two of us were the only people there.

“Don't be afraid to get help,” she said. “I had to get help myself for a while.”

When I think back on that precious gift of kindness, it still brings tears to my eyes.

So, no, I didn't see that look in the eyes of our friends and colleagues—that harsh, judging look. I didn't hear that cruel whispered voice. But that didn't mean I had escaped it. I couldn't escape it.

That voice came from me.

A cutter? Do you know what kind of pain it takes to become a cutter? What kind of mother would put her child through so much pain?

An overdose? Has anyone helped that girl? Does her family even notice she's there? How could her family let her live with such desperation?

And now, as I drove away from Dr. Petras's stern presence, I heard that voice again. It was my own voice, from four or five years ago.

It was the voice of that extraordinary mother.

Two children in the hospital? What sort of home is she running? Thank God that's never going to happen to me! My girls know that they're loved
.

The me of four years ago had daughters who were at home on two continents. They laughed and sang and prattled all day long in fluent English and fluent German. They led prayers. They helped others. They didn't have a single cavity. They were beautiful. They read Shakespeare for
fun
.

Good girls have good mothers. Extraordinary girls have extraordinary mothers. But deeply troubled girls? Oh, the old me knew all about them.

Too much violence on the television
. (Sad head shake.)
Too much sugar
. (Wise nod.)
Too much pressure to leave childhood behind. Not enough laughter. Not enough fun
.

The old me had read the parenting books. The old me had an answer for everything. Dropping out of college?

Not enough involvement in the early years. Not enough help with goals
.

A runaway?

Too strict. Too judgmental. Teenagers need respect. You can't just lecture them and sock them with punishments. You have to listen. You have to be ready to let them do the teaching
.

And anorexia nervosa? The old me had the answer for that, too.

Unrealistic, hyperperfect Barbie dolls. Photoshopped models in magazines. Overly sexualized clothing and gender-stereotyping toys. I wonder if that poor girl was wearing nail polish in preschool. I wonder if she had a cell phone in grade school
.

Oh, yes, the old me had
all
the answers.

But during the last few years, what had happened to these brilliant, beautiful girls? What had happened to their laughter and creativity?

What had happened to their mother—that extraordinary mother?

She let them down, that's what she did. She must have been too strict
.

But I wasn't! I didn't dictate. I loved to hear their ideas. They read to me more than I read to them. “Hey, Mom, guess
what
!” How many times did I hear that? I learned so much from my girls . . .

Two daughters in the hospital—she must have never let them breathe! I'll bet she ran their lives and gave them no room to grow. I'll bet she had no life of her own, so she lived through her children. That's what she did—she dominated those poor girls
.

No, that's not right! I had my own goals, my happy marriage . . . I had my imagination, my book career . . .

But I couldn't shut it off. I heard that stern, unrelenting voice echo in my mind all the way home, and I found no comfort against the dull shame that ached inside. But did the shame I felt come from knowing what I was now? Or from knowing what I used to be?

Well, that poor mother! But that's what happens when parents are selfish and uninspired. That's what happens when they just
react
to things and don't take time to
think.
No, thank God! This isn't
my
problem. It has
nothing
to do with me
.

It hurt me to hear what kind of person I'd been back when I was an extraordinary mother.

T
he following morning, I drove back to the hospital and met the pediatrician in charge of Elena's care. He was a young, well-educated doctor straight from the States, and unlike Dr. Petras, he seemed neither stern nor disapproving.

“I'm trying to understand this anorexia diagnosis,” I told him. “My husband and I spent a couple of hours last night looking up data about it, and the official diagnostic criteria clearly states that the anorexic must be at or below eighty-five percent of normal weight. But Elena's always been above that level, even last school year when we were under so much stress. I know because the school counselor and I kept checking her weight.”

The pediatrician frowned. “I know,” he said. “I don't think your daughter has anorexia nervosa at all. If it had been up to me, she wouldn't be in the hospital, but I'm not the doctor who admitted her.”

This made me feel simultaneously more hopeful and more worried.

“If she's not anorexic, then what do you think caused her weight loss?”

“I'm ordering blood work,” he said. “It'll help us rule out a whole host of things.”

After the appointment, I stayed behind to visit with Elena. The pediatric ward was almost empty, and she had already made friends with the nurses and techs. She greeted each one by name as they dropped in to check on her and, one by one, she introduced them to me. Then, after they left, she filled me in on their gossip. It took twenty minutes of lively chatter to summarize all the interesting things she had learned.

Reassured by the sparkle in her eyes, I relaxed. Elena wasn't taking this so hard. Yes, as a child, she had resisted bullies to Quixotic lengths, but she was older and more mature now. She wasn't that same idealistic crusader. She could be practical, too.

But then I lifted the lid off the lunch tray by her bed and discovered that she hadn't even touched it.

“Hey! When are you going to get to this?” I asked.

“Never mind that,” Elena said. “It's a mistake. That's the standard tray. Dr. Petras says I'm supposed to get a special diet, so I'm waiting till it gets here.”

“But Elena, if you don't eat,” I pointed out, “you're not going to put that weight on.”

She curled her lip. “Well, I'm certainly not eating two lunches!”

Worried that Elena was missing her meal, I went out to check with the nurses sitting at the station. No, they hadn't heard about a special tray, but they promised to call and check on it for me.

I stayed there for another hour. No special tray showed up.

“I think you ought to go ahead and eat this one,” I said. “It looks as if the special diet might not start till tonight.”

“Nah, I'm not hungry right now anyway,” Elena told me. “I've been snacking on pudding. You should grab one, too; they're free. They're in the fridge next to the nurses' station.”

I was starting to get hungry. A pudding sounded good. “But I shouldn't be eating the hospital's food,” I pointed out.

“Mom!” Elena said. “You wouldn't even be here if the doctor they hired hadn't been a maniac. Eat a pudding, for God's sake!”

Okay, she had a point. And besides, maybe she would split it with me.

I went out to the refrigerator by the nurses' station. The whole thing was packed with soft drinks and pudding cups. It did look as if they could spare one. I chose a vanilla and closed the fridge door.

“For Elena,” I explained a little sheepishly to the nurse sitting nearby. “She's been loading up on the puddings, I guess.”

“Not that I've seen,” the nurse said. “Why, are we running low? What's missing?”

I opened the door again.

The fridge was full. No puddings were missing except for the one I was holding in my hand. And those prickles of worry started up again.

When exactly had Elena been snacking on pudding?

The next day, when I came to visit Elena, she was too tired or too bored to tell me stories. But that was okay. She had found something else for us to do. The pediatric nurses had brought her a VHS player and a stack of Disney tapes.

“Oh, hey, Mom, watch this video with me,” she said when she saw me. “It's a
Beauty and the Beast
Christmas special. I think you'll like it.”

“You know I don't like the Beast, not once he turns into that wimpy-looking blond guy,” I said. “If I were Beauty, I'd want my money back.”

By this time, I'd written four books with monsters as main characters. When I watched Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies and his hideous orcs came into the frame, I would feel a burst of nostalgia and affection.
Oh, how nice!
I would think to myself.
The ugly dears look so much like my goblins!

“I know you like the Beast better, and that's why you'll like this,” Elena said. “It's from when he's still a Beast.” So I settled down to watch the Christmas special with her. It turned out to be better than I expected.

But as the minutes passed, I sneaked glances at Elena. She wasn't looking so good. Her face was pale, and purple smudges had formed under her eyes.

“Are you feeling okay?” I asked.

“Uh-huh,” Elena said. “I just stayed up too late. It's hard to sleep in this place. Do you know how many horror movies start in a hospital at night?”

“That's why I don't watch them,” I said. “It's crazy that you do.”

“Yeah, well, too late now.”

The nurse came in with Elena's lunchtime tray, but Elena pushed it aside without a glance.

“Isn't that your special diet?” I prodded. “Do you want me to unwrap it for you?”

“Once it cools,” Elena said without taking her eyes off the screen. “You know I don't like food when it's too hot.”

“Hospital food is a lot of things,” I observed. “But I have never known it to be too hot.”

“Shh!” Elena said. “This is a good part.” And we went back to watching the video. But I don't think either one of us was paying attention.

It had happened—I could see that. It had happened, and I didn't know what to do. Elena was on a hunger strike. She had gone to the mattresses. She was locked in a war of wits and nerve with bullying Dr. Petras, and I couldn't figure out how to convince her to stop.

I had never once seen Elena back down from a fight—no matter what the cost.

“Come on!” I pleaded after a few minutes. “If you don't eat, you're never going to get to come home.
Please?
The house is so quiet now. It gives me the creeps!”

Elena shrugged. She didn't try to play dumb. She knew exactly what I was talking about.

“So come see me here,” she said firmly. “And bring nail polish next time—fun colors.”

I didn't answer. I was trying to think of the right thing to say, the perfect argument. If I was so good with words, why couldn't I ever seem to find the right words to persuade this strong-willed young woman to change her mind?

The
Beauty and the Beast
Christmas special ended. Mentally, I congratulated the scriptwriter who had thought of making a pipe organ into the villain. After all, a pipe organ—how gothically creepy is
that
?

“Have you seen
The NeverEnding Story
?” Elena asked.

“I've read it,” I said. “And so have you. It's one of the most insightful allegories in all of fiction, and the best explanation of the joys and pitfalls of the creative-writing process.”

“Yeah,
well
,” Elena said. “The movie's okay. Here, pull it out of that pile there, and I'll show you the best part.”

I pulled out the video and put it in for her, debating what to say next. How could I talk her into eating again?

The NeverEnding Story
movie was awful. It was like watching Barney the dinosaur do Shakespeare. But maybe that was just my anxiety spoiling it for me.

“I know you don't want to make Dr. Petras happy,” I ventured after a while. “But couldn't you make Dad and me happy instead? We need to be a family again.”

“Hey, this isn't
my
fault,” Elena said bitterly. “
I'm
not the one who messed up this family. I wouldn't even
be
here if it weren't for Valerie.”

And at the look on her face, I fell silent again.

If only Dr. Petras were like one of the monsters in
The NeverEnding Story
. If only he would act like a fairy-tale villain: “Gather all the leaves in the forest for me. You have until nightfall.” At least fairy-tale villains taxed a person's ingenuity, and when they got defeated, they sometimes exploded or melted, or even obligingly tore themselves in half. Elena might meet one of those challenges just to show that she could and to see how creatively the villain was going to die.

But Dr. Petras had acted like a real-world villain instead. He had said, “Do what I say because I'm stronger than you.”

There wasn't a snowball's chance in hell that Elena would do that.

Two more days passed—two more anxious, worry-racked days. I don't think Elena ate a single bite of food. Far from looking ready to leave her hospital bed at any moment, she now looked as if she couldn't get out of it. She didn't try to talk much anymore. She just lay silent, a shell of her former lively self.

Her pediatrician confirmed that she had lost weight over the last five days, since being admitted to the hospital.

“There's not much we can do,” he said. “This isn't a hospital with a psychiatric protocol. We're not equipped to force a patient to eat. I've ordered an IV. At least we can keep her hydrated.”