IGMS Issue 50 (12 page)

The second piece of paper was a prescription for risperdone. It had Jack's full name on it and it was as difficult to read as the scrap of paper Tara had picked off the ground two weeks ago. A scrawl in blue ink that made no sense to Tara.

But it didn't devour her eyesight.

Jack slipped into the backseat. That's how he moved everywhere these days--slipping. Sliding. Not sneaking, exactly, but he'd been so
noisy
before. Elbows, feet, knees flying everywhere. Banging into everything.

"How was Dr. Loeb?" Tara asked.

"Okay," Jack said. "She's off next week."

Yes, but what did you talk about? What did you tell her? What did she tell you? What are you talking about with her that you can't talk about with me? I knew all your sounds, Jack, I knew them, all but one, and now, I don't know anything so it's no wonder you won't talk to me.

Tara started the car, keeping the prescription in her hand. The pharmacy wasn't far away.

"I want to sleep in my own room tonight," Jack said.

Tara caught his gaze in the mirror. The skin under his eyes was dark--though the black eye had disappeared. A bruise of a different type. Jack was exhausted. Thin, and getting thinner; pale, getting paler. Mike had insisted that he sleep in their room on an air mattress and a sleeping bag. Jack hadn't argued--hadn't even rolled his eyes, not then, and not in the two weeks since. Tara would wake up in the middle of the night, sit up to look over at him, and every time, he was lying with eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling, or the wall, or the window.

The prescription paper rustled against the wheel. Maybe with this, things would get better.

"All right," she said.

She wanted to say other things. Rules, restrictions, cautions--but the look in his eyes took her breath away. Surprise, that was there. His surprise transformed to gratitude. And from gratitude to happiness. All in an instant, a blink. No secrets between them at that instant. In that moment, her Jack came to life, and Tara felt a warm thrill in her heart. Hope. After two weeks of worry and fear, hope--even the suspicion that there might be hope--was sweet and welcome.

Tara bought them milkshakes after they visited the pharmacy and gave Jack his medicine. He took a last, long sip of his shake, tilted his head back, opened wide, and dropped the single orange pill into his mouth. She watched him swallow, once, twice.

"Ugh. It's gross," he said.

"They probably didn't mean it to be taken with cookies-and-cream milkshakes."

He wagged his tongue and wiped it off with a napkin. "It's really really gross," he said.

She bought him a soda, too, to wash the taste out of his mouth, and they shared it on the ride home. He took a couple swallows, sighed, and leaned back against the seat. At a stoplight, Tara watched him. His eyelids drooped. He closed his eyes, and she saw a subtle shift in his body. Drowsing.

She let him sleep, and circled their block a couple times to let him get as much rest as he could. Hope. Hope sounded like a ten year old sleeping in the backseat.

Mike rattled the bottle of risperdone. "Jack gets drugs, plus a milkshake, plus a soda, and what do you bring home for me?"

Tara slipped beneath the covers and scooted over to be next to him. He was warm--Mike was
always
warm.

"A
salad
," he finished. He rattled the bottle again.

Tara kissed him, laughing. "I thought you wanted to eat healthier," she said against his mouth.

"Rawr." Mike put his arms around her neck, and kissed her back. "I'll tell you what I want to eat: lady-flesh. The succulent meat of . . ."

She kissed him again and he stopped talking.

They didn't speak for a long time.

After, Tara held Mike and whispered to him the hope she'd found in the day: milkshakes, and sodas, and risperdone, and Jack drowsing in the back seat. He listened, his fingers tracing warm tracks along her bare back. This is what I want for Jack, and for Tommy, and for Zandy, Tara thought. A loving bed, someone to face the surprises of life with, to trace warm fingers over, to lie crazy and naked with in the dark and quiet, to exchange breath with. Someone with listening ears. Marriage. Home. Commitment. Loyalty . . . all that.

She laughed at herself, the banality of it, the base suburban-ness of it all. She inhaled Mike's scent. Inhaled her scent. Our scent, she thought, and it was more than the bedroom, it was the whole night-time house. We made this from our own bodies: these walls, these rooms, these children. Every good-and-strong inch. Strange; sometimes warped. Sometimes off-kilter, so things might be jumbled around. Our weird, convoluted architecture, spackled in sweat, and love, and hope.

Our goodness.

"You got quiet," Mike said. His fingers trailed dangerously.

"I'm thinking bourgeois thoughts," she said. And kissed him again so that he wouldn't start speaking with his ridiculous French accent.

He tried anyway.

Tara dreamed something heavy was treading the stairs. She awoke and found it was true.

She thought it was Zandy at first, sliding on her bottom. But it was too slow. Tara untangled herself from Mike's limbs, fighting for wakefulness as the sound thumped downward.

Mike woke up, too, heard it, said groggily, "One of the kids?"

"I don't know," Tara whispered. But she didn't think any of them--not even Jack lately--had such a heavy, labored pace. Why now, why, after the peace of earlier? After hope, after . . .

Mike eased off the mattress, and reached under the bed for the softball bat he kept there. Tara followed him to the bedroom door, and out to the hallway. The house was dark, quiet, still. She turned on the light and the thumping on the stairs stopped.

There were symbols on the wall--Jack's symbols, scrawled large. One continuous string of senselessness, starting at his door, down the hallway toward the stairs. Red marker, the same color he'd used before, but this time, he was painting their home.

"Jack," Mike croaked. "Son, son . . ."

Jack stood at the bottom of the steps, marker in hand, half-raised to the wall. "I was sleepy," he said. His voice was dull, murzy. "I couldn't stay awake. I couldn't and so I had to . . . I had to . . ."

He looked at Mike, at Tara. Blinked his eyes, blinked so slowly, Tara thought he must be about to collapse on the stairs. He put his forehead against the wall, and swiped the marker in a wide, elaborate shape above his head.

"Dry, dry, dry," he said. "It's dry, but I have to . . ."

Tara rushed down the steps to gather him in her arms. He was so thin, he was so light . . . his skin felt like onion-skin, dry and crackling. Mike came after her frowning. He'd dropped the bat at the top of the stairs. Tara tried to pry the marker out of Jack's fingers, but he kept pushing her hands away.

"Stop," he said. "Stop, Ma, there isn't much more, I have to finish, I have to complete it . . ."

"Jonathan Lorenzo, no . . ." Something was wrong with him. More wrong then before. Tara gripped his arms, but they were full of a wild, wiry strength. He snaked easily out of her reach, scratched the marker along the wall.

Mike picked him up bodily, lifting him off his feet. One arm wrapped around Jack's midsection and lifted. The other found Jack's fingers, and the marker.

Jack struggled and whined, "Letmego, letmego!" He got both feet against the wall, and pushed.

Mike stumbled. He tripped over Tara, and for a moment, all three of them teetered off-balance. Tara caught herself on the railing. Jack kept kicking--one of his feet snapped against Tara's chin. Mike managed to turn himself so that he fell on his back, holding Jack against his chest. Tara heard the crack of her husband's head against the floor, but Jack jumped to his feet.

He tested the marker against his thumb. "It's dry," he said. "It's no good."

Tara's eyes swam with stars. She slid down the stairs toward her son, and her husband. "Jack you're sick."

He met her gaze. The same look--alive and loving--she'd seen in the car. Just hours ago. "Mama," he said. A little lost. A little warped. But it was him. "I . . ."

He shook his head, blinked again. Looked at the marker, and the wall. Then he lifted his left hand to his mouth and bit down on the meaty place between his thumb and palm. Dark blood welled out of the corners of his mouth as he sunk his teeth in deeply and his eyes shot open in pain.

Tara shrieked and closed him up in her arms. He smeared his blood along the wall, his good hand flailing with the marker.

"Okay," he said, over and over as he sobbed and struck out at the wall. "It's okay, it's okay, it's okay."

But Tara was sure, now, that it would never be okay again.

The third piece of paper was a business card: white, with black lettering. Legible. An official-looking seal was stamped into one of the corners--Department of Child Services. Below the stamp was a woman's name, a phone number, and an email address. And a title--"Case Worker."

Tara took the card from Dr. Loeb, and read over it again.

"Ms. Cassidy is great," Dr. Loeb said, tucking a pencil behind her ear. "She works very closely with the psychiatric hospital, and she has already met Jack."

Cassidy. The name on the card. Tara handed the card to Mike. He glanced at it and put it in his shirt pocket.

"How often will she come by?" he asked Dr. Loeb.

"Twice a week, at first. More often if he needs it." Dr. Loeb leaned forward in her chair. "Michael, Tara: Jack is a sweet kid. I know you're worried, and frankly, I was too the first couple days after he was admitted. We've made a lot of progress, though. He's not fixating on his symbols, and he's not sleep-walking or harming himself any more. We could keep him longer, but . . ."

"We want him to come home," Tara said.

Mike was quiet. He slipped his hand into hers. Dark circles framed the uncertainty in his eyes. We want our boy, yes, we want Jack . . . but are we ready for him? Can we care for him after all this?

You're never ready for a child, Tara thought. From the moment they squirm into the world they're a trial and a surprise, a joyful disaster.

Dr. Loeb said, "Let me caution you again that he shouldn't be left alone. From what we've observed, that's when his anxiety tends to increase. Someone will need to sleep in the same room with him."

Mike rolled his shoulders. "We moved his bed into his older brother's room. Tommy said he'd watch over him."

Dr. Loeb paused, considering. "That's actually a good idea. Jack seems pretty concerned with what Tommy thinks about him. I have to say that given what Jack did to Tommy, that shows an incredible amount of trust. I think it should help Jack a lot."

"What about school?" Tara asked.

"Touch base with his teachers and the school nurse. You don't need to go into details. Ms. Cassidy will as well. Any other questions?"

She had a dozen, at least. None of which Dr. Loeb could answer. Tara wasn't sure there were answers. She wasn't sure she could even articulate her questions in a way that would make sense to another human being.

"He still hasn't . . . he didn't say what happened to cause all this?" Mike blurted. "You've had him for two weeks. A kid doesn't just go from . . . I don't know, baseball and piano lessons to . . . to biting off half of his own thumb."