January First: A Child's Descent Into Madness and Her Father's Struggle to Save Her (14 page)

“I would ask that you not give Janni any more showers while she’s here,” she says, then walks away.

WE GET HOME at nine-thirty. I didn’t want to make dinner, but Susan is hungry, so I do it while Susan gives Bodhi a bath.

She is in the tub with him, like I do when I give him a bath. We
got a baby bathtub for Janni but never used it, so we didn’t bother getting one for Bodhi. It is easier just to get in there with them.

I am washing the dishes when I hear a hard knock at the door. Honey leaps up from her slumber and goes crazy, barking at the door.

I turn to look at the clock on the stove. Ten-thirty. There is only one group of people who come knocking on your door at ten-thirty at night.

“There’s somebody at the door,” I call to Susan in the bathroom as I dry my hands on a hand towel and neatly fold it.

“Who?” she calls back.

I already know, even before I make it to the door to look through the peephole and see a Hispanic man with a clipboard and an ID badge hanging around his neck. On either side of him are two Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies. On some level, I’ve been expecting this ever since I saw the look of distrust on Nurse Ratched’s face earlier tonight.

“You need to get dressed,” I call to Susan.

She comes out of the bathroom, holding Bodhi, both dripping wet. “What? Who is it?”

“Just get some clothes on,” I reply calmly.

She darts into the bedroom and closes the door. I grab Honey’s collar and open the door.

“Hello,” the Hispanic man says to me. Honey is barking and trying to lunge at them. The man has to shout to be heard over her barking.

“Sorry to bother you so late. Are you,” he looks down at his notes, “Michael Schofield?”

“Yes.” Strangely, I feel completely calm, even peaceful. I feel no fear. Maybe it is because I have no control over what will happen now.

“You’re the father of January Schofield?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“Is your wife,” he checks his notes again, “Susan, here?”

“She’s in the bedroom getting dressed. She just gave our son a bath.”

“She is the biological mother of January?”

“Yes.”

He is writing on his clipboard. “Can we come in?”

I find it funny that he actually asked. It’s not like I could say no.

“Sure.” I back up, pulling Honey with me. “Sorry about our dog. She is very territorial.”

Susan comes out in her bathrobe. To my great annoyance, she hasn’t tied the sash very tight and the robe falls open, pretty much exposing her. I wanted her to put on some real clothes. She’s going to need them. Bodhi is not dressed at all, still naked in her arms.

“Are you Mrs. Schofield?” the man asks, his face betraying no reaction to the fact that Susan is basically flashing him, albeit unintentionally.

“Yes,” Susan answers, looking like a deer in headlights.

“My name is Carlos and I’m a field investigator for the Department of Child and Family Services. I will need to talk to both of you.”

“Okay,” Susan answers, looking from me to Carlos and back again, remaining where she is, like she expects Carlos to start telling us why he’s here.
Wow
, I think,
she really is clueless
. She doesn’t know what is happening. She doesn’t get that Carlos expects Susan to invite him someplace where they can talk in private away from me, because that’s what they do. I have seen enough episodes of
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
to know how this works.

Realizing that Susan didn’t understand his tactful request, Carlos tries again. “Mrs. Schofield, is there somewhere we can speak in private?”

He looks at me. “You don’t mind, do you?”

I shake my head. “Not at all.”

He nods. “I am going to need to talk to you as well, Mr. Schofield, and then both of you together, but I want to start with Mrs. Schofield first.”

Of course you do
, I think to myself. He wants to isolate Susan to see if he can get her to confess to knowing that something is happening. That’s how they work.

“The bedroom,” Susan answers, suddenly snapping out of her paralysis. Carlos and my mostly naked wife enter the bedroom. Carlos closes the door behind him.

I turn back to the deputies. I am still holding on to Honey’s collar to prevent her from lunging and nipping them. If they are going to arrest me, I need to put Honey away.

“Listen, do you mind if I take Honey down to our garage?” I ask the nearest deputy, a huge, hulking fellow.

He looks at Honey. “Sure.” He steps aside to let us pass. “You’re not going to run, are you?” he says as I open the door.

I look back at him. He is smiling, like he is joking, but I know he isn’t. They think I molested my own daughter. I am sure he would love me to run, so that when he caught me he could legally use that nice baton hanging from his belt on me.

“No, I’m not going to run.”

“Okay, then. Make it quick.”

I take Honey downstairs to our garage. I keep a spare drinking bowl down here and extra bottles of water. I take one and fill the bowl. I don’t know when, or if, I will be back, so I want to make sure Honey has water. I give her what might be a final pat and kiss on her nose and close the door. I can still hear her barking as I come upstairs, reentering the apartment.

The second deputy is walking around our place, picking things up and putting them down. I know he’s searching. What does he expect to find? Child pornography?

“You don’t mind if we look around?” the bigger deputy asks me, even though they already are.

“Go right ahead.” I don’t care. I have nothing to hide.

Okay
, I think to myself,
what to do now?
I look around the
apartment, trying to prioritize. I feel extremely focused. What will make Susan’s life easier when they take me?

I return to washing the dishes.

I see the other deputy pause over the coffee table and pick up the lid of a game called Feed the Kitty. Of course, “kitty” is a slang term for the female anatomy. Except that this game has a real kitty and the goal is to prevent the kitty from eating your mice. You roll the dice to see how many mice you have to feed the kitty. The player with the most mice at the end wins.

The deputy, apparently realizing the game has no sexual connotations, puts the lid down.

I hear Susan cry out. That rattles me. I wasn’t expecting that. Does she actually believe whatever Carlos is telling her? How could she?

The bedroom door opens and Carlos comes out with Bodhi in his arms.

“Would you mind holding him for a minute?” he asks me.

“Uh, sure,” I reply, taking Bodhi from him. I find this strange. If he thinks I am a child molester, why is he handing me Bodhi? Through the open bedroom door I can see Susan sitting on the bed, hunched over, sobbing, her bathrobe completely fallen open, showing off everything.

“Thanks,” Carlos says to me. “I was worried your wife might drop him. She’s pretty upset.”

He goes back into the bedroom, closing the door.
Well, so much for trying to get things cleaned up
, I think.

I go over to our rocking chair and sit down, cradling Bodhi in my arms. I start to gently rock him, just like I did over five years ago when Janni was a baby.

Back then, I never would have imagined any of this happening.

I look down at Bodhi, enjoying the weight and warmth of his body. It feels like I am holding him for the first time all over again. Maybe because this might be the last time I ever get to hold him. I
know I didn’t sexually molest Janni. But I also know I can’t prove that, which is, I suppose, why I’m not angry. These deputies are here to arrest me on suspicion of child molestation. They will take me to the local station to be booked, and then I will be transported to the “Twin Towers,” the main LA County Jail, to await my hearing. Not that I will make it to my hearing. I know what happens to child molesters in prison. I’ve seen TV shows on prison life. Any prisoner would be only too happy to take me out. I will be walking somewhere and suddenly be attacked, shanked, stabbed repeatedly, to ensure no chance of saving me in the infirmary. By my reckoning, I will be dead by the end of the week. Oddly, the idea of being stabbed to death, of death itself, doesn’t bother me at all. All I care about is Janni. And that is the only reason I don’t want to die. Janni will be devastated. What will her life be like from this point on? The only thing I am afraid of is that if I’m gone, any chance for Janni’s future will die with me. She will gradually become lost. If I could trust somebody else to make sure Janni would be okay, I would be fine with dying. I put my cheek against Bodhi’s. He’s so young that he won’t even remember me. But Janni will. How will she be able to forget me? I snuggle with Bodhi. I love him so much. He is a beautiful boy.

Suddenly, I want to cry. His life seems so brutally unfair. He is being screwed out of everything. But once again, the tears seem to get stuck before they can come out.

The bedroom door opens and Susan comes out. Her eyes are red. She wipes them and reaches out for Bodhi.

“What’s going on?” I ask as if I don’t know.

“He’ll tell you” is all she replies. It bothers me that her head is down and she won’t look me in the eye.

I hand Bodhi to her and stand up. Carlos is waiting for me at the bedroom door. I walk into the bedroom, the big deputy following me. He shuts the door and stands in front of it, arms crossed.

Carlos looks over his notes for a moment and then looks up at me.
“Okay, Mr. Schofield, I’m really sorry about the hour and interrupting your dinner.” He appears to be genuinely contrite, which seems strange since he’s supposedly talking to a man who molested his own daughter. “Do you have any idea why we’re here?”

I see no need to beat around the bush, to pretend like I don’t know. “I’m guessing it’s because I’ve been accused of abuse of some sort.”

Carlos gives me a sharp look. “What makes you think that?”

Because I’m not an idiot
, I want to say.

“Why else would you be here?” I reply instead.

Carlos appears to consider this, then returns to his clipboard.

“Makes sense. How often do you give her a bath?” Carlos asks.

So this is all about the shower I gave her tonight
, I think to myself. “We alternate,” I reply. “Sometimes I do it. Sometimes Susan does it.”

He nods, never looking up at me, writing furiously.

“What would you say is the percentage of the time you wash her?”

“Fifty. Susan and I split everything with Janni. We’ve always done everything fifty-fifty.”

Carlos nods, still writing. “When you wash her, do you wash her privates?”

“Yes.”

“Has she ever complained of pain or discomfort when you wash her genitals, and did she ever ask you to stop?”

I sigh. This is going to make me look bad, but I have to tell the truth.

“Yes,” I say. “Once when I was washing her vagina she complained that I was too rough.”

He looks up. “And what happened?”

“I apologized and stopped.”

“And when was this?”

“Last summer sometime.”

He goes back to his notepad.

“Anything else?”

“Not that I am aware of.”

He nods. “Okay.” He looks up from the clipboard. “Well, you are correct. I am here because a claim of sexual abuse has been made against you.” He exhales and shifts his feet, uncomfortably. “The claim is that you inserted your finger into her vagina.”

Nausea sweeps over me. For some reason, I wasn’t prepared for him to be so graphic. The thought of that happening to any little girl is horrendous, but the thought of it happening to Janni is more than I can bear.

I bend over, afraid I might puke.

“Are you okay?” I hear Carlos ask. Again, he sounds strangely sincere.

I can’t speak.

“Do you need a minute?” Carlos asks.

I come back to my full height, sucking in air like I’m hyperventilating. “No. Let’s get through this.”

“You sure you’re going to be okay?”

“Please,” I pant. “Just do what you gotta do.”

He nods. “Okay. I hate to ask this, but the law requires that I do: Did you ever insert your finger into January’s vagina?”

Another wave of nausea.

“Not intentionally,” I manage.

“What do you mean, ‘not intentionally’?”

“If she said I did that, then it must have been an accident while I was washing her, like that time I told you.”

“Is there any other reason you can think of that would cause her to say something like that?”

I feel hot. Blood is pounding through my body. “No,” I say forlornly. The fact that she believes I hurt her like that is worse than anything else.

He looks up at me, then pauses as I wait for him to tell the deputy to arrest me, but instead he returns to his clipboard.

“Well, she didn’t actually say that.”

I stare at him.

“What?” is all I can manage.

He lowers the clipboard. “I’ve already been out to interview Janni. I did that before I came here. She didn’t corroborate the claim. She said exactly what you said …” He flips back in his notes. “ ‘Fifty percent of the time Mommy washes me and fifty percent of the time Daddy washes me.’ ”

“She … She didn’t say … that?” I can’t bring myself to repeat it.

Carlos shakes his head. “Nope.”

“Then why … why did you say that?”

“Because that was what the person who called in the report said she said.”

“Who?”

Carlos shakes his head. “I can’t tell you. Those who report child abuse are protected by confidentiality laws.”

“So what happens now?” I ask.

“Well, since she is not currently in the home, she is not in any immediate danger. All we ask is that you cooperate with our investigation and the hospital’s rules. They have asked that you not give Janni showers anymore while she is there. Not just you. Your wife as well.”

He hands me a sheet on his clipboard. “This gives our office permission to have Janni sent to a forensic pathologist for examination. This is a pretty standard thing. It’s just something we have to do before we can close our investigation.”