January First: A Child's Descent Into Madness and Her Father's Struggle to Save Her (17 page)

“He’s right,” I say.

Susan glares at me. “What do you mean, ‘He’s right’?”

“We live in constant fear of her.”

“We live in fear because she tries to hurt Bodhi!”

“But she never actually has.”

“Because we stop her.” Susan is condescending.

“But we are the parents!” I say, pounding my chest. “We shouldn’t be living in fear of our own child!”

The doctor gently interjects. “I’m telling you, you need to get tougher on her. It’s going to be damn hard in the beginning, because you’re going to have to be tough with every infraction. Don’t give an inch. Let her know that her behavior is unacceptable.”

“We’ve tried that!” Susan shouts.

“No, we haven’t,” I answer her. “As soon as the violence started, we ran straight to a shrink. We never stood up to her.”

“You’re the one who is always giving in to her, just to keep the peace!”

“I was wrong.”

“Why are you so cocky all of a sudden?”

I don’t really know. Maybe it is because doctors keep telling me nothing is wrong with Janni, so Susan is the only other target I have. “I’m sick of being the one who does everything to keep this family going!”

“You don’t do everything! Who takes Janni so you can work?”

“And what do you do? Call me at work constantly, saying how you can’t handle it!”

Susan gives me a disgusted look, like I’m a worm. “You’re just perfect, aren’t you?”

The doctor reaches out and puts one hand on Susan’s shoulder
and one on mine. “See what she is doing to both of you? She’s destroying your family. And letting her do it is not going to help any of you, most especially her. If you don’t stand up to her now, this will only get worse.”

He’s right. We’ve been living in fear and I’m tired of it. Janni is already headed down the path to being a juvenile delinquent. Everything she could be, all her potential, will be lost, and I will not let that happen. If I have to be the parent I never wanted to be, the ballbusting father who gives no quarter, I will do it. I will not let Janni throw her life away.

ONCE JANNI IS handed over to us, there is no more time for fighting. The focus is back to Janni. The simmering anger between Susan and me must be pushed down.

After completing the discharge from Loma Linda, we go to the nearby Red Lobster to celebrate Janni’s homecoming. Not that it feels anything like a celebration; rather it feels like trying to eat in the trenches of World War I, never knowing when the shelling is going to start again.

Susan sits across from me. Bodhi, in his car seat, sits in a sling at the edge of the table. Janni chooses to sit next to me like she usually does, although “sitting” is a stretch. She is bouncing around, standing up on the booth seat to look for her food. Every time I tell her to get down, she does, only to pick up an object like the saltshaker, preparing to throw it.

“Janni, if you throw that, we are leaving right now,” I say, already trying to make the transition to “tough parent,” which doesn’t come easy to me. What I really want is to have a nice, peaceful dinner. Usually, in restaurants, I have to work constantly to engage her in something while we wait for the food, but not tonight. Tonight she’s going to have to wait.

Janni looks at me, trying to decide if I am serious. I give her a look that I am and she puts the saltshaker down. “But I’m hungry!”

“That’s no excuse for throwing something,” I reply.

“But I’m hungry,” Janni says again, as if this explains it. “The food is taking soooo long!”

The fact that the waitress only took our order five minutes ago and that a certain amount of time is needed to prepare it means nothing to Janni.

“Then have a biscuit.” I offer her one.

“No.”

“Then you aren’t that hungry.”

“I was a picky eater,” Susan says.

I glare at her. She’s not helping. If this is going to work, we need to be a united front. Janni can’t think one parent will give in when the other won’t. These are actually the first words Susan has spoken to me since we left Loma Linda.

The waitress brings cheese sticks and Janni grabs one.

“They’re going to be hot,” I tell Janni.

Janni ignores me, takes a bite, and then immediately opens her mouth and lets the half-chewed cheese stick fall from her mouth onto the floor under the booth.

“Hot!” Janni complains.

I sigh irritably. “I told you they’d be hot. You need to give them a few minutes to cool.”

Instead of waiting, Janni picks up another cheese stick, bites into it, and spits the pieces back out.

“Janni, I said to wait!”

“But I’m hungry!” she whines.

“What good is trying to eat them if they’re too hot? Just give them a minute to cool.”

Janni picks up yet another cheese stick, puts it in her mouth, complains it’s too hot, and spits it out.

“Janni,” I say, exasperated by her inability to wait for anything. “You’re wasting them!”

Janni abruptly slips underneath the booth and down onto the floor.

“Janni, what are you doing?” I demand.

“Will you stop yelling at her?” Susan complains. “She just got out of the hospital.”

I lean over to see what Janni is doing under the table. She is crouched down over the floor, picking up the spit-out pieces of cheese stick, shoving them into her mouth like a rat.

“Janni, don’t eat off the floor!” My voice rises, but she ignores me. It’s an unnerving sight, not like when toddlers pick candy up off the ground, but like someone so starving they’re rummaging through scraps of food fallen from the table.

“Janni, there are plenty of cheese sticks still on the plate,” I say, trying to reason with her.

“Let it go,” Susan says to me.

I look up at her, stunned. “I’m not going to let her eat off the floor! It’s not right!”

“Since when do you care about social etiquette?” Susan asks, choosing this moment to get in another shot at me.

But this is different. Janni looks inhuman. Now she’s not even using her hands, simply putting her head down and eating off the floor with her mouth. She’s regressing, not getting better.

“Janni, get up here or we’re leaving.”

She ignores me.

I reach down and grab her, pulling her up. I’m not going to let my daughter turn into an animal.

“Careful!” Susan warns. “Watch her head.”

Janni scurries farther under the table, out of my reach. Swearing under my breath, I go down underneath the booth and grab her legs,
pulling. She screams, an earsplitting scream that makes the entire restaurant look our way.

“Okay, that’s it. Come on, Janni.”

“Where are we going?”

“We’re going for a time-out.”

“We’re not at home,” Janni answers smugly. “There’s nowhere to give me a time-out.”

“We’re going to the car,” I reply, sliding back out from under the table, pulling Janni with me, nearly knocking over Bodhi’s car seat sling in the process.

Janni comes up screaming and hitting me. I can’t see, but I feel the other restaurant patrons staring at my back.

“We’re going to wait in the car until you decide you’re ready to behave.”

“But I’m hungry,” Janni cries.

“You have to earn the right to come back in,” I reply.

Janni wails, pulling against me. I know she’ll never just walk out of here with me. I have no choice but to lift her off her feet and sling her over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes. I carry my screaming daughter through the restaurant, ignoring her hitting the back of my head.

When we reach the exit, the hostess looks up to see what the commotion is, and shock comes over her face.

“Is everything okay?” she asks, standing there stupidly.

“Can you open the door?” I ask angrily.

The hostess snaps out of her shock and runs to open the door. I carry Janni through it, trying to make sure her head doesn’t hit the door on the way out, and then we are outside.

It is dark when we reach the car. I’m going to have to put her down to get my car keys out. I do, and immediately she tries to run back into the restaurant, but reflexively my arm shoots out and grabs
her. I feel the pinching tug on the tendons in my arm, like a fishing line going tight. Janni comes flying back into me.

I unlock the car, open the passenger door, and push Janni inside, then close the door quickly so she can’t get her fingers around the door’s frame. I’m not fast enough to get the door completely closed before Janni is pushing against it from the inside. My force against hers, and scarily, they seem equal. She pushes against the door with all her might, while I slam my body into the door and click the lock button on my key.

Janni is screaming, not her usual scream when something doesn’t go her way, but a continuous scream, like death itself is in the car with her. But I have no time to think. Janni is smart enough to know how to unlock the door. She presses the button unlocking all the doors and the passenger door swings opens.

My left arm pushes the door closed while my right hand presses the lock button. She turns from me, jumping across the gearshift in the center console to the driver’s side. I race around the front of the car and throw my body into the driver’s-side door as it opens, hitting the lock button again.

She tries again, but I hold the door closed.

“I need to get out!” she screams at me, throwing her hands against the window, the heat radiating out and fogging up the glass.

“Not until you calm down.” I’m not angry. She just has to know that she’s not going to win.

She climbs over the center console into the backseat, headed for the driver’s-side rear door, but I get there first and push my hand against it, keeping her from opening the door. Janni turns and stumbles across the backseat, tripping over Bodhi’s car seat base, to the passenger side. Seeing her going, I race over to the other side of the car so I can keep the passenger-side rear door closed. In the back of my mind, it registers how insane this is, like a twisted game of Whack-A-Mole. Whatever door she moves toward to try to escape, I get there first to keep that door closed.

“When you calm down and tell me you are ready to behave, I will let you out,” I say calmly through the glass. “This is not a punishment. This is only until you calm down.”

Janni launches herself over the backseat and into the rear area of our small SUV. I move to the back of the car, watching for any sign that she’s calming down so I can let her out. She pounds on the rear window, so hard that it must hurt her hands.

“Janni, don’t do that!” I call in through the window. “You could break your hands!” I know I am the one doing this to her, but all we’ve gone through has to end somewhere.

“Let me out!” she screams. “Please!”

“Not until you calm down,” I repeat, trying very hard to keep my voice even.

Janni turns away from me, looking around. We have sand toys back there from the days when we used to go to the park. She picks up a bucket and throws it against the glass. It bounces harmlessly off.

She searches frantically through the toys, repeatedly hurling them against the glass.
Just give in, Janni. I know the world is too stupid for you. I’m sorry, but continuing on this path is not going to make the world see your genius. It is just going to get you locked up
.

Having run out of items to throw, she climbs over to the front seat and picks up her CD case, smashing it against the windshield.

“Janni, if you break those, I’m not buying new ones. I don’t care if you destroy the car. I’m not letting you out until you calm down.”
You won’t win, Janni. Better I break you than the world breaks you
.

Finally, she throws herself against the driver’s-side window, tears streaming down her cheeks and a terrified look on her face. Every instinct makes me want to let her out. I don’t know if this is the right thing to do or not. I wish some expert were here to reassure me I’m doing the right thing.

“Take me back!” she wails.

“Take you back where?”

“To the hospital!”

To the hospital. She wants to run back to the hospital. She actually prefers it to the world out here. This world terrifies her
.

I have to get her through this fear.

“No,” I answer. I can’t bear to see her like this. Violence I can deal with, not terror. She looks like a child now. But I have to see this through. I might be the only one left who can save her. I harden my heart. “We are not going back to the hospital.”

“I need to go back! Just let me go back!”

She is like a cornered animal. I look away.
You’ve got to do this, Michael. Otherwise she will become institutionalized. She didn’t want to leave Alhambra. Loma Linda is right. She has got to learn to deal with life
.

I look back. “We’re not going back to the hospital, Janni!”

“Please! I need to go back!”

“I’m not taking you back.”

“I want to go back!”

“No.”

She turns from the window and sits on her knees in the driver’s seat, sobbing.

I sigh, leaning against the car door, exhausted, looking in at her. Maybe we’ve finally turned a corner. She came at me with her worst violence and I stood my ground.

“It’s gonna be okay, Janni,” I say through the glass. “We’ll get through this.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN
May 2008

T
he door to Janni’s bedroom has a lock on it, as most bedroom doors do, designed to protect the privacy of the occupant.

I get a Phillips-head screwdriver out of my tool kit and unscrew the door handles on both the inside and outside. Then I turn the handles around, putting the handle with the lock on the outside of the door.

If Janni screams, I no longer yell at her. If she hits, I no longer tell her that is unacceptable. I just order her into her room for a time-out. She never goes willingly, of course, so I have to drag her in.

This morning, I came out of the shower to find Susan, holding Bodhi, running in terror into our bedroom and locking the door, with Janni on the outside smashing her fists into the door. So I grab Janni and drag her to her room, silently cursing Susan for not standing up to a five-year-old child and for the fact that I can’t even have five minutes to take a shower or go to the bathroom without everything falling
apart while I’m gone. Once Susan hears that I’m back, she comes out of the bedroom, only to tell me to be careful with Janni.