January First: A Child's Descent Into Madness and Her Father's Struggle to Save Her (7 page)

Dr. Howe shakes her head again. “I don’t think that is happening here.”

“So what is going on?” I press, wanting a damn diagnosis, an explanation for what is happening to Janni, to our family.

“I’m not prepared to make a diagnosis after just one visit,” Dr. Howe responds. “To be honest, we may not be able to figure out a diagnosis for a while.”

“But we can’t go on living like this,” Susan cries.

Dr. Howe nods. “I understand. That is why I am going to prescribe Risperdal. We don’t need to know what it is in order to treat the symptoms.”

“What’s Risperdal?” I ask.

“It’s an antipsychotic.”

“An antipsychotic?” Susan repeats, alarmed.

“Risperdal is also used to treat anxiety. The lowest dose available is a half miligram. I want you to cut that in half.”

“So you think this is just anxiety?” Susan asks hopefully.

Dr. Howe, writing up the prescription, shakes her head.

“Like I said, it’s still too early to tell.”

She hands me the prescription for Risperdal. “Let’s see how she does on this, and we’ll make another appointment for her in two weeks.”

I stare at the prescription in my hand. Risperdal. An antipsychotic. But I am so tired of living in fear I will try anything.

CHAPTER EIGHT
New Year’s Day, 2008

W
e pull into a local park. The weather is cold, spitting rain. Across the muddy, puddle-filled soccer field from the parking lot the playground is empty. Of course it is. Only the insane would be out on a day like this. I brought Janni out to give Bodhi a few hours of peace. With Janni gone, now he can cry and be safe. It’s practically a necessity now to keep Janni away from Bodhi as much as possible. Here I can play with her like I used to.

As Janni gets out of the car I check the clock on the dash.

“Wait, Janni,” I say, reaching for the pill bottle. “You’ve got to take your next dosage.”

She stops outside the car, door still open, and looks back at me.

“Risperdal?” she asks.

I nod. She’s only five but knows exactly what and how much she’s supposed to take.

I open the pill bottle and all I see are full tablets. Dammit. I cut
the previous night’s dose with a butter knife but forgot to cut more. I don’t have a pill cutter, so I put the pill between my teeth and bite down, feeling the spray of powder in my mouth as the back half of the tablet shatters. Shit. I was trying for two complete halves so I could spit the other half into the bottle for later.

I hand the complete half to Janni, along with a bottle of water. She takes it and swallows it.

I turn my head and try to spit out the fragments of Risperdal in my mouth, but they’re too small. The chalky sensation is driving me crazy, so I grab a bottle of water and take a swig, swallowing the remainder of the pill.

Janni is waiting in the rain by the open passenger door.

“Let’s go,” she whines.

“You go on ahead. I’ll be right there.”

Janni runs off across the muddy soccer field. I watch her go. There is nobody around, so I don’t have to worry about anyone grabbing her. Not that I worry about that anyway. After having been on the receiving end of Janni’s violence several times, I have no doubt Janni can defend herself from any predator.

I call my dad on my cell phone.

“Hellooo,” he bellows. “Happy New Year!”

I’d actually forgotten it was New Year’s Day. Normally, Susan would be filling in today for one of the full-time traffic reporters, making double time since it’s a holiday, but not this year. It’s simply too dangerous for either of us to take both kids.

“Yeah, you, too.”

“Do you have anything special planned?” he asks.

I realize we haven’t spoken since he left the day after Bodhi was born. It feels like forever, but it’s only been two weeks. I fill him in.

Silence. “Dad, are you still there?”

“Yeah, Mike. I just can’t believe it, that’s all. Jesus Christ.”

“Dr. Howe put Janni on a drug called Risperdal. It’s an antipsychotic.”

“Jesus Christ,” he repeats, still in shock. “Is … is this, whatever this drug is called, working?”

I look out through the rain-streaked windshield at Janni, who is swinging by herself.

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. She still tries to go after Bodhi.”

“Well, Mike, do whatever you have to so you keep her away from him until this gets figured out.”

Something about his tone angers me. It’s like he’s giving up on Janni.

“Dad, she is a good kid. She just needs help.”

“I understand that, but your primary responsibility has to be to keep Bodhi safe. He can’t defend himself.”

“I know that. Anyway, the reason I was calling is because Dr. Howe wanted me to ask you if we have any history of mental illness in our family.”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

I suck in my breath. “What about my mother?”

There’s silence on the other end. Dad hates it whenever I bring up my mother. He would prefer the past be left in the past.

“What about her?” he finally says. “Your mother was never diagnosed with anything to my knowledge.”

“I know that, but clearly there was something wrong with her.”

“Well, I won’t dispute that.”

“Do you think she had a mental illness?”

“Shit, Mike, I don’t know.”

“She believed you were a hit man for the Mafia, Dad, and that you had a million dollars stashed away in a Singapore bank.”

“Well, she certainly had some strange ideas, but I can’t say whether she was mentally ill or what kind of mental illness she might have had.”

“Is there anyone else in our family you can think of?”

“Not off the top of my head. Nothing like what you’re describing.”

“Wasn’t there someone in our family who committed suicide?” I ask, annoyed. Getting my father to talk about our past is like pulling teeth.

“My cousin,” Dad replies. “Peg’s son.” Peg is my great-aunt and our last surviving relative from Australia, where I was born. “He hung himself.”

“How old was he?”

“In his fifties.”

“Was he ever diagnosed with anything?”

“Schizophrenia,” Dad answers.

I let the word hang there for a moment. Not what I wanted to hear.

“So there was someone in our family with schizophrenia,” I say.

“Well, I don’t know that he really had it.”

“What do you mean?”

“He got the diagnosis after he was arrested for stealing a car. I think he probably convinced them he was schizophrenic to avoid going to jail.”

“That doesn’t mean he didn’t have it.”

“I spent a lot of time with him when we were growing up. He came down to Sydney back in the sixties, supposedly to find a job, which he never did. I talked to him a lot, and he only ever brought up being schizophrenic when he got into some kind of trouble with the law. He just didn’t want to work. Basically, Michael, he was a bum. Honestly, I think he finally killed himself because life was too hard.”

That is what I am afraid of. Life is hard for Janni, too
.

I hang up the phone and get out of the car when I see Janni starting to wander around the park, obviously bored. I have to get over there and keep her engaged. I have nowhere else to go with her, and I sure as hell won’t take her home yet.

I step onto the soccer field and instantly my feet disappear under
a thin layer of muddy water. I didn’t realize it was this deep. Water is running over the tops of my shoes and soaking my feet. I start to lift my opposing foot to walk forward, but the mud grabs at my feet.

Janni looks over and sees me coming. “Daddy, come play with me!”

Walking through the mud is very difficult. My steps are getting more deliberate.

“Daddy, come on!” Janni is getting impatient.

“I’m coming!” I call, still plodding. This is hard, tiring work. I realize I am breathing heavily from the effort. I stop for a moment to catch my breath.

“Daddy, are you coming?”

Of course I’m coming. I glance back at the car in shock. I’ve only gone about fifty feet. Janni is still more than a hundred feet away.

I take another step, then another. It takes everything I have to pull my feet free of the mud and move them forward.

I stop again, needing to rest. I look up at Janni and it is like I haven’t moved at all. Every few steps, I have to catch my breath. It dawns on me that something is wrong.

You just swallowed half of a Risperdal tablet
, I remember.

No, I think, dismissing the thought. This can’t possibly be the Risperdal. I only swallowed a little bit and that was just a few minutes ago. It can’t possibly have kicked in yet.

“Daddy!” Janni calls. “I want you to come play with me.”

I lift my leg and then realize I am too tired to take another step. I have an intense urge to just lie down and go to sleep.

Janni watches me. Even from here I can see the look of concern on her face. “Daddy? Are you okay?”

I manage one more step and the effort wipes me out.
This can’t possibly be the Risperdal. It’s a kid’s dosage and I’m five times her weight, yet Janni took the same dose and she’s fine
.

“I’ll be right there, sweetie,” I call. “Just go back to playing and I’ll be right there.”

“But I want you,” she whines.

“I’ll be right there,” I yell. It is all I can do to keep standing up.

Janni sullenly turns away.

“Fine. I’ll play with 24 Hours instead.” 24 Hours is a girl, the first human imaginary friend Janni has created. Janni has no human friends anymore. She runs off through the playground, climbing the equipment, yelling out to 24 Hours. I look down at my own body, which suddenly feels hundreds of pounds heavier, then up at Janni. This is impossible. I know one of Risperadal’s side effects is sedation, yet it hasn’t had any sedative effect on Janni. She is still running around. No one would know she’s on any medication at all.

CHAPTER NINE
January 2008

I
have to teach at 8
A.M.
, so I’m speeding, weaving in between slower cars, when Bodhi starts crying in the back. I know my driving is scaring him, but I don’t have a choice. I’ll still be late to CSUN, and the class is only fifty minutes long.

I’m driving Bodhi to Susan’s old roommate, Jeanne, which I do every weekday morning now. I was offered these classes last September, three months before Bodhi was born, and I took them without hesitation. I only graduated with my MA nine months ago and already I get enough classes at CSUN that I don’t need to be one of the “freeway flyers,” part-time college instructors who have to shuttle from college to college to pick up enough classes to pay the bills. Taking these early-morning classes the more senior instructors don’t want is how I’ve achieved that. But that was before Janni became violent.

Susan and I both wake up before dawn. While I shower and shave, she gets Bodhi dressed and packs his diaper bag. This way when
Janni wakes up in the morning, Bodhi won’t be there and Susan won’t have to lock the door, keeping Bodhi inside with her, while she takes a shower.

I pull into the driveway of Jeanne’s house. Leaving the car running, I detach Bodhi’s car seat from its holder and carry him to the front door. I put him down on the front stoop, ring the bell, and race back to the car to retrieve his stroller.

Jeanne opens the front door, still in her nightgown. “Hi, little man,” she coos, bending down to pick Bodhi up out of his car seat. I stand in the driveway with the stroller, watching them. I’m glad Susan doesn’t have to see Bodhi leaning against Jeanne like she is his mother.

She turns to me. “Hi, Michael.”

“Open the trunk of your car so I can put his stroller in the back” is my response. In the back of my mind, I know I am being brusque, rude even, but I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to think. If I think, I will have to deal with feelings I don’t have time for right now.

Jeanne goes into her house to retrieve her car keys. “How are things? How is Janni?”

“The same,” I answer quickly, unlocking her trunk and loading in Bodhi’s stroller.

“Doesn’t the doctor have any ideas?” she asks, bouncing Bodhi up and down in her arms.

“She wants Janni to see a neurologist,” I answer, “to rule out any brain damage. Because so far the antipsychotics aren’t working.”

“I can’t believe she is on antipsychotics,” Jeanne replies, shaking her head in dismay.

I slam the trunk closed. “Are you okay for diapers?”

“Uh, I think so.”

“Okay, I’ll be back to pick him up at twelve-thirty.” I get back in the car and back out of the driveway.

I floor the acclerator, racing down the street, away from my six-week-old son. I didn’t say or kiss good-bye to Bodhi. I never do. I can’t
even bring myself to look at him when I leave, because I am afraid if I do, if I see his eyes meet mine, I will collapse into a blubbering mess. Jeanne has a daughter, too, Lauren, who’s a year younger than Janni. Every time I return to get Bodhi, Lauren is sitting over Bodhi, talking to him, playing with him, and making him laugh. I’d never heard him laugh until I brought him here. I watch them together and it hurts. Lauren is like the big sister Janni was supposed to be.

THE EEG TECH puts the first conductor on Janni’s forehead and she immediately pulls it off.

“Janni, you have to leave that on,” I order her.

“It’s cold,” she complains.

“That’s just the gel they put on to increase the conductivity of the electrical activity in your brain. I know it’s cold, but it will warm up to your body temperature very quickly.”

“I won’t do it,” Janni replies.

“Janni, don’t you want to see what your brain waves look like? It will be like seeing your own thoughts!”

“No.” Janni gets up out of her chair and moves for the door.

I grab her.

“If she is not going to be able to do this today,” the tech says, holding dozens of electrical wires in her hand, “we could reschedule to a day where she’s in a better mood.”

“This is always her mood,” I say irritably, thinking,
Why the hell do you think we are here?
“There isn’t going to be a better day.”