Have You Found Her

by Janice Erlbaum

  And she denied it: “I never said I had that!”

  “Wrong.” I smiled again. “You admitted it to me right in this very hospital. You said, ‘They call themselves munchers, and they shoot poop into their veins.’ And that’s how you get bacterial sepsis every five days. Like clockwork. With E. coli, from feces.” I raised my eyebrows at her, tipped my head to the side. Huh? How ’bout that? I know about the feces, Sam.

  She was pale as the moon, agitated as a cat. “Just because I said I read about it doesn’t mean—”

  I shook my head. “It’s not going to work. I know too much, and I’ve read too much. I know what you’ve done, and I know what you’re planning to do.” I paused dramatically, like a detective on her favorite show, Law & Order. “That’s why I came to say good-bye.”

  Her eyes widened to an alarming degree, and her voice shook. “What? What are you talking about? Good-bye?”

  I nodded. “I know you’re going to leave tomorrow. And I wanted to say good-bye.”

  “I wasn’t going to leave,” she protested. “What…how…”

  I kept the smile on my face. It was almost sadistic. After all she’d put me through, I couldn’t help but enjoy watching her squirm. “Yeah, you are going to leave. I know you, Sam. I know what’s going on. I know you can’t wait to get out of this place, so you can go run someplace else and start this all over again. But let me tell you, it’s not going to work. Because I know.”

  Now she was dropping the wide-eyed act, getting angry—she was being unjustly accused. “What are you talking about, Janice? You don’t know—”

  There was a hint of a sneer in her voice, which I matched. “Yes, Sam. I do know. I know everything you’ve been up to. I know you’ve done this before, and I know you’re going to do it again. So when you take off tomorrow morning, thinking you’re so ahead of everyone, remember—I know.”

  She stared at me with her one good eye, starting a slow burn as I continued. I wasn’t smiling anymore. I leaned in closer, fixed my stare even harder, exhilaration coursing through my veins. I felt that life-or-death intensity between us, like when I’d held her while she sobbed, like when I’d prayed at her deathbed. Now it was the feeling of breaking her down.

  “And I know you can’t afford to keep doing this anymore. Because this time it almost killed you. You didn’t mean for it to get this bad, did you? It scared you, didn’t it? Got away from you for a minute there. You seriously almost died. The nurses were looking at me with tears in their eyes, Sam, because they knew how close to death you were. You almost shut down your organs and died.”

  She was silent, staring at me with her jaw clenched, lips pressed tight against her teeth. I stared back, and kept going.

  “That’s what happens to people who do what you do. They let the fever get too high, or they give themselves blood clots with their injections, and they die. You got lucky this time. You will not be that lucky next time.”

  Another flinch. I’d hit my mark, and I knew it. She recovered and tried to scoff. “Janice, I never injected anything. I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

  “Sam, it’s true, and you know I know it. And it’s almost worse than admitting it, isn’t it? Sitting here looking at me, knowing that I know? It’s awful, right?” I tucked my chin, gave her a chiding look. “You might as well come clean.”

  It was awful, it was torture for her, having to look me in the eye, seeing the certainty there. She tried not to actively writhe under my scrutiny. “But…but it isn’t true!”

  “Riiiiight.” I chuckled and shook my head. “Listen, babe. You don’t know what’s true. You do not know the truth from a lie. And you know, I think that scares you.”

  The bed shook as she brought her fist down on the mattress next to her. “I know the truth from a lie! I admitted I told a lie! What do you want from me? I admitted it and I apologized! And I’m sorry, but I—”

  Now I outright laughed at her—she didn’t tell a lie, she lived a lie. For four whole months. Everywhere she went, everything she did, she was wearing that lie like a blanket. And she believed that lie; even the part of her that knew it was a lie was getting washed away. She was starting to believe that God had given her AIDS, because she honestly did not know whether or not she had AIDS anymore. I cut her off from continuing to protest. “Sam, you do not know the truth from a lie anymore. But I do. And I came to tell you, you are in grave, grave danger. You cannot afford to walk out of this place and try to start over. It’s not going to work this time. You’re busted. I mean, you can leave, you can walk out and start this all over again someplace else. But it’s not going to be the same. Because now I know. And just that fact in and of itself is going to ruin it for you.”

  She slit her eyes and crossed her arms, giving me her hardest glare. And I smiled again—I wasn’t afraid of her anger anymore. I was the adult here; I was in charge. I had the truth on my side.

  “Listen,” I said. “I promised you once that I would stay in your life, for better or for worse. Now that promise is a threat. I am in your life, and you’re not getting rid of me. You can run, but you won’t shake me. Because I am a very smart woman, with a lot of resources, and I care about you too much to let this thing kill you. And it will kill you.”

  I was silent for a moment, and so was she. She was still looking at me, but her defiance had slipped, and she was breathing fast, like she was afraid. I narrowed my eyes and looked at her critically, assessing her.

  “Which is a shame. Because you might even be able to kick this. I mean, you’re young, and you’re incredibly smart. If you wanted to, you might even have a chance at beating this thing. You might be able to live a normal life.” I tilted my head, assessing some more. “Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t even know if you want to beat this. But if you did, maybe you could.”

  Sam broke the eye contact and stared glumly at the floor. She was cracking; I could see it. Now I just had to finish her off.

  “But I’m betting you’re going to bolt instead. Which is why I came to say good-bye. Because I wanted to tell you a few things before you go.”

  She looked up at me again, her eyes plaintive this time. Don’t go. Don’t let me go.

  I launched into it, everything I’d prepared to say on the subway. “I wanted to tell you that I care about you, and I always have, from the first time we met. And you know what drew me to you? It was your writing. That’s what I liked about you. Not your bullshit stories, not your broken hand. The best day we ever spent together was that day in Chinatown, do you remember? When we had lunch and talked about writing a book together, and then we went on the swings and flew your kite?” I felt such a pang, remembering that innocent day; I could see she felt it, too. “You were perfectly healthy that day, and I loved you.”

  And I still did. I loved the part of her that was really her—the brilliant, sensitive, ferocious part; the part of her that still wanted to live. The part, behind the clenched jaw and the steely glare, that I could see was terrified, as well she should have been. This was the worst disorder I’d ever heard of. AIDS would at least kill her—this just made her suffer and suffer. She couldn’t even enjoy the caring she’d worked so hard to get, because it felt tainted. Nothing she did ever felt good for more than a few seconds at a time, and then it went back to being awful. I was flooded with compassion for her. Hers was no kind of life; it was a constant hell. It was like the Would You Rather…? game—Would you rather hide a deep dark secret from your loved ones? Or tell the truth and never see them again?

  My voice was soft but firm. “I still love you, Sam. I still wish I could help you. But you know, you have to decide that you want help. And I came to tell you that, too. If you leave, and you decide later that you want help, I will still be here. Call me anytime. You have the number.”

  One last smile, and then I leaned down to gather my bag.

  “Wait,” she said to the floor.

  I stopped and looked up at her. She met my eyes with hers. She’d broken
.

  “What…what do you think I should do?”

  I rode the train home, my inner bad cop slapping palms with my inner good cop. Yeah! We did it! I’d sweated through my shirt and my sweater and was now dampening the armpits of my coat, just reliving the scene. But I’d done it, I’d gotten her to confess. We’d called in the young female doctor on duty, and Sam hung her head while I explained the situation: “She admits to infecting herself; she’s at risk for further self-injury; you’ve got to put the social hold on her until she gets into DTP.”

  The doctor looked from me to her, her to me. “Is this true?” she asked Sam.

  Sam nodded her hung head. Yes.

  Yes! I called Maria, filled her in. She was confused—“What do you mean, she was going to bolt? She’d better not bolt, she’s supposed to go to DTP on Friday!”

  And now it looked like she might even get there. The stations flew by, 125th Street, 86th Street, 59th Street, Grand Central, Union Square. Once again, Sam was going to make it to rehab. And I was going to make it home.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Happiest Place on Earth

  Two days later, Sam was transferred to DTP, a drug-treatment program in upstate New York, for an estimated yearlong stay.

  So she wound up at the place I’d tried hardest to avoid as a teenager—DTP. Back in my day, they just called it “Treatment,” and it was the worst punishment the counselors at the group home could threaten us with. Sadistic counselors berated you twenty-four hours a day, made you wear signs around your neck—LIAR, MANIPULATER, SLUT—and encouraged the other residents to tear you down every chance they got. This was confrontation therapy, or something; it was supposed to break you down so you could be rebuilt. Except the ratio of time spent breaking you down to time spent building you up was, like, a million to one.

  Still, better DTP than the streets, or the shelter, or another hospital; better they break her down than she break down herself. We couldn’t let DTP know the severity of Sam’s real condition—Felicia had to fudge the application a little, or they never would have accepted her into the program. But in the meantime, at least she was being safely housed and monitored. She was being cared for by somebody else.

  I was free.

  Stillness—that’s what it felt like, that first week she was gone. An electric, living stillness, the feeling of stasis rubbing against change. The hum you hear when you meditate, the loudness of nothing. I sat with my notebook open on my lap, not writing. I felt empty. It didn’t feel so bad.

  Strange, though, not to have Sam on my to-do list. I could sit in the easy chair in the evening, watch the cats follow the last shaft of light from the window around the darkening room. No phone calls to make. No hospitals to visit. Nothing to anticipate. I was at rest.

  Bill and I were better than ever in the wake of Sam’s departure—bonded by the trauma we’d endured, giddy from the relief of it being over. I hugged and kissed him with extra gratitude when he came home at night, and he hugged me gratefully in return, happy to find me at home, yakking with a girlfriend over the phone or sitting in the chair with a book and a cat vying for space on my lap. I’d never take Bill for granted again, I swore; I’d never stop marveling over the love I felt for him and from him—this deep, true, reciprocal love that bounced back and forth between us, gaining strength and momentum with every day. This was family.

  Still, I thought of Sam constantly, wondering how she was feeling now that her disorder had been revealed and she was starting a new phase of her life. I wondered how she was feeling about me. I couldn’t seem to write to her, though I kept meaning to. I knew I should have made sure to send her a letter or two in her first week at DTP, just to show her that nothing had changed—I was still on her side, still in her life. I wasn’t flaking on my promise. But I couldn’t seem to write and say so. I couldn’t even return Maria’s call—“Just calling to say hi, check in, see if you want to get together with me and Jodi sometime; maybe we could have dinner.” I just listened to the message and deleted it.

  One thing I could do: call Disney, cancel Sam’s room, and get my deposit back. Bill and I were still going—I felt like we owed it to ourselves, after the way the wedding and honeymoon had been shadowed by Sam, and he’d even started, despite his lingering reservations about the place, to get into the Disney spirit. We referred to it as the Samantha Dunleavy Memorial Disney Trip, remembering how we thought we’d be flying down there with her ashes in an urn. The Disney operator was more than sympathetic—“Well, it’s a shame that Samantha can’t join you and William this year, but maybe on your next visit!”

  If I thought about her for too long, if my mind wandered on my morning run and I found myself reliving things she’d said and done to me—the night she called and said she’d stabbed a pimp, the day I sat by her bedside and watched her monitors flatline—I found myself getting angry again; angry at her, angry at myself. But my anger toward her was the kind you might feel toward someone who broke up with you—the anger of being rejected. The anger of the bruised ego. Mostly, I felt hurt by her because she took away something important to me: herself. First she gave me this person to love, this person who loved me, and then she told me that person wasn’t real. I was more angry at her because I missed her—or I missed the feelings I used to have about her—than anything else.

  Three weeks had passed since she’d left, and I continued to get calls from Maria—“Just wanted to see if the seventeenth would work for dinner; hope all’s well with you.” Maria was still on the case, still a stalwart for Sam; she’d written her letters, though no reply had come yet. Somehow, Maria had been through everything I had, and she’d remained everything I was striving to be: compassionate, loyal, and loving. Not bitter, miserable, waking up in the middle of the night thinking of new things I wanted to say to Sam—You’re so sick and disgusting, I’m glad you’re out of my life. Maybe I could absorb some of Maria’s conviction and faith.

  I called her back, smiling at her familiar voice on her outgoing message. “Hey there, Maria, it’s Janice. The seventeenth works great for me. Looking forward to seeing you and Jodi then.”

  November 17, 2005. One year to the day since I met Sam. And only one day shy of another anniversary: November 18 would mark twenty-one years since I’d left home for the shelter. Funny, I hadn’t really noticed how close the two events were. My anniversary as a runaway meant less and less to me these days.

  I stood outside the diner on Broadway by Astor Place, looking down the block, watching my breath make clouds in the cold air. Two girls in ripped tights and smeared eyeliner laughed and linked arms as they passed. I smiled at them indulgently, like a grandmother.

  Jodi arrived first. I hadn’t seen her in months, not since Sam’s meningitis. She looked well, maybe a little grayer around the temples. Same firm hug, same arch smile. “How you doin’, Bead Lady?”

  We stood outside and waited for Maria; Jodi smoked a cigarette. We talked about her job, my work, the shelter. “I haven’t been there in months,” I confessed. “Not since I saw you last.”

  Jodi rolled her eyes. “Yeah. We were all getting a little burnt out around then.”

  We could see Maria bustling down the block, loaded down with her bag of schoolbooks—the youngest of us, and yet somehow our leader. Her indefatigable smile buoyed me right away. “Hi there, Other Moms!”

  We hugged hello, Jodi stomped out her cigarette, and we went inside and got a seat.

  So there we were. We’d never met like this before, the council of concerned elders. I felt very safe, sitting there at the table with them, listening to them chat about their various counseling and social work duties, figuring out where they overlapped—“I’m doing less case management and more hands-on these days.” “Yeah, I prefer a lot of client interaction myself.” I felt like a kid, swinging my legs under the table while the grown-ups talked about how to fix everything. Sam picked some good ones, I thought; when she went parent shopping, she got the best.

  “So have
you heard anything from Sam?” I asked.

  “Well,” Maria began. “I got the initial call from her saying she was at DTP, and she was okay. She told me there’d be no contact for the first thirty to ninety days, but as soon as she was assigned a primary counselor, she’d give that person permission to speak to us. And I’ve written her a few letters, but I don’t think she can reply yet.”

  “Any word from her counselor?”

  “No, but that’s not a surprise. Her counselor probably wouldn’t make contact with us unless we initiated it.”

  Jodi agreed. “Sounds like standard operating procedure.”

  “Huh.” So all we had was Sam’s word that she was going to keep us in the loop, that she wasn’t going to shut us out now that she was in DTP. As soon as she’s assigned a primary counselor reminded me too much of things she’d said before—As soon as I know who’s my primary doctor, Eng or Gambine, I’ll have them call you. “So do you think we should call her counselor? See how she’s doing?”

  “We could,” said Maria. “I can put in a call sometime next week. But it’s the holidays, so I wouldn’t expect a call back right away.”

  Jodi and Maria both seemed so cool about the situation. Neither of them had a lot of confidence in DTP—“It’s a last resort, but at least she’s somewhere”—but they seemed to have confidence in Sam, confidence that she was committed to “working the program” and getting better. Huh, I thought. I’d read that some people with Munchausen’s syndrome could be helped somewhat by modified 12-step therapy; maybe it wasn’t so far-fetched that she’d manage to derive some good from this place. I perked up more and more, especially as we started talking about the good times, the Yankees games and the Coney Islands, and what we missed about Sam, how important she made us feel.

  Then we started comparing her stories against one another. “Did you ever hear her play piano?” I asked.