“So she’s a self-harmer?”
Kate nodded. “But Mrs. Ward thinks she’s possessed.”
“Interesting. Does the child believe she’s possessed, too?”
“Hard to say. She relinquished the crosses and rosaries pretty quick, which could imply she’s a believer, since the devil is supposed to reject all religious symbols. It could be a case of ‘possession syndrome.’”
“Okay,” Ira said. “Let’s go with that for now. Don’t challenge her belief system. Let’s accept the delusion as a baseline and deal with it through the patient’s eyes.”
“Right,” Kate agreed. “If she’s having an acute episode, then she’s confused and gullible, and her mother is providing her with the answer.”
“A crazy answer, sure… but let’s go ahead and talk about the demons, if that’s what she wants to do,” Ira said.
Kate nodded. “Use the patient’s own belief system to treat her.”
“Exactly. What’s their religious affiliation? How was she raised? Let’s delve into the family background. Find out more about her parents. I’d like to consult on the case, if that’s okay with you.”
“Great. I’d welcome it.”
His phone rang. “Hold on.” He spoke to the department chair for a moment, then hung up. “How’s everything else, Kate? How are you handling Nikki’s suicide?”
“Okay, I guess.” She shrugged. “To be honest, it’s nice to have a distraction.”
He nodded. He waited.
Kate blurted out, “I mean, I’m dealing with it, you know? But it makes me question everything I’ve been doing for the past couple of years. How many other mistakes have I made? Are any of my other patients going to kill themselves? Am I missing all the signs? I have to admit, it’s taken a wrecking ball to my self-confidence.”
“I’ll tell you a story,” Ira said. “Ten years ago, this very successful man took an overdose of sleeping pills. He had everything going for him—money, family, career… but he was deeply depressed. I took him on as my patient, and after a few years of therapy, he got better. He was no longer suicidal. He resumed his career as a high-profile attorney. He got back with his estranged wife. I was over the moon about it. But then one day, guess what happened next?”
“He committed suicide?”
“Nope. Cardiac arrest. Ironic, huh? Here I’d managed to save this man’s life against all odds, but he died anyway. Why?
Because we’re only human, Kate. We aren’t God. Far from it.”
She frowned. “I guess you handle life’s ironies better than I do.”
“Well, you can’t fight reality. Just because we’re psychiatrists, doesn’t mean we control our patients’ destinies, anymore than we can control our own. All we can do is help them find their way through the darkness. If we’re lucky.”
“So basically we’re flashlights?”
He laughed. “Yes, we’re flashlights.”
The echo of Savannah’s bright laughter rippled through her. One hot summer night sixteen years ago, Kate had given her little sister a flashlight, but instead of finding her way home, Savannah was lost forever.
Before he buried her alive in his backyard, Henry Blackwood had shaved Savannah’s entire head, even her eyebrows. The police never found the clippings. Among the questions still haunting Kate, that was the biggest one of all—where was Savannah’s long blond hair?
12
KATE WENT HOME TO prep for the Risk Management interview and get some well-deserved sleep. James was at work. She found his note on the kitchen island. I like you, do you like me? Check box—yes or no.
She smiled and checked yes. She kicked off her shoes, poured herself a glass of wine, and curled up on the sofa, where she wrote down her responses to imaginary questions in longhand on a notepad. After a while, she couldn’t follow the hieroglyphics of her own handwriting anymore and nodded off.
“Am I a bad person?”
“No, Savannah. You’re good through and through.”
“But I think bad thoughts sometimes.”
“We all do. It’s called being human.”
The day after Savannah went missing, dozens of reporters descended on the town. During the first forty-eight hours, missing-child posters popped up all over the county. Volunteers scoured the woods and fields. Four days later, cadaver dogs found her body buried behind Henry Blackwood’s house, less than thirty feet from his back door. Her sister’s tragedy led the nightly news for weeks.
Blackwood lived in a suburban home with a pickup truck parked out front. He and his wife had divorced years ago. They didn’t have any kids. The Wolfe girls rarely spoke to Mr. Blackwood, even though they walked past his house every day on their way to school. He had blond hair, freckled skin, sea-green eyes, and a widow’s peak. He was the unfriendly neighbor who kept his property spotlessly clean, picking up litter by the side of the road and tying the lids of the garbage cans shut with a length of rope in order to keep the raccoons out. Later on, that same rope was used on her sister.
Throughout the years, Kate periodically had the same dream. She would find herself back inside the cabin in the woods, only Savannah wasn’t there—just her size six jogging shoes with the big Ns on the sides. In Kate’s dream, something reached out of the darkness and grabbed her by the ankles and dragged her relentlessly backward. She would scrape her nails across the splintery boards screaming, “Savannah!”—thinking her sister must be hiding in the shadows. She always struggled but couldn’t escape the relentless pull, and when she woke up, her mouth tasted like dirt.
Now she sat up gasping for air, furious that it was happening all over again. The nightmares, the anxiety attacks, the self-doubt. Kate thought she’d managed to move on, but some things never left you.
She fetched her wallet and pulled Savannah’s careworn picture out of its hidden compartment behind her credit cards. She poured herself another glass of wine and gazed at the old snapshot. Her little sister was like a sugar-icing rose—so sweet and delicate, you couldn’t imagine that anything bad would ever happen to her. Their mother used to say she was made out of caramels and moonbeams. Kate had only wanted to protect her. She hadn’t meant to hurt her.
At the funeral, she was compelled to say goodbye to her dead sister in her child-sized casket. Savannah’s skin was a bloodless color, like rancid milk, and she wore a wig because her hair was all gone. The mortician’s assistant had even penciled in eyebrows, and Savannah would’ve loved that. A grown-up wig and grown-up eyebrows! Cool!
In a near panic, Kate tucked the picture away and tried to think about something else. Anything. She sat on the sofa surveying the beautiful condo. How lucky they were. She was tempted to call James just to hear his voice, but the locked unit was always so busy, and she didn’t want to disturb him. Besides, he couldn’t be her rock every single second of every day. She had to handle some of this on her own.
She remembered the nightmares piling up after Savannah’s murder. She remembered waking up screaming, “Mommy!” But their mother was gone. She never screamed, “Daddy!” When the nightmares got really bad, she would get up in the middle of the night and wander around the house, searching for her father. More often than not, he wouldn’t be there. His car would be gone from the driveway, and she’d have to face the horror of her sister’s murder alone. Kate used to whisper to the empty house, “I’m sorry, Savannah, do you forgive me?” And when she fell asleep, she would have the terrible cabin dream all over again.
It took her years to overcome her fears and eventually stop tormenting herself. One night, in a radically different dream, her sister appeared out of mist, and Kate could feel Savannah’s thin, graceful fingers lacing through her hair. In this rare peaceful dream, Savannah sat next to her and carefully braided Kate’s long auburn hair. “Perfect,” she said when she was done. Kate woke up sobbing.
Ira interpreted the dream as a crystallization of her own self-forgiveness. He said it had nothing to do with spirits or ghosts, except as a metaphor
for healing. But Kate couldn’t help feeling that her sister had actually visited her that night in some form or another. An irrational belief—but one she clung to. Because Savannah’s forgiveness meant everything in the world to her.
Kate poured herself another glass of wine. Then another. Soon she’d polished off the bottle, and the world became soft-focus—a rubbery, cushiony world. Nice and bouncy. She got off the sofa and stood in front of the panoramic windows, swaying slightly with each intake of breath.
* * *
Late that evening, James came home thoroughly drained. Kate had never seen him so burnt out before. He collapsed on their queen-sized bed without bothering to get undressed. “Hey, you,” he muttered into his pillow, already half asleep. “Whazzup?”
“Hey, beautiful.” She tugged off his boots and climbed into bed with him.
He gathered her in his arms. “How ya doing, sweetness?”
“Fine. I was shitty before. Many, many glasses of wine ago.”
“Hey. Whatever does the job.”
“Are you encouraging me to become an alcoholic?”
“No. I’m encouraging you not to care so much.”
“Ha, that’ll be the day.”
“Look at me. I had a shitty day, ten-hour shift, I haven’t had an ounce of alcohol, and I don’t care. See?”
“I guess you’re just more tougher than me.”
“More tougher? I am?”
“Mm.” She kissed him.
A few minutes later he found his second wind, got out of bed, and retrieved his messenger bag. “Hey, I picked these up on the way home.” He rummaged through the inner pockets and produced a handful of glossy travel brochures. He dropped them on the bed and sat down beside her. “What d’you think? Cancun or the Caymans? Or maybe Hawaii? I dunno. I was leaning toward Cancun.”
“Wow,” Kate said, picking up a brochure. “We don’t have to decide right this second, do we?”
“April’s not that far away, dude. Look at this. Pristine beaches, kayaking, margaritas, the Mayan ruins in Coba. Snorkeling, sunsets… did I mention margaritas? Just what the doctor ordered.”
Kate frowned. “Yeah…”
“What?”
“Sorry, I can’t think straight. I wasn’t prepared to plan our whole future tonight.”
“Our whole future? It’s just a vacation.”
She dropped the brochure on the bed. “I’ve got a lot on my mind lately.”
“Okay. But look at this…”
“Not until after the funeral and the Risk Management interview, we said. Right?”
“I know. But there’s always going to be another crisis, Kate. There’s always going to be another patient. Come on, we deserve this. Sunny skies, blue ocean…?”
“Do I have to decide right this second?” she asked defensively.
His face fell. He scooped up the brochures and shoved them back in his bag. “I understand you’re under a lot of stress right now. I didn’t mean to come across as an asshole, Kate. But I’m worried about you. I don’t like what this is doing to you… how it’s affecting you.”
She drew back. “Are you talking about the hallucination?”
“Sort of,” he admitted. “That was pretty upsetting.”
“But I thought we agreed it was a symptom of the migraine?”
“It could be a symptom of a lot of things.”
She stared at him.
“Listen, I love you. I’m not the enemy here. What about my idea of driving down to the Cape next week? Just for a couple of days.”
Her finger began to itch. She glanced at her ring. “Maddie needs me,” she said. “She’ll only be under my supervision for seven days…”
He heaved a frustrated sigh. “You’re right. Sorry, babe. I understand how hard this must be for you, because I’ve been through it myself… Remember Desiree? She swallowed drain cleaner, for chrissakes. What a horrible way to go. But you’ve got to believe me when I say I want to help. I want to protect you from your awful childhood, Kate. Do you realize how scary this is for me? I mean, the execution is next week. We weren’t supposed to be here when it happened, remember? We were supposed to be in a hot tub in Sedona, drinking margaritas, no TV, no Internet… just you, me, and the stars.”
“I know,” she said sadly. “But it’s unavoidable now.”
He wrapped his arms around her and drew her close. She rested her head against his chest and listened to his heartbeat, which was slower than hers. He took her hands and turned them over. He traced the old scars with his fingers. She had tried to kill herself on her eighteenth birthday, but she’d done it all wrong and missed the vein.
“Look,” he said, “I can’t imagine what kind of hell you’ve been through… how difficult your life must’ve been… and now, to have to relive it all over again. But my instinct is to protect you. I’m a guy. It’s a guy thing. You get that, right?”
She nodded solemnly. “Maybe we shouldn’t have moved in together?”
He drew back. “What?”
“Maybe it’s too soon for this?”
“Is that your takeaway from our conversation? That we should call it quits?”
She shrugged, tears welling. “It’s never too late.”
Instead of getting angry or offended, he laughed. “Those are bad, bad words.” He folded her in his arms. “I’m sorry, but it’s way too late. You’re stuck with me.”
She sighed, deeply relieved.
13
ON FRIDAY MORNING AT 8:50 AM, Kate parked in the six-story hospital garage and went over her prepared statement in her mind, reluctant to leave the warmth of her car for the interview with Risk Management at nine o’clock. After all, the risk was mostly hers.
She loosened her grip on the wheel, switched off the ignition, and stepped out of the car, then stood for a moment inside the vast cave-like structure. It was a cold and echoey kind of place. A nowhere kind of place. You could hear the steady whoosh of cars circling the levels, a high-tide sound. A person could drown in those circlings.
On an impulse, instead of taking the pedestrian walkway directly into the west wing, she headed down the stairwell and crossed the courtyard, past the frozen fountain and weathered benches. It had been a long time since she’d entered the hospital through the main doors.
The beautiful old building had an aura of sleepy dignity about it. The walls were composed of thick granite blocks, and the arched windows reminded her of heavily lidded eyes, as if the hospital was always on the verge of nodding off. In front of the main entranceway, a little boy stepped on the automated rubber mat over and over, making the glass doors slide open and shut, enthralled by his newfound superpower. She watched with genuine amusement, her winter coat flapping around her knees, until his mother came along and whisked him away.
If only I could control my life like that, she thought, stepping on the welcome mat and watching the doors glide open. Simple.
Inside, she greeted the security guard, Bruce, a friendly guy with a clean-shaven face and a hangdog expression, who ushered people through the metal detectors with all the grace of Fred Astaire. He waved his magic wand and said, “Have a blessed day, Doc.”
“You too, Bruce.”
Kate caught a crowded elevator to the psych department on the second floor, and used her pass key to open the double doors of the Children’s Psych Unit. Across the hallway, through another set of locked doors, was the Substance-Abuse Treatment Center. Upstairs on the third floor was the Adult Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit, accessible by private elevator or locked stairwell—for hospital personnel only. Admission to all three programs was voluntary, but the exit doors were locked so the hospital wouldn’t be held liable if a patient escaped the premises without being properly released.
The smaller of two conference rooms had been reserved for today’s interview. Kate’s attorney was already there, along with the Risk Management representative, a stout woman in a cashmere pantsuit who sat with her fingers laced together.
Russ
ell Cooper was an intimidating presence in his Armani suit, Bulgari watch, and gold cufflinks. “Kate, this is Felicia Hamilton from Risk Management. Felicia… Dr. Kate Wolfe.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“Same here.”
They shook hands.
Kate settled into a vinyl-padded chair next to Russell and studied Felicia Hamilton. She appeared to be in her mid-forties, with intelligent gray eyes and short sleek hair. A professional with a permanent poker face. Felicia opened her briefcase on the table and took out a digital recorder, a fountain pen and a clipboard. She placed the recorder on the table and said, “Do I have your permission to record this interview?”
“Yes.” Kate glanced at her attorney for approval. Russell nodded. Her heart wouldn’t stop racing. There were several bottled waters on the table, and Russell slid one over to her.
“Thanks.” She twisted off the cap and drank. Then came the questions. She reminded herself to keep it brief and truthful.
“On June 2nd of last year, Nicole McCormack came to the hospital for emergency psychiatric treatment and was admitted for observation,” Felicia said in the blandest of tones. “Why did you release her four weeks later?”
“Traditionally, lower-risk patients are treated on an outpatient basis.”
“So she was no longer suicidal?”
“She was working on healthier ways to express her negative feelings. I decided that her risk of suicide wasn’t high at that point.”
“When you say ‘wasn’t high,’ what do you mean?”
“Nikki came to regret what she’d done. Her psychological state had improved significantly, and her depression had lifted. After four weeks of treatment, I concluded she was no longer at risk of self-harm.”
“And what was the outpatient treatment plan?”
“She was to continue medicating and see me once a week for talk therapy.”
“And how was that going?”
“Very well. She was fully engaged in working through her emotional issues.”
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