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

by Michael Schofield

  Nothing. Once she tells me what she did, acknowledges it and owns her behavior, I will let her out.

  “Janni, why are you in a time-out?”

  A long silence. I don’t think she’s going to answer. This is the problem. She has to make the connection between cause and effect. For someone so brilliant, she seems to be unable to do this.

  “I hit Bodhi.”

  This catches me by surprise, because that’s not what she did.

  “Well, that is usually why you get time-outs, because you try to hit Bodhi, but that’s not what you did this time.”

  “I hit Mommy.”

  I’m getting annoyed. “No, you didn’t hit Mommy,” I say. “Stop playing games, Janni. The sooner you face what you did, the sooner you can come out.”

  “I screamed,” Janni answers through the door.

  “Well, yes, but that’s not the main reason. Janni, what did you just do a second ago that got you a time-out? Just tell me and I’ll let you out.”

  “I hit,” Janni says again.

  “Who? Who did you hit?”

  “Bodhi.”

  “No.”

  “Mommy.”

  “No, Janni!” I reply, frustrated. “Janni, you could end all this right now. Just take responsibility for your actions.”

  “Tell me.”

  “No, I’m not going to tell you. If I tell you, that defeats the whole point of the time-out.”

  “Tell me. I don’t remember.”

  “How could you not remember? You just did it a minute ago. It was the last thing you did.”

  “Let her out,” Susan commands.

  “No,” I tell her, feeling like I am losing a battle. “She has to face the consequences.”

  “I don’t remember,” Janni says again through the door. “Just tell me what I did.”

  I open the door. Janni is sitting on her bed. I stare at her. “You deliberately spilled the rice and then hit me.”

  “Oh,” Janni answers. “Can I come out now?”

  I shake my head and walk away.

  • • •

  IT’S A SATURDAY in the middle of October and we’re in sweltering heat running Honey around at Janni’s school. Janni didn’t want to come, but I told her she had no choice in the matter. There is no way I am leaving her alone with Susan and Bodhi.

  A group of kids on bikes suddenly ride into the schoolyard, and I see Honey approaching them, picking up speed. This is not good. Honey doesn’t bite, but she is a herding dog by instinct. If these kids aren’t used to dogs and see one running toward them, they will get scared.

  “It’s okay,” I call across the playground to them as Honey comes running. “She doesn’t bite.”

  “Watch out for Wednesday,” Janni suddenly calls. “She bites.”

  The kids turn to Honey, apprehension on their faces, and I realize they think Honey is Wednesday, Janni’s imaginary rat.

  “Janni, I wish you hadn’t done that. Now they think Honey is Wednesday and they will be afraid.”

  “But I had to warn them about Wednesday,” Janni protests.

  “Janni, Wednesday can’t hurt them,” I answer, annoyed. “Honey! Get over here!”

  “Yes, she can. She bites. She bites me.”

  “Dammit, Janni. I can assure you Wednesday cannot hurt them.”

  “Yes, she can. She can hurt them in their head.”

  This catches me so much by surprise that I forget about Honey scaring the other kids. I turn to Janni. She is looking at me like she finally has my attention.

  “She bites me in my head if I don’t do what she wants. That’s why I have to hit Bodhi. If I don’t, she will bite me.”

  She says this with total seriousness. That’s it. Her imagination has gotten out of control. It controls her now.

  “Janni, you control Wednesday, not the other way around. If she wants you to hit Bodhi, you tell her no.”

  “I do, but she won’t listen and then she scratches me and bites me until I do.”

  This is ridiculous. “Janni, you created Wednesday! She’s part of your imagination. You can tell her what to do!”

  “No, I can’t.”

  I feel myself losing control. “Janni, Wednesday doesn’t exist, okay? She’s a figment of your imagination. You can make her go away. Just tell her to go away!”

  Janni shakes her head. “I can’t.”

  “No. You won’t. You won’t because … because I don’t know why.” I pause, trying to decide how to proceed. I’ve been talking to her like she was an adult since she was a toddler. I know she has the capacity to understand what I am trying to say. “Because you can control Wednesday and make her do what you want, when playing with real kids requires give-and-take. You prefer your imaginary friends over real kids because you can control them and you can’t control real kids. You can’t control the real world, and that scares you. I get that, Janni. The real world is scary. But you’re six years old now. It’s time to give up your imaginary friends.”

  “They’re not imaginary. They’re real.”

  “I don’t want to hear it, do you understand?” I wave my finger in her face. “I’ve had it with Calilini and all these friends of yours. I don’t want to hear another word about them. I only want to hear about real people and real places.” I am breathing hard. For three years I have played along. Not anymore. She’s got to face reality now.

  Janni stares at me, her face blank.

  “They are real,” she replies evenly, and walks away toward our car.

  “Janni, come back here!”

  She ignores me.

  Whispers of guilt drift through me. This is my fault. I was so afraid of shutting down her imagination for fear of limiting her genius. I turned her into what she is, and now she probably feels I am rejecting her.

  Susan told me that the other night, Janni said to her, “I wish I was dumb.”

  I start to run after her. “Janni, wait!” I have to call her several times before she turns around. “Make sure you have Wednesday.”

  Janni stares blankly for a second, then, “I do. See?” She raises her empty palm. “Squeak!”

  “I see.” She doesn’t smile, but I see it in her eye, a fleeting look of happiness.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  November 2008

  I cancel my classes today so I can attend Janni’s “IEP,” or “Individualized Education Plan,” meeting with Susan at Janni’s school. The primary purpose of an IEP is to determine whether a child meets the requirements for special education services. Originally, when we requested it a month ago, our goal was to get them to provide Janni with a more challenging curriculum, with the hope that something would spark her interest and she’d want to study it on her own.

  We are in a conference room with the principal, Mrs. Fitzgerald, the assistant principal, Wendy, Oak Hills’ school psychologist, and Janni’s first-grade teacher, Mrs. Parris. Usually, IEPs are done after class hours, but since we have no one to watch Janni, we asked if it could be done while Janni was in class and a substitute was filling in.

  I can’t help but notice they’re all on one side of the table. Susan and I take up the empty seats opposing them, with Bodhi in between us sleeping in his stroller. I don’t know if this arrangement happened purely by accident, but it adds to the feeling that this is going to be us against them.

  “Janni is telling us she isn’t getting to go to recess,” Susan tells them accusingly.

  I give an exasperated sigh. Susan does this every time we meet with the school. She is always immediately combative.

  “Let’s give Mrs. Parris a chance to speak,” I say.

  “She does get bench time occasionally,” Mrs. Parris answers flatly.

  “What is ‘bench time’?” I ask.

  “If a student breaks a rule, they get one warning. If they do it again, they lose their recess privileges and have to stay in and think about what they did.”

  I get an image of Janni, sitting on the bench, watching the other kids
play.

  “And does it work?” I ask rhetorically, because I know it doesn’t. I’ve been doing it at home for six months, and it hasn’t worked for me.

  “No, it doesn’t,” she sighs, then turns to Susan. “Mrs. Schofield, can I ask you a question?” Without waiting for an answer, she continues. “Every time I take away a privilege—”

  “Recess is not a privilege for Janni,” Susan says, interrupting. “I don’t know if you realize this, but Janni can’t stop moving, and to take away recess from her is just torture. It’s not like she even plays with the kids.”

  “Putting that aside for a moment,” Mrs. Parris continues. “Janni says ‘It’s okay. My mommy will take me to Pizza Kitchen.’ Is that true?”

  “Yes, it is,” Susan replies. “I do it because it is the only place she will eat. I’m not going to starve her.”

  Mrs. Parris exhales. “It just makes it harder for me to discipline Janni if she knows that no matter what I do, she is going to get the reward of going to Pizza Kitchen.”

  “Well, can you get her to eat the lunch I pack for her here?” Susan fires back.

  “No,” she admits.

  “She can’t control it!” Susan yells, looking at each of the school personnel in turn. “She has a mental illness!”

  I sigh. “We don’t know that.”

  Susan glares at me like I’m stupid. “She’s tried to choke herself.”

  “That’s because she knows it will get her out of a time-out.”

  Susan snorts and turns away from me, disgusted. “You can believe what you want. If you want to be stupid like them, fine.”

  I grit my teeth. Now she is calling me names, which doesn’t help. “We are trying to find a solution here.”

  “We know what the solution is, but they won’t do it,” Susan retorts. “Janni needs more challenging work! She’s a genius, but these idiots don’t seem to get that.”

  I turn away, fighting to stay calm. Susan looks like a nut right now.

  “Mrs. Schofield, we want to help,” the principal says, “but insulting my staff is not helping. I can assure you,” he continues, “that Mrs. Parris is an excellent teacher. I handpicked all my teachers. They are the best.”

  Bodhi stirs in his car seat, and Susan picks him up and cradles him in her arms, probably because he’s the only one who is comforting to her in this moment.

  “Look,” I say, putting my hand on Susan’s before she calls the principal an idiot, as well, “I am sure she is an excellent teacher under normal circumstances.” I’m lying, and not very convincingly. The job of a teacher is to inspire, and there is nothing inspirational about Parris. “Janni is very sensitive. If she perceives that Mrs. Parris doesn’t like her, the relationship is over.”

  “It’s not a perception,” Susan says, getting in her dig.

  “That’s not true,” Mrs. Parris answers evenly. “I like January very much. When I am working one-on-one with her, she’s a wonderful student. But I have sixteen other students who need my help. It’s frustrating for me, because while Janni does understand the material, most of my other students do not. They need my help more than Janni. But as soon as I leave to go on to another student, Janni refuses to do her work, work I know she can do. Worse than that, she becomes disruptive, screaming and throwing things.”

  “She has a 146 IQ,” Susan jumps in, her body jerking so much she wakes up Bodhi, who’s been sleeping in her arms.

  “We know how bright she is,” the principal says. “As part of the IEP process we did a battery of tests. We weren’t able to get as much information as we would have liked because of Janni’s limited cooperation, but we learned enough to know she is the smartest student in this school, maybe the district.”

  “There you go,” Susan says triumphantly.

  “But,” the principal continues, “none of that matters if she can’t function within the classroom setting.”

  Can’t function. In my mind, I see the image of Janni’s future as a shut-in, just as I did when she was at Violet’s party a couple years ago.

  “I didn’t want to say this,” Mrs. Parris goes on, “but I just completed parent-teacher conferences, and several parents complained about Janni. They’re upset their children are coming home and saying they can’t learn because she’s always screaming or disrupting the class.”

  Cold anger makes me shiver. Other parents are complaining about my child? Instinctively, my parental desire to protect my child kicks in. “And what did you tell them?” I ask coldly.

  Mrs. Parris shrugs. “I told them I do my best to make sure every student gets the attention he or she needs, but I have to be honest. They don’t. Janni takes up more of my time than is fair to the rest of the class. Even the other children are starting to avoid her.”

  “That’s because they are picking up on your lead,” Susan fires across the table.

  Mrs. Parris shakes her head. “I go out of my way to make sure the other students include Janni. But it’s hard for them, because she is extremely unpredictable. They want to play with her. They like her, but honestly I think they’ve given up trying to include her.”

  I look away. Emotions are surging to the surface; all my doubts, fears, and frustrations are overwhelming me.

  “What about skipping her ahead to a higher grade?” I finally ask.

  “I don’t think that would be a very good idea,” the principal answers.

  “My biggest issue is getting her to write,” Parris adds. “She knows how to do it, but she won’t. The amount of writing only increases in the higher grades.”

  “And then there is the socialization issue,” the principal continues. “We are not sure she would integrate well into an older classroom.”

  “But she needs kids more on her level,” Susan says.

  “She may be on their level intellectually, but not emotionally,” the principal replies. “She’s been in my office many times and I’ve gotten to know her. She spends most of her time talking about her imaginary friends. My fear is that putting her in with older kids would isolate her further than she already is.

  “Look,” the principal continues, “we all want the same thing, for Janni to succeed and be happy in her environment. I know you feel she would do better in a higher grade or even with another teacher, but given Janni’s behavior issues and classroom disruptions, I don’t see any evidence to support that.”

  “So you’re going to do nothing,” Susan says derisively, “while she gets worse and worse. Maybe when she runs out of the classroom and into the parking lot and gets hit by a car, then you’ll do something.”

  “Susan,” I say. “That’s not helping.”

  She turns on me. “She’s already tried to run before. They just happened to catch her in the parking lot. But what happens when they eventually aren’t able to catch her? You keep thinking they care. They don’t. If she dies, they’ll just say, ‘Oh, how awful! If only there was something we could have done.’ We’ll be the ones with a dead daughter!”

  “I wish you wouldn’t talk like that,” I answer, as evenly as I can. “You make it sound like it’s inevitable.”

  “It is! I can see it happening!”

  The principal holds up his hand. “Our answer is not to do nothing. We agree Janni needs more than a mainstream classroom can provide …”

  As soon as I hear mainstream classroom, I know where this is going.

  The principal leans forward. “We feel the best placement for Janni at this time would be in an SED classroom.”

  “What’s ‘SED’?” I ask. Everything in public education is a damn acronym.

  “Severely emotionally disturbed,” the principal replies.

  The conference room goes deadly quiet. I remember what my therapist Tom said last year … It sounds like she is pretty disturbed.

  I shake my head vehemently. “No. No way. I know those classrooms. You’re going to put her in with the kids who smoke and swear at the teacher. No way. That will send her backward, not forward. She
needs someone to teach to her level.” Anger and pain, emotions I haven’t allowed myself to feel in months, are boiling up inside me. They don’t want to help her. They don’t value her. They just want her out of their hair. “You want to get rid of her because some other parents complained! Janni has a right to the same education as them!” I feel like I’m fighting for Janni’s future now. If Susan and I don’t hold our ground, if Janni gets sent to this classroom, it will be the beginning of the end. “She needs someone to teach her!” I say, staring daggers at Mrs. Parris. I wish to hell I had the time to teach Janni. These morons don’t see her potential. All they can see is her behavior.

  The principal puts up his hand. “That’s not true, Mr. Schofield. It’s a class for students with emotional and behavioral issues that require more than what a traditional classroom can offer. She could get the one-to-one attention there that we can’t provide.”

  “What about a one-to-one here?” I ask.

  “We don’t feel that would be sufficient.”

  “You haven’t tried it!” I am practically shouting. “Try it. The law says you have to exhaust all available options to keep her in a mainstream class before you can send her to an SED classroom.”

  The principal and his team exhange looks. “That is true,” he finally answers.

  “So you have to try a one-to-one and you haven’t. That’s what we want in Mrs. Parris’s class.”

  “She isn’t happy in a regular classroom,” the principal replies. “Why make her suffer?”

  I shake my head. No. You just want to get rid of her. “Do what Susan and I have to do every day. Keep trying. Get her a one-to-one.”

  The principal looks at Mrs. Parris, then back to us. “Okay.”

  I stand up. I’m not going to let them throw away Janni’s potential because she’s “difficult.” Einstein was “difficult,” too.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  December 2008

  It’s Winter Break and Janni is done with school for three weeks, which means a vacation from having to deal with Mrs. Parris and the endless calls from the school about Janni’s behavior.

  Once again I have brought Honey up to the school grounds to run and made Janni come with me. It’s after dark and the school grounds are empty. The playing field is fenced in, so I can let Honey off her leash to run.