Mental Status Exam:
The patient is unresponsive to either of his parents, direct questions, or external stimuli in the room. He will obey simple commands if repeated and guided through the motion of them. Affect is labile. One moment he is sitting quietly; the next, he is batting at the air and shouting.
Course of Action:
Patient will be admitted to the Children’s Behavioral Unit for further observation and testing.
Antipsychotic medications will be administered to combat the hallucinations.
Patient will be tested for seizures.
A consultation appointment will be scheduled with an eye specialist.
Parents will be referred to the Parental Coping Skills Class.
Provisional Diagnosis: Psychotic Disorder Not Otherwise Specified.
Prognosis: Guarded to Poor.
All the anger inside her faded to shocked curiosity.
Her legs folded beneath her, and she sat on the floor in the middle of the papers. Papers about his life. His terrible life.
He’d only been a little boy. A sweet, innocent child.
She rummaged through the documents. Page after page of admissions. All for the same problem. She wasn’t educated, but it seemed like the doctors pumped him full of enough drugs to sedate him, then sent him home. At six years old, he’d been medicated and sedated.
A pink carbon-copy page—dated years later—grabbed her attention.
Incident Report
11/3/96, 7:15 p.m. When I heard screaming, I ran into the common room. Lathaniel Montgomery was on the floor. Justin Slider was sitting on his shoulders, jamming pencils into Lathaniel’s ears, screaming that he was killing the demon living inside Lathaniel’s brain. Justin was restrained, placed in isolation, and administered a sedative. The emergency code was called. Lathaniel was transported to the emergency room.
F. Anderson
Lathan had said he’d been attacked, but she’d never imagined something like this. He was so strong and proud that the thought of him being a victim just didn’t fit with what she knew of him.
She flipped through the rest of the papers.
Until he turned eighteen, he’d been admitted to Children’s Hospital at least every few months, sometimes for months at a time.
She grabbed the next folder. Two Vallies Mental Health Center. She leafed through the pages. More of the same. Admission after admission. Drug after drug.
Date: 7/16/03
Name: Lathaniel Montgomery
Interventions: Patient has not responded to medications. ECT treatments will be scheduled.
Dr. Despare
Evanee’s mind flashed back to high school psychology class, to Mrs. Roman showing them the video clip of Jack Nicholson’s character being given shock treatments in One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
Date: 7/18/03
Name: Lathaniel Montgomery
Interventions: Patient was returned to his room and is resting after his first treatment. A course of twenty treatments will be administered.
Dr. Despare
Guilt and shame and nausea roiled in Evanee’s belly for how she’d treated him.
Date: 7/19/03
Name: Lathaniel Montgomery
Interventions: Gill Garrison, who has Lathaniel’s power of attorney, removed patient from the facility against medical advice.
Dr. Despare
What was your intention? she had asked him when she discovered he’d been hiding his hearing problem.
For you to know me first. To see that I am normal.
Those words took on a deeper meaning. They were about a man who’d experienced a shitty childhood, who’d survived pencils jammed in his ears, who’d endured shock treatments, and felt that no one would accept him and his genetic anomaly.
And she’d rejected him—just like he’d expected. All because he knew her deepest shame and darkest moments. Moments she wanted to keep hidden away, because if anyone knew, they’d look at her differently, treat her differently—the exact reasons Lathan kept his own secrets.
She was a total and complete hypocrite. She hated hypocrites. Hated herself for how she’d reacted when he’d handled her issues with grace and treated her with dignity.
Evanee left the papers scattered over the bedroom floor and ran from the room. Not one more moment could pass without her apologizing, without her telling him she loved him—genetically weird abilities and all.
When she was halfway down the stairs, Little Man started barking. The sound wasn’t the woofing and chuffing of him playing outside; it was angry and menacing. Fear licked the back of her neck.
Pguull!
A gunshot.
A canine scream of pain.
Silence.
A terrifying rush of certainty iced her skin. She knew, she just knew, Junior was outside—and he wasn’t target shooting. He was here to kill Lathan.
“Lathan!” She yelled his name with all the force inside her at the same time she hit the bottom step.
He was in the kitchen, hunched over the sink, head down, dragging in ragged breaths of torment.
He looked up. His chiseled features were ravaged with agony that went beyond body and mind, but spoke without words of how she had wounded his spirit. Guilt wanted to gut her, but that would have to wait.
“Lathan! Run!” She screamed so loud her throat burned.
The back door exploded inward. Splintered shards of wood scattered across the kitchen. Gun first, Junior stormed inside.
Evanee ran toward Lathan, but time held her in its elusive grip, slowing her progress, while speeding up everything around her.
She watched, utterly helpless, as Junior aimed the gun at Lathan. Pulled the trigger.
The sound was an earthquake. It shook her knees, rattled her body, and knocked the breath from her lungs.
Lathan jerked, but remained on his feet.
Impossible hope flooded her mind. Maybe Junior had missed. Maybe he’d fired a warning shot, not a kill shot.
Time finally released her. She skidded to a stop in from of Lathan, waving her arms wildly at Junior like he was a basketball champ and she was blocking him from scoring the game-winning point. “Stop. You want me. I’ll go with you. Just leave him alone.”