I know I’m not supposed to go up there, even though I went up before and my master didn’t give me angry eyes. I’m still not supposed to go. I don’t know what to do, so I lie down on the cool floor right by the bottom step and listen for my mistress’s call.
Little Female rises from the couch and walks toward me. She pats my head and says, “Good Shadow.” She speaks a few words and then tells me stay. I know that word. Right now, with the afraid smell, I don’t like the word stay. I make a small whining noise in my throat, but Little Female is already up the stairs and down the hall. She didn’t stop at my mistress’s door, but then Little Female has a human nose, not a dog nose. I hear the door to Little Female’s room creak closed.
The afraid smell is worse. I can’t stay, even if Little Female told me to. I have go.
I stand up, then put my paw on the first stair. I take a step up, then another, feeling a little bit like a Bad Boy but not being able to stop myself because I sense that my mistress is in distress. The smell gets stronger with each step I take until there is only the smell, nothing else, not my master or Little Female or there-and-not-there Little Male. The fur on my neck rises all by itself, and I am afraid, but I am a Good Boy and a Brave Boy, so I keep going even if I don’t want to.
Up I go until I’m at the very top of the stairs. I move to the door on the right side. My mistress is on the other side of this door. Her smell seeps under the crack. I make the whining noise again and scratch at the door, and it opens just a little bit, but I don’t see my mistress or hear her, either.
The smell is burning the inside of my nose and my head and I don’t want to get any closer to that smell because it hurts, but I have to because I am a Good Boy and I know my mistress needs me, even if she isn’t calling me like she usually does when she wants me to come.
I let out a single bark, but my mistress doesn’t answer. My master and Little Female don’t hear me. I lift my forepaw and press it against the door, and the door opens enough for me to walk in.
It’s dark inside this room, but I don’t need light to get to my mistress. Her scent, underneath that smell, leads me to her. I pad around the side of the bed and see her. She lies on her side with one arm flung out, the hand at the end of it touching the table beside her, where a plastic bottle sits open. I know what open and closed is, because open means I can reach my head into the container of food and grab some, and closed means I can’t. Her eyes are open, but I can tell that she is not seeing anything. Her breathing isn’t right—she makes gurgling sounds and her chest rises and falls rapidly, in short bursts like it hurts to breathe, and the afraid smell is coming out of her mouth.
I make the whining sound and push my head under her hand. Her hand flops off me. I chuff at her, but she doesn’t move. Her breathing changes again—she’s wheezing and choking and I can tell that the smell is death.
I start to bark. And bark. And bark. And I don’t stop.
I hear Dark Female rush into the house downstairs and make shouting noises at my master. My master and Dark Female come into this room, and my master grabs my mistress and shakes her, shouts at her, rocks her, while Dark Female talks into her metal toy. Little Female stands at the open door, her eyes very big and round, until Dark Female grabs her arm and drags her to her room. I hear the sirens in my ears. Then the squeal-whine of tires. I’m still barking as the heavy tread of footsteps sounds on the stairs, as strangers push on my mistress’s chest and put something in her mouth and pierce her arm with the sharp end of a long tube.
Dark Female shushes me and scolds me with her angry eyes and angry face, but I stay in the room, barking, until the strangers lift my mistress onto a long table with no chewed legs and carry her from the house.
I follow my master to Little Female’s room and see him put his arms around her and hold her, then take her hand and lead her to the hallway. Her eyes are crying, but she pats my head, and I feel better that she knows I’m there.
I follow my master and Little Female downstairs, where they meet Dark Female. Her face is angry, but her body is angry all over, too. I feel it coming out of her. Big sad plus big angry. She looks at Little Female but not at my master. The humans go to the front door and outside and I want to go with them, I want to not be alone here, but I know they won’t let me come.
The smell is smaller now, but still here. I go to the food-smelling room and walk to the farthest corner, as far away from the smell as I can. I lie down and put my head on my front paws. I look at my bed. It would be nice if my bed were over where I am. But I’m not going to go to my bed until the smell is even smaller.
And then I see Little Male. He comes into my sight, and my tail starts to wag. But when he is all the way there and I see his face, my tail stops wagging. Because he is not smiling. His face is not wet, but I can tell he is crying.
And then he is gone.
PART TWO: A DAY OF COUNSELING
Therapist Journal: 5/15/17
Patient: Rachel Glass-Davenport, age 36
Referral: Archibald Deever, MD, PhD
My initial meeting with Rachel Glass-Davenport (from here on to be referred to as RGD) took place at Mercy Hospital on May 15, 2017, at three thirty in the afternoon. Her husband, Samuel Davenport, and her sister, Ruth Glass, were present for introductions and provided background information. Her physician, Elizabeth Hamill, MD, as well as the attending psych resident, James Lahey, MD, discussed her case and went over her chart with me.
RGD was brought in to the emergency room on May 14, 2017, at 7:43 p.m. after ingesting as many as one dozen fluoxetine. Gastric lavage was performed in the emergency room, and patient was stabilized by 8:32 p.m. and admitted to Mercy.
When asked the reason for the attempted overdose, RGD said she was trying to help her son (deceased, April 15, 2017) find his way to heaven.
Samuel Davenport and Ruth Glass reported that RGD has been suffering from severe depression following the death of her son (Jonah Davenport, age 5). RGD has been unable to function, refuses to get out of bed, refuses to perform normal tasks, no longer plays a parental role to her daughter (Eden Davenport, age 10), avoids personal grooming, including bathing, and eats only when forced or coerced.
Ruth Glass reported to Dr. Lahey that RGD claims to have seen her son on the day of the overdose.
RGD was extremely thin, her skin had a grayish pallor to it, her eyes were sunken in their sockets. She was slow to react to my presence, had difficulty focusing her vision and stabilizing her gaze, appeared not to understand many of my words, refused to answer most of my questions, although not with hostility, only with ambivalence.
I informed RGD that she was getting better and that she would be released from the hospital in a day or two. RGD became visibly upset. I informed her that I would be helping her and her family get through this difficult time.