“What about them?”
“They’re nice.”
“Nice as in… what exactly?”
Maddie bit her lip before elaborating. “They don’t fight. They laugh a lot. They play practical jokes all the time, and it’s funny. And they have fried chicken for dinner and chocolate ice cream for dessert.”
“Wow, that’s cool.”
Maddie giggled. “It’s really cool.”
Kate seized the opportunity to wade into forbidden territory. “Do your parents fight a lot?”
“Sort of.”
“Does it make you uncomfortable when they fight?”
Maddie nodded, eyes downcast.
“Do they scream? Shout? What?”
“There’s lots of shouting.”
“Anything else?”
Maddie didn’t answer.
“Pushing and shoving?”
“Sometimes.” She peered at Kate through her long eyelashes. “Daddy pushes Mommy sometimes. Especially when she calls him a loser.”
“Does he ever hurt her?”
“No.” Denial.
“Are you sure?”
“I don’t know.” Hesitation.
“Does he ever shove you? Shout at you?”
“Maybe.” Semi-confession.
Next came the big question. It was like crossing a psychological landmine. “Does your father ever hit you, Maddie?”
She paused for a few seconds. “I have to go to the bathroom,” she said finally.
“Okay. I’ll get the nurses’ aide.”
Susie Potts was on duty tonight, a twenty-five-year-old so perky and sweet her personality oozed out of her like raspberry pie filling. She reached for Maddie’s hand and said, “Hey, bunny. Escort time. Gotta pee? Let’s go.”
Maddie wasn’t allowed to use the restroom without a chaperone, since she was on suicide watch. Susie, although often distracted, was a natural, entertaining the children with shadow-puppets and telling funny stories. Whereas Kate had the burden of getting to the truth.
When Maddie returned from the restroom, she was much less responsive to Kate’s questions. It must’ve been the last one that shut her down. Does he hit you? Perhaps a bridge too far.
Maddie squirmed and complained about the hospital wheelchair being uncomfortable. Kate cancelled the final test, sent Susie back to the break room and wheeled Maddie past the nurses’ station, where the night staff sat gossiping, their whispered conversations sprinkled with juicy exclamation points.
Maddie’s assigned room was at the end of the corridor, where another young patient was sound asleep. It was eleven o’clock, and after such a long day of being poked and probed, Maddie finally lost it and became inconsolable. “I want to go home,” she sobbed. “Where’s Mommy? I want to go home!”
Kate tried to comfort her as best she could, but the girl had reached her breaking point. Maddie’s roommate woke up and complained about the noise. Kate authorized a sedative, and one of the night nurses came into the room with a loaded needle and plunged the syringe into Maddie’s backside. Meanwhile, Kate gave Maddie a running commentary, explaining what was going on every step of the way: why she’d decided to give Maddie a sedative; what her mother had said about Maddie needing help; why Kate was so concerned about her self-inflicted injuries; and what they were attempting to do, the entire hospital staff—trying to help her.
Maddie grew lethargic as the meds took effect. She could barely speak or move. At least she was no longer upset—the poor kid didn’t have any energy left for that. Her pupils were the size of pinpricks. It bothered Kate a great deal, but after years of experience, she knew that it was for the best. Finally, Maddie closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.
Out in the hallway, Kate tried to reach Nelly again, but the phone rang and rang into a non-compliant void.
She monitored Maddie for the rest of the night and consulted with various specialists on her test results. There were some old callus-formation fractures on Maddie’s ribs that corresponded with the report that she’d fallen out of a tree—however, it didn’t rule out physical abuse. The bite marks on the child’s forearms were determined to be her own, when measured against the dental imprints of her teeth. The scabs and scars on her arms, thighs and calves were superficial and probably self-inflicted, since there were no injuries anywhere on her body that the patient couldn’t reach on her own. That didn’t preclude abuse, but it went a long way towards discounting it. Most significant of all, there was no evidence of vaginal trauma or sexual abuse. Thank God for that, Kate thought.
Exhausted but satisfied she’d gotten Maddie safely admitted, Kate put Susie in charge of keeping an eye on the girl and went upstairs to her office to type up her notes. As dawn approached, she went back downstairs, dismissed the tired-looking aide, and watched the horizon turn from pink to ruby red in a few spectacular minutes.
She returned to Maddie’s room to check on her patient. Kate studied the swollen veins on the girl’s forehead and wondered what could have driven the child to cut and bite herself. Given Penny Ward’s troubled history, perhaps it wasn’t such a leap. Besides hearing a single voice inside her head, there were no overt signs of schizophrenia—no visual hallucinations, no flat affect, no odd or eccentric behavior, no grooming issues. But schizophrenia wasn’t the only option. A self-harmer could be diagnosed with personality disorder, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder, or any other number of syndromes. Kate would have to search for a deeper meaning other than disease or chemical imbalance. She wanted to know why Maddie Ward was here and what her parents might’ve done to her.
Around 6 AM, Maddie woke up.
“How are you feeling?” Kate asked. She’d been answering her emails on her iPhone, and her head was buzzing from overwork and lack of sleep.
The girl snuggled deeper into her blankets. “Semi-weird.”
“Hm. That’s a good one.” Kate smiled. “I’m feeling semi-weird myself. Any numbness? Tingling?”
“No.”
“Sorry about the tests. And the shot.”
Maddie scrunched her nose. “You say you’re sorry a lot.”
“I do?” Kate made a face. “Gee, I’m sorry about that.”
Maddie giggled. “So sorry for being so sorry all the time.”
“Awfully sorry for all my sorries.”
They both laughed.
Then Maddie asked, “What’s wrong with me?”
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”
“Will I be okay?”
“I believe so, yes,” Kate said confidently.
The girl closed her eyes and was asleep within minutes.
Soon the morning aide, Claire, was back, looking fresh as a daisy, and Kate had a craving for nicotine that she wisely ignored. She decided to get a cup of coffee instead and bumped into Ira in the break room.
“Jeez Louise,” he exclaimed. “You look terrible.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“Come into my office for a second.”
A wash of morning light poured in through the hermetically sealed windows. Ira took a seat behind his desk, while outside a snowplow dragged its blade across the courtyard with a scraping sound.
“What’s going on? I thought you were taking a few days off?”
“I’ve been up all night with a new patient, Maddie Ward. Her mother dropped her off yesterday and abandoned her, literally draping her in crucifixes and rosaries. She’s fourteen years old, but she acts much younger, more like a ten-year-old. She’s been having aural hallucinations, and her mother thinks she’s possessed.”
“No kidding?” His eyes widened with interest. “Are they religious fanatics?”
“I don’t know. Possibly. Anyway, her mother refused to come into the hospital. She signed the paperwork in the parking garage yesterday and drove away.” Kate decided not to mention her personal connection to Nelly, not just yet. It would only complicate things, and besides, she wanted to do a little more digging into the matter on her own.