Ghost Girl (14 page)

Those were a strange six weeks. At the clinic, I’d always shared an office, and latterly my office mate had been Jules, a quiet, serious man who had taken on child psychiatry as a second career after several years as a urologist. When I returned, I found the office belonged solely to Jules; they’d never filled the second desk, which remained in the corner as it was when I’d left. Consequently, it was as if things had never changed. I moved back in, strewed my things around the office the way they’d always been, returned my coffee mug to the tray in the staffroom, and put my name back on the same mail slot in the office. Yet, it was different. Knowing my tenure there was short, I was like a person with a terminal illness, unable to take anything for granted. I spent much of my time noticing all the little, familiar things I had missed so much without realizing it. I was treated differently too—with much warmth and cheer, rather in the manner of the prodigal son. Even with Hugh, things altered. We returned to doing all the things we’d loved doing most together, as if the separation had never occurred, yet there were none of the usual arguments and irritations that had marred the relationship previously. A sense of fragility lingered now. We could never shake entirely the knowledge that time was passing and I’d soon be gone.

I’d brought Jadie’s file with me when I returned to the clinic. Of all my children, she remained the most perplexing. I couldn’t always help Reuben, Philip, or Jeremiah, but had still felt I had a fairly good grasp on their problems and what caused them. With Jadie, I felt as if I understood nothing. So I brought along the videotape where she had asked for help, several examples of her schoolwork, and the extensive notes I’d made about the content of her after-school visits, all in hopes that Jules or one of my other colleagues might be able to shed some light on her disturbance.

The videotape proved of great interest and everyone took time out to view it, including Dr. Rosenthal, the clinic director. They were fascinated by her change in posture and her direct appeal to the camera for help. She clearly knew what the camera was for, everyone maintained. They felt she was genuinely asking me.

I had also brought along quite a lot of the artwork Jadie had done in the cloakroom with me. I pointed out her bizarre bell-shaped figures and her persistent references to herself as a ghost. I also brought out some of the more symbolic work, particularly the cross in the circle—“X marks the spot,” as she always referred to it—as it was certainly the most frequently made symbol, done mainly when she was angry. And I talked quite a lot about the content of those after-school sessions, about the locked doors, the fear of spiders, the doll play and its occasionally sexual nature. And, of course, I mentioned the incident on the last day with Reuben.

Everyone at the clinic seemed to have an opinion, but to my dismay, I found their ideas heavily couched in the psychoanalytic framework, which, while interesting and possibly accurate, were of little practical use to me in trying to help Jadie in the classroom. In the end I could accept this, as I don’t suppose I had really come expecting any answers. I’d been in the business long enough to know it was never that simple, but I had hoped that sharing the material, talking it over with my old colleagues, and hearing their ideas would cause something, somewhere, somehow, to drop into place.

At home with Hugh, I usually didn’t discuss my work. When we’d been together in the past, I had occasionally mentioned a case in passing, if I was having a hard time with it, but I seldom told him anything in depth, just as he seldom discussed his rats and spiders with me. However, one evening, as was my way when I came home from the clinic, I threw my things down on the dining room table first thing after coming through the door. Jadie’s materials were in a large, brown pocket folder.

“What’s this?” Hugh asked, as he was clearing the table to set it for dinner.

I turned to see him picking up the folder, which, in the course of being flung energetically onto the table, had disgorged part of its contents.

“One of my kids in Pecking. I brought some of the stuff up to see what Jules and the others might make of it.”

“Jesus,” Hugh muttered, looking through Jadie’s drawings. “Weird. What’s wrong with the kid?”

“Don’t know for sure.”

“Look at this one,” he said. It was the encircled-cross mosaic that Jadie had done when we were making the collages.

“Yes, she’s pretty heavily into symbols. Makes a lot of different kinds of marks, sort of like writing, but this one’s her favorite. She’s always doing that one on things. Jules says it’s symbolic of sexual intercourse. He says the circle represents the vagina, the cross, the point of penetration.” I paused, leaning over Hugh’s shoulder to regard the picture. “I don’t know if I necessarily agree with his reasoning. Jules sees vaginas and phallic symbols in everything. On the other hand, I think he might be right in this case. I’m beginning to suspect she’s sexually abused.”

Hugh pursed his lips and regarded the picture thoughtfully. “I think I know something else this might represent.”

“What’s that?”

“There’s an occult bookstore down on East Marl Street, just across from where Barry and I get those nice sandwiches at lunchtime that I was telling you about. I’ve stopped in there a couple of times when Barry was late and I had to wait for him. And I’ve seen something that looks like this in one of those books. I mean, I’m not saying your guy’s wrong. I suppose it could be anything. It is, after all, just a cross with a circle around it. But I do remember seeing something like this. It was what satanists carved on trees and stuff to call a Black Mass.”

Silently, I regarded Jadie’s mosaic.

“It’s a bit of a hoot, this place,” Hugh said. “All full of crystals and candles and these weird books.
Very
weird, in some cases. And this girl who works in there is a witch. Wicca, she calls it. A white witch.”

“You were talking to her?” I asked.

“Yeah, why not? Told her if she ever needed any spiders’ legs or bats’ wings, I was her man. Told her I could probably get her a discount on a bulk order.”

“Oh, honestly,” I said and swiped at him playfully, because no doubt that was exactly what he did tell her. Leaning over, I let Jadie’s picture drop onto the pile with her other things. “Satanists?” I muttered. “I don’t know. Maybe the fairies got her. Maybe she’s a changeling and the fairies made off with the real child, maybe that explains it. Maybe she’s gotten zapped by a flying saucer. I suppose that isn’t any farther out than Jules’s concern about what thoughts she was thinking during toilet training.”

And then the six weeks came to an end. My last night in the city, Jules and his wife took me out to the theater and then to a late dinner at a downtown restaurant. The conversation through the meal was pleasantly animated and mostly over the play we’d seen. Then came after-dinner coffee.

“Don’t you miss this?” Jules asked, looking across the table at me.

I was uncertain what “this” referred to, whether he meant the theater, life at the clinic, or perhaps simply the cup of well-brewed, good-quality coffee taken in civilized circumstances.

I had to answer yes to all three counts, because I realized there was much I did miss from my old life. On the other hand, I also had to answer no. In the six weeks I’d been back, I was surprised to find myself increasingly uncomfortable at the clinic. I became aware of feeling a quiet resentment toward the patients for the way they could afford to pay for such good treatment, could capture such high-quality professionals with their pocketbooks, and thus, automatically have a better chance of getting over their problems than those less financially fortunate. It brought back to me memories of my early teaching experiences, the only time I’d taught in a regular classroom. I’d had a room full of first-graders, nice, clean kids from a quiet suburb in a midwestern town, and I remembered looking at them and thinking how they never knew they had it so good, and I’d resented them for that ignorance. Realizing such an attitude did no one any good, I left regular education permanently after that year and went on to the special classroom. Now, as this summer had passed, I’d become cognizant of feeling the same sense of resentment and realized it was this, more than anything else, that had driven me from the clinic.

Consequently, when I returned to Pecking at the end of August, it was with positive feelings toward the new year. The move from the Sandry Clinic had been so sudden and impulsive that I’d remained uneasy about it. Why would anyone choose to abandon the city and the clinic for the likes of life in Pecking? Not sure of the answer, I don’t think I had wholeheartedly abandoned it. Five months of living out of packing boxes had reassured me it was just temporary, that I could go as easily as I had come. However, I returned to Pecking more at peace. Impulsive and atypical as the decision may have seemed, for me it was right.

R
euben was the first to arrive. From the window I saw his mother’s car pull up and Reuben hopped out, clutching his lunchbox and something else I couldn’t make out from that distance. He slammed the car door and made a bee-line for the school doors, ignoring the other children on the playground, who were waiting for the bell to ring. I could hear him thundering up the stairs.

“Good morning, Reuben,” I said as he burst into the classroom.

“Good morning, Reuben,” he muttered and searched for his old place at the table.

“Let’s put your sweater on your hook in the cloakroom. You can put your lunchbox on the shelf. And what’s that you’re carrying?”

He appeared to be clutching the top half of a cookie jar. It was in the shape of a Dutch girl, but all we had was her head, her bust, and her arms placed firmly on her hips, which then flared into nothingness.

Reuben clasped the Dutch girl to him as if I might snatch her away.

“Is this a new friend of yours?” I inquired.

“A friend of yours?” he echoed and turned away, still tightly holding the cookie jar girl.

“It’s pottery, Reuben. That’s a type of glass. That means it’ll break if you drop it. Perhaps we’d better leave it with your lunchbox. To be safe.”

But off he went, carrying the lid into the classroom.

Philip arrived next, bursting into the classroom and running toward me at breakneck speed. A huge grin spread over his face, and he leaped up into my arms with such gusto that I staggered backward.

“Hey ho, Phil, good to see you. How was your summer? Good?”

He nodded enthusiastically. “Nhhaaaahhh, haaahh,” he breathed into my face.

“Did you enjoy camp?”

Another nod and another breathy “Haah.”

Then came Jeremiah, looking a little shoddier than in the spring, with his T-shirt dirty and his jeans clearly outgrown. Jeremiah had shot up. He’d been squat and muscular previously, but over the summer he had gone lean and leggy.

“Hi, Jeremiah. Welcome back.”

Finding his old seat at the table, he dropped into it moodily. “Man, lady, what makes you think I want to be in this fucking place, looking at your fucking face?”

Next through the door was my new boy, Brucie. Brucie was six and a half, a short, round boy with a thick thatch of white-blond hair and a cherubic face.

“Oh, look, Brucie!” his mother cried cheerfully, as they came in. “Look at this nice classroom! Oh, you
are
going to be happy here. And look! Here is your nice teacher.”

I knelt down. “Hello, Brucie. My name is Torey.”

“Will you say hello, Brucie? Come now, do try for Mommy. Say hello to your nice teacher. Isn’t she nice? See her pretty hair? See her nice blue eyes? Just like Brucie has. And Brucie does like nice blue eyes, doesn’t he?” She chucked him under the chin, then turned to me and smiled warmly. “Brucie just loves blond, blue-eyed people.” Brucie, still smiling cherubically, eyed me with the savvy of Dennis the Menace.

“Brucie must have sieved food. Did Dr. Larson tell you that? Have you spoken with Mrs. Peterson about Brucie’s diet? He can’t tolerate lumps in his food. It makes him choke.”

“Yes, I’ve heard.”

“To make things easier here at the beginning, I’ve brought in a few jars of baby food. I don’t want this to be a regular practice, of course; he should have fresh food and here’s his grinder, but until you get used to it, you can use these.” She handed over a carrier bag filled with baby food. “There’s a week’s supply. Two jars at a time. He may also have applesauce or yogurt, if it’s being served, but
no
lumps. It makes him gag.”

She passed another parcel over. “And here are his diapers. Now, he needs to be changed at least four times a day. He suffers a terrible rash if he isn’t changed often enough, and where he was last year … well, the number of times he had that rash. And it can be completely prevented.”

Smiling politely, I took the baggage.

“Good-bye now, little love,” she said, turning to Brucie. “Say good-bye to Mommy.”

Brucie never turned his head in her direction. He was too busy taking my measure.

Then the bell rang. Jadie, still hadn’t arrived, so I stood waiting a few minutes longer, but when it became obvious she wasn’t coming, I turned to the others.

“Does this kid piss in his pants?” Jeremiah inquired, coming over to where Brucie was. “Has he really got diapers on?” Then Jeremiah peered curiously into Brucie’s face. “Hey, boog, how old are you? Don’t you think you’re a bit big for this kind of shit?”