“I ended up in juvenile court a couple of times. I was lucky not to get locked up, I suppose, but I was designated a ‘person in need of supervision’-I love that phrase. So the first dump I got sent to was called the Wilhelmina Shelter for Troubled Children. I got in trouble a lot. They’d write me up for not looking the staff in the eye, which they interpreted as being insufficiently remorseful, that kind of thing.”
Pia looked at Rothman. His face was impassive. He nodded almost imperceptibly.
“When I was twelve or so, I got shipped to the Hudson Valley Academy for Girls, in a town called Eden Falls. It sounds nice, right? Eden Falls. The supposed school was a nineteenth-century institution. They used to send teenage prostitutes there, you know, to reform them, but when I was there it was all the hard cases who’d been thrown out of everywhere else-the girls no one wanted to adopt or deal with appropriately. The girls lived in these cottages. The paint was peeling, the plumbing didn’t work. Roasting in summer, freezing in winter. That was bearable. It was the other girls that were the problem.
“The place was run by these girl gangs that were like crime families. Well organized-‘daddies’ at the top, then ‘housewives,’ ‘cousins,’ ‘uncles,’ and so on. They’d take your money, make you do their chores, beat you up for no reason. They came out at night. There was a lot of abuse-you know, physical stuff, sexual stuff sometimes. The staff knew, but they didn’t care-the girls kept much better order than the staff ever could. I tried to stay out of the way, but they got everyone in the end. They found me hiding one night and attacked me in a bathroom. . . .” She paused.
“Anyway, I found an old book on boxing in the library and a couple of the younger girls knew some karate so we did a makeshift self-defense class. I was determined. Every time they came looking for something from me, I fought back. So I never joined their ‘shadow society,’ as one social worker called it. I got into a lot of fights, spent quite a lot of days and nights in the little punishment room, which was the moniker for solitary confinement. I spent a week there once. What I did was get the girl who was the leader of the group that attacked me in the bathroom off by herself and gave her one hell of a beating.”
Pia worried that she was saying too much, but Rothman simply nodded again when she looked at him.
“I worked really hard at the lessons that were available at Hudson Valley Academy. It was my escape. There were some teachers who cared. I was determined not to end up pregnant on welfare or in jail like most of the girls did when they left. For the most part the staff didn’t care what happened or what anybody did as long as we didn’t actually kill each other. Excuse my English, but it was like a goddamn garbage dump. Leave the trash there till it’s eighteen and had developed a taste for drugs and then release them into the world with no supervision. Good luck.
“The superintendent there, he knew it was the system that created as many problems as it fixed. Papitano was his name. He tried to get better therapists and teachers. He even tried to have the place shut down, but he was threatened so he stopped trying.
“I knew about that because the superintendent lived in a big mansion on the school grounds and a few of us used to clean his house and make his meals. He helped me out by putting me on that detail and getting me the good teachers. But he was a real sad sack and abusive-I guess his wife had left him, and he never saw his kids. I was sixteen, and I was around his house a lot and he got it into his head that I was interested in him even though I had resisted all his advances. One night he got really drunk, and I was in the library reading-it was the only library in the whole school-and he came down and said he loved me. He was really pathetic, but he got me in a corner, and I don’t like being cornered. I think he said he got the black eye falling in the shower.
“I think Papitano was more embarrassed than mad at me because nothing happened to me. Except he wanted to get me out of there, which was a good thing. In retrospect I don’t think it was for me, but rather so he wasn’t tempted again or whatever his problem was. But his intercession worked by finding me a good and competent caseworker.”
“Sheila Brown,” Rothman said.
“Sheila Brown. She was very persistent, and she went to court, and Child Protective Services agreed to move me to a group home so I could possibly get my high school diploma before I was ‘emancipated’ out of the system. Emancipation, which is a very well chosen word. So I left Eden Falls, thank God. I was happy to leave, but that Papitano guy, the superintendent . . .”
Pia’s voice trailed off and she paused to collect herself. When she resumed she talked very quietly, leaning forward, practically addressing Rothman’s desk.
“You know, I really had grown to trust him. I thought we had a connection. But before I got shipped out, he got drunk again, and he was a big man. He caught me alone in the library again. I’d let my guard down, and he betrayed me.”
Pia stopped talking. They were sitting so still that the motion-detector-operated switch in Rothman’s office doused the lights. The sudden pitch darkness caused both Pia and Rothman to jump. The lights came right back on.
“Jesus, I thought they fixed that,” Rothman said. “Used to happen to me all the time.”
“You must think I have an antisocial personality disorder,” Pia said, regretting saying so much about her violent past. It had been like a dam bursting. “I’ve never really talked about it straight out like this. Not to anyone except maybe Sheila. But with her it wasn’t all at once. It was over time.”
“I don’t think you have a personality disorder in the slightest,” Rothman said. “You did what you had to do. I admire you. My foster care experience was nowhere near as bad. With Jewish parents, I got a decent placement right off. It wasn’t a picnic, and I had to do without much nurturing, but I was older to boot. I was eleven at the time. Also I got to spend vacations with an aunt who wasn’t the warmest of souls but at least was family. Even though my label then was only ADHD, my parents couldn’t deal with me, so they had given up. In their defense, I was a handful. They had four older children, and I just figured that my mom and dad had run out of love by the time it got to me.
“Listen, Pia, I’m not trying to make you feel grateful to me, or feel any different about me because of what I’ve told you. I’m just saying that I understand some of what you went through-more after what you’ve been willing to share tonight. It’s no wonder you have nightmares, and to tell you the truth, your being late doesn’t bother me as much as it bothers Marsha and Junichi, especially with what I know. Ironically, it bothers them because they believe it bothers me. The major point I want to leave you with is that research is the calling where I found myself despite my past and despite my Asperger’s. I think it could be for you as well, but you’re going to have to make a decision. It can’t be halfway. It’s got to be either research or clinical medicine. It can’t be both.”
“Reactive attachment disorder,” Pia said. “One of the social workers at Hudson Valley Academy told me I had reactive attachment disorder. It’s supposed to mean I can’t establish a relationship with anyone.”
“Well, I guess we make quite the pair then,” Rothman said, and smiled. Pia had never seen Rothman smile before and his whole face lit up for a second. “You think about your future. You don’t have to say anything now. But I have to know soon so I can prepare. Once our article for Nature comes out, things are going to accelerate.”
Rothman stood up. “Now I have to go back in the biosafety unit for another hour or so.” Typical of his Asperger’s syndrome behavior, he didn’t comment further, just left.
Pia remained sitting after Rothman had departed. Except for the sounds emanating from some of the automatic equipment out in the lab, there was silence. Even the desk lamp went out again until she waved her hand in the air. She’d been taken aback by the evening’s events. She felt exposed, emotionally naked, and found herself worried that Rothman might decide on further thought that she was much too big a risk. She sat in her chair for at least ten minutes before she got up and left. As she descended in the elevator, she started to feel better, relieved to a degree that she’d been as open as she had. Having been in foster care himself, Rothman understood her. All at once Pia felt confident all was going to work out. It was her opinion that you can trust only a man whose actions match his words, or better still, who acts without asking for anything in return. The only person she knew who fit that bill was Dr. Rothman. She knew that even George, as generous as he was, had his own agenda.