As the room had no chairs, Susan sat beside Sharicka on the bed. “I don’t know what you mean, Sharicka. Tell me.”
The words tumbled out; and, with them, the tears. “I miss my mommy and daddy. I miss Rylan. And Misty.” She sobbed. “I want to go home.”
Susan did not know what to say. For the first time since she had come on service, she believed Sharicka actually spoke the truth. The instinct to gather the child into her arms and hold her while she cried was strong, but Susan resisted it. “Sharicka, you tried to kill Misty.” She said nothing more, leaving the ball in the child’s court. The seriousness of Sharicka’s intentions would come through in how openly she spoke about the crime.
“I know,” Sharicka said, so softly Susan had to strain to hear. “I don’t know why I do things like that.”
Susan did not accept that explanation. “If you’re going to get better, you’re going to have to dig deeper than that. You do bad things, Sharicka. Horrible things.”
“Yes.” The girl continued to sob. “I did horrible things. I hurt Misty.”
“Why? What are you thinking when you do these things?”
Sharicka finally got specific. “I was wondering . . . what it’s like to drown. I wanted to see.” She shook her head, probably tapped out for descriptions given her young age.
Although it did not make sense from her worldview, Susan gave Sharicka credit for trying. “Didn’t you think that if you killed your sister, you would no longer have a sister?”
“No.” Sharicka gazed at Susan through the tears. “I just wanted to see . . . what would happen. I didn’t . . .” She clearly struggled to find the right words, and Susan had to remind herself the girl was not yet five years old. “I didn’t . . . think . . .” She changed her tack. “When I’m not on my meds, I don’t think that far ahead.”
Susan shook her head. “You’re on your meds here, Sharicka. Yet you put a piece of balloon in a peer’s cup. You hit people. You even attacked a member of the staff.”
Sharicka pursed her lips. For an instant, Susan thought the demon light would reappear in her eyes. Instead, she rose and gestured for Susan to do the same.
Susan stood up.
Sharicka grabbed a corner of her mattress, lifted it, then groped beneath it. She brought out a small jar that had once held fish food and handed it to Susan. She kept her head down as she did so.
Susan held the plastic jar up to the light to reveal white mush that probably represented wet pills and several bits and pieces of capsules. She stared at it, stunned. Psychiatric patients had been known to hide or spit out their meds for as long as these medications existed. She could scarcely believe this could still happen. “You haven’t been taking your pills?”
“Not always, no.” Sharicka raised her head. Her eyes still appeared normal, aside from the tears. “I’m showing you because I’m going to take them now. Always.”
Susan put the jar into her pocket. “Always?”
“Always,” Sharicka said firmly. “Always always.”
Susan realized Sharicka had a point. If she was lying, trying to manipulate Susan, she did not have to reveal such a secret. If Sharicka had not shown her the bottle, Susan and the nurses would never have known. “Why now? What’s changed?”
Sharicka grimaced; at least it appeared that way to Susan. A moment later, she recognized it as a smile. “When I heard you fixed Diesel and Starling, I thought you might help me, too.”
Susan remembered. “When the nurses prepared them for discharge, you asked me to ‘fix’ you. But you didn’t mean it then, did you?”
Sharicka hesitated. For an instant, Susan thought she saw something less than innocent cross her features. “I . . . did, but I wasn’t on my meds. Since then, I’ve swallowed them every day. Then, you got Monterey to talk.” She shook her head, her gaze distant. “Anyone who can get Monterey to talk is amazing. If you could fix her, you could fix anyone.” Now her lips clearly bowed upward. “Even me.”
Susan met Sharicka’s gaze. She could feel her gut recoiling as she anticipated the demonic sparkle, the evil expression. This time, it did not come. Susan saw only a little girl with an advanced vocabulary and real insight. For the first time, she could see Sharicka the way the nurses saw her: a little girl with massive problems who needed her help.
Susan sighed. She knew better than to get drawn in by a manipulative patient. “Sharicka, I didn’t fix anyone. Those others . . . wanted to get better. They just didn’t know how. All I did was guide them in the right direction.”
“Guide me,” Sharicka said.
“The hard work is yours,” Susan continued. “Staying on your meds is a great start, but it doesn’t end there. You have to want to change. You have to think before you act, to consider the effect of your actions on other people before you gratify your own curiosity. You have to consider other people’s safety, other people’s feelings, and truly understand them.” Susan shook her head, wondering why she took the time to explain things a psychopath could never really comprehend. She switched to something she knew they could. “You have to know right from wrong. And choose right.”
“I do.” Sharicka sat back on the bed. “I know I did bad things, and they were wrong. I wanted to do things, and I just did them. By the time I realized they were bad, they were already done.” Sharicka gestured feebly, as if having trouble putting her point into words. “The meds give me time to think. I still want to do stuff, but I have a chance to think about it before I do it. Like, right now, I want to kick you in the leg. Without meds, I’d kick you. Now, I can think it would hurt you, so I don’t kick you.”
Susan appreciated that. “You wouldn’t want me to kick you.”
“No,” Sharicka said with great sincerity. “And I won’t kick you, either. It would hurt.”
“Yes.” The conversation seemed to have come to a natural conclusion.
“Can you watch me?” Sharicka said. “I won’t do any bad things. I’ll take all my meds.” Childish desperation touched her tone. “I want to go home.”
After the conversation Susan had had with the Ansons, she wondered whether they would ever take Sharicka home again. What’s different this time? What can I tell them has truly changed? What guarantees do I have? Susan had no answers to her questions, but one thing seemed clear. This time, Susan believed, Sharicka really did plan to get better. Whether the attempt proved successful was another matter.
Susan marched resolutely down the sidewalk to the hospital entry, ignoring the signs and shouted slogans of the protestors. The summer sun beamed down upon them, striking brilliant glimmers from some of the metallic lettering. Susan wondered idly if they purposely chose reflective material to catch the eye of hospital workers and passersby. If so, it worked only if the intent was to cause temporary blindness.
Susan had once asked Stony Lipshitz why the staff did not have pass-protected, private doors. Stony had reminded her that all of the many entrances and exits from the hospital were monitored; and, as long as the protestors remained peaceful and did not block the sidewalks, they had a right to make their voices heard. Preventing protestors from clotting smaller, more enclosed staff entries required enormous amounts of security, maintenance and repair of the scanners had become prohibitively expensive, and hospital clientele had complained that, when the staff “sneaked” into the building, the protestors turned their venom on the patients and their already overstressed families instead.
Susan had nearly reached the entrance when a hand seized the sleeve of her dress polo and a voice hissed into her ear, “Dr. Calvin?”
Susan glanced sideways at a man in his thirties with spiky light brown hair, the style a throwback to his parents’ youth. He had a narrow face, a prominent Adam’s apple, and an odd, predatory look in his pale eyes. “Yes?” Assuming him a patient’s relative, Susan spared him a moment.