He sighed. "I don't have to tell you what could happen here if she loses control again."
"We don't have a choice. That's a risk we have to take. Now stop worrying and get some sleep, please. You need to be fresh when Helix comes in for the next site visit. Impress them, or we're both in trouble. You know what I mean, Evan.
There was a long pause on both ends. I need you, he thought, but didn't say anything. Damn it, he was never able to say it.
Don't even think about dying on me.
"Good night," he said softly.
He hung up the phone and stared out at the murky right sky.
It was all true, of course; he needed to get his head together and prepare, or things would get bad very fast. He had worked very hard to regain the upper hand in this case, and he did not want to lose it now. The possibilities were far too frightening.
He thought about the Room upstairs, and his mind seemed to stretch and threaten to get away from him.
He set about making a list of the things they wanted to accomplish. The list was long. He scratched things out and started again, working silently in his office until it was far too late to go home. Began to imagine the girl housed somewhere below his feet. Just below his feet. Then he unfolded his bed from the closet and went to sleep with the lights still burning as a talisman against a deeper darkness.
--7--
In classes Jess felt as if she had been set adrift, awash in the steady drone of flat voices, the words in her textbooks failing to hold her interest. She was anxious to be doing something. The gaps in Sarah's file bothered her terribly. Through all the reports there had been precious little psychiatric opinion. She had to have some more information before she met with Wasserman. She was determined never to allow him to have the same advantage over her again.
In her class on personality disorders, Professor Thomas singled her out to be his latest target. The little auditorium was filled with the rustling of papers as everyone tried desperately to look busy. They were trying to avoid "the stick," a nickname students had for the wooden yardstick the professor used to point out offending members of his class. As far as anyone knew, he had yet to make physical contact with it; but nobody wanted to be the first.
Thomas was a very large black man in his sixties with a full head of gray hair, which most of his students assumed was a wig. He was also an expert on personality development, and he often traveled across the country to speak on the subject.
"Self-control," Thomas said. "Is acting-out behavior 'outgrown'?" He tapped the stick lightly on the back of an empty seat. "Miss Chambers? Do you feel that aggression is an inherent trait, or something that can be unlearned?"
"Kohn shows us a definite link between defiant behavior in preschoolers and subsequent aggression during adolescence. But not all of his subjects remained aggressive throughout their lives."
"What is your personal opinion?"
"It's a matter of degree. If we looked at the severity of the aggressive behavior, I think the data would hold up. The behavior has to fit into the parameters of the subject's stage of development."
"Example."
"If a three-year-old is throwing temper tantrums, that's normal for his age. If the tantrums involve beating another child senseless with a yardstick, that's cause for concern."
Snickers from several people in class. "All of you should stop laughing long enough to clear your ears," Thomas said, pointing. The yardstick quivered in the air as if it were eager to strike. "Miss Chambers's logic may seem obvious to you all, but she has just given us an excellent example of using what we have learned to form an opinion. A diagnosis and eventual treatment follows the same line of thought. Now, what would you do to diagnose the disorder in such a hypothetical?"
"It's difficult to say without more information. Is the problem chemical? Biological? Environmental? I'd investigate a number of factors: abuse in the home, previous patterns of behavior, any relatives with overaggressive tendencies. Is he learning by example? Or are there other indicators of a chemical imbalance, previous head trauma, even possible brain damage?"
Thomas nodded. "Each case is unique," he said. He let the yardstick touch to the floor, and it thumped. "It's vital not to have any biases when you begin. You must weigh the evidence and eliminate possibilities, one by one."
After class they stood below the semicircle of seats as students slowly filed out, a few of them staring curiously back like drivers past the scene of an accident.
"I want you to know that the yardstick comment did not go unnoticed," Thomas said. "By the way, I never beat my students unless they truly deserve it."
Jess hoped her small smile was properly apologetic. "Of course not, Professor. I did wonder if you could help me, though. I'm writing a paper on the symptoms and treatments of schizophrenia--mainly younger patients, preadolescents."
"Then you won't have much data. The adolescent transition tends to trigger a schizophrenic type."
"But there are cases as young as, say, six years old?"
"Extremely rare. Where before a child might be hyperactive, or moody, or even aggressive, the hormonal changes during puberty wreak havoc in the brain and you see personality fragmentation, psychosis. I'd be surprised to see a confirmed diagnosis as young as six."
"If a diagnosis were in doubt--say a child has been labeled as schizophrenic by an expert, but others had reason to question it--what would you look for?"
"Organization of any kind, Miss Chambers. In schizophrenics the thinking process has been interrupted, scrambled, if you will. Without medication a patient is often unable to focus on a particular line of thought and carry it through. Autism is often mistaken for schizophrenia, and vice versa."
"Would a child in this situation be sedated, restrained? Would neuroleptics be an effective treatment?"
Thomas frowned. "I would emphasize family therapy and behavioral modification techniques. You want to reward a patient's good behavior while controlling his environment to the utmost degree."
"So you would not isolate a child in these circumstances?"
"Absolutely not. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got another class to teach. Unless you'd like me to write your paper for you?"
***
When Jess arrived back at her apartment, there was a message on the machine from Professor Shelley.
"Have you had time to take a look at her file?" Shelley asked, when Jess had reached her at home.
"I read through it, yes."
"Any questions?"
"Something struck me. It said that you were the one who recommended her admittance. It also said that you're her court-appointed guardian."
There was a long pause on the other end. Jess imagined Shelley sitting in a wing chair by the light of a lamp. Did she have an apartment or a house? Did the professor live alone? She realized how little she knew about Shelley's personal life. At the same time she wondered why it mattered.
"I did recommend her, yes," Shelley said. "I kept close track of Sarah after she was born. She had family who raised her for a year or so. Sarah's mother was not entirely stable, her parents were taking care of both of them. It was difficult. Sarah's grandparents had my number, and when she got to be too much to handle, they called me. I agreed to watch over her treatment."
"None of this is in the file. Do you know why?"
"That you'd have to ask Dr. Wasserman." A sudden sharp intake of breath; then the professor moved on. "I think it's important to capitalize on any progress you made during your first meeting. You should get down there as many times as you can this week." Then, quietly, a bit more gently, she said, "I know you feel that we sprang this on you without proper warning. I can only say that if it were completely up to me I might have handled things differently."