Ch 2     Ch 3     Ch 4     Ch 5     Ch 6    

Chapter 1 – Early October, 2004

 

On a sultry moonless night, Skye packed her makeup bag and a few clothes and left home again, for the third time since last May.  She and Mom had argued earlier in the afternoon.  She left in an old rattle-trap four-door Mercury with rusted fenders and no front bumper.  The driver was some boy I’d never seen before. 

Skye had gone to a party the night before.  Parties were big in her teenage set of hoodrats and high school dropouts---there was always a party somewhere.  She’d come home in the Honda CR-V about ten, parked it, and slipped off in a friend’s car that waited rumbling in the driveway.  At midnight, I’d heard the rumble again and went out the French doors in the loft to the second-story deck and watched her stumble to the kitchen door, drunk as a punker.  She’d opened the door, grabbed the keys off the caddy on the side of the cupboard just inside, and ran back to the CR-V.  I’d yelled at her to stop but she drove off in a haze of dust.  She’d returned again at three in the morning.  I had met her at the door when she came in with her buddy Aundi Corker, also loaded, to spend the night. 

All of the above was the crux of the fight Mom and Skye had during the afternoon.  I was dozing in the bedroom and didn’t hear the words---Mom told me about it later.  Skye decided that she was right about everything she’d done and made no excuses.  She told Mom to get a life or she would move out.  Mom told her to go ahead but to surrender the car keys.  Skye refused to give up the keys.   

Skye and her best friend since middle school, Aundi Corker, spent the rest of the afternoon and evening packing half of Selby’s clothes and makeup in a large rucksack---Selby had the good stuff.  By eleven-o’clock she was gone.  She came back after midnight to get something she’d forgotten and I asked her for the CR-V keys.  She shrugged and said she didn’t know where they were and walked out of the house.  I called after her that they were the only keys we had for the CR-V.  A minute or so later she returned from the sleazy ride waiting for her in the dark of the driveway and handed them to me at the kitchen door, which she slammed in my face.  She jumped in the car and it rumbled away.

She was not a happy camper.  I couldn’t imagine what she thought she was doing.  Stupid girl.  Selby didn’t seem too upset about it or was covering well.  Mom had gone to sleep and wasn’t aware of Skye’s actual departure.  Tomorrow would not be a happy day.  Just what Skye planned, no doubt. 

She wasn’t around to take out the trash the next night, part of her household chores, which, she’d decided should be done by the domestic help---me.  Still, I missed her.  She hadn’t been gone for twenty-four hours yet and I missed her.  Not her viperous angst but that side of her that was still within reach.  At least, I thought so.  Mom and Selby were faring much better in Skye’s absence.  They seemed comfortable and relaxed.  That was good.  I couldn’t do that.  Not sure why.  I had a foolish notion that I could solve any problem, fix anything broken, repair things twisted and snarled.  Arrogance, perhaps, or a romantic desire to make things better in a bad world.  Either way, I was sad.  I wanted my little girl at home and hearth rather than in a world of lowlife cretins whose only desire was to flaunt their molded physiques and torched brains at the next party.  But, she seemed determined, if not drawn, to that lifestyle of common, undereducated, ghetto fundamentals where one fought for every piece of bread, stole from anyone of equal or higher status, and ridiculed accomplishment, self-esteem, and social convention.  A blind rebel discarding the baby with the bathwater.  Mom and Selby agreed that she was classically immature, arrested at the age of about twelve, still entirely self-oriented. 

Maybe so, in fact, evidently so.  On Saturday night before she left, she was on the speakerphone talking to Aundi’s brother, Ryan, threatening his girlfriend.  The threats, spoken by Aundi and supported by Skye, were that they were going to meet Ryan’s girlfriend and her buddies for a fight at some designated place.  Skye was going to “kick her fuckin’ ass.”  In short, Aundi had a problem with her brother’s girlfriend and Skye was ready to rumble over some slight that was equivalent to being “dissed”, the gangsta word for “disrespected” in the inner city ghettoes.  Maybe it was the excitement or the intensity that Skye sought.  Whatever it was, she was blowing off seventeen years of education, morals, ethics, and religious convention to play at being a ghetto badass. 

Mom and Selby both contended they didn’t want her to come home any time soon.  They’d had enough.  I couldn’t disagree with their opinions.  The two of them had been trashed terribly by Skye’s endless self-aggrandizing insults.  Skye knew she was right.  Everyone else was wrong.  Everyone else was stupid.  Everyone else wanted to blame her for everything.  Everyone else was mean to her for no reason.  Her family did nothing for her, ever, in spite of her doing everything for them. 

Well, I wasn’t so happy to see her gone.  Not that I missed the contentiousness, but I feared for her safety.  I remarked that Skye’s blowup this time at least gave me some vindication.  For years, Mom had claimed that my disciplinary credo was the reason for Skye’s bad behavior.  This time, I’d had nothing to do with the arguments.  I’d stayed out of any disciplinary action, suggestion, or criticism for nearly two months.  It was curious that Skye still looked for ways to engage me in fights---almost as though she wanted to perpetuate a constant conflict.  Mom said she thought that was so.  Mom also said that she realized I was not the reason Skye had so much trouble at home.  “Now that I’ve been the only one dealing with her and she’s done the same things, I can’t blame you for it and I never should have.”  I gave her a hug though it was small consolation---like a Jew hearing the Pope apologize for the Holocaust. 

 

It was blessedly quiet in the house with Skye gone and there were no more hurricanes in sight.  That was a relief.  Two of them in three weeks hitting Palm Beach County in Florida were enough, thank you.  The downside was that Skye deigned to return.  She called Saturday night before to announce her plans.  “I’m coming home soon, Dad, probably tomorrow.” 

“Okay,” I said with some reservation.  We hadn’t heard from her for five days. 

She was silent on the phone and I waited.  I didn’t know what to say other than what I’d already said.  Skye broke the silence.  “You don’t seem very happy that I’m coming home,” she said with a slight whine in her voice. 

I didn’t buy into it.  But what to say?  I decided.  “Skye, we love you.  That’s the first truth.  The second is that we’ve had a very nice time at home while you’ve been on your, uh, vacation.  It’s been quiet and refreshing and no one argues.” 

“Oh,” she said.  She was quiet for a moment.  “I wouldn’t say I was on vacation, Dad.  It was a chance for me to think about things . . . like my life.” 

“I hope you made progress.” 

“What do you mean by that?”  Her voice became defensive. 

“Easy, Skye,” I cautioned.  “I’m serious.  I just hope you learned something from your thoughts.” 

“Well, I didn’t run away, you know.  I was always planning on coming home.” 

News to me, but hey, I was just a parent.  “We didn’t know that, Skye, but good,” I said keeping my voice upbeat. 

“Nobody called me at all.” 

“Hmm?  What?  Where?” 

“I mean you guys.  None of you called me.” 

“That’s right, sweetheart,” I said, and left it there. 

Skye spent a moment in silence again and said, “Okay, well, I’ll call tomorrow when I’m coming home.”  She clicked off. 

She called again on Sunday.  Mom told me about it later.  “I see she can’t seem to make it home on her own,” she said with a curious expression on her face. 

Selby lay next to her watching TV and chimed in.  “So she can get to wherever she wants whenever she wants but she needs a ride home after staying away for a week?”  Selby had no patience left for Skye.  She’d told me earlier in the week that she really didn’t miss Skye at all and was glad she was out of the house.  I mentioned that claim to Mom and we thought it might just be Selby’s way of fending off the worry and dismay of her twin sister’s absence. 

What did we know? 

Mom and Selby went shopping at the Palm Beach Mall and Selby spent over two hundred bucks---her own money---on clothes.  She was as happy as a clam with feet.  In the early evening they returned and drove to Boynton Beach to get Skye and brought her home. 

On Tuesday, I drove both girls to work at the daycare center at Grossmont Christian School, which they’d attended for the last three years.  Selby felt embarrassed to drive when Skye was not permitted to.  Mom had decreed that Skye couldn’t drive for two weeks, but Skye interpreted that as only one week since she’d been gone for a week.  I shook my head in wonder; Mom would have to deal with that. 

When I picked the twins up from work at six I could tell they were having a fight.  I asked Selby to drive so she could get some more practice but it was a misjudgment on my part.  She drove home in a series of near accidents.  She was unable to concentrate on what she was doing in the aftermath of her fight with Skye.  I had no idea what it was about and didn’t ask.  I held on for dear life as Selby risked our lives.  We made it home without mishap at which point Selby ran into Mom’s room and closed the door behind her.  Skye ran into her room and closed the door behind her.  About a half hour later I heard Skye in the bathroom sobbing her heart out.  Even later still, I reported that fact to Mom. 

“They had a terrible fight, Michael,” Mom said.  “Didn’t Selby tell you?” 

“Nope,” I said, changing from my jeans to my shorts in the bedroom. 

“Well, yes.  I didn’t get the entire story but Selby finally got sick of Skye’s constant harping and told her off at work.  She feels badly now after saying some terrible things.  I told her they were true and that it was good she finally blurted it all out.” 

I nodded, sagely reserving judgment.  Mom always held that things said in anger or when drunk were incontrovertible truths that we all wanted to declare but had no courage to do so.  I thought that things said in anger or when drunk were cheap shots expedient to the moment and intended to cause the most emotional damage possible.  I decided not to reiterate our differences on this point and retreated to the study. 

Oh, and of course I found myself coughing up phlegm laced with blood.  Selby noticed and I told her it was nothing. 

 

As usual, Mom had acquiesced on her restriction of the CR-V and Skye had wheels again.  She was gone for most of the day on Saturday, intermittently, off to friends’ houses and running her ever innumerable mysterious errands. 

Mom wasn’t feeling well.  Her back was still painful and menopause caused her more daily discomfort.  Her legal office had moved to temporary digs in North Palm Beach while the offices on Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard were repaired after severe damage to the two-story building during the double-whammy of Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne.  Her daily drive to work was multiplied by two in miles and the time it took to get there.  There was no easy way to get to North Palm these days.  I-95 was still under construction (and had been for the last seven years and would probably be until the Third Millennium) and traffic was awful.  She averaged an hour to make the trip in the morning and the evening traffic was worse.  She’d come home afternoons in tears. 

It took her over two hours to get home on Friday.  She walked into the kitchen, tossed her two bags on the countertop, and went to bed.  We didn’t see her again until Saturday afternoon.  When I asked her if there was anything I could get for her, her response was, “Yes.  I want you to get a job somewhere that you have to drive for two hours every day each way so you’ll know what it’s like.  I want you to get a job so I don’t have to do this anymore.” 

I dutifully felt the appropriate guilt.  Sure, I was doing backbreaking work in the yard every day cleaning up the debris from two hurricanes but it wasn’t bringing us any income.  I’d even bought a new Stihl MS 210 chainsaw for the tree branches I needed to cut into four-foot lengths so the waste removal people would pick them up.  Of course, they weren’t picking up anything because, they claimed, there were months of pickup ahead of us at other sites.  I removed the huge plywood panels from the windows around the house and had no one to help handle them as they dropped from a height, in some cases, of ten feet.  That was tricky.  My arms and legs---hell, my whole body---were a crosshatch of cuts and abrasions of assorted depths.  Thank God for aspirin and Neosporin. 

The days raced on.  I’d sent off applications to homeschool the girls’ through American School but it was still too soon to have heard back.  Selby was excited about getting back to her education and even Skye said she missed it. 

Skye had Aundi over Sunday to hang out and drive all over the planet from one friend’s house to another all afternoon and evening.  She could put three hundred miles a day on the CR‑V with no trouble.  They dressed to kill and left the house at about ten at night and were back again around eleven.  They were going out again and had arranged for a ride because of our rule that Skye couldn’t keep the car overnight at anyone’s house. 

Before they left, I saw Skye in front of the mirror in Selby’s room. 

“Where are you going now?” I asked with the index fingers of both hands wrapped in dental floss trying to keep my remaining teeth from turning to chalk. 

Skye looked up at me from the floor where she sat applying makeup.  “I’m not sure, Dad, we’re just going to the drive-in and maybe to a party or something afterward.  It’s so boring.  There’s really nothing going on tonight.”

I smiled.  “You could stay home,” I suggested. 

“Nah, I can’t do that.  I need to do something.  I don’t know why, I just need to have something going on.  Sometimes it drives me crazy---that I need that.  But I can’t just stay home and watch television.” 

“So, are you spending the night somewhere?” 

“Yeah, I am.  Probably Aundi’s.” 

“Probably?” I queried, not sure I liked the idea of such an oblique answer.

She leaned back on her butt and gazed at me.  “You know,” she said in the inquisitive, “ever since you stopped telling me what to do and like let me do whatever, I’ve kinda like stopped doing so many stupid things.  I don’t feel right about it.” 

“That’s good,” I said.  “You have the right tools.  I’ve given you all I can to help you survive and do good things and I can’t do anything more to protect you.” 

“Yeah,” she said with wide eyes.  “I think more about what I’m doing now.  I don’t like just do stupid things because you tell me not to.  I feel like I have to like use my own mind to decide whether it’s a good thing or not.  It’s like weird.” 

I left Skye in Selby’s room, finished flossing, and retired to the study to prepare several SPAT files for mailing to family members.  I heard Skye and Aundi getting ready to leave and called Skye into the study.  She stood in front of me.

“Skye,” I said, “I just want to say that you have the best tools money and education---not just yours, but Mom’s and mine, too---can give you and that’s far more than most kids your age will ever have.  But, it’s entirely up to you how you use those tools.” 

She regarded me for a moment and said, “I think I know what you’re saying, Dad.”  She moved into me and gave me a big hug.  “I love you.” 

“And I you,” I said as she walked away into the night. 

 

 

 Top of Page

Chapter 2 – Interlude

 

Call me Dad.  Everyone else does.  It’s the way I introduce myself to my twin daughters’ teenage friends.  “Just call me Dad,” I say, and their male friends stare at the floor, the wall, anywhere but at me. 

At least some of the girls smile.  I extend my hand to girls and boys alike.  The girls have a better handshake than the boys.  I’ve met a few gay men in my life in the artsy-craftsy world and most of them know how to shake hands.  These boys have reduced the handshake to that of gastropods---slugs---wet, slimy, and hastily withdrawn. 

They make no attempt at all to adhere to old-fashioned concepts of masculinity.  They don’t stand up and duke it out in a parking lot over a misunderstanding---when slighted, their idea of machismo is to sneak up on their adversary in a car with blackened windows and spray him---or her (no gender distinction)---with automatic gunfire by surprise.  This new adolescent paradigm of dispute resolution by stealth, violence and murder is a symptom of group survival at it’s most maniacal.  The really cool kids kill as many random victims as possible, and themselves, in a single, final display of autonomy. 

The boys are intimidated by me, my girls tell me.  Their eyes become shaded and they offer their slimy fingertips tentatively and look at their pricey hightop sneakers with the tongues hanging out---the shoes, I mean, just so you understand---and sometimes I wonder if they have fully developed tongues.  They slur their words and bob and weave with the social skills of the itinerant undead.  They grunt instead of speak.  They shuffle instead of walk.  They never look at me.  Their faces are a uniform mask---their statement of detachment from all things past---disguising their ignorance.  They’re all so droll---cool as far as they’re concerned.  They can’t get past my parental glare and shrink as they exhibit what their generation considers this more highly evolved characteristic. 

But I rant.  This isn’t about teenage morals or MTV or Hollywood, it’s about my own experience as a dad helping to raise our twin daughters during their teens, one of whom is a poster girl for adolescent suicide as a statement of personal sovereignty. 

Skye was named after the Isle of Skye off the western coast of Scotland, my ancestors’ homeland.  Selby was named after a village just below the Scot border from whence George Washington’s parents emigrated.  I have a thing about my Scot heritage. 

 

I married Linda Elizabeth Coop when she was twenty-four and I was thirty-five.  Her mother cried at the wedding.  She was horrified.  She apologized to all our guests that her daughter was marrying, well . . . me.  Ten years later, Linda suddenly felt the urgent chime of her maternal clock and a year after that our twin girls were ready to be born.  She carried them to full term and the size of her abdomen rivaled a cement truck.  She had been in labor for twenty hours when our doc said to her, “There’s no reason for you not to have them naturally but they seem to be fighting for first position at the birth canal.  Maybe if you could stand on your head one of them will shake loose.”  To her credit, she tried it for two hours before she said, “Cut me.” 

I held Linda’s hand while the twins were delivered by Caesarean Section.  Selby was seven and a half pounds, had a full head of hair that never fell out and was happy, calm, and slept like an angel.  Skye was six pounds, cute, impulsive, demanding, and cranky as hell and those characteristics intensified as she grew.  We were blessed with two wonderful daughters but also realized we needed some help dealing with twins, one of whom was an “oppositional” child, and I began the SPAT Files when they were two-and-a half.  The etymology of “SPAT” is simple; it’s the first initial of the twins’ names and the first three letters of our surname.  It also contains the more sinister expression of the difficulties Linda and I had dealing with marriage and parenting.  I wrote as much to release my anguish and confusion as to record the twins’ lives.  The author Ruth Rendell, in her book No Night Is Too Long, wrote: “The writer is the only free man, for once he has set down his pain, his shame, and the sorrow of his heart he will be rid of it forever.”  Rendell was right, it helped, but I spent a lot of time on other media for ways to deal, too. 

I never thought this would happen in our family.  We were bright, educated professionals, Mom and I, she a paralegal and I a writer.  We waited for the right time to have a child.  It turned out to be two girls at once.  Twins are interesting---in the Chinese idiom---and we accepted our fate with enthusiasm.  The years passed and the twins grew apace and we never saw it coming.  We thought our staunch middle-class lifestyle, inherent moral decency, and generations of unbroken marriages on both sides protected our family from the worst of modern cultural pain.  We never expected to deal with terror, frustration, and futile attempts to find help from an un-navigable and indifferent medical and mental health care system. 

Fiction is full of extrapolations of difficult children with the films The Bad Seed, Willard, and Cruel Intentions, but those are excessively diabolical.  Of course, there is no lack of non-fiction from thousands of PhDs, MSWs, social workers, and child-rearing consultants throwing their pedantic and indecipherable advice into the available literature.  The vast majority of it is academic hyperbole lacking common sense---no doubt a means of maintaining publishing quotas.  A notable exception is Mary Pipher’s Reviving Ophelia, as long as one has the stomach for the awful truth.  The relevant sociological literature purports a hazy “one size fits all” approach.  In itself, that makes sense; without an investigation of the dynamics peculiar to the family in question, only the most positive and least injurious advice is appropriate. 

Those left us hanging dry.  We were advised to provide comfort, encouragement, love, and objective-oriented opportunities for our twins.  Wonderful advice, and blindingly useless for any but the most stable children of the most stable parents.  The reality was a bit more challenging.  Our problem was how to deal with an oppositional daughter and her stubborn twin sister while concomitantly managing two jobs, taxable income, bills, doctor’s appointments, insurance claims, housekeeping, shopping, birthdays and holidays, homework, sports activities, and mowing the lawn and feeding the pets and wrestling the dog every night for the solid contents of the cat’s litter box, to list just a few of the more challenging responsibilities. 

In other words, it’s inherently impossible for any social or psychiatric therapist to offer practical solutions in a stream of one-hour sessions.  They do, however, offer a forum in which one may complain, express impotence, and spend a shitload of money. 

But money won’t buy you success in dealing with teenagers unless, of course, you buy tickets to a monastery in Transylvania---for them or you, you pick.  At best, the money and the advice may help you realize you’re not alone in the world and nobody else has a clue what’s up but they’ll judge you, anyway. 

More likely, money, and possibly the advice, won’t help at all. 

I remember Skye’s first suicide attempt.  She was barely seventeen. 

 

 

 Top of Page

Chapter 3 – Mid-October, 2004

 

I sat in my study circling possibilities in the Jobs section of the paper.  My left wrist was still sensitive and slightly deformed after I fell off the roof and broke it last May.  It hurt after a long day in the yard.  My medication, Vioxx---that had been so adamantly promoted by my doctor---had suddenly been banned in the US market.  I sent off a couple of resumes and went to the upstairs loft to watch the Sunday night NFL game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Minnesota Vikings.  Mom and Selby were bogarting the bedroom TV with their soap operas and threw me out.  I dozed off on the couch.  By twelve, Skye and her buddy Aundi Corker were back and Skye was in a panic because she felt her boyfriend Oscar was cheating on her.  I really didn’t know the details or the blow-by-blow developments, I only heard her shouts and cries of despair as she whipped through the house on the phone with all her friends.  I put a pillow over my head---I’d listened to Skye’s compulsive angst for years. 

I woke to Selby standing on the upper steps of the spiral staircase to the loft shouting in garbled words muffled by sobs.  “Daddy!  Dad, Skye cut herself really badly and she’s bleeding all over.  Daddy!” 

That left no room for gradual awakening.  Got my attention right away.  I leapt from the couch and followed her downstairs.  She led me to the girls’ bathroom in the east wing.  Aundi stood at the door in a semi-hysterical state, tears streaming from her eyes and her hands fluttering helplessly in front of her.  As I entered the bathroom, I saw Skye sitting on the floor wailing meaningless phrases of absolute despair.  The phrases weren’t meaningless to her, I suppose, it was just hard for me to understand her.  Her left arm hung in front of her streaming blood.  The blood of my loins---the life blood of my daughter---dripped onto the white tiles. 

Something in me clenched so that I could deal with this objectively.  I was grateful for that.  I had to inspect the damage to her wrist and determine the extent to which it was life-threatening.  Selby went to wake Mom and brought her back to the bathroom door.  Mom was horrified and Selby moaned in terror.  Aundi stood just outside the doorway crying.  What to do? 

My reaction was automatic.  I sat down on the floor in front of her and gently took Skye’s left forearm in my hand.  Mom yelled at me to not hurt her.  Selby screamed at the sight of the cut.  Skye continued to mumble weeping complaints of nobody loving her and everyone hating her for no reason and there was no reason to go on living in this awful world.  Amidst the cacophony coming from behind me of wails, sobs, and frightened declarations of dialing 911, calling doctors and emergency services, I sat with Skye on the bathroom floor.  My emotions closed and I went on automatic, the cries of the others receded into an inaudible distance.  I ignored all of it as external clutter and listened to Skye’s plaintive murmurings---I wanted to see the damage, determine the threat potential, and take whatever emergency action was necessary.  On close inspection, the cut on her wrist was ugly but not bleeding much.  An occasional drop fell to the floor in a pattern of discrete drops---not a pool of blood. 

That’s good---she didn’t cut a vein. 

I raised an arm over my right shoulder at the throng behind me.  “Just calm down for a minute.  Back off and let me see what’s going on here.  It’s not bleeding that much.” 

My words seemed to have a positive effect and the hysteria calmed to a more reasonable chatter.  I paid no attention.  Skye continued to complain that no one cared about her and no one would listen to her.  “I’m here, Skye.  Talk to me,” I said. 

She blubbered on with words that barely registered on my consciousness.  She spoke of Oscar and his infidelity, that her family hated her and didn’t want her around, that the world was a place of hate and betrayal that she wanted nothing to do with anymore.  I looked at the cut.  It extended from one side of her left wrist to the other.  The initial cut on the thumb side of her wrist was deep and open wide with fatty tissue showing.  The trailing cut to the little-finger side was less deep and not much more than a scratch.  The bigger cut had coagulated to an extent that only an occasional drop of blood spilled.  “Get the paper towels,” I said. 

Within seconds, someone pushed a white bath towel over my shoulder.  “No,” I said, “give me paper towels.” 

I heard Mom’s voice behind me.  “What difference does it make?” 

I ignored the reprimand.  “Just get me paper towels.”  I knew the paper towels would be more sterile and easier to handle. 

A moment later someone handed me the roll of paper towels.  I tore a sheet from the roll and applied it to Skye’s wrist with pressure.  “Raise your arm, sweetheart,” I said.  “Keep it over your head.”   

She resisted me for a moment and then went limp and allowed me to raise her arm. 

“What did she use to cut herself?” I said, looking around the bathroom.  I didn’t see anything.  There were no razors in sight.  I thought about the X-Acto knives I kept in a drawer in my study, a carryover from my illustrator days, but they weren’t in sight, either.  Something terribly sharp had made the cut and I couldn’t see what it was. 

“That,” Aundi said from behind me.  “She used that knife.”  

I had no idea what “that knife” was.  Then, I spied the black handle of a Wǘstof paring knife laying on the edge of the countertop partly covered by a towel.  Wǘstof made a series of professional chef’s knives that were advertised as comprised of the best surgical steel.   Mom used them for cooking and I honed them constantly to keep them razor sharp.  Skye, who rarely was home for dinner and had no way of knowing which knives where sharpest and which weren’t, had somehow grabbed the Wüstof knife from a drawer of many knives to do her deed.  We would never know if that was a conscious or random choice. 

Mom spotted it at about the same time I did.  She stepped beside me and reached over and took the knife in her hand.  “My God, she used the sharpest knife in the house.” 

That answered that question.  The bleeding had nearly stopped and the paper towel compress I’d applied to Skye’s wrist wasn’t soaking up any more blood.  The cut was congealing on its own. 

Okay, what now?  

We all spent the next half-hour trying to figure that out.  Skye lay in her bed with Aundi next to her.  The cut was serious but not life threatening.  It could probably use stitches on half of it and the other half was not any worse than cuts I’d sustained cleaning up the yard.  Mom and I tried to decide what to do.  She suggested applying butterfly bandages, which we had in our medicine cabinet.  On the other hand, part of the cut was severe enough to warrant medical attention to avoid infection and to minimize scarring.  We agonized over this for a while.  The obvious answer was to take her to the emergency room of some hospital and have the more serious part of the cut stitched.  The downside of that was, as I said, “If we do that, we can’t hide the fact that she cut her wrist.  We can’t tell them she fell through a glass door or, as Skye suggested, that she was cut in a knife fight with another girl.  The hospital will have to act on its assumption of an attempted suicide and that will be that.” 

Mom nodded in apparent agreement and went to work.  She washed the wound in hydrogen peroxide and applied the butterflies and wrapped Skye’s wrist in a bandage.  She did a good job.  Skye lay in bed while Mom and I tried to figure out if this was all we should do.  That question was answered by Skye when she announced she wanted to go to the hospital and get stitches.  Mom said she wanted to do what Skye wanted. 

I said, “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Lin.  If we take her in, she’s going to be processed by the system.” 

“She wants to go, Michael.  She says she wants stitches and we can’t do that here.  I think I should take her in.  Maybe I can tell them some story that doesn’t look like a suicide attempt.” 

“I don’t think it’s a suicide attempt, Lin,” I said.  “I think she just fucked up with the wrong knife and cut herself more than she intended.  The cut isn’t that bad.  It’s already stopped bleeding and, yeah, maybe she’ll have a scar, but it’s not enough to risk invoking the legal system.” 

Mom regarded me soberly for a long moment and said, “She needs stitches.  The cut is bad and needs stitches.  She says she wants to get stitches.  I’m only doing what she wants and what I think is right.” 

“I don’t think she knows what she wants, Lin,” I said.  “The real question is what do we want?” 

“I want her to have medical attention, Michael.  She wants it, I want it.  Who knows what kind of infection she might get from this?” 

I demurred in an agony of indecision.  God help me, I was concerned about the cost we’d incur with a non-insured visit to the emergency room and the subsequent cost-risk of Skye’s incarceration in a psychiatric facility as a result.  I didn’t think an argument with Mom was a hot idea at the moment, and in my hesitation, she rallied to carry the day.  She called two hospitals to ask about the waiting time in emergency and packed Skye up with Selby and Aundi and drove to Robert Priest Grantham Hospital’s Emergency Room on Congress Avenue about two miles from our house. 

I cleaned up the blood from the bathroom tiles and the spatters on the throw rug.  It came up without much difficulty.  I thought of how silly it would seem to anyone else that I did this.  They might not understand that I wanted us to have as little evidence of Skye’s trauma as possible when we returned from what I suspected would be a long night.  Her blood---our blood.  I made it disappear.  I was still in the throes of the mystifying calm that had descended on me as soon as I saw her wounded wrist.  I wondered briefly if it meant I was cool in the face of fire or if I was a raging sociopath without emotions in a crisis.  I dismissed the thoughts as vapid mental meandering, threw the blood-stained cloths in the hamper and left the house a few minutes later in my Volkswagen Passat so we would have two cars at the hospital---just in case. 

 

 

 Top of Page

Chapter 4

 

I passed through the double doors of the hospital’s emergency room and found Selby and Aundi sitting in the lobby.  There was seating for over fifty people but only two other persons were in the room.  The temperature was about sixty degrees.  They told me Skye had been admitted quickly and Mom was with her.  I sat with the kids and waited. 

It was one-fifteen in the morning when Mom came out of the inner sanctum of the emergency ward and said, “She’s in a room, Michael, and she still hasn’t been seen by a doctor.  You can come in with me if you want.” 

She led the way and I followed.  Skye lay on a hospital bed in the tiny treatment room.  As Mom and I entered, the attending physician walked in.  He inspected Skye’s cut.  He was a slim young man no more than five-foot-six and a superior demeanor.  He backed away from Skye and looked up at Mom and me.  “I’m Doctor Rosenthal,” he said, “and I’ll have to Baker her.” 

Shit, shit, shit, thundered in my head.  I knew it.

Mom’s panicked gaze flew from him to me.  She said, “Can’t we do something that allows us to take her home with us?” 

“No,” Dr. Rosenthal said, “this is a clear case of attempted suicide and I’m bound by law to Baker Act her.  I’m sorry.” 

“But we brought her here voluntarily,” Mom pleaded.  “She was having a hard time and did this two hours ago.  It’s not that bad, we just wanted it to be checked out in case she needed a shot or something for infection.” 

“It’s out of my hands.  I have no choice,” he said.  

“You mean you’re committing her to some facility?” Mom asked.  Her face reddened.  “You can’t do that.  She asked to come here voluntarily.  We brought her here for medical attention---for help, for God’s sake.” 

Dr. Rosenthal’s eyes turned to ice.  He frowned and stared up at her---and me.  “It’s the law.  What you did or want has nothing to do with it.” 

No Mr. Nice Guy.  Skye had a telltale slice on her wrist that the law considered as proof of attempted suicide and he was determined to do what the law demanded.  He gave us an impertinent glance and said, “I’ll have a tech come in to clean the wound and we’ll probably want to glue it together.  After that, there’s nothing I can do.”  He turned his attention to Skye and with a parting shot said, “If you’d cut a little deeper, you would have died.” 

I thought that was damned melodramatic.  It was obvious she’d done it in front of several people and the cut wasn’t life-threatening.  We’d brought her to the emergency room a couple of hours after the act and it seemed to me he was not taking into account the fact that she hadn’t cut any deeper. 

“What’s ‘Baker’?,” Skye demanded.  “What’s he saying?”  She looked at Mom and me for clarification.  When we both stared at her stupidly she glared at Dr. Rosenthal and insisted, “I’m not staying here.  You can’t make me stay.  I want to be with my family.  I’ll run, damn you.  You can’t make me stay here.” 

Mom shushed her and I gave her a look that said shut up before you get yourself into more trouble. 

Dr. Rosenthal left the room and Mom followed him out.  I stayed with Skye.  A medical tech entered and scowled at Skye.  “Well,” he said, holding Skye’s arm out to scrub the wound with peroxide, “you’ll have one thing to remember, a nice big scar.” 

The tech was a medium-sized guy about thirty-five.  His name tag identified him as Larry---a nurse-technician.  He had reddish-blond short hair brushed up in front and attitude.  He was clearly not sympathetic to Skye’s plight and aggressively scorned her, clear in his disapproval of her wrist-cut.  Nevertheless, he did his job professionally, all the while glancing at the television show on the monitor hanging from the wall over his right shoulder and making snide comments about the trouble she was in. 

He was out of line.  “I think you ought to lighten up,” I said quietly. 

He stopped with the rude comments and continued to wash and clean Skye’s wound with peroxide. 

Another techie came in and applied some medicinal “superglue” to Skye’s wrist.  The wound was about an eighth of an inch wide at its broadest point and they had trouble pressing the two edges of the wound back together.  They quickly gave up, and I knew I could have done better.  I’d been splicing pieces of paper together for decades and it wasn’t that difficult if you took the time to do it right.  In this case, neither tech seemed too worried about whether she would have a nasty scar as a result of their ministrations.  They commented to each other jovially that the cut was wide but not deep and each had other patients to attend to.  I was incensed but held my silence. 

Mom came back in a few minutes later to say that she hadn’t been able to shake Dr. Rosenthal from Bakering Skye.  She also said she wasn’t sure what that meant.  I couldn’t tell if she was really unsure or if she just didn’t want to tell me the truth in front of Skye. 

“I’m going out to see how Selby and Aundi are doing,” Mom said to me.  “Can you stay with Skye while I do that?” 

“Of course,” I said. 

Mom left and I sat in the formed-plastic chair next to Skye’s emergency room bed.  Skye wanted to know what was going to happen to her and I tried to find words that made the inevitable sound less threatening than the reality.  It was difficult and I can’t say I did a very good job of it.  Skye seemed resigned that we weren’t going to be able to get her out of this situation.  I agreed.  My neurons wrestled between schemes of letting her feel the wrath of an impersonal “system” or trying to break her out. 

As Skye and I chatted, she noticed two young men standing outside the door of the room.  “Who’re they?” she asked.  “Why are they staring at me that way?” 

I held my tongue.  I’d never been in this situation before but I could guess.  They were the official security detail brought in to enforce the hospital’s action to Baker Act Skye.  They had that look about them and Skye saw it, too.  They stood outside the door with grim expressions that bespoke an almost cinematic depiction of KGB officials waiting to take another soviet citizen to the Siberian gulags for untried crimes. 

Mom came back a half-hour later.  “They’re okay, Michael,” she said, referring to Selby and Aundi.  She looked at the two drones standing outside the door.  “What’s going on here?” 

I glanced at the two men.  “Those are the security guards for Skye, Lin.  They’re here to make sure she doesn’t escape.” 

Mom’s look of alarm seemed too little too late.  “What do you mean, security?  For what?” 

I looked at her sadly.  “She’s been Bakered, Lin.  That means the full force of the law is now in play.  They’re here to ensure the law takes its course.” 

“You must be kidding,” Mom said in shock.  “You can’t be serious.” 

I nodded, eschewing comment. 

“That’s crazy,” Mom said.  “What do they think she is, some kind of terrorist?” 

“I don’t know, Lin,” I said with a glum tone. 

“Well, we have to find out, Michael,” she said with determination.  “You know about this stuff.  Why don’t you go out there and ask them?  But don’t make any waves.  Don’t get smart with them or threaten them.  That’ll just make it worse.  Don’t make them mad.  Will you promise me that, please?” 

I nodded.  “Sure, Lin.”  It amazed me that she expected me, at times like this, to be able to do things one would attribute to a combination of God and the Terminator. 

I walked out to the lobby and stood next to the younger, more intelligent-looking of the two.  “What’s your part in this drama?” I asked. 

“Drama?” he said with confused eyes. 

I took a deep breath and exhaled.  I leaned an elbow on the counter next to him.  “Why are you standing here watching my daughter?” 

He reddened slightly and said, “I have to.  It’s the law.  I have to be able to see her clearly at all times.  She’s been Bakered and that means I have to have a visual of her.” 

“I see,” I said. 

He straightened his ample shoulders and cast his gaze back at Skye lying on the bed in the room.  He was done with me and I with him. 

It was two-thirty in the morning.  Mom said, “I’m going to take Aundi and Selby back to the house.  I need to get some sleep and they do, too.  They won’t let me bring them in here to talk to Skye and they’re just languishing out there in the waiting room.  So, I’ll take them home.  Is that all right with you?” 

I nodded.  “Sure, Lin.” 

“You don’t sound very sure,” she said. 

“I’m not too sure of anything right now.  What do you want me to say?” 

“Where are you going, Mom?”  Skye said from her supine position on the hospital bed with the hood of her sweatshirt over her eyes---she was exhausted and barely awake at this point.  “Don’t leave me here,”

“I have to leave, honey.  Dad will stay here with you.  I have to take Aundi home and get Selby to bed.  You understand.  Dad will be here.” 

“Don’t leave me here alone, Mom,” Skye murmured.  “You can’t leave me.” 

“Mom has to go, Skye,” I said.  “Aundi and Selby can’t just sit outside forever.  Mom’s going to take them home and I’ll stay here with you.  Don’t worry.” 

Sleepily, Skye said, “Okay.  Just don’t leave me alone.  I just want to go home with my family.” 

Fat chance.  Mom left.  It was almost three in the morning.  People wandered back and forth past the doorway to the treatment room and there was an occasional burst of laughter from the staff.  I got up from my chair and pushed the door closer to the jam.  I didn’t try to close the door; I just wanted to give Skye a break from the hustle and bustle.  The security guard jumped to attention and pushed it open again.  “You can’t close the door,” he said.  “It has to remain open so I can see the ward.”

I sat down again next to Skye---the “ward”---in the plastic chair.  She had her arms wrapped around my right arm and dozed in and out.  She came out of it for a moment and asked for water. 

“Sure,” I said.  “Hold on for a minute and I’ll get you some.” 

I walked out of the room and up to one of the security guards standing sentinel just outside the doorway.  He leaned with one elbow on the three-sided counter of the administrative center for the emergency room.  “Can I get a little water?” I asked. 

“Sure,” he said.  “Is a paper cup all right?” 

I nodded. 

He left me waiting at the counter. 

He returned in a few minutes with a paper cup of ice water.  “Is this for you?” he asked, thrusting the cup toward me. 

“No,” I said.  “It’s for Skye.” 

He withdrew the cup.  “I can’t give it to you, then.” 

I was confused.  “What?” 

“I can’t let her have it,” he said. 

“What do you mean, ‘can’t let her have it’?” I said, completely mystified. 

“I can’t,” he repeated.  “When someone is Bakered, they aren’t allowed anything to drink or eat until they’ve been processed by a psychiatrist.” 

“Water?” I said.  “You can’t give her water?” 

It was three-thirty in the morning.  We’d been in the emergency room for three hours.  Skye hadn’t left the room during that time.  She hadn’t peed or asked for anything but water.  “You must be kidding,” I said.  “You won’t let the patient have water?” 

“She’s not a patient, anymore,” the security guard said.  “She’s been Bakered and I can’t give her anything until she’s been processed.” 

Within the administrative enclosure, the lab tech named Larry, who had been so openly scornful of Skye when he cleaned her wound, spoke up.  He sat leaning back in a secretary’s chair with his Rockports propped on the desk in front of him.  “She’s Bakered,” he snapped.  “She no longer has any rights.” 

I transferred my look from the security guard to him and glared.  “What in the hell are you talking about.  She asked for water, for God’s sake.” 

“Doesn’t matter what she wants,” he said with a complacent sneer.  “She can’t have anything to drink or eat until she’s processed.” 

“By what authority?” I challenged. 

“She’s Baker Acted,” he said with a nasty retort.  “That’s all the authority we need.  You don’t have any rights over her anymore.  She can’t have anything to eat or drink until the toxicology tests are completed and an accredited psychiatrist has evaluated her.” 

I was amazed but fearful that we’d fallen into the vat of hell.  “She’s my daughter, damn it, and she’s a minor.  She’s been here for over three hours and she wants a drink of water.  As her father, I demand she be given a drink of water.” 

Larry the lab tech was unimpressed.  He had power in this situation and was determined to exercise it.  “I don’t care who you are.  You don’t have anything to say about it, anymore.  It’s out of your hands.  She’s a ward of the state now.” 

“What?” I cried, waving my arms.  “You Baker her by the word of some doctor and all human rights are suspended?” 

“That’s exactly right,” Larry the lab tech said, his tone vehement and his eyes blazing with righteous fervor.  “You might as well just go home and go to bed.  It doesn’t matter anymore if she’s your daughter.  The state has taken custody of her.” 

I was stupefied.  I opened my mouth and closed it---and did it again.  “All this over a goddamned drink of water?  You’re insane.” 

“That’s the law,” Larry the lab tech spit back.  “The law is clear.  In cases of attempted suicide there is no allowance for the perpetrator to have anything to eat or drink until tox and psych are completed.”  He clasped his hands behind his head in a gesture of dominance.  “That’s the law, sir.  Get used to it.” 

“I want to see that law,” I said.  “Show me the law.” 

“It’s in the Baker Act,” he said with silky certainty.  “You have no rights.  She has no rights.  You have nothing to say about it.”

Aghast, I said with venom, “So you’re telling me the Constitution of the United States is suspended by the Baker Act?” 

“That’s right,” Larry the lab tech said.  “She’s a suicide attempt. You’re out of the loop.  She’ll be taken to a facility for psychiatric evaluation for a minimum of seventy-two hours.  Three days,” he emphasized, twisting the knife.  “After that, depending on the psychiatrist, she may or may not be released.  She might not be.” 

Stupefied, I said, “You’re telling me because we brought her to this hospital to have her injury attended to we might not ever see her again?” 

“Yes,” he grinned. 

“She cut herself.  It’s mutilation.” 

“Not according to the doctor.” 

“How can he know?” 

“It’s a judgment call,” Larry the technician said. 

“Judgment call?” I said, incredulous.  “Against everything the parents say?”

“It doesn’t matter what you say,” he sneered, hands clasped behind his head with arrogant authority.  “She might never be released and there’s nothing you can do about it.”  He grinned at me in emphasis and lofted his cockiness to the five other techs that sat or stood watching our exchange.  They looked away, concentrating on anything else they could find. 

I stared at him and said, “Thank you for that warm and fuzzy outlook.”  For a moment, I thought of him as a Nazi lieutenant during World War II espousing the reasoning behind killing Jews.  I also wanted to kill him and was glad I’d got his name and had a clear image of his appearance.  Maybe I’d kill him another day.  Collecting my thoughts I said, “I think you’re wrong about this.  I want to see some proof.  I want documentation and I want clarification.  My daughter has been in this ward for over four hours and she wants a drink of water.  You’re refusing her water and suspending her civil rights as a citizen of the United States.  How far do you want to go in testing those infringements?” 

“That’s up to the state,” he scoffed. 

The Geneva Conventions were more liberal than this.  The asshole was full of shit.  But he had the upper hand and was flaunting it for reasons known only to him.  “Bullshit,” I said, glaring over the counter at him.  “That’s your decision and not the state’s.  I want proof of this.” 

“Fine,” he yelled at me, dropping his feet to the floor and snapping forward in his chair.  “I’ll call the nurse and you’ll see.” 

“Good,” I snarled in return.  “I want to talk to anyone other than you.” 

At this point, the security guard, who’d been silent during this ridiculous exchange with Larry the lab tech, tapped me on the shoulder threateningly.  “You have no rights,” he said, bolstered by Larry the lab tech’s rhetoric.  “Your daughter is a ward of the State.  According to the Baker Act, I don’t have to let you see her at all.  By law, nobody, not even the family, has any right to be with her.  She’s supposed to be completely isolated.  I’m giving you break by letting you and your wife sit with her.  If you continue to argue about this, I’ll have you removed from the area.” 

My blood boiled.  I wanted to kill them all.  I subconsciously evaluated the weapons I had on my person and our escape routes.  I said, “Get that nurse.” 

I returned to Skye’s side and sat down.  “What’s happening, Daddy,” she said sleepily.  “I heard you yelling at them.” 

“The system has you in its clutches, sweetheart.  That’s the problem with this stuff.  Once you invoke the system, you lose control of your life.  Right now, you’re not permitted anything to eat or drink anything and you’re a ward of the state of Florida.  I can’t protect you.” 

“I can’t have a drink of water?” she asked.  Tears leaked from her eyes. 

“That’s right,” I said, barely suppressing the urge to kill and maim. 

Skye took my arm between hers and wept into the sheet of the bed.  To the credit of the hospital, within three minutes, a registered nurse named Stephanie strode into the room bearing a paper cup of ice water and a small packet of tissues for Skye.  She handed them to us graciously but without comment.  It was obvious she had overruled the excesses of Larry the lab tech and the security officer and I appreciated that.  Skye wolfed down the ice water and used the tissues to wipe her eyes. 

I stayed with Skye until seven in the morning.  I wouldn’t leave her without knowing what was going to happen to her.  I demanded to speak to someone in authority.  Of course, there were only a couple of nurses, a couple more lab techs, including Larry, and two administrative personnel in the ward, nobody of any import or real authority.  Skye slept with her arms wrapped around my right arm, holding on for dear life.  She was asleep but still frightened.  I was coming off four hours of fury over this dilemma and I’d been up for thirty.  I vacillated between bouts of anger at her for creating this mess and anger at a legal establishment that rendered unto itself, by imperial fiat, the wisdom to “protect” her from further injury or harm by isolating her from her family.  Other angers suffused and aggravated my fundamental desire to foment violence on society at large: not being able to find work; not being able to sufficiently support my family; not having health insurance to allay the costs of Skye’s troubles; not being able to fend off the Baker Act; not being able to protect my daughter from herself.  All this and more wove into a tapestry so twisted it hurt. 

I called home.  Mom answered and told me to leave Skye and come home.  It had been seven hours since we’d arrived at the hospital and I was not only tired and hungry but cold as hell.  The temperatures at which the environs were kept easily overwhelmed my acrylic shorts and light cotton dress shirt.  I was freezing.  I asked the charge nurse Stephanie for a schedule about what happened next and when.  She demurred to the floor nurse. 

Within a half-hour the floor nurse, a young man who introduced himself as Aaron, said he would answer any questions I had about the Baker Act. 

I discussed it with him for another half hour.  He was pleasant but useless.  I asked him for paperwork on the Baker Act.  He said there was none.  I said, “Don’t tell me that, Aaron.  You can’t just verbally express to the walls that she’s Bakered and suspend all her civil rights.  That’s illegal.  There has to be paperwork and I want to see it.” 

“Okay,” Aaron said, “there is paperwork, but it’s proprietary and I can’t show it to you.” 

“That’s crap, Aaron,” I said.  “We’ve been here for seven hours and your system obviously isn’t working.  I’m getting very impatient and I think you know why.  She’s been refused food and water and only by fighting with a couple of jerkoffs did I get her some water.  I’m sure there’s no state law that permits you or anyone else to refuse food and water to a patient, whether she’s a fucking ward of the state or not.” 

Aaron’s eyes widened and he was immediately apologetic.  “You did get water?” he asked. 

“Yes.  Stephanie brought water over the denial of your other staff.”  

“Yeah, I heard about that and I apologize.  If you want food or anything else, I’d be happy to get whatever we have available---turkey sandwiches, Cokes and other soft drinks, and anything else we have here.  It’s not much but I’d be happy to get whatever you want.”  His name tag identified him as a registered nurse and he laid claim to authority on the floor at the moment.  “You’re right,” he admitted, “the system doesn’t work very well.  We have a legal obligation to act in certain ways in a Baker but there are only three facilities in the county that handle that and we can’t do anything until one of them gets back to us and says they have room to accept another patient.  In this case, we’ve been in contact with all three and the only one that has room is Columbia on Forty-Fifth Street in North Palm Beach and they have another pickup at Palms West Hospital before they can get to us here.  It might be another hour or two before they come for your daughter.  I’m really sorry about that but there’s nothing we can do.”  He spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. 

“Give me the paperwork of the Baker Act on Skye.” 

“Pardon me?” he said. 

I stared at him.  I was tired and angry and losing patience.  “Where’s the Baker paperwork?” 

“Well, there are procedures and I’m not sure I can get it.  I might be able to get you some copies---”

“Get me copies, Aaron,” I said.  “Get me anything that shows me an official declaration that prohibits me from walking out of here with my daughter right now.  If I don’t see it, we’re gone.” 

Aaron regarded me with his cherubic countenance.  “I’m really terribly sorry, but you can’t do that.  It’s against the law and I apologize.  I wish it were different.  The system doesn’t work as well as it should and there’re problems that we have to deal with all the time.  There’ve been times when a patient has been Bakered and they stayed here in the emergency room for three days before the system was able to respond.  It’s a bad system but it’s what we have to work with.” 

“So we’re victims of a failed system?  What kind of testimony is that?  Why don’t you just release her to my custody?  Why don’t you at least release her to the custody of the nearest McDonald’s so we can get a McMuffin and a Coke instead of being deprived of food and water by this damned hospital?” 

“I’m truly sorry,” Aaron said.  “I wish I had better news and more authority but I don’t.  I’ll get you or her anything we have on the floor.  Beyond that, your daughter is Bakered and until the process wends it way, you and this hospital are basically helpless.” 

There was more give on my part and more take by the hospital and the state.  Aaron did finally show me the official paperwork described and signed by the diminutive Dr. Rosenthal.  He proclaimed that I couldn’t take a copy with me unless I had proper identification and was willing to sign a release.  I told him I had ID and would happily sign the release.  He stumbled over that with the lame excuse that the hospital copiers were down or the ER server printer was faulty or the Easter Bunny was missing.  I was too tired to take the argument any further. 

I woke Skye long enough to tell her I was leaving so she wouldn’t wake to a lonely room by surprise.  As I left, Aaron appeared and handed me a copy of the doctor’s written and signed Baker Act declaration.  I grabbed it from him, went home, cooked myself an egg and bacon sandwich, ate it, and went to sleep next to Mom who’d decided not to go to work. 

 

 

 Top of Page

Chapter 5

 

It turned out that Skye didn’t get to Columbia Psychiatric and Rehabilitative Services in Riviera Beach (about twenty miles from us) for evaluation until ten-o‘clock the next morning.  Our state and county tax dollars working for us.  Gee, what a wonderful system.  It abused seventeen-year-old girls with no accountability.  Such was the governance of Jeb Bush, the brother of the current president and internationally renowned shithead, George Dubya. 

Monday was even worse when it came down to Mom and me dealing with the aftermath of Skye’s detention at RPG Hospital and Columbia. 

Mom and I fielded calls from various aides, caseworkers, nursing assistants, registered nurses, and administrative personnel.  Most dealt with our insurance status and, in the absence of that, who would pay the bills, how quickly, and in what amounts.  A couple of the calls dealt with questions about Skye’s history as a suicide, her past prescribed medications for depression, whom she’d seen for counseling in the past, and which illegal drugs she preferred on a daily basis.  I visualized the caller at a desk with an official form, no doubt with an impressive letterhead and logo at the top, and questions with little check-boxes underneath each one.   Occasionally, I would ask, “Are you interested at all in her positive qualities?”  The response was always a surprised, “What?” 

Mom and I sat on the patio Monday evening talking about the costs of Skye’s incarceration.  The emergency room at RPG hospital would probably run about a grand---maybe more since they’d kept her in a room for ten hours---and Columbia cost roughly a grand a day.  A caseworker at Columbia suggested we claim Skye was voluntarily admitted to the facility.  The benefit was twofold: first, the Baker Act stigma would be eliminated---they would finesse the paperwork to withdraw Baker and show voluntary admission; and second, we could sign her out at will.  It seemed like a good option and we took it.  We still didn’t know what the psychiatric evaluation would say.  It was up to the shrink to judge and he had the power to keep her for as long as he deemed necessary to ensure Skye was no longer a danger to herself. 

That night was a time of retrospection, interpretation, and mild anxiety for all of us.  Selby was quietly angry at Skye and Mom wasn’t so quiet about it.  I watched the two of them to see which way the wind blew.  We were all less upset than one would think.  Perhaps we were getting used to it.  Skye was hell bent on the next levels of her obsessive melodrama.  I wondered how many more of these attempts she could manage before she did herself in for good.  That unarticulated thought was in all our minds. 

Mom picked up Skye at Columbia Psychiatric on Tuesday afternoon.  The moment they learned Skye’s insurance coverage was denied, they released her in a second. 

There were still a few necessary protocols to which we had to adhere: name, telephone number, date of an appointment with a counselor, and the same for a licensed psychiatrist who could sustain her prescription for Prozac.  I called Joanne Previtt and left a message.  She was in Europe.  But I had her name and number as well as those of Kabil Naroom, MD, (Joanne’s inhouse psychiatrist) and I armed Mom with those before she signed Skye out.  The shrink at Columbia gave her a starter prescription and sent her on her way. 

On Tuesday and Wednesday nights, Skye slept with Mom.  I slept in Skye’s bed in the east wing with Selby.  Selby and I talked quite a lot about the situation trying to discern the extent to which Skye had meant to commit suicide or make a display and also about the hoards of kids that Skye had coming in all day and night Wednesday to offer their condolences, support, cheer her on, and generally make her the Belle of the Ball, the Star of the Show, and the Prima Donna of their pitiful counterculture.  Both Selby and I were amazed at how happy Skye was to entertain and regale them with the sordid details of how she cut her wrist and the stupidity of the hospital emergency room and the horrors of Columbia Psychiatric. 

Mom seemed to be in a dense fog about all this.  She asked me quietly to say nothing to Skye and keep my opinions to myself. 

On Thursday night, Selby was doing dishes at one in the morning.  That was pretty consistent with her schedule.  I was puttering about doing something mindless in the kitchen.  Skye was in her bedroom listening to her stereo and talking on the telephone.  With her back to me concentrating on the glass she was washing, Selby asked me, “Dad, do you think it’s a good idea that Skye’s doing all the same things she was doing just before she, um, hurt herself?”  That was the operative phrase around the house.  Skye hadn’t “slit her wrist,” she’d “hurt herself.”  

I looked at her with a rueful smile.  “No, I don’t think so.  But, it’s not up to me or you.  Mom is handling that.” 

“Why’s that?  I don’t think Mom is able to be tough enough on Skye.” 

“Maybe not, Button, but she’s doing the best she can and she’s asked me to stay out of it.” 

Selby got an angry look on her face.  “You’re her father.  Skye listens to you.  She just tells Mom what she knows Mom wants to hear and Mom agrees with her.  How’s that going to change anything?” 

I made a face---kind of a grimace of helplessness akin to severe heartburn.  “I don’t know.  Right now, that’s the way we’re handling it.  It makes things easier on Mom and keeps the peace.” 

“Things were peaceful between us before Skye cut herself, Dad.  She still did it.” 

“Yes, that’s true, but maybe Skye learned something.”  I started to say more but stopped.  I really didn’t believe my words.  Neither did Selby. 

“I don’t think so, Dad,” she retorted.  “She’s still hanging onto Aundi like some kind of rope.  Don’t get me wrong, I like Aundi.  I think she’s a smart girl.  Aundi handles the crowd she hangs with really well.  She knows who she is and she keeps them at arm’s length.  Aundi’s tougher than a ghetto pimp, Dad.  Skye isn’t.  She can’t handle the temptations like Aundi can.”  She dropped a cup in the sink with a loud bang and clanking noise that made Zoë the dog bark in surprise.  “Whoops, my bad,” she said in an embarrassed pose. 

By Friday morning, I had been up most of the night and knew that Skye had been, too.  In fact, she stayed up all night and all day Friday.  She called Mom at work in the morning and asked if she could take Aundi to the beach to hang out.  Mom didn’t know she’d been up all night and said yes.  I’d gone to bed and knew nothing about Skye leaving with the car.  She took the Honda CR-V at ten in the morning and didn’t return until two in the afternoon, just in time to drive Selby to work. 

I’d argued with Mom one night in our bedroom over Skye having unrestricted use of the car and Mom had said, “I can’t just keep her in lockdown, Michael.” 

I said, “Lin, if she were in Columbia, she’d be in a serious lockdown.  As it is, she’s as free as a bird and has no restrictions at all.  It’s like she’s the most responsible kid on the planet.  Are there no repercussions for scaring the shit out of all of us and costing us nine thousand dollars in forty-eight hours?” 

Mom glared at me.  “You don’t understand her, Michael.  You never have.  She’s a young girl and you don’t know what that’s like.  You two fight like the Clampetts and the MacDonalds.” 

“Hatfields and McCoys,” I interjected. 

“Whatever,” she said with an impatient wave of her hand.  “The two of you can’t get along.  You fight over everything.  It’s no use you talking to her anymore.  She won’t listen to you.  She’s talked to me about it and asked me to say something to you.  She doesn’t want you to talk to her about it.  She says you don’t understand her and make comments that hurt her terribly.  I’ll ask you now; please don’t broach the subject with her at all.” 

“Okay, I won’t.  But are you taking everything into consideration?  After all, any responsible psychiatrist or psychologist would ask her right off, ‘What are you going to change in your life to ensure this doesn’t happen again?’  You know she’s gearing up for another big weekend.  It’s pretty clear that something has to change, Lin.” 

“I’m working with her on that,” Mom said with a challenging stare.  “I think I can handle this and I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t keep getting in my face about it.” 

“Lin, I’m really not trying to do that and if it seems so, I apologize.  I know you’re doing your best here, but I think you should listen to the thoughts and advice of others, too.” 

She stiffened.  “Others?  You aren’t suggesting I talk about this to anyone else, are you?  That’s out of the question.  Do you think I want people to know about our problems?  Do you think I would tell them how horrible we have it?  I’m slaving at a job I hate.  Our children have been pulled out of high school.  Skye has life-threatening emotional problems.  And look at you.  You don’t have a job and haven’t worked for six months.  Our savings are disappearing and I’m the only one supporting a household that requires more than I make.  I can’t even get my daughter the counseling she needs because you aren’t making enough for us to pay for professional help.  So, I’d appreciate it if you’d just butt out.” 

I must have given her a stricken look because she changed her posture and said, “I’m sorry, Michael.  I know that’s not fair and you’ve been looking for a job.  But it isn’t making it.  You don’t have a job and working around the house, even though it’s useful and saves us the cost of hiring someone else to do it, doesn’t help.  I couldn’t care less about the goddamned yard.  My back is getting worse and my carpal tunnel is acting up and I’m in a temporary office that’s impossible to work in.  I have to drive thirty miles in horrible traffic every morning and every night and my stupid computer doesn’t work.  I have no place for my working files and can’t do the job I was hired to do.  The temporary office is a mess.  The two attorneys don’t even come in; they’re working out of their homes because it’s so bad.  If you want to contribute something, get a job.” 

She had me there.  “I know, Lin.  I’m sorry.”  I had nothing else to say---no quick comebacks or fancy defenses. 

Later that night, Selby and I were in the kitchen again, she washing dishes and me puttering about trying to re-glue patches of cloth that the cat had ripped from the living room couch cushions.  “I think we should stop talking to Mom about what we think about Skye, Dad,” she said. 

“Oh?  What makes you say that?”  There had to have been some event that precipitated her remark. 

“When Mom and I went to Wendy’s to get dinner, she asked me what I thought about Skye.  I told her what I thought and some of the things you and I have talked about.  She flipped out, Dad.  She got really weird.  It was like somebody hit her in the stomach.  She really yelled at me.  She said she’s sick of people telling her what to think and what to do.  She said she has enough on her plate without people giving her advice.  I think we need to back off.  She’s really stressed out.” 

After the excruciating pulse of guilt that surged through me, I said, “Mom has a lot of pressure on her right now, Selby.  I think that’s good advice and I agree with you.  Smart girl.” 

“She’s not handling things too well, you know.  She’s in a lot of pain and this thing with Skye has her really upset.  You know how Skye manipulates her and she’s---” 

“I know, I know,” I said quickly waving her off.  “We’ll give Mom a break, okay?  I’ll keep my big mouth shut.  My suggestions haven’t worked anyway so there’s no reason to keep pressuring her about Skye.” 

“Yeah, that’s about it,” Selby said.  “The stuff I’ve been talking to her about doesn’t help, either.  It just makes her mad and upset.  I don’t want to make her upset.” 

“Good advice, Button.” 

 

Skye, after being up for over thirty-six hours, came home late on Friday night after going out with Aundi Corker.  She had called Mom every hour on the hour to say she was being “good”, was all right, and wasn’t doing anything wrong. 

Mom seemed happy about that.  “She’s calling me regularly to tell me what she’s doing,” she told me.  “That’s good, isn’t it?  She’s really a good person, Michael.  She’s trying hard to change her behavior.” 

I nodded and gave her pat on the arm.  I thought it was complete horseshit.

Skye went straight to bed when she arrived home at two AM and someone else picked up Aundi and took her home.  On Saturday morning, Mom broached the subject with me again.  We were laying in bed reading.  She was under the covers and I lay on top, as was our custom.  She put her book down and said, “I don’t know what to do, Michael.”  She seemed to be talking to the wall more than to me.  “I’m doing everything I can to try to do the right thing and I don’t have any answers.  I’m really scared that Skye’s going to just keep doing more of this stuff until she finally kills herself.” 

“Um hmm,” I said, putting my own book on my lap. 

“Don’t just say that,” she said with a disdainful tone.  “You can’t leave me the only one who’s trying to figure this out, Michael.” 

That surprised me.  She’d been telling me for years, particularly in the last three months, that she didn’t want my advice---no, not that, really---but that I was the one who interfered with her management of Skye.  I gave her my full attention, unsure what I should say. 

“Don’t look at me that way,” she snapped.  “I’m not interested in your standard criticisms.”  Then she softened.  “I need some help here.  Skye is a really good person.  She’s loving and considerate and wants to improve herself.  Those kids she wants to be with aren’t really so bad.  Most of them are good kids, too.  She’s just a little girl who doesn’t understand the world around her.  But she’s doing her best.  She knows she’s done a bad thing and is trying really hard to change.  But I don’t know how to help her.  I think it’s that Dominique that’s the worst.  She’s the one who’s really bad.  And probably that stupid Oscar.” 

I realized Mom was talking to that immutable force that holds the answer to all the world’s ills and not really to me.  Thinking out loud, as it were.  I held my counsel. 

“Say something,” she said to me. 

I had to think about that.  I didn’t want to be imposing and had a bleak suspicion that anything I said would have a negative impact. 

“Well?,” she said, her tone demanding and a little bit frantic.  “Are you just going to ignore me the way you do about everything?” 

I knew it was her anxiety talking and not her normal self.  “Lin, I’m not sure what to say other than that maybe you should consider that your thoughts about Skye aren’t the only opinions that matter.  I don’t think it’s Dominique or Oscar that are to blame for Skye’s behavior.” 

“What the hell does that mean?” 

I reached over and took her hand in mine.  She gripped mine back with unexpected pressure.  I said, “Look, the first thing we have to accept is that we can’t fix Skye.  Modern psychology doesn’t consider her outside the limits of conventional sanity and we just had another psychiatrist at Columbia confirm that.  He released her with the comment that she was a stable personality that had a moment of, um, something like temporary insanity brought about by teenage angst?”  I ended my comment with an interrogatory because I didn’t want Mom to feel I was making an immutable statement.  Her only response was to squeeze my hand harder.  I went on.  “Okay, so if you look at Skye’s history, you have to admit that she has control dissonance.” 

“Oh, God, Michael.  There you go with your psychobabble.  What does that mean?”  But she still held on to my hand. 

“She wants control, Lin.  Simple.  She wants to be able to manage everything in her life according to her unique perspective.  Not just what happens at home but also what happens with every boy she thinks she loves forever and every girl that she hangs out with.  Look at Aundi.  Even she says that Skye tries to boss her around all the time and is a real pain in the ass.  Who slapped Skye in the head when she cut her wrist?  Aundi.  Why?  Because Aundi was pissed off at her for trying to remake the world into her own vision of perfection and cutting herself when she couldn’t get her way.” 

Mom threw my hand aside in disgust.  “That’s just what I would expect a man to say.  You can’t understand what it’s like to be a young girl growing up in the world.” 

“Lin, before you dismiss everything I’m saying, let me finish.  The dissonance is that, though she insists on complete control, she doesn’t have the intellectual or emotional maturity to handle it.  For crissake, Selby is better at it than Skye.  So is Aundi.” 

“Our daughter just tried to kill herself, Michael, and all you can say is that we can’t do anything about it?  God, what am I going to do?  Now you’re going to start with the accusations that this is all my fault.” 

Mom was getting more upset and though she’d asked me for comments, I had the exhausting feeling that I wasn’t giving her any help.  “Lin, please.  This isn’t something that you can control any more than I can.  What Skye does isn’t your fault any more than mine.  We’ve done what we could and we’ve given her a pretty decent life.  The evidence that it’s not us is Selby.  If there were some fundamental failure of childrearing that was our fault, both of them would have similar problems.”  I wasn’t sure about the empirical rigor of that analysis but it sounded good at the moment. 

“Then what am I supposed to do?  What does your psychology,” she gave me a sort of sneer on that word, “say about that?” 

“What I’ve already said, Lin.  That Skye has to change some aspect of her character, first, and get away from the group that’s reinforcing her current behavior, second.” 

Mom took my hand again and thought.  After a bit she said, “Then maybe we should just sell the house and move away from all this.  If it’s the group she’s hanging out with that’s causing her such stress, we can move away from it.” 

It was my turn to think for a few moments.  This was difficult territory as far as I was concerned.  I’d thought about it before and my feelings were mixed.  “Well, maybe you’re right about that.  We could do that.”  I paused for a beat or so.  “But it’s a pretty well understood paradigm that we can’t run away from ourselves.”  I let that rather oblique statement stagger on it’s own to see what Mom would make of it. 

She was equally thoughtful.  “You mean if we did that, she’d just find other ways to do the same thing.” 

I squeezed her hand and she gave me a returning squeeze.  She released my hand and picked up her book and began reading. 

So did I. 

Later that night, after only a few hours sleep, Skye came into the bedroom to tell Mom she was going out to a party.  She stood just inside the bedroom door.  Mom stood at the closet hanging up her freshly laundered clothes and I was in bed reading.  Mom told her she didn’t really like the idea of her going to a party at the house of one of the boys who was a part of that crowd with which Skye had been so disastrously associated for years. 

“It’s just Tyson, Mom,” Skye said.  “I’ve known him for years.  It’s fine for me to go there.” 

“Not really, Skye,” Mom said in a gently pleading voice.  “You’ve just come home from a really bad experience and---” 

“It’s okay, Mom,” she interrupted with a terse wave of her hands.  “I have it under control.  I know what I did wrong and I won’t do it again.  Besides, that was a week ago.” 

Skye said it like it was years ago.  Mom looked over at me with a strangely helpless glance.  Skye followed her glance and gave me a nasty glare.  She turned her eyes back to Mom.  “I’m serious,” Skye said.  “You don’t think I learned my lesson?  You think I want to go through that again?” 

I said, “I think what Mom is saying is that---”

“Stop, Dad” Skye commanded.  She threw up an arm as though to fend off a rock I’d thrown.  “I don’t want to hear anything you have to say.”  Her face took on an aspect to me that was as good as sticking out her tongue. 

“But I---” I started.  And stopped when Mom gave me a stare that said if I continued she would cut off my balls. 

“I really don’t need to hear you preach to me, Dad,” Skye said.  She turned away and started out of the bedroom. 

“Just be careful, honey,” Mom said to Skye’s retreating back.

“I will, Mom.  I promise,” I heard Skye say as she walked down the short hallway to the kitchen. 

Mom gave me a stricken wince.  “She’ll be fine, Michael.  I trust her.  Please don’t try to talk to her about this.  She doesn’t want to hear what you have to say.” 

I swallowed that.  I was sure she didn’t want to hear what I had to say.  I was sure she didn’t want to hear what anyone had to say if it wasn’t what she wanted to hear.  I took a breath and let it out slowly.  “She’s taking the car?” I asked. 

“Yes, she has Aundi with her, though.”  As though that was some defense against Skye’s stupidity.  “Aundi will keep an eye on her.” 

Good lord. 

“Then, she’s coming home tonight?” I said. 

“Oh, yes.  She’ll be home by midnight.  She promised to be home by curfew.” 

Several hours later, around eleven, the phone rang and I picked up.  It was Skye reporting that she was fine and not doing anything wrong.  “It’s not what you might be doing wrong, Skye,” I said, “it’s what you’re doing that’s right.  You know as well as I what’s wrong.  You don’t have to tell me you’re not doing anything wrong.” 

There was a silence on the line for a moment.  “Okay,” she said finally.  “But I’m not doing anything wrong.” 

I let out a breath.  “Good for you,” I said. 

“Okay, then, g’bye.” 

An hour later she called again.  It was midnight and her curfew.  “I just want to ask you if I can stay till twelve-thirty, Dad.  We’re watching The Cinderella Story.” 

I took a breath at that.  I could picture a group of drug-infused ghetto wannabees breathlessly watching Cinderella emerge from a pumpkin chariot at the ball.  Right.  “Sure,” I said.  There was really nothing else to say that I could get away with.  If I objected, Skye would keep calling until Mom picked up the phone and said yes.  As I hung up the kitchen phone and started back to the study, Mom stuck her head out of the bedroom door and asked what the call was about.  “Skye says she’ll be home,” I said.  “Actually she asked if she could do it at twelve-thirty.” 

Mom rubbed her eyes and said, “She’s supposed to be home at midnight.” 

I shrugged.  “Yeah, well, she just asked to change that.  I said okay.” 

Mom nodded and closed the bedroom door. 

I was in the study when Skye came home, apparently alone, at just before one AM.  Selby was doing dishes.  I emerged from my den and strode into the kitchen.  “Are you ready, Dad?” Selby asked.  We needed to fill our water bottles at the local Water Mill. 

“Yep, let’s go.”  I checked the key ring inside the kitchen door.  No keys to the CR-V.  “Where’s Skye?” I asked, heart fluttering. 

“I don’t know,” Selby said as she sat on the living room step trying to get something painful out of the toe strip of her thongs. 

“You don’t know?”  I called Skye’s name.  No answer.  I shouted it again directing my voice upstairs to the loft where the TV glittered like a psychedelic lightshow on the ceiling.  No answer.  I went to Skye’s room.  Nobody home.  I came back to Selby.  “Where is she, Selby?” 

“I don’t know,” she repeated with an impatient moue. 

“She came home, right?”  I glanced out the dining room window---the CR-V was home. 

“As far as I know,” Selby said. 

Jesus, this was getting too hard.  “Selby, either she’s here or she’s not.  Did you see her?  I can’t find the keys.” 

Selby turned her head and impaled me with a dark grimace.  “I don’t know where she is, Dad.  She’s probably here somewhere.”  She focused her attention on scrubbing a pot. 

I stood in the living room at the step down into the kitchen wondering where to look next.  Maybe Skye was outside.  I called her name again, foolishly.  If she were in the house she would have answered me when I called her name twice just moments ago.  I turned and looked down the hallway to my left.  The door to Mom’s room was ajar.  Ah.  I pushed open the door and heard voices.  I walked in.  The voices in the dark stopped.  “Where are the keys to the CR-V?”  I heard a jingle and reached out.  The keys magically appeared in my hand. 

Selby and I got into the CR-V.  All the windows were down.  One thing that was absolutely dumb in Florida was to leave the car windows open---unless you wanted to drain three inches of rainwater from the floorboards when you came back.  “Must have been smoking in the car, Dad,” she said.  “The windows are all open and the air conditioning is on full blast.” 

I settled into the seat, readjusting it from its nearly horizontal position.  That was the way Skye drove and her chums rode.  Gangsta style.  Very cool---just like in all the movies.  “Um hmm,” I said.  I smelled cigarette smoke.  I hated cars that smelled of cigarette smoke.  And Skye had been warned about a million times that smoking in our cars was verboten.  Another promise she’d repeatedly made and broken. 

When Selby and I returned from the Water Mill at about three in the morning, Mom came out of the bedroom.  “Skye’s spending the night with me.  I’ve moved all your pillows and blankets to Skye’s room, Michael,” she said with a preemptory tenor that brooked no argument.  “You’re all set up in there.”  She turned, shuffled through the bedroom door, and closed it.

Selby gave me a concerned look. 

I shrugged. 

 

 

 Top of Page

Chapter 6 – Early November 2004

 

A week passed with Skye on a quest for more excitement, more love, more money, more of everything the world had to offer.  She was relentless.  She put two hundred miles a day on the CR-V.  We couldn’t stop her or even slow her down.  Some of her friends were afraid to hang out with her after she cut her wrist.  I couldn’t blame them.  Skye railed at them for hours on the telephone insisting they were wrong about her and shouldn’t be blaming her for anything and were chicken shits for not hanging out with her.  Then she’d slam the phone into the cradle and descend into piteous weeping.  She still had plenty of other pals who welcomed her suicidal mindset and eagerly sought her out for action, company, and transportation. 

Aundi Corker was her standby.  Aundi seemed to be willing to accept just about any behavior Skye exhibited.  Aundi!  A kid with no rules and no parents and no chance in hell---a Dickensian child on a constant dive in someone else’s car to and from other kids’ houses and from party to party all day and every night.  She never slept.  But she always had a little money.  She might be dealing. 

Mom was exhausted.  Skye was in a yelling screaming match with someone every night and it always seemed to happen after midnight.  Mom would stagger out of her bedroom and spend the next two hours trying to talk Skye down.  We tried to get her to sleep with Mom a couple of nights but she refused.  Skye was taking the Prozac daily but there was still no change in her mad rush to bring the world as she knew it to heel.  No one, not friends nor family, could say a critical or even constructive word to her without being harassed for hours afterward by a raging young girl who was damned near psychopathically determined to make everyone see things her way. 

During the day Skye would smile and eagerly help clean house, wash the cars, clean her room and the bathroom---she even cleaned Selby’s room one day.  By evening, her entire demeanor went to the dark side.  She became morose, sensitive, emotional, and increasingly hysterical over anything said to her until she left for the night.  We were glad to have her leave the house.  We couldn’t control her.  I wondered if she was a “sundowner”, a condition common to the elderly thought to be a result of too many medications. 

Selby yelled at me Friday night about Skye being gone for the night at Aundi’s.  She stood at the head of the staircase in the loft and said, “You let her do whatever she wants, Dad.  You and Mom both.  You let her drive wherever she wants, stay out as long as she wants, and not even come home sometimes without a word of criticism or any restrictions.” 

I was reading on the couch below her.  I put my book in my lap and looked up at her.  “Please be quieter, Selby.  It’s two-thirty and Mom’s trying to sleep.  You know she only got about four hours sleep last night with Skye.” 

“That’s what I mean,” she said in slightly quieter tones.  “You guys don’t do anything.  You don’t say anything to her because you’re afraid she’ll freak out at you.  You let her drive the car anywhere she wants because you’re afraid to take it away from her because she’ll threaten to do something bad to herself.  And she’s going to have a really bad accident one day the way she drives.  She’s crazy, Dad.  She’ll get a call on her cell phone from Dominique or Oscar and start screaming and slamming the steering wheel and banging on the dash board with her fists and swerving all over the place.”  Her tone escalated again as she spoke and she stopped herself.  More quietly she said, “And you guys don’t do a thing.  You and Mom are completely intimidated by her.  You let her leave her every night and you don’t stop her.  She’s going to cut herself again, Dad.  You know she will.  She’s going out every night drinking like a fool and you’re letting her do it.  You and Mom have to stop her.” 

“That’s quite a speech, Selby,” I said with some surprise.  She was starkly vehement.  “What do you think I should do?” 

She clenched her hands into fists and slammed them into her hips.  “Stop her, Dad.  You’re her parents.  You have to stop her before she really kills herself.” 

I took a breath, “Selby, she’s been doing this kind of thing for the last four years and we’ve tried just about everything we know.  We’ve tried restricting her, she runs away.  We’ve tried giving her more love, she takes advantage.  We’ve tried stopping her, she physically fights me or Mom or us both.  We’ve called the cops.  We’ve had her Baker Acted.  What more do you think we can do?” 

“Then you’re not handling her the right way.  Don’t you guys see that?” 

I sighed and gave a little shrug.  “Yes, Selb.  We’re painfully aware of it.  We’ve tried---” 

“Not hard enough, Dad,” she interrupted.  “Can’t you see what she’s doing to you?  What she’s doing to herself?” 

“What do you expect---” 

“You don’t get it, do you?” she yelled, throwing her arms in the air and stomping her foot on the staircase landing.  “You just don’t get it.  Skye’s running this whole house and you’re letting her.  You have to stop it.” 

“Selby, you stop it for a minute and let me finish a sentence.”  She glared at me, but in silence.  “Okay, Mom and I have done everything we can but throw her in jail or a psycho ward.  You know as well as I that the only way we can stop Skye from going out at night is to render her unconscious or cuff her arms and legs and chain her to the bed.  Maybe that’s what we should do but I don’t think it would work.  She’d probably still find a way to damage herself if she were cuffed.  The only real solution is to knock her out and what do you think she’d do as soon as she woke up?” 

Selby visibly deflated.  Her chin dropped and her shoulders slumped.  I knew exactly how she felt.  “You have to do something, Dad,” she whispered. 

I heard a click and saw Mom emerge from the hallway to her bedroom.  “I’ve been listening to you and had to come out.  Selby, your father and I have done everything any two parents could to help Skye.  We’ve tried love and kindness and been slapped in the face.  We’ve tried discipline and she just leaves home.  And when she returns, she blames us for making her leave.  She tells all her friends that her parents are the monsters from hell and that she’s abused terribly.  I’m really sick of it.  I don’t know what else we can do.” 

“Then send her to an institution, Mom,” Selby said. 

Mom fidgeted.  “That takes money, Selby.  A lot of money.  Do you think I want to spend every dime we’ve slaved for over the years to keep Skye in an institution?  It doesn’t work unless the person is willing to admit they need help and wants to change.  Do you think Skye wants to be helped?” 

“Well, you could at least send her to talk to someone,” Selby said, her eyes downcast. 

“We’re doing that,” I said.  “She has appointments with Joanne Previtt and Mom made an appointment with a shrink in West Palm.  But Mom’s right.  Do you think Skye wants help?” 

Selby thought for a moment.  “Actually, no, I don’t think she wants help.  She doesn’t believe she’s doing anything wrong.  She thinks everyone is doing stuff to her.  And she lies to everyone and then accuses them of lying to her.  Isn’t that like paranoia?  Like schizophrenia?” 

“Bingo,” I said.  “Except for the fact that Skye’s behavior isn’t outside the bounds of what’s considered normal.  She might be on the edge, but that’s about it.” 

“Jeez, Dad, is that possible?” 

The three of us talked for about another hour, recounting Skye’s actions over the last two weeks.  It wasn’t a pretty picture.  We finally stopped and went to bed.  It was too hard. 

 

The November elections were over and Dubya won another round.  This time, Republicans picked up four seats in the House of Representatives and two in the Senate.  The GOP now had a comfortable majority in both houses.  The American People had spoken and gave Bush a 51% majority after one of the highest voter turnouts in history.  Mom and I were moderate Republicans who disagreed with the Bush agenda, but Rome survived Nero and Caligula and I supposed we would survive George and the neocons, too.  Of course, that was before I understood how the Republican dominated Congress had deregulated major industries to make it legal to steal from the middle class. 

Skye, on the other hand, had no political consciousness whatsoever.  Not only did she not care who was president or whether we were fighting wars, she didn’t care whether Mom and I went broke trying to keep up with her foibles. 

The bills from the Emergency Room after she sliced her wrist and Columbia Psychiatric after she was Bakered added up a staggering nine thousand dollars.  It would come out of our savings.  Everything we’d done to try to cut back on our spending was wrecked in a single event.  “I know how this works, Michael,” Mom said.  I work with this in my legal office.  If we were indigent we wouldn’t have to pay a thing, but since we have attachable assets, we’re being charged exorbitant fees to cover all those people who don’t pay.” 

When Mom told her the amount Skye said, “It’s not my fault.  I didn’t ask to go to the hospital and I told you to not let them take me to Columbia.  Don’t try to blame it on me.”  That was spoken as she ran out the kitchen door with Aundi on another prowl to get drunk and disorderly. 

Mom and I were pretty much out of ammunition as to what we could do other than shoot her in the back yard.  Skye blamed everyone but herself for her troubles.  Selby, Mom and I were all emotionally ripped.  We loved her, but we couldn’t give her enough as she generated a choking fog of fear, anger, and sorrow in the household. 

Her closest friends, Bobby Heller and Aundi Corker, were beginning to see the same behavior.  Even Mom finally admitted out loud that Skye was drinking practically every night and had been for the last three weeks---I figured it was more like the last three years. 

As was typical these days, Mom started waking every few minutes after midnight asking if Skye was home.  I said no and called Bobby’s.  No answer.  Skye had already had her own cellphone cancelled and she’d lost mine at a party a few nights ago.  I called Aundi’s cell with no luck.  By one-o’clock, Skye and Aundi returned home.  Aundi seemed upset.  Skye was drunk.  Not falling down, but weaving like a loom.  I met them in the kitchen as they walked in. 

Skye gave me an unfocused stare and said, “What?  Why’re you looking at me?  I haven’t done anything wrong.  Aundi’s cell was dead and we had some other trouble and---” 

“You can’t just wander home at one in the morning without calling, Skye,” I said, being careful not to put too much censure in my voice.  We were all terrorized by Skye’s violent outbursts when she was overtly challenged.    

“That’s bullcrap, Dad,” she said, not caring how carefully I put it.  “We had some trouble and Aundi’s phone is dead.” 

“Doesn’t matter, Skye,” I said. 

Aundi walked past me toward Skye’s bedroom.  “Skye, stop it,” she said. 

“This is crap,” Skye shouted to the walls and ceiling.  “It’s not my fault.  I didn’t do anything wrong.  I’m fine.”  She focused on me---sort of.  “I’ve done everything you asked.  I just had a problem.” 

“You’re well past your curfew, Skye,” I said.  “You should have at least called.” 

She stormed past me into the living room.  “I told you, it’s not my fault,” she said, her voice becoming more frenzied---exactly what we all dreaded.  “I didn’t do anything wrong, you fucking bastard.” 

Aundi yelled from Skye’s bedroom, “Skye, cut it out.” 

Skye stomped off to her room and slammed the door. 

Selby stood at the counter in controlled despair.  She shrugged and looked away. 

“It’ll be all right, Selby,” I said. 

“Not likely, Dad,” she said and went up the spiral staircase to the loft and any comedic TV show she could find. 

I walked into Mom’s bedroom knowing full well she’d heard most of the yelling and would want an explanation.  “What’s she doing now, Michael?” she asked, clutching a pillow near her face like a shield. 

“How much of that did you hear?”  I looked toward her voice only barely able to see her in the dark of the bedroom. 

“Pretty much all of it,” she said.  “Especially her cursing you.  I see it’s after one.” 

“Yes, it is,” I said quietly. 

“And she didn’t call.  Is she drunk?” 

“You betcha.” 

“Oh, God.  What are we going to do?” 

“Let’s just try to get through the night.  Aundi’s here, too.” 

“Aundi?  Again?  Can’t we ever have our house back?” 

“We’ll see, Lin.  Right now, Aundi’s the only one who’s able to stop Skye.” 

Mom fidgeted and rolled in the bed.  “I can’t stand this every night, Michael.  I have to sleep.  Can you manage it?” 

“You betcha,” I said, with less confidence than I felt. 

I walked outside in the driveway to smoke.  As I stood in front of the garage, I noticed the interior lights were on in the CR-V.  I got the keys and went to turn off the lights.  I noticed the back windows were open.  Not good in Florida where showers can flood a car in mere seconds.  I turned on the car, raised the windows and turned off the interior lights. 

“What’re you doing, Dad?” Skye asked from behind me. 

Surprised, I turned my head to her and got out of the car.  “Turning off the lights so the battery doesn’t die, Skye.  And closing the windows.” 

“That’s no big deal, Dad.  Why are you mad at me?”  She swayed in the driveway in her t-shirt and underpants. 

“I’m not mad, Skye.  I’m turning off lights and closing windows.” 

“You’re mad at me again and I did nothing wrong.  You’re doing what you always do---get on my case even though I haven’t done anything.” 

I sighed internally.  “Skye, go to sleep.  This is not the time to be discussing this.” 

She whirled on her feet and threw her arms in the air.  “This is what’s wrong with you.  You never give me a break, do you?  You just expect me to do everything exactly the way you want me to.  You’re not running my life, Dad.  You can’t do that.” 

“Skye, the whole neighborhood can hear you,” I said.  “Let’s not go into this now.” 

“You never want to talk about it, Dad,” she shouted.  Her voice echoed through the neighborhood.  “You won’t listen to me.  You think you know everything.  Well, you don’t.” 

“Quiet down, Skye,” I said. 

“I won’t quiet down, damn it.  You’re trying to make this my fault and it’s not.” 

I walked away from her.  I was fuming but arguing wasn’t going to make anything better.  “I refuse to discuss it, Skye.  Go in the house and go to bed.” 

Skye turned and walked toward the kitchen door.  “That’s what you always do.  You never listen to my side.  You blame me for everything.  I hate you.”  She stormed into the house to my great relief.

I stayed up until four in the morning to make sure there were no more surprises during the night and went to bed.  By six-thirty I was awake again, unable to sleep.  Mom was awake and reading next to me. 

“What’s the matter?” she asked.  “You haven’t slept long.” 

“I know,” I said.  “I’m worried about Skye.  Can’t get this thing off my mind.” 

“We have to do something, Michael.  She’s going absolutely nuts.  This going out every night and getting drunk is completely out of control.”  

“Yeah, you could say that.” 

“Well, I’m taking the car away from her for a week.  And another three days for cursing you.  Will you tell her that when she wakes up?” 

My stomach roiled.  Tell Skye that her driving privileges were revoked?  What a pleasure---like walking through automatic gunfire.  “What if you wrote her note, Lin?” 

“Yes,” Mom said.  “I’ll do that.”  And she left the room to do just that. 

I read the note an hour or so later after Mom left for work.  It said that Skye’s driving was restricted to daytime until six-thirty (to allow her and Selby to go to work) for ten days.  It closed with the happy declaration that if Skye didn’t like it she could pack her bags and leave.  I considered removing the last.  It seemed mean and hurtful and likely to inspire Skye’s rage.  But, the more I thought about it, the more I had to admit that Skye’s permanent absence was better than what we were enduring. 

I left the note as it was. 

 

© 2007, Copyright Michael G. Patrick, All rights reserved.