Stand Alone

by P. D. Workman

  Justine shrugged and nodded, looking down at the carpet. She sucked on the straw of her juice box, even though it was empty and just made a loud staccato spitting sound.

  “She’s just little, and everybody just ignored her! You can’t just ignore her. You can’t just ignore someone who needs help like that!”

  “What kind of help did she need?”

  Justine rubbed her temples, confused and uncomfortable. She was feeling all restless, jumpy. She wanted to blow up at Dr. Morton, but he was the only one who was listening to her. She closed her eyes concentrating. She didn’t understand all of the feelings that surfaced as they talked. She felt angry, frustrated, and helpless. She wanted to help Monica and she wanted to punch someone out. She didn’t know why Monica, an imaginary being, should mean so much to her. And why was it that someone she had made up still seemed so remote, so hard to understand. If Monica was just someone that Justine had made up, someone that just reflected Justine’s own psyche, then shouldn’t Justine be able to understand her perfectly?

  She knew Monica needed help, but she didn’t know what. She didn’t know what she wanted from Dr. Morton. Justine was restless. Her whole body was one mass of itch. She shifted in her seat again.

  “You can get up,” Dr. Morton suggested. “Move around.”

  Justine got up, all of her muscles knotted. She moved around the room, trying to work them out. She remembered her nightmare at the hospital; crawling across the floor, so tired and small. She still felt the same way emotionally. Like she was just inching forward, slogging through wet concrete, unable to break free, exhausted after all of the years of therapy.

  “What kind of help does Monica need?” Dr. Morton prompted again, making a short note on his file.

  “I don’t know. She’s lost.”

  “Could I help Monica, do you think? Where does she need to go?”

  “She needs someone to take care of her. She needs  … a home. She needs everyone to stop ignoring her!”

  “I’m not ignoring her,” Morton reassured, leaning forward in his seat, his eyes tracking Justine as she paced restlessly back and forth. “Maybe Monica could tell me what she needs.”

  “She doesn’t talk,” Justine told him. “I talk for her.”

  “What kind of a home does she need? She doesn’t feel like she’s being taken care of properly?”

  “Nobody pays any attention to her. She needs  … I don’t know. Everything.”

  “Your mother takes good care of you, Justine,” Morton said. “Do you feel like there’s something she’s not giving you that you need?”

  “No,” Justine said, making a brushing-away movement. “No, it’s not about me. It’s not about Em.”

  “Monica starts with a letter em,” Dr. Morton noted. “Any connection, do you think?”

  Justine shook her head.

  “I had Monica since before I could spell. It’s nothing about Em.”

  “How do you think Monica would feel if she lived where you do? If Em was her mother?”

  Justine hugged her arms tightly around herself, trying to keep herself together, trying to comfort herself, to comfort Monica.

  “Would Em take care of her?” Justine questioned uncertainly.

  “What do you think?” Dr. Morton countered.

  Justine was confused. Em had fed Justine, housed her, clothed her. Justine didn’t trust Em, yet Em had looked after her physically for years. If Monica lived with Em, would Em take care of her? Feed her, clothe her, not just walk off and forget about her? Justine had never trusted Em not to just disappear one day. She had never trusted that Em would continue to feed her every day. She always felt the need to stash food, to make sure that she had a supply, in case the flow from Em should just dry up, and one day there would be no food, and no mother.

  “Em couldn’t take care of two girls,” she said finally. “Maybe she’s been able to feed me so far  … but she couldn’t take care of two.”

  Dr. Morton nodded.

  “Do you worry about Em having another baby? About her attention being split between two children? Is that why you test out other personas? To see if she can handle another?”

  Justine shook her head and stopped pacing for a moment. She had never considered Em having another child before.

  “Em doesn’t date,” she said. “She doesn’t see any men anymore.”

  “So she wouldn’t have another baby?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You haven’t wanted her to date any men, have you?” he probed.

  “No. But that’s not why. I never thought about her having another baby before.”

  “Maybe subconsciously you did.”

  Justine shook her head.

  “What about the hospital?” she questioned abruptly, changing the subject. “You said you wanted to talk about that.”

  “Yes. I do. Are you sure we’re done with Monica? I don’t want to neglect her.”

  Justine rolled her eyes.

  “She’s not real.”

  “But it hurts you when she is ignored. I don’t want to hurt you. Are you sure you’re ready to talk about other things?”

  Justine nodded. She returned to her seat, then changed her mind and switched from the new chair back to the old chair. The old chair where she could look out the window at the pigeons. The one she was most comfortable in. Dr. Morton adjusted his chair again to face her.

  “So, you want to talk about the hospital?” he questioned.

  “Yes.”

  “What happened? How did you hurt yourself?”

  “I just tripped and fell, and cut myself.”

  “What did you cut yourself on?”

  “I don’t remember. Something sharp. The doctors thought it was a knife, but it wasn’t. Just some piece of junk or something.”

  “What were you doing when you tripped and fell?”

  “Just walking,” Justine shrugged. “That’s not important.”

  “You don’t usually do a lot of walking. You weren’t out on your skateboard?”

  “No. It wasn’t a skateboard accident. I get lots of those, little spills, they’re not serious.”

  “They could be. People can get killed in skateboard accidents.”

  Instantly, Justine flashed back to Christian. Being hit by the car, rolling over the hood. His bloody, white face. His cold stillness. Holding him in her arms and trying to wake him up, with his neck broken and his head bashed in. Justine gasped and held her breath, reeling. It seemed like the next moment, Dr. Morton was bending down over her, taking her pulse and watching her face. She lifted her head dizzily. She was still sitting in the chair, Dr. Morton’s other hand supporting her and keeping her from sliding out of it.

  “Take it slow,” Dr. Morton said. “Don’t try to move. Just be still, get your bearings back.”

  Justine took a few deep breaths.

  “You feeling okay today?” he questioned her. “Were you feeling sick or faint before you came in?”

  “No. Fine.”

  “Did you remember how you hurt yourself? Did something scare you?”

  Justine swallowed.

  “Just  … something else. I wasn’t on my board when I got cut,” Justine told him strongly. “It wasn’t like that.”

  “Okay. So what were you doing when you cut yourself?”

  “Just walking.”

  “How far were you from the hospital? The doctor’s report said you were bleeding pretty badly. No one saw where you came from. They didn’t think you could have been very far away when it happened. You couldn’t have gotten very far on your own, and it didn’t seem like anyone had dropped you off.”

  “I wasn’t far away.”

  “Maybe you went to the hospital before you cut yourself. Maybe you cut yourself in the alley or parking lot next to the hospital.”

  Justine raised one eyebrow and didn’t comment. Dr. Morton let go of her and made sure that she was steady enough to stay put, walking slowly back around the desk to s
it down.

  “It can be very dangerous to self-injure, Justine. Your condition when you arrived in the emergency room was very serious. Some kids get addicted to self-injuring.”

  “I know girls at school who cut themselves,” Justine contributed. “But not like this,” she indicated her heavily bandaged arm.

  “No. That was pretty extreme, and I hope you realize how serious is was. If that happens again, you might not make it next time.”

  Justine looked down at her bandaged arm, and nodded.

  “It was an accident,” she asserted. “I didn’t mean to.”

  “Be careful, then. We don’t want to lose you. Take care of yourself. Okay? Talk to me if you are thinking about hurting yourself.”

  Justine nodded.

  “Yeah, okay,” she agreed, staring out the window.

  Dr. Morton had Justine go out to the waiting room, and invited Em in to talk to him at the end of the session.

  “Her behavior seems to be degrading again,” Dr. Morton suggested tentatively. “She’s destabilizing.”

  Em put her head back against the padded headrest of the chair, sighing.

  “Yes,” she agreed. “Things were improving for a while there, I thought. She was maturing, seemed to be pretty stable, even if she was still having problems. But then  …”

  Dr. Morton nodded agreement.

  “She’s started to go downhill a lot faster the last few months. But even before that  … a little over a year ago now?”

  “Yes,” Em thought about it. “I wish I could figure out what happened  … what made everything change again. I mean, things weren’t perfect by any means. But now  … it was like overnight she regressed five years. Suddenly I’m dealing with a screaming, stealing, tantruming child again.”

  “What do you remember from around that then?” Dr. Morton questioned. “What stands out from that time period?”

  “I don’t know,” Em considered, reviewing it in her mind. Life with Justine was not easy. It was full of confrontations, suspensions, dealing with doctors and professionals. There was so much to consider. Even the good times were filled with emergencies and unexpected stressors.

  “Any traumas or illnesses?” Dr. Morton prompted, his voice soothing and encouraging; that special tone of voice he used when guiding a patient through self-hypnosis or relaxation. Em let her mind wander. Justine sick? Justine hurt? She had accidents regularly. Particular problems with the police or school? Something that Em had suspected was going on but hadn’t been able to figure out? When had Justine started hoarding food again? What was it that had made her change, made her regress so far?

  “She was hurt,” Em suggested, her voice quiet, distant from herself. “She’d had a bad accident on her skateboard. Concussion. Bumps and bruises, but nothing broken. She cried a lot. Not while I was around, but I could tell. Her eyes were bloodshot. She didn’t want me to take her to the hospital, so I didn’t. Do you think that was the wrong choice?”

  Em opened her eyes and looked at Dr. Morton.

  “Do you think I messed up, made her distrust me because I didn’t take care of her properly?” she questioned.

  “What did she say? How did she act?”

  “She said she didn’t want me to take her to the hospital or the doctor. She just wanted me to take care of her. She called me ‘Mommy’. She never calls me ‘Mommy’. I don’t think  … I don’t think she ever has since. I don’t think she’s even called me ‘Mom’ since then.”

  Dr. Morton tipped his chair back, studying Em through lowered lids.

  “That’s interesting. And you are sure that it was a skateboard accident? Is it possible that she was attacked by someone?”

  “Attacked? No  …” Em thought about it. “She had road rash on her arms, knees, and face, a big bump on her head. Fat lip and a bump on her jaw, too. I never thought that she was attacked. It looked just like a bad boarding accident. She’s always taking spills. But she had a bad concussion—dizzy, double vision, throwing up. She’s never had a concussion like that before.”

  “Maybe she’ll let me talk to her about it,” Dr. Morton said, tapping his pencil on a front tooth.

  “Do you think I should have taken her to the hospital? Now she’s self-injuring to get herself put in hospital? Maybe it was a test, and I failed. Maybe I was supposed to take her to the hospital even though she asked me not to. Maybe it was a test to see if I would take care of her properly, even though she asked me to do something else.”

  “You want me to tell you what was going on in her mind?” Dr. Morton asked with a chuckle. “As much as I have been inside her head, I still can’t do that for you. She doesn’t usually know herself why she does things. I don’t think it was a test. But it is possible that you broke her trust somehow by not taking her to the hospital. I don’t know. I think you did the best thing you could for her, I don’t think you did anything wrong. But what Justine wants  … what Justine wants, she wants, even if she doesn’t understand why.”

  “If that’s what happened  … is there any way to get her trust back? If she sees that I’ll get her help when she needs it, will she get straightened out again?”

  Dr. Morton shook his head.

  “It’s never easy. You can lose her trust in five minutes, and take five years building it back up again. Justine is growing up, getting more mature, so maybe it will be easier for her to work her way back  … but it might also make it easier for her to just break away.”

  Em sighed, discouraged.

  “It’s like I’m feeling my way through the dark with her. It doesn’t seem like there’s any right answer anymore.”

  They still had another professional to visit. Em took Justine back to the hospital to get her dressing changed and the stitches checked. Justine insisted that Em sit in the waiting room and not go in with her. The doctor took off the bandages and examined the angry red, swollen, pus-filled wound. He looked up at her face.

  “How did this get so badly infected, Justine?” he demanded.

  Justine watched as he started to clean the cut.

  “I dunno.”

  “Did you keep the bandage on?”

  “Until today. I just took it off today to see why it hurt so much.”

  “Then how did it get so badly infected?”

  Justine looked at it.

  “I guess it must have been here at the hospital. People can get those superbugs, those flesh-eating bacteria at hospitals. Do you think it is one of those?”

  “You’d better hope not.”

  He continued to work on it.

  “How could you tell?” Justine inquired.

  “By how fast it spreads and if it responds to antibiotics.”

  After a few minutes, he looked back at Justine’s face, showing her the dirty pad in his hand.

  “That didn’t come from the hospital. Did you rub dirt into the cut?”

  Justine shook her head.

  “No, it was just  … I was somewhere it wasn’t very clean.”

  “Where?”

  Justine’s heart beat quickly while she thought about what to tell him. She wondered if he could feel her pulse racing. His hand was still on her arm.

  “In  … a basement.”

  “A basement?” he repeated, searching her eyes.

  “I was locked in a basement. I had to sleep there. I guess dirt got under the bandage, and infected the cut.”

  The doctor looked through the folder on the table next to him. He looked back at Justine and made no comment on the story.

  “You don’t believe it?” Justine asked, pouting.

  He just looked at her and didn’t answer. He sponged the wound gently. He didn’t have to be so gentle, he’d already frozen her arm with half a dozen shots.

  “She’s not really my mom,” Justine told him. He knew too much about her. She had to get out ahead of him, make him understand about Em.

  “Doesn’t make a difference to this case,�
�� he said.

  “She kidnapped me and locked me in the basement,” Justine insisted. “Doesn’t that make a difference?”

  His eyes traveled down her arm to the tops of her fingers. They lingered on her short, bitten nails.

  “Why should a lie make any difference?” he said.

  Justine pulled away from him, angry.

  “Are you calling me a liar?”

  “Are you lying?” he countered.

  “No!” she insisted.

  “You didn’t get it infected sleeping in a dirty basement any more than you got it from the hospital. You intentionally got it dirty. Right?”

  “No! You’re wrong,” Justine insisted.

  “Then tell me the truth.”

  Justine pressed her lips together, and said nothing.

  The next week, Justine had another appointment with Dr. Morton. Em preferred to keep appointments to at least two weeks apart, but he had insisted that she come back in sooner. Justine sat in her usual chair, watching out the window.

  “I want you to think back, Justine,” Dr. Morton said in his low, soothing voice. “I want you to remember when you had an accident and had a concussion.”

  Justine shook her head.

  “What accident?”

  “A year ago. You had a bad concussion.”

  Justine knew what he was taking about, but she resisted.

  “I’ve had concussions,” she said. “More than just one.”

  “This one was pretty severe. Em wanted to take you to the hospital, but you didn’t want to go,”

  “I don’t remember,” Justine said with a shrug.

  “Think back to how you felt after that accident. You were hurt and you were sick. You were home with Em, and she was taking care of you. Tell me about how you felt.”

  Justine resisted the waves of pain and regret that washed over her. Christian. Lost to her forever. Seeing him and holding him in her arms. Lying on the couch at home, sick and desperate with grief. She didn’t talk to Em about it. She didn’t talk to anyone about it. Some of the kids at school heard what happened. Some of them knew that she was friends with Christian and skated with him. But they weren’t part of her support system, and she rejected their pity and condolences. She couldn’t stand to hear anybody else talking about him. There had also been numerous fights with boys who had badmouthed Christian. That’s how boys dealt with things. They demeaned them. Diminished them. So when they talked about Christian and his accident, it wasn’t with compassion. It was with derision. And Justine made them pay, if she could.