January First

by Michael Schofield

  I pick them up and hold them out to her.

  “No, I am going to teach you and Adam how to play the drums.” I know I am tempting fate by having them within an arm’s reach of each other with wooden drumsticks, but I am determined to make this work.

  Jani takes the sticks, bangs on the snare a few times, then reaches for Adam with her right stick.

  “No,” I say, grabbing her arm. “We hit drums, not people. Come on, you two. Let’s see if we can get a beat going.”

  Jani goes back to drumming. Adam is beating the skins as well. They are completely out of time with each other, but I don’t care. If I can get them to play beside each other without hitting, I’ve succeeded.

  I see Jani extend her arm again, past the crash cymbal, drumstick raised above Adam’s head.

  “No!” I say, grabbing her arm again. “Jani, if you hit Adam, then we have to leave the music room.”

  Jani pulls back her arm and screams, hitting the drumstick against the side of her head with full force.

  I am so shocked I can’t move. Jani screams again and pounds the stick into the side of her head as hard as she can.

  The need for action finally breaks through the shock of what I’m seeing, and I jump forward, wrenching the drumstick from her hand.

  She uses the other stick to hit her head, and I quickly take that as well, standing there, breathing heavily.

  “Jani! Why did you do that?” I want an answer. I need an answer. Hitting herself like that must hurt beyond belief, yet she is not responding to the pain.

  Jani suddenly looks up at me as if she just realized I am here. She looks scared and confused, like she isn’t sure what just happened.

  Oh, my God.

  For more than a year, I’ve wanted to see the enemy and I just saw it. That wasn’t a behavior. Something took control of Jani’s body, and when it was gone, Jani was left with no idea what had happened. Up until now, there was still a small part of me that wondered if she could control this, but there is no doubt anymore. Its name is schizophrenia, and if she doesn’t do what it wants, it will turn on her, making her hurt herself.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Early April 2009

  Visiting hours at UCLA are longer on the weekends, from 2 to 4 P.M., the only time all three of us go to visit Jani. It’s our family time, but there is one other reason we bring Bodhi. He is a necessary guinea pig. The only way to know if the medications are working is if we can make it through the entire two hours without Jani attempting to hurt Bodhi.

  “Bodhi!” Jani cries and runs up to his stroller as we come in. She is happy to see him, and that is an encouraging sign, but I don’t start jumping for joy. We still have two hours to get through.

  “Hi, Bodhi.” She looks down, waiting, like she’s expecting an answer. I think she’s hoping he’ll understand her and be the flesh-and-blood friend she’s never had.

  Susan lies down on Jani’s bed, like she always does. These trips to UCLA really seem to exhaust her. She talks to Jani, asking her about the other kids on the unit, particularly if there are any other girls, and if she ever plays with any of them.

  I take Bodhi out of his stroller, and he begins crawling around the room. For the life of me, I can’t remember when he started to crawl. He’s already pulling himself up to a standing position, using the chair next to Jani’s desk to reach for the painted bobblehead animals Jani makes in occupational therapy.

  I watch him get his stubby fingers around a bobblehead dog. I glance over at Jani, who is still talking to Susan, praying she won’t notice.

  But she does. I wince as she moves to him, grabbing the dog away.

  “Bodhi, no!” she scolds him like a puppy that just peed on the floor. But she doesn’t hit him. She just holds the toy, looking down at him, telling him he can’t touch her things. At least she didn’t hit him. Maybe the Thorazine is having an effect.

  Bodhi starts to cry, not understanding why he can’t have the dog.

  “Jani,” I say to her, “let him have it. He just wants to look at it.”

  “No.” She lifts the dog high above her head so Bodhi can’t reach it.

  “Jani, he just wants to explore. That’s how babies learn about the world around them, by touch.”

  “But he’ll teethe on them,” she complains.

  That is true. Bodhi puts everything in his mouth.

  “But that’s just part of the exploration. His mouth is more sensitive than his hands are at this age.”

  “I don’t want baby slobber on them.” She scoops up all her toys in her arms.

  “We can wash them off.”

  “He’ll break them,” she argues.

  “How?”

  “With his teeth.”

  “Jani, your toys are solid plastic. That’s the whole reason plastic was invented. It’s unbreakable. Humans can’t bite through plastic. It’s impossible.”

  “Bodhi can.”

  “No, he can’t.”

  “Yes, he can,” she says, convinced, even though she’s never seen him do it.

  I take one of her toys, a Littlest Pet Shop dog, from her hands and put it in my mouth. I bite down as hard as I can and pull it out.

  “See?” I show her. “Not even any teeth marks. And my teeth are way stronger than Bodhi’s.”

  Jani is still jealously guarding her toys. “I still don’t want him teething on my stuff.”

  “How come I can put your toys in my mouth but Bodhi can’t?”

  “Because you’re not going to break them.”

  “Jani,” I say, fighting a sense of exasperation. “I just showed you nobody can bite through plastic!”

  “He will.” Jani looks at Bodhi like he isn’t human.

  There is no reasoning with her. I can see it in her eyes. She really believes Bodhi can bite through her toys.

  “Fine. Then you need to put your toys where he can’t reach them.”

  I bring his toy cars out from under his stroller. “Here, Bodhi. Come play with me.”

  Bodhi needs someone who’ll be kind to him. Susan and I bring him here every weekend, to the sister who is supposed to love him. But she can’t, I remind myself. The schizophrenia won’t let her.

  Because Susan is lying there, Bodhi crawls over to Jani’s bed and pulls himself up. He finds one of Jani’s stuffed animals, a dog, and moves it to his mouth. He chews on one of its legs, probably because it feels good on his gums.

  “Bodhi!” Jani moves like lightning, snatching the dog from Bodhi’s mouth so hard I am afraid she’ll pull his teeth with it.

  I grab the dog and put the same leg in my mouth and chew, then hand it back to Jani.

  “See? It was me,” I lie.

  Last weekend, Bodhi knocked one of her toys over. She didn’t see it happen but heard it. When she turned and saw her toy on the floor, she started moving toward Bodhi, fist up, but I was able intervene.

  “Jani, Bodhi didn’t do it,” I said, desperate to protect Bodhi without having to leave.

  And then an idea came into my head. If Jani’s grasp on reality was basically gone, maybe I could make her believe something that didn’t happen.

  “Jani, didn’t you feel that earthquake just now?” I asked, testing my theory. Of course, I was hoping she would say no and wonder why I was asking, but instead she looked confused for a moment.

  “Yes,” she finally answered.

  I swallowed down my sense of devastation. “That’s right. The earthquake knocked over your toy.” I lied to protect my son. And she believed me.

  Now I am biting down on the stuffed dog again. “See? It was me.”

  “No, it wasn’t. It was Bodhi,” she says now.

  I deflate. It isn’t working this time because she actually saw his teeth on her stuffed animal. I prepare to stop her from hitting him.

  But she grabs the stuffed dog, turns away, and opens the bathroom door in her room.

  “Don’t forget to wipe yourself and then flush the toilet and wash your hands,” Su
san calls out.

  I hear water run.

  Suddenly, Jani emerges from the bathroom, wailing and in tears.

  “Jani, what is it?” I rush to her.

  She holds up the stuffed dog. “He’s all wet.”

  The dog is soaked.

  “I was trying to wash the baby slobber off,” she continues through her tears, “but he got all wet!”

  I force a laugh, hoping I can prevent her from going off by playing down what happened.

  “That’s no big deal. We can just pop him in the dryer. He’ll be fine.”

  “No, we can’t! He’s ruined. I’ll have to throw him away.” She drops the dog into the trash. “Bye, bye, doggie.”

  “Jani …” I retrieve the dog from the trash. “Actually, he’ll probably dry in the sun.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Jani striding for Bodhi. Susan sits up like a gunshot, and I break for the other side of the room; as wired as we are, we are still too slow. Jani hits Bodhi square in the back, hard.

  I reach out and pull her back, angry because my reflexes are slipping. I guess more than a year of always being ready to react has worn me out.

  “Jani, it’s okay,” I say to her, soothingly. “We can dry him.”

  She turns and starts hitting me.

  I get down on my knees, my hands on her shoulders, trying to reach her.

  “Jani, we can dry him—” I break off as she hits me in the face.

  I suck in my breath, tasting blood from my lip.

  Susan takes Bodhi out. She has gone to get the nursing staff, to tell them what happened, that the meds aren’t working.

  A nurse enters.

  “Jani, what’s going on?” She sees Jani hitting me. “Whoa, Jani, that is not okay!”

  “Bodhi put her stuffed dog in his mouth, and then she tried to wash it off but got it all wet,” I calmly explain to the nurse through Jani’s blows. “I keep telling her we can dry it, but she won’t believe me.”

  The nurse puts her hands on her hips and sternly says, “Jani, you need to calm down or your parents are going to have to leave.”

  This pisses me off. I’m not leaving while Jani is like this. Jani turns and hits the nurse, who puts out her hands and grabs Jani’s wrists.

  “Jani, that is not okay!”

  Jani screams and drops to the floor, her arms and legs striking out in all directions. I have seen her do this before. As long as you don’t get within range, you don’t get hurt. I desperately want to believe that this is her way of trying not to hurt the people around her.

  Of course, rather than standing back like Jani wants us to, the nurse moves in, trying to restrain Jani, and gets kicked in the side of her head.

  “Okay,” the nurse says, trying to hold down Jani’s legs. “That’s it. Your family has to leave.”

  “Good!” Jani cries back. “I want them to go!”

  I am stunned.

  I get down on my knees, within range of her blows, but I don’t care.

  “Jani, you don’t really mean that,” I tell her, afraid this is the beginning of her choosing Calilini and institutionalization over us, over me.

  “Yes, I do!” she screams back. “I want you to go!”

  “Jani, that is the schizophrenia talking, not you.”

  “It is me!” Jani yells and twists, driving her foot into my chest. I grunt, but hold my ground.

  “Jani, I’m not leaving. I don’t care how hard you hit me. I won’t leave.” I want Jani to know that there’s nothing she can do to drive me away. I will never give up. But I am also talking to the schizophrenia, reminding it that I am not about to let it take Jani without a fight.

  “I want you to go away!” Jani roars.

  “I’m not leaving,” I repeat, with a calmness I don’t feel.

  Jani gives her earsplitting scream.

  I hear Bodhi crying and look up.

  Susan is standing at the door with Bodhi in her arms.

  “Get Bodhi off the unit!” I yell at her.

  “No.”

  “I don’t want him to see this!”

  “She’s my daughter, too, you know!” she retorts. “Why don’t you take Bodhi and I’ll stay with Jani?”

  I stare at her while Jani pogos her legs into my stomach. “Get him out of here. This is no life for a baby.”

  Susan hesitates. I know she doesn’t want to go, but she needs to. We can’t keep exposing Bodhi to Jani’s illness. But that is not the only reason I want Susan to take Bodhi. I feel possessive of Jani. She is my responsibility. I’m the only one who has the ability to go deep into her world, as far as she goes. She is still going, and I am still going with her.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Mid-April 2009

  When I arrive at UCLA, Jani is lying in the middle of the corridor, staring up at the lights in the ceiling.

  I lie down next to her. “Jani?”

  She doesn’t answer but instead continues staring up at the lights.

  I put my face above hers and turn to look up. Unable to stare into the lights anymore, I turn back to Jani. She disappears into the two dark spots in my vision.

  When I can see Jani clearly again, I see that her pupils are fully dilated, despite the fact that she is staring into bright lights. No drug did this. Whatever she is seeing is not the lights.

  “Jani, what’s up there?” I ask.

  “Flying dogs,” Jani answers flatly.

  I debate if there is any point in telling her dogs can’t fly.

  “Dogs can’t fly, Jani.” I decide to confront her with this reality because I’m not willing to let her go without a fight. “They don’t have wings and their bones aren’t hollow. That’s what makes birds light enough to achieve lift.” I am still trying to reach her the only way I know how: by teaching her.

  “These ones can.”

  “What kind of dogs are they?” I ask.

  “Golden retrievers.”

  The doctors here told us they believe Jani has probably always experienced hallucinations, which is why she never reacted to them with fear. If you grew up always seeing something, particularly something benign like dogs or cats, it would never occur to you that they weren’t real. They’d just blend in with everything else and you’d never know the difference between reality and hallucination until you got old enough to realize other people weren’t seeing what you were.

  I look up at the lights again, trying to imagine what she’s seeing, but I can’t do it. I turn back to her. “What did you do today? Did you make anything in art therapy?”

  “I went to Calilini,” Jani answers, still staring at the lights above.

  “When did you go?”

  “Earlier today.”

  “Jani, you’ve been on the unit all day. You never left.”

  “Yes, I did,” she answers languidly, as if I am a fading voice in a dream.

  “Then how come no one saw you?”

  “I go at night.”

  I know this isn’t true. Jani sleeps at night because of the medication. I know she is watched and the unit is locked. But I also know that none of this means anything to Jani.

  “You mean you go there in your head?”

  “No, I actually go.”

  “How do you get out?”

  “Dogs come and get me. Great Danes.”

  “Great Danes are pretty big dogs, Jani. Too big to not be seen.”

  “They take me to visit my friends in Calilini. I ride on their back.”

  I lie down next to her again, my face inches from hers. “The next time they come, can you call me? I want to go to Calilini, too.”

  “You can’t.”

  “Why can’t I go, too? I want to see Calilini.”

  “You’re too big to ride the Great Danes, and that’s the only way to get there.”

  I roll over and sit up, upset. I can’t see what she sees, but I want her to guide me. Sadly, I realize she now equates me with this world. I don’t want to be part of this world, Jani. I want to go
with you.

  “Jani,” I ask, pushing down my emotions again. I need information. “What’s the temperature in Calilini right now?”

  Over the past few weeks, I have learned that the temperature in Calilini seems to correlate to her level of psychosis. When it is high, above 140 degrees, it means she’s getting more psychotic. A few weeks ago, when they raised her Thorazine level to 300mg daily, it started dropping: first to 120, then 110, then 100. It got as low as 85 degrees. Her “autistic-like” hand wringing even stopped, but then she went into dystonia again and they had to pull back on the dosage. Since then, the temperature has been creeping up again.

  “One hundred and eighty,” Jani answers.

  Almost boiling point.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Late April 2009

  This semester I am teaching two classes, the minimum required to keep my health insurance benefits. I’m at my desk when yet another student enters late. I look up at the clock. It’s 4:45 P.M. Class started twenty minutes ago, but I still haven’t done anything. I’ve just been sitting at the desk.

  He takes a seat in the front row just a few feet from me.

  “Where were you?” I ask, my voice deep and dangerous.

  He takes out his phone and texts in front of me.

  “Huh? Oh, sorry.” He looks up at me. “I was at the gym and then I had to take a shower.” He returns to texting.

  I’m silent for a moment. “When I was a student,” I finally say, “I at least had enough respect for my professors to lie when I was late.”

  This student looks up at me, a smile on his face because he thinks I’m joking. I glare at him. My daughter has schizophrenia. It’s getting worse and nobody seems to be able to stop it. Pieces of my daughter’s mind are eroding like chunks ripped away from the sandy bank of a rain-swollen river.

  “If you can’t make it to a class on time,” I look him straight in the eye, “why should anyone believe you’ll make it to a job on time? Do you really think that when you get that nice little business administration degree your life is going to change? It won’t. You know why?”

  He doesn’t answer, his cell phone hanging limply in his hands, his text forgotten.