Lost Boys

by Orson Scott Card

  "And Bendectin-all these stories about Bendectin and birth defects--"

  "In the National Enquirer, DeAnne, not in Scientific American or the Journal of the AMA."

  "Step, I don't want to come home without my baby."

  "But you will come home without him, DeAnne, because you know that's what's best for him, and best for you. And you always do what you know is right. That's who you are."

  She thought about that for a while. "OK," she said. "Call for the nurse."

  Later that afternoon, Step dropped by the pharmacy to pick up DeAnne's pain medication. While he was waiting for the pharma cist, he wandered over to the magazines. A woman was standing there, and he saw out of the corner of his eye that she glanced at him and stepped away. He scanned the covers of the newsmagazines, and then, out of sheer boredom, the professional wrestling fan magazines.

  "You just can't give up, can you," said the woman.

  Step glanced up, trying to see whom she was talking to. She was looking at him.

  Did he even know her? She looked familiar, but he couldn't place her.

  "At Kroger's, at the mall, I turn around and there you are. Can't you give me any peace?"

  Step was baffled. "Excuse me, but I think you have me confused with somebody else."

  "Wasn't giving up my job enough for you? Are you trying to hound me into suicide?" Her voice trembled; she sounded genuinely distraught. Whatever she imagined he was doing seemed real enough to her, though he could not think of why she would have fixated on him.

  "Ma'am, nobody wants you to commit suicide."

  "Then just stop it," she hissed.

  Suddenly he made the connection. She hadn't chosen him out of madness; she really had given up her job because of him.

  "Mrs. Jones," he said.

  "You're a vile man," she said. "Whatever I did, I don't deserve to have you stalking me."

  "I'm not, I swear it. This is the first time I've set eyes on you since--"

  "Don't lie to me," she said contemptuously. "You every time. At the mall you laughed out lo ud at me."

  "Mrs. Jones, how would I know you'd even be at Macy's? I'm here picking up a prescription for my wife."

  "I won't go on with that tape hanging over my I won't. It's worse than blackmail, it's torture."

  It sickened him to have her, Stevie's tormentor, complaining about torture. But he didn't want to argue with her. She was a closed chapter. "Listen, Mrs. Jones. I just brought my wife home from the hospital and our newborn baby is still there because nobody knows why he's having seizures but he's in intensive care at a hundred dollars an hour and I don't have insurance and the bank is foreclosing on our house in Indiana and you know something? I don't care about you. I'm not following you. I'm living my own life, and you go live yours and forget about me, because until this moment I had completely forgotten about you and I'd just as soon leave it that way"

  He turned to go back to the pharmacist's counter. She snatched at his sleeve. "Give me the tape," she said.

  "I don't even remember where it is," Step said. "Look, Mrs. Jones, we both live in the same town. We're bound to end up in the same store or me same fast-food joint or the same movie every now and then, and it doesn't mean anything."

  "Is that how you plan to defend yourself when I ask the court for a restraining order?" she said. "That's what my lawyer suggests."

  "Right now I think my prescription is ready and my wife needs it. Have your lawyer write me a letter." If there was a lawyer.

  He picked up the prescription, had the clerk put it on his account at the store, and left. He was half afraid that Mrs. Jones would follow him out of the store, chase him all the way home, and beat on his door, insisting that he had to stop following her. But when he returned home with the medication, the only people who knocked on the door were more Relief Society sisters, coming by to help encourage DeAnne about Zap. Whatever happens will be part of Heavenly Father's plan, they said. After they left, DeAnne couldn't help but voice her exasperation to Step and Vette. "Of course it'll be part of God's plan, but God hasn't exactly been famous for planning nice things for all of his children."

  Even though she was annoyed, Step could see that their visit had been good for her. In familiar surroundings, some parts of her life seemed finally to be under control again. She was back to being Relief Society spiritual living teacher instead of a helpless mother trapped in a hospital surrounded by doctors who didn't know what they were doing with her baby and wouldn't admit it.

  On Monday morning, DeAnne arranged for Mary Anne Lowe to come over and tend Robbie and Betsy so that Step could take Stevie to the psychiatrist while Vette took DeAnne to the hospital to nurse Zap.

  "We've been taking him to Dr. Weeks for two months," said Step. "Nothing's getting better."

  "I know," said DeAnne. "But these things take time."

  "After two months, we deserve a progress report," said Step. "We ought to be getting at least a diagnosis.

  Something. I mean, we're going through the same thing with Zap, the doctors searching to try to find out what's wrong, but they at least keep us posted. They explain what they're doing. And they learn things about the baby every day-at least they learn what isn't wrong with him."

  "Psychiatry isn't precise," said DeAnne.

  "Exactly my point. The hospital bill is already getting up around six thousand dollars for Zap alone, and who knows how much longer he'll be in there? We're putting in ninety bucks a week to the shrink-almost four hundred a month, almost as much as we're paying in rent-and we don't know what we're getting."

  "So you don't want to take him? You want to give up? Stop cold?"

  "I want to leave him home today. I want to go in myself, talk to her, find out what she's been finding out."

  DeAnne looked at him suspiciously. "I think you want to pick a fight with her. I think you want to get rid of her the way you got rid of Mrs. Jones."

  "If you want, I'll take the tape recorder and let you hear everything that's said."

  "No," said DeAnne. "You can handle it."

  "I promise that I won't do anything to antagonize her," said Step. "I wouldn't want to make it harder for Lee to continue in the Church."

  "Or for Stevie to continue seeing her," said DeAnne.

  "If that's in Stevie's best interest," said Step.

  DeAnne just stood there, looking at him.

  "I'm glad you decided not to say it," said Step.

  "Say what?" asked DeAnne.

  "That you don't think I'm capable of fairly evaluating whether Stevie should continue or not."

  "That's not what I was going to say."

  "No, but it's what you were thinking."

  "Well, you can't get mad at me for what I thought and didn't say!"

  "I'm not mad at you. I'm just reminding you that in all our years of marriage, I've never snuck off and done something about our family that you were against. Have I?"

  "No," she said.

  "So maybe I deserve a little trust here. You're not the only parent Stevie has who loves him."

  "That is so unfair," she said. "I never said that, I never thought it, I never would—"

  "I actually go through every day doing pretty well, DeAnne. I dress myself now, I carry on whole conversations with strangers, and I almost never have to call home for help. I've even used a credit card without confusion, and the grocery store lets me cash checks as long as I have a permission slip from my mother."

  "Are you trying to make me cry?" asked DeAnne. "Are you trying to make me feel guilty because this is the first time you've taken Stevie to Dr. Weeks and I worry that you'll do something or say something to-"

  "You see?" said Step. "You really don't trust me. For five months you've been in charge of everything at home, and now I'm back home again and you think that unless you program every word I say, unless I stick to your program every single moment, without deviation, without side trips, without thinking for myself, then everything will fall apart."

  "Le
t's not fight," she said. "Please, please, please."

  "We're not fighting," said Step. "I'm just expressing my resent ment about the fact that you don't trust my judgment. Don't you remember that we decided together to send Stevie to Dr. Weeks? Or do you still think it was because you manipulated me into it and you don't dare let up on the manipulation?"

  "Don't do this to me!" she said. "I have to go up there to the hospital and hold my baby who is so drugged up that he hangs like a rag doll in my arms and we have to suction the milk out of my breasts and force it into his throat in his sleep! I have to deal with all those doctors who think that I can't even understand English and force them to tell me what's going on so that I can have some idea of what's happening to my baby, and now you attack me like this—"

  "Well if you're so tough and rigorous about finding out what the doctors are doing to Zap," said Step, "then why the hell have we gone two months sending Stevie to Dr. Weeks and you don't even know what goes on in the sessions? And when I say that I'm going to go up there and do with Dr. Weeks exactly what you're doing with Zap's doctors, you think that I'm too stupid or too emotional or too bigoted to do it. Well, I'm trusting you with Zap's life when you handle things up there. Don't you think I deserve the same respect in dealing with Dr.

  Weeks? Or am I the vice-president in this marriage? Will I just get trotted out for funerals?"

  DeAnne gasped. "Don't say that!" she cried. "Oh, Step, you really think he's going to die!" She burst into tears.

  Step was horrified. "It was just a figure of speech. I was just saying-Reagan sends Bush around to funerals, that's what I mean. Lik e when Sadat was assassinated. I wasn't saying anything about Zap. Really."

  He put an arm around her. She turned toward him and wept into his shirt for just a moment. Then she lifted her head. "I'm not going to do this," she said. "I'm not going to cry. I'm not going to let go. Do you understand me?"

  "Yes," he said.

  "If I let go, then I won't be there for Zap. Or Stevie, or anybody. I'm just walking along the edge, Step.

  Right along the edge. You mustn't push me. You just mustn't. You're the one I've got to hold on to."

  "So hold on to me," said Step. "Don't push me away. Trust me. Trust me the way I trust you."

  "This whole argument, this is just because we're upset, that's all. We're upset and worried about Zap."

  "And Stevie," said Step.

  "Yes," she said. "And Stevie. I have to go."

  "DeAnne," he said, "I have to know. Are you with me on this?"

  "On what?" she said.

  "On finding out from Dr. Weeks what's happening with Stevie."

  "Yes," she said. "Do what you think is right."

  "I won't do anything," said Step. "I'll just find things out. The way you find things out about Zap. All right?"

  She looked at him steadily "If you can see that Dr. Weeks isn't helping, you can discontinue the sessions.

  Without asking me or anything."

  "But I won't," said Step. "Not without discussing it with you."

  So it was that Step drove alone to Dr. Weeks's office, following the directions DeAnne had given him.

  When he went inside, Dr. Weeks stood up and greeted him warmly. "Mr. Fletcher," she said.

  "Please, call me Step."

  "Step, then. I've been thinking that it was about time I had a session with you and your wife."

  "She's at the hospital. Our new baby is in intensive care."

  "Oh, I'm so sorry. What's wrong?"

  Step explained, briefly, and then said, "That's why I'm here today. We're coasting along without insurance.

  The bills for these sessions are quite steep, and we thought it was time for us to evaluate where we stand-what exactly you've found out about Stevie's problems and what you think it looks like for ... you know, down the road."

  "Well, we've been making good progress, Stevie and I. He talks quite often during the sessions now. I think he's getting used to me."

  Step wanted to say, He talks quite often? You mean we've been paying for sessions in which he hasn't talked at all? After two months he's only now getting used to you? But he remembered DeAnne's concerns about him and curbed his tongue.

  "Beyond that," she said, "I'm still in the process of diagnosis. His reticence to speak is, of course, one of the symptoms of his disorder, but it also makes the process of diagnosis rather slow. I think that in another month or two I may be prepared to give you a prognosis. In the meantime ..." She turned over a couple of sheets of paper on her desk.

  Trying to keep his voice calm, Step interrupted. "What I'm interested in today, Dr. Weeks, is not a final statement, but an explanation of what you know so far, or what you suspect so far. DeAnne and I have to decide now, not two months from now, whether to continue treatment."

  "I'd be happy to work out a payment schedule with you," said Dr. Weeks. "But I can hardly discuss an ongoing process, especially when you are not the patient."

  "The patient is eight years old," said Step. "And if I were a fellow psychiatrist, you would have no trouble at all talking with me about what you think the diagnosis might turn out to be."

  "But you are not a psychiatrist, Step."

  "I have a Ph.D., Dr. Weeks. It's in history, which isn't an exact science like psychiatry, I know, but it does mean that I'm an educated human being, and I think that if you try to explain to me what's wrong with Stevie, I'll understand you." Thinking of what was going on at the hospital with Zap, he added, "For instance, you must have some idea of what his condition isn't. Things you've eliminated."

  "It would be much more helpful to the whole process, Step, if you and your wife came in for some sessions with me yourselves. In fact, I suspect that your insistence on hurrying the diagnostic procedure may suggest possible sources for Stevie's abnormal reaction to stress."

  I should have expected this, thought Step. The very fact that I want to hold her accountable is proof of my disorder. Well, he was not going to let Weeks establish a doctor-patient relationship with him. "Fine," he said.

  "If you explain to us what you think the problem might be and why our coming in for sessions might be helpful, then we might well agree that our joining in the therapeutic process might be the indicated course of action."

  "Step," she said, "you seem to feel some hostility toward psychotherapists, along with an apparent fascination that has caused you to learn some aspects of psychological jargon. I wouldn't be surprised if you have unconsciously communicated this hostility to Stevie."

  "Dr. Weeks, my efforts to find out what's going on between you and Stevie did not cause his problems."

  "I wasn't implying anything of the kind," said Dr. Weeks. "Why do you think you felt a need to defend yourself just now?"

  "Dr. Weeks, I think you misunderstand our relationship. I'm here as Stevie's parent. If I had brought him to a pediatrician with a bad cough, I'd have a right to expect the pediatrician to tell me what he thought might be causing the cough and what he intended to do about it, and he wouldn't give me any crap about how I couldn't possibly understand the ramifications of pulmonary function and, by the way, have I been short of breath myself lately? Stevie's been with you for two months, and apparently all you've observed about him is that he's morose and has imaginary friends, which is strikingly similar to what we already knew when we brought him here. I hope you'll understand that I'm not trying to interfere with Stevie's treatment. I simply have a responsibility to know what that treatment consists of and what it's designed to accomplish."

  "Let me tell you why I'm reluctant to discuss this with you, Mr. Fletcher. Given the importance of parents in a child's life, it is inevitable that Stevie's parents are involved in the source of his problems. This idea is obviously threatening to you, and I fear that you may withdraw Stevie from treatment in order to protect your own ego. This might cause the boy great harm."

  Step recognized that she was attempting to manipulate him into backing off- any objection he raised to her dia
gnosis could be dismissed as ego protection. But he held his temper and said none of the vicious retorts that came to mind. "Dr. Weeks," he said, "DeAnne and I knew from the start that solving Stevie's problems would almost certainly mean us changing our lives somehow. We're willing to do whatever it takes to help our son, and I'm not afraid to find out flaws in my own parenting. But I can promise you that if you don't tell me what you've learned about his condition, then we certainly will withdraw Stevie from your care."

  She regarded him for a while, her expression aloof and uninvolved. She must have spent hours in front of mirrors during graduate school, Step thought, practicing that detached, I'mabove- emotional-engagement-with-mere-humans-and-their-pettyproblems look.

  "All right, Mr. Fletcher," she said, "I will tell you what possibilities I am currently considering as diagnoses for your son's condition. First, we may be seeing a simple factitious disorder. Second, we may-

  "Factitious disorder?" asked Step.

  "Factitious means the opposite of what it sounds like, Mr. Fletcher-"

  "I'm aware of the meaning of factitious," said Step. "It's the meaning of the phrase factitious disorder that I'd like you to explain."

  "In layman's terms, it means that Stevie might be lying about these imaginary friends because he knows it upsets you and he's hungry for the attention that ensues."

  Step stifled his desire to say Stevie doesn't lie, he has never lied, he tells the truth even when it causes him to be embarrassed, even when he's sure that he'll be punished for it. If Stevie says that he's playing with imaginary friends, then that's because he really thinks he's playing with these friends, and it's not some damned cockamamy factitious disorder. Instead, he merely said, "And your second hypothesis?"

  "It is possible that this is a mere adjustment disorder with depressed mood and withdrawal."

  "And what would that mean?" asked Step.

  "That he was seriously disturbed by your move to North Carolina. That he felt dislocated from his friends, from a familiar and safe setting, and instead found himself plunged against his will into a terrifying environment where he is incapable of making sense of what is going on and feels himself unable to protect himself from others. In that case, these imaginary friends would be a hallucinatory effort on the part of his unconscious to re-create the safe environment of the past, while his depression would be a sign that in fact the hallucinations are not successful in masking his unhappiness. He does not quite believe the falsely happy reality that his unconscious mind has created for him."