The Perfect Child(35)
She smiled knowingly. “Piper, yes, she’s one of the good ones. You should feel very lucky.”
Hannah smiled back at her. “We do. Piper’s great.”
“Are you part of an international adoption, or is it a local foster-to-adopt program?” Dr. Chandler asked.
“Foster-to-adopt,” Hannah said.
“Did you hear about the girl who was found in a parking lot a few months back?” I asked. “The one who’d been tied up in her closet?”
Dr. Chandler nodded. “Yes, I read about her case. Is that who you’re adopting?”
“Yes,” we said in unison, then laughed nervously.
“I imagine you must have your hands full, then. What’s it been like?” Her eyes were filled with curiosity.
I chose my words carefully because I didn’t want to upset Hannah any more than she already was. “She was diagnosed with child abuse syndrome in the hospital, so parts of it have been extremely challenging, but things are steadily improving.”
Hannah snorted.
Dr. Chandler turned to her. “I take it you don’t agree?”
“I agree that things are better than when she first came to live with us, but not because she’s improving—we’ve just gotten better at dealing with her,” she said.
“Can you tell me more about that?” Dr. Chandler asked.
“Well, bedtime has been bad since the beginning. Nobody slept much because she either got out of bed or screamed her head off from her bedroom. Christopher has to sleep on her floor every night to keep her in bed, or she won’t go to sleep. So we’ve theoretically solved the problem, but not really because she doesn’t know how to sleep by herself. I’d like for her to learn how to sleep by herself. It’s a skill she needs to have, and I miss sleeping with my husband. Does that make sense?” Dr. Chandler nodded, and Hannah continued. “There’re so many other things too. Like, she still eats things that aren’t food. Earlier this week I caught her stuffing her mouth with hair she’d pulled out of her doll’s head. We had no idea she was going to do that, so we had a few bad accidents, and one of them led to an emergency room visit. We locked everything up in the house after that. Everything is still locked up, and we don’t leave her alone because we never know what she’ll put in her mouth. And I was okay with all of this in the beginning because having Janie feel safe and secure with us was the most important thing, but I feel like we’ve done that, so it’s time to move to the next phase, which probably means starting to deal with the issues head-on.”
“So you feel like you’ve masked the problems in your home but haven’t been able to treat them?” Dr. Chandler asked.
“Exactly,” Hannah said, looking relieved. “And there’s more. She’s really aggressive and violent when she’s upset. She’s hit, bit, and spit at us. Sometimes she gets up and just stands over us at night—”
I interrupted. “She’s sleepwalking.”
Hannah shook her head.
“You disagree?” Dr. Chandler asked Hannah.
“Yes. I think she’s awake,” Hannah said.
“What does she do when you find her standing there?” Dr. Chandler asked.
“She’s smacked Christopher in the head with a toy train before. I don’t know what she does to him now, but she just stares at me like she’s plotting something. I can feel the rage coming off her,” Hannah said.
“Oh, Hannah, you’re exaggerating,” I said.
“I’m not. It’s what she looks like,” Hannah said defensively. “She’s really manipulative too.”
“Can you give me examples?” Dr. Chandler asked.
“That’s easy. It’s why we’re here. Christopher went back to work three weeks ago, and she hasn’t talked to me since. Not one word.” Her eyes flashed with anger before she quickly rearranged her face into a neutral position. “I expected her to struggle when he went back to work, so I wasn’t surprised. I even just let it be for a few days, but we can’t keep going on this way. It’s not healthy for any of us. She talks to everybody else but me, even strangers we meet in stores.”
“She talks to you, Chris?”
“Yes.” I hung my head, but I didn’t want to feel bad. I shouldn’t have to feel guilty because Janie had a different bond with me, but Hannah made me feel awful about it.
“Tell her how she talks to you, Christopher.” Hannah peered at me.
I let out a sigh. “She whispers if Hannah is around so Hannah can’t hear her.”
“All the things you are describing are characteristic features of children with child abuse syndrome,” Dr. Chandler said. “Maybe—”
I couldn’t help myself. I had to interrupt again. “She makes it sound like Janie is this terrible little girl, and she’s not. She’s incredibly sweet. If she sees a little kid crying when we’re at the park, she always runs over and hugs them. She never stops asking questions about things around her because she’s so eager to learn. You should see how she is with people. It would melt your heart. I don’t want you to get the wrong picture of her.”
“Just because she’s challenging doesn’t mean those qualities you described aren’t real. Both things can be true, even though it’s hard to wrap your head around. She can be a sweet, charming girl and also mean and manipulative.” Dr. Chandler paused, giving her words a chance to sink in. “One of the things you realize pretty quickly about parenting is the number of conflicting emotions you can have about your child. It’s a roller coaster of highs and lows. In Janie’s case, the highs are likely to be much higher and lows much lower. Why don’t you tell me more about Janie’s background and history? I’d like to know as much about her as I can before meeting her.”