The Perfect Child(37)

“Do you like the dollhouse?” Dr. Chandler asked.

Janie nodded. Her face was flushed with excitement.

Dr. Chandler walked over and sat next to her on the floor. She pulled out a container. “Why don’t you pick the family you want to put in the dollhouse?” The container was filled with every kind of doll imaginable—men, women, girls, boys, even animals. All different shapes and sizes.

I stood rooted to my spot, unsure of my role. Was I just supposed to watch them play? Join in? So far, each therapist had been different. I looked to Dr. Chandler for guidance, but she was intensely focused on watching Janie search through the dolls. Janie carefully pulled them out one by one and studied them before sorting them into piles.

“Why don’t we ask Hannah to join us?” Dr. Chandler asked after a few minutes had passed.

Janie didn’t acknowledge she’d spoken. She just kept sorting the dolls.

“Janie, did you hear me ask you a question?”

No response.

Dr. Chandler laid her hand softly on Janie’s back. “Why don’t we ask Hannah to join us?”

Christopher was always trying to get Janie to include me, just like Dr. Chandler was doing. Janie responded now just like she did at home—nothing.

“I’m going to ask Hannah to join us. I want her to play, too, because it’s fun to play together, and it might hurt Hannah’s feelings if we don’t include her.” Her voice was sweet but managed to convey authority at the same time. “Hannah, would you like to join us?”

“Sure.” I moved over to the dollhouse and plopped down on the floor next to Dr. Chandler. I looked at the piles Janie had sorted. She’d separated the women from the rest of the dolls and put them in a pile all by themselves, away from the others.

“I pick these,” she said proudly. She brought the dolls she’d selected to play with into the house. I wasn’t surprised when I saw she’d chosen a white male doll with a little girl doll. She set them at the dining room table and announced, “They’re going to eat dinner.”

I looked over at Dr. Chandler. Had she noticed that Janie had gotten rid of all the grown female dolls? Did she see what Janie was doing?

“What are they eating?” Dr. Chandler asked.

“Hot dogs and ice cream.”

“Yummy. That sounds delicious. I love ice cream.”

“Me too,” Janie said.

“Does Hannah like to eat ice cream too?”

No response.

“Does Hannah like to eat ice cream too?”

Janie started humming underneath her breath.

“Can you tell me about your family in the dollhouse?”

She pointed to the man sitting in the chair. “This is the daddy.” She pointed to the little girl in the chair next to him. “And this is the girl.”

“Is there a mommy?”

Janie curled her lips in disgust. “No. There’s no mommy.”

The rest of the session went the same way. I followed them around while they played, and Dr. Chandler asked her questions. Once it was over, she asked her receptionist to take Janie into the waiting room and read with her while she talked to me alone.

“That must’ve been really hard for you,” she said as soon as she had closed the door behind her.

I was on the verge of tears. “It wasn’t easy.” I forced a smile.

She led me back over to the rug, and we sat down. Her face flooded with concern. “Janie clearly has some attachment issues, but they’re not with you.” She folded her hands on her lap. “She’s acting out her attachment issues with you, but they’re not directed at you, even though they seem like they are. They’re directed at her mother. Think about what we know about her mother . . .” She held up her fingers as she spoke. “She locked her in a trailer and never let her out. Not once. She tied her up with a leash like a dog and barely fed her. Didn’t take care of her. But that barely scratches the surface. We only know the story based on what her body tells us. We can only guess at the rest. It makes perfect sense that she hates her mother. But not just her mother—all mothers. She associates women with mothers, and unfortunately, you happen to be in that role. All her anger and feelings toward her biological mother are directed at you.” She took a deep breath. “But that doesn’t make it any easier on you. It has to hurt.”

I desperately wanted to tell her that her theory only made sense if Becky was the one who had hurt her. There was no way to know if that was true until Janie started talking about it, since there was definitely no asking Becky about it. For a second, I considered breaking the rules and telling her that Janie’s mom wasn’t missing—she was dead—but Piper had assured us it was the best thing for everyone’s safety if we kept it a secret until they had followed up on all their leads. They wanted whoever had hurt Becky to think she was still alive or at least be unsure.

I let out a deep sigh. “Nobody else gets to see how it really is. Christopher acts like it’s not that big of a deal, and it makes me feel crazy.”

“You’re not crazy. She’s deliberately avoiding anything and everything that has to do with you.”

“What am I supposed to do?” I asked.

“There’s nothing you can do right now,” she said. “She’s had a traumatic disconnect from love and attachment with a maternal figure. In her mind, the world isn’t a safe place, and mothers can’t be trusted. Think about it—usually when babies cry, they’re picked up or fed when they’re hungry. But Janie’s never had this. She doesn’t trust you, so she rejects you even though you’re exactly what she needs the most.”