The Perfect Child(74)

I took a deep breath, whispering a silent apology to Janie as she played in the waiting room with Dr. Chandler’s assistant. “Okay, how do we start the process?”



Hannah was agitated when we got home. She looked ghoulish. She’d started losing clumps of her hair. I wasn’t sure if it was from the postpregnancy hormones or stress. Either way, it added to her appearance of being ill. She paced the house, back and forth. As soon as Janie and I came in, she scuttled to our bedroom and shut the door behind her. I settled Janie in front of the TV and went to talk to her. I knocked before entering.

“Who is it?” she asked. Her voice was filled with paranoia.

I jiggled the doorknob. It was locked. “It’s just me.”

She opened the door a crack, peering out to see if Janie was hiding behind me, like maybe I was trying to trick her into letting Janie into the room. Once she was satisfied that I was alone, she opened it wide enough for me to slide through. She slammed it shut as soon as I was inside.

“Look what I found today. Look what I found in her room while you were gone.” Her voice was pressured, rushed, like she couldn’t get the words out fast enough.

Our bed was covered with photo albums and pictures. She grabbed my hand and pulled me over to it. She picked up one of the albums and thrust it at me. “Look! Look at this! Look at what she did.”

It was our wedding album—the one we’d lovingly put together after we’d gotten back from our honeymoon. The first page was our engagement photo, taken by a professional photographer; it was the one we’d used on our “save the date” cards. We were in front of the café where we’d had our first date with our arms wrapped around each other. I stared in horror at Hannah’s scratched-out face. I flipped to the next page. It was the same thing. My smile shone from the pages, while Hannah’s face was destroyed. Janie had used black crayons on some of the pictures to make a big X on her face. Others were just scratched out.

Hannah grabbed pictures off the bed, all of them ripped up and torn. “There’s more. All of this. Do you know how long it must’ve taken her to do this?” She slapped them dramatically back on the bed one by one. “And look.” Her hand shook as she pointed to a different set of pictures on the bed.

I looked down at the spread of pictures I’d printed out a few weeks earlier—the ones I’d taken in the hospital of Cole and his first day home. His face was as destroyed as Hannah’s. Any doubts I had about sending Janie to residential treatment vanished.

Hannah threw the scraps of pictures on the bed and collapsed on the floor in tears. I sat next to her and held her. The bones poked out from underneath her shirt.

“It’s going to be okay,” I said in my most soothing voice. “She’s not going to live with us for a while.”





FORTY-SIX

HANNAH BAUER

Christopher’s eyes peered into mine. “Where’s Janie?”

I rubbed my eyes. I must’ve fallen asleep. Cole stirred next to me. What time was it?

He shook my shoulder. “Where is she?”

My heart pounded. He wasn’t supposed to be home yet. I hadn’t had time to clean up.

“In her room.”

He stopped in his tracks when he got to her closed door and noticed the alarm was engaged. “She’s in here? We agreed if I put the locks on the door that we would only use them at night.”

I didn’t dare tell him I’d been doing it for weeks. It was the only way I felt safe. Instead, I said nothing and waited for him to unlock the door.

“Oh my God,” I heard him exclaim.

Janie must have smeared her feces again. I walked over to join him and stood in the doorway. This time it was on the walls. She’d finger painted with her own poop. Christopher stared, taking it all in—Janie naked in the center of the room surrounded by toys, her food smashed all around her, empty juice boxes and broken toys.

Christopher turned to look at me, the reality registering on his face. “Do you leave her in here all day?”

I nodded.

“Wh—what? I don’t . . . I don’t understand . . .”

“I clean everything up before you get home.” I was surprised he hadn’t smelled the poop whenever he was in there. Her room permanently smelled foul no matter how hard I scrubbed.

“How long has this been going on? How long?” His fists were clenched at his sides.

“Ever since she killed Blue.”

He came at me, his face contorted in anger. “How could you? How could you do this to her? After everything she’s been through?”

“How could I?” I pointed to her. “She’s evil. That’s what her grandmother said. Remember? She said we didn’t know how terrible she was. Did you ever think that’s why her mother had to lock her up like an animal? It’s because she is one!”

I saw the pink blur of his hand as he slapped my face. My skin stung as my teeth cut through the soft, wet flesh of my mouth. My head jerked back. I stumbled from the force of it, bringing my hand up and pressing it against the sting, shocked.

Janie let out a piercing shriek.

Christopher’s eyes filled with horror. He came toward me again. I backed up. “Don’t.” I held my hand up. “Just don’t.”