The Perfect Child(86)
“I was in the bathroom.”
“What were you doing in the bathroom?”
“Taking a bath.”
Dr. Chandler kept her face expressionless. “Do you usually take baths during the day?”
Janie shook her head. “It was a special bath.”
“A special bath? What’s that?”
“A bath with my clothes on, silly.” She giggled.
Allison looked at me, her face stricken. Tension radiated off her.
“Of course, a special bath. Now I understand. Do you take special baths a lot?”
“Sometimes.” Janie nodded. “Mommy said she wanted to play a game with me.”
“She did?” Dr. Chandler feigned excitement. “Was it a fun one?”
Janie narrowed her eyes to slits and crossed her arms. “No, Mommy was mean. The mean mommy came out to play.”
All the color drained from Allison’s face.
Dr. Chandler didn’t miss a beat. “Oh, you have a mean mommy? What’s Mean Mommy like?”
Janie wrinkled up her face. “She does bad things.”
Dr. Chandler didn’t press. “What did Mean Mommy do during the special bath?” Dr. Chandler moved from her spot on the couch and knelt in front of Janie. She looked straight into Janie’s eyes. “Sometimes it’s hard to find the words to use when we want to talk about something that’s happened to us. Remember how we played with my dolls?” Janie gave a barely perceptible nod. “Would you like to use the dolls and show me what happened?”
Janie’s eyes lit up at the idea. Dr. Chandler reached into her bag and pulled out a container. She took off the lid and handed it to Janie. She pulled out two dolls—a grown woman and a young girl. Dr. Chandler watched as Janie held on to them for a few seconds. We all sat and waited for her to do something. Allison was on the edge of her seat, looking like she wanted to stop her.
Suddenly, Janie’s screams pierced the air. “You can’t have him! I won’t let you take him!” She smacked the little-girl doll with the other doll. Allison jumped up and ran upstairs.
Dr. Chandler looked at me to see how I was holding up, and I nodded for her to continue. I was glued to my seat like I was witnessing a horrible car accident. She placed her hand softly on Janie’s back. Her voice was even as she spoke to her. “Janie, I like how you are using your words to tell us what happened. What’s the Mean Mommy doll doing?”
“She’s fighting with the girl.” Her lower lip trembled.
“Why is she fighting with the girl?”
“Mommy says the girl is a bad girl. She has to go away.” Tears filled her eyes and threatened to spill down her cheeks. “The girl doesn’t want to go away. She’s not bad.”
Dr. Chandler pulled her close and cuddled her against her chest. She rocked her slowly and gently. “The girl is not bad. She doesn’t have to go away. She’s a good girl.” Janie’s shoulders shook with sobs. I reached out and stroked her back even though Dr. Chandler had instructed me to not intervene during the interview.
“Is that enough?” I asked.
Dr. Chandler looked at me, annoyance written all over her face, and shook her head. I quickly scooted back on the couch and folded my hands on my lap before she banished me from the room. Janie’s body trembled, and I couldn’t help but remember all the times Dr. Chandler had talked about trauma being stored in the body. It made sense in a way that it never had before as I watched Janie twitch and fight as she struggled with her secret.
“Mommy tried to push me down in the water,” she said between sobs in the baby voice she only used when she was upset. “I said, ‘No! No! No! Mommy!’” She flung her body back and forth in the same way I was sure she’d done that day. “Mommy didn’t care. She just pushed me down and pushed me down. Then Mommy fell and gave Cole a boo-boo on his head.”
My stomach rolled. Silence filled the room with the enormity of her words.
“What happened next?” Dr. Chandler’s gaze never wavered from Janie.
“I cried.”
She was crying again now. My heart squeezed within my chest. I sat on my hands to keep from reaching out and pulling her close. Thankfully, Dr. Chandler rested a comforting hand on her back.
“That must have been very scary,” she said.
Janie’s lower lip trembled. “I wanted my daddy.”
“Janie, I—”
Dr. Chandler put her hand up to stop me. “Christopher, why don’t you go get Janie some water while I finish up the interview?”
“You’re doing great, Janie,” I said. I reached over and tousled the top of her head. “I’ll be back in just a minute. You be a good girl and finish talking to Dr. Chandler, okay?”
She nodded.
I hurried up the stairs and almost ran into Allison in the kitchen. She’d been crying. “You couldn’t take it either?” she asked.
“More like I couldn’t stay out of it. I just kept trying to jump in and save her. I understand that they need her statement, but it was excruciating to watch Janie have to go through it again.”
“I don’t know how Dr. Chandler does her job. I never could. That was too much.” Allison shuddered. “There’s no way Hannah hurt Cole or Janie on purpose. No way. She just wouldn’t.” She jutted her chin forward. “She brought every sick animal home with her when we were kids. And not just cute animals like the stray cats in the neighborhood.” She smiled at a memory. “She brought home a litter of baby rats once. Rats. Can you imagine? Our mom was totally freaked out and wanted her to bring them back to where she found them, but Hannah refused. She kept them hidden in a shoebox in her room and bottle-fed them. That’s the kind of person she is. I just don’t understand.” Her eyes welled with tears again.