The Perfect Child(87)

“Come here,” I said. She fell into my arms sobbing. I held her while she cried and gave her a moment to gather herself when she was finished. She splashed water on her face from the kitchen sink and patted herself dry with a paper towel.

“Do I have to go back down there?” she asked. “I’m not sure I can handle any more.”

I motioned toward her breakfast nook, her favorite spot in the house. “Why don’t you make yourself a cup of tea and take a seat until they’re finished.”

She looked relieved. “You want a cup?”

“I’d love a cup. Just give me a second.” I didn’t wait for her response. I grabbed the baby journal from my car and headed back inside. Part of me had considered keeping it. I’d been trying to convince myself that just because Hannah had written those things down didn’t mean she’d acted on them or done anything wrong. But after what I’d seen and heard, the only explanation that made sense was the one contained within its pages.

I hurried back inside and downstairs. Dr. Chandler was huddled on the floor with Janie, busy playing with dolls. Nobody was speaking. Piper sat in the same spot on the sofa where she’d been when I’d left her. I handed the journal to her. “I found this in Hannah’s things. You need to read it.”





FIFTY-FOUR

HANNAH BAUER

“Do you have any kids?” I asked the chief psychologist, Dr. Spence, as I hugged my knees to my chest and shifted in my seat. Our positions never changed during our sessions, even if we met more than one time in a day.

“Do you think it’s important that I have kids?” She sat in her straight-backed chair, legs always crossed at the ankles, notebook balanced on her lap, ready. She was always straight faced. I’d never seen her smile. Was she that way with everyone or just me?

“You don’t know what it’s like to be a parent unless you have kids,” I mumbled underneath my breath.

Our sessions were painful, but I liked being in her office because it had a window. Very few rooms on the unit had windows. I didn’t care that most of my view was blocked by the building across the sidewalk because I could see the sky, and there was hope as long as I could see the sky. When I first got here, all I did was stare out the window at the sky. She used to let me do that. Not anymore.

“Anyway, you were telling me about Cole’s crying. Do you want to continue with where you were at?” She had wide-set champagne-colored eyes and a flat face, perfect for masking her emotional responses.

“I just wanted him to go to sleep. For so long that’s all I wanted.” It had seemed like his crying and sleeplessness would never end. The days had been long, the nights even longer. “And then he did. He finally slept.”

She smiled. “That must’ve been wonderful.”

“It was awful.”

She looked surprised. “Why was that?”

“I couldn’t sleep.” My voice cracked, barely audible. “It was brutal. All I wanted was rest. But I couldn’t sleep. I just couldn’t.”

I had tossed and turned all night long. Even if I’d managed to nod off, it had been only a matter of minutes before I jolted awake. I could never sleep for more than an hour at a time. It had been torturous to be bone tired but unable to sleep.

“Is that when the images began?” she asked.

She knew about the images? When had I told her that? My memory was filled with too many blank spaces.

I nodded. “Cole was only a week old the first time. He might’ve been two weeks old. It’s hard to remember. Things are still pretty cloudy.”

My mind was coming back in the same way it’d left—slowly and in pieces. It had been one of my hard days. That part I remembered clearly. I hadn’t slept at all, and Cole had been crying on and off for hours. Janie had been in the living room screaming. There had been a pair of scissors on the dresser next to the changing table. Suddenly, I’d been acutely aware of their presence. I had never experienced anything like it.

A strange voice had interrupted my thoughts and whispered, “Grab the scissors,” and it was quickly followed by the image of me stabbing the scissors into Cole’s chest. It had felt like the scissors were controlling my thoughts. I had chanted “Don’t look at the scissors” as I stepped over to the dresser, holding the scissors in front of me at arm’s length like they’d burn me if they got too close. I had slowly walked into the kitchen and put the scissors away. I hadn’t felt safe until they were tucked in the drawer.

“Was that the last time anything like that happened to you?” Dr. Spence asked.

“No, I saw Cole hitting his head on the doorframe whenever I walked through one with him. I was terrified that I wouldn’t give myself enough space to make it through and would bash his head on the side of the frame. There were other times I saw his head exploding while Christopher held him up in the air in a strange attempt to calm him. I’d watch as Cole’s spine snapped and folded backward. Eventually I couldn’t take it, and I’d yell at Christopher to stop.”

The images had played themselves out like unwanted movie clips. The harder I had tried to stop them, the more they had come.

“Did you tell anyone what you were experiencing? Christopher? Allison?”

“No.”

How could I have told anyone what I was seeing? Having images of stabbing your baby wasn’t consistent with being in love with your baby, and I loved Cole with all my heart. I’d been terrified of something happening to him. Utterly terrified. I’d mentally walked through every possible danger, each one a graphic novel in my head. I hadn’t trusted anyone to keep him safe, not even Christopher.