When My Heart Joins the Thousand(59)

He writes something down. “Now, I’m just going to ask a few more questions. You were diagnosed with PDD-NOS a few years ago, and you received some counseling and treatment for it, but you’ve continued to struggle at school. Is that correct?”

I nod, clutching the plastic hippocampus against my chest. Something about its shape is comforting.

“And recently you were expelled. Can you tell me what happened?”

“I hit some boys,” I mutter.

He folds his hands, and his thin sandy eyebrows wrinkle together. “And why did you do that?”

I think about those bullies, laughing and saying their ugly, cruel words. My nails dig into my palms. “Because they deserved it.”

He hums in his throat, taps his thumbs together, and studies me in silence for a few seconds. Then he asks a question I don’t expect: “Do you ever have the feeling that everyone is against you? The teachers or other students, for instance?”

I think about the other children, whispering about me behind my back. I think about the girls on the playground who laughed when I barked like a dog, about the teacher who put me in a box. I think about the principal staring at me with his dark beady eyes, his words to the secretary, when he thought I wasn’t listening: There’s something unnatural about that girl. I gulp, my heartbeat quickening. “Yes.”

He writes something else down on his pad of paper. “Can you talk about that more?”

I bow my head. “No one cares about me. They all say they want to help, but they don’t.”

“Mmm. Do you feel that way about your mother, too?”

I hesitate. “No. Mama isn’t like that.” After a few seconds, I add, “But sometimes I think she only likes the other me.”

He raises his eyebrows. “The other you?”

“Yes.” My body rocks slowly in the chair as I grip the plastic hippocampus in one hand, groping for the words to explain. I miss the real you. “Mama says there’s another ‘me’ inside me. Sometimes I think Mama is talking to her.”

“Well, that’s . . . interesting.” He clears his throat and writes something else down. “Alvie, do you ever see or hear anything strange? Do you ever notice things, for instance, that the people around you don’t seem aware of?”

I think about the way that clinking glass scrapes along my nerves, the way ticking clocks echo inside my head and loud voices make me want to curl up into a ball and hide. No one else ever seems to notice these things. “Yes.”

“Are they voices, or noises, or something else?”

“Both.”

“Do these things bother you or cause you stress?”

“Yes.”

Dr. Ash nods and writes down a few more things. “That must have made school very difficult for you.”

My heart is beating fast. Maybe this, at last, is the doctor who will actually listen to me. Maybe he’ll be the one who takes me seriously and helps me instead of thinking that it’s all my fault. “Yes.”

Then he leans forward and speaks in a low, serious voice. “Now, I need you to answer this question very truthfully, even if you think I won’t like the answer.”

I nod.

“Have you ever heard voices telling you to hurt someone?”

The hairs on my neck tingle and stand on end. Something has shifted. He’s looking at me too intently. There’s something frightening behind his mild expression, like a panther crouched and ready to spring. I don’t know what’s changed or why he’s asking me a question like that, but somehow I feel like whatever I say, it will be the wrong answer.

I look at the wall. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

“Why not?”

I don’t say anything.

He keeps asking questions, but I don’t respond. Finally Dr. Ash brings Mama into the room. She sits, clutching her purse strap. She’s wearing makeup today, which she almost never does. Her lips look like they’ve been drawn on in bright red crayon, and her moist eyes stare out from messy blue-black circles, like bruises.

“Ms. Fitz . . . this might seem like an odd question, but can you tell me anything about Alvie’s father? You mentioned you haven’t been in contact with him for a while. What was he like? Did he ever exhibit any unusual behavior?”

“Unusual?” She presses her lips together, smudging her lipstick. “He was . . . a little eccentric, I suppose. He had all kinds of ideas about conspiracies and the government and chemical trails in the sky. I never really understood the things he talked about. I never even graduated high school.” She gives a weak chuckle.

“Tell me more,” Dr. Ash says. “Was he ever violent?”

Her smile fades. “He never raised a hand against me or anyone else. He wasn’t that sort of person.”

Dr. Ash simply waits, looking at her.

“He had terrible mood swings,” Mama says. “When it got very bad, he would start shouting—railing against everyone and everything. He knocked over tables and chairs. It was . . . frightening. But he never hit me. And afterward, he would apologize over and over. He told me that I was the brightest thing in his world.”

“I see.”

“He left when she was only a baby. He told me that he wasn’t fit to be a father.” Her eyes drift off to the side. “It was very hard.”