The itch spread through Christopher’s body, bringing with it all the people the doctor saw that day. Their aches and pains. Their fevers and headaches. Christopher could feel the blade going into Mr. Henderson’s neck. Fifty years of marriage all thrown into one plunge of a kitchen knife.
I made you ten thousand dinners with this knife!
The flu was everywhere. But it wasn’t the flu. It was the hissing lady on the other side of the glass. He was sure of it. Christopher’s mother gave him another sip of cold apple juice. It tasted like Mr. Henderson’s blood running down the kitchen table. Christopher wanted to throw up, but he couldn’t. They would never let him out. He had to get out of here.
“That’s delicious, Mom. Thank you.”
Christopher could feel the hissing lady in the room. Watching them all. Playing them all like puppets with strings. Strings like the mailbox people. Strings like the Balloon Derby. She is beginning to get inside people’s minds now to use their eyes. The giant eye is getting bigger. The evil is inside the doctor now. He is scratching his palm. The one where he kept the cheat sheets in medical school.
“Mrs. Reese, there is nothing physically wrong with your son.”
“Doctor, feel his forehead…”
“The thermometer says ninety-eight point six degrees.”
“Then, it’s broken…”
“We’ve tried three of them. They’re not all broken. He doesn’t have a fever.”
“You could cook an egg on his forehead.”
“Mrs. Reese, your son doesn’t have a fever.”
Christopher could feel his mother’s outrage growing. She kept a steady voice.
“What about the nosebleeds?”
“He’s not a hemophiliac, Mrs. Reese.”
“But his nose won’t stop bleeding…”
“We ran tests. He’s not a hemophiliac.”
“Then, what does he have?”
“We don’t know.”
Her anger was growing. All of their anger was growing.
“You don’t know? You’ve pricked and prodded him for two days…and you don’t fucking know?!”
“Mrs. Reese, please calm down.”
“I will not fucking calm down. Run some more tests.”
“We have. Blood work. PET scans. Brain scans.”
The hissing lady is…
The hissing lady is…getting stronger.
“Run some more fucking tests!”
“There are no more tests! We’ve run them! He has nothing, Mrs. Reese!”
“BUT LOOK AT HIM!”
She pointed to her little boy, and Christopher saw himself through her eyes. He was pale as a ghost. His nose crusted with blood. He wanted to tell her that the hissing lady was in the room right now making everyone hate each other. But he didn’t dare because then…
“Mrs. Reese, is there a history of mental illness in the family?”
…he might sound insane.
“Is there a history of mental illness in the family?” the doctor repeated.
The room was quiet. Christopher watched his mother sit very still. She gave no response. The doctor seemed grateful to have a calm moment. He began to speak, his voice as tentative as if he were tiptoeing his way through every syllable.
“Mrs. Reese, the reason I ask is that I’ve seen psychosomatic illnesses in children many times. Whenever I can’t find a physical reason, it’s usually because there is a psychiatric one.”
Christopher looked at his mother. Her face was expressionless, but as he held her hand, he could see a glimpse of the home movie she kept so guarded. On her knees. Cleaning the bathtub. Her hands raw from Clorox. Her husband’s blood never came out. So, she moved away. And she never stopped moving.
“My son is not crazy,” she said.
“Mrs. Reese, you said he ripped apart his own neck in school. Self-harm is one of the signs—”
“It was a nightmare. Kids have nightmares.”
The doctor held his tongue. For a moment.
The doctor thinks…the doctor thinks…I have something serious. He has seen schizophrenia in children. It can show up in kids younger than me. The doctor is…the doctor is…working for the hissing lady. But he doesn’t know it.
“Mrs. Reese, I’m trying to help your son. Not hurt him. I could call the child psychiatrist right now. He could do a quick evaluation. If he rules out mental illness, I’ll run all the physical tests again. Deal?”
The silence hung in the room. Ten seconds that felt like an hour. But eventually, Christopher’s mother gave a nod. The doctor returned the favor and made a quick call to the child psychiatrist. After he hung up the phone, he tried to put a positive spin on the situation.
“I know this seems like a dark cloud, Mrs. Reese, but there is a silver lining,” he said. “There isn’t anything wrong with your son physically.”