Mary Katherine turned on her phone to get a little light. She looked at the stick. Blue meant you were pregnant. White meant you weren’t. The instructions said it would take a few minutes. Every second felt like an eternity.
Don’t panic. Yes, he did get sperm on your sweater, but you can’t get his sperm on your sweater and get pregnant. It doesn’t work that way. It doesn’t, right? Even if I touched it and then went to the bathroom hours later. Can you get pregnant that way? No, of course not. I took health class. It doesn’t work that way. You know it doesn’t.
God, if I’m wrong, make me hit a deer on the way home.
She looked around the construction site. The trees swayed in the breeze. And her arm was so itchy. Her skin was just so itchy. She pulled her jeans up over her freezing skin and got back into the car. She didn’t even bother to turn off the light. She just sat there, looking at the stick. Scratching her arm. Waiting. Praying,
Please, God. Make it white. Make me not pregnant. I swear I didn’t do anything. I didn’t touch myself. I thought about it. And I know that to think it is to do it, but I didn’t do it! I stopped myself! Please, God, help me! Make this white. I swear I will go to church more. I swear I will volunteer at Shady Pines for the rest of the year. I’ll confess to Father Tom. I’ll tell my parents I snuck out tonight. Please, God. I’ll do anything. Just please make it white.
Mary Katherine looked down.
It was blue.
She began to sob.
Mary Katherine was pregnant.
Chapter 61
Aripiprazole.
Christopher’s mother held the prescription bottle in her hand. She didn’t even know how to pronounce the name of the drug. But after the child psychiatrist spent an hour with Christopher, he assured her that it was the right one to try first. It had been used on children and adolescents. It had an excellent track record.
“What is it?” she asked.
“It’s an antipsychotic,” he explained.
“Christopher is not psychotic.”
“Mrs. Reese, I understand how you feel, but your son spent an hour refusing to talk to me because…” He fished for his notes and emphasized his quoting. “‘…the hissing lady is listening.’ I have treated mental illness in children for three decades, and help is available for your son. I just need your support.”
Christopher’s mother did her best to stay present as the doctor calmly whispered words like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and clinical depression to suggest that her loyalty to Christopher was helpful, but her denial about his potential problem was not. She was still adamant that the doctor was wrong.
Until he brought her back into the room.
The image was shocking. Christopher was sitting up in bed as pale as a ghost. He was almost catatonic, slowly blinking and licking his dry lips. His eyes were black like lumps of coal. It didn’t feel like he was looking at her. It felt like he was looking past her. Through her. Through the wall behind her. All she could think about was Christopher’s father. She met a healthy, beautiful man. And within five years, she would come home from work and find him muttering to himself. She would have given anything to find the right drug to help him. Maybe if she had this drug then, she would still have a husband and…
Christopher would still have a father.
“What does the drug do?” she asked, hating each word as it came out of her mouth.
“It helps control manic episodes. It’s also effective in stopping self-injury, aggression, and quickly changing moods. If aripiprazole doesn’t work, we can try others. I just feel it’s a good first step because the side effects are mild compared to other drugs.”
“What side effects?”
“The most common side effect in children is sleepiness.”
The child psychiatrist scratched his hand and wrote the prescription, then immediately discharged Christopher from the hospital. Christopher’s mother tried desperately to keep him there. She wanted another test. Another explanation. But the hospital had hundreds of people in the emergency room now, and they couldn’t spare a bed for a crazy child (and what their expression hinted might be his crazy mother).
As they left the hospital, Christopher’s mother was shocked by how much worse it had gotten. The building was beyond capacity now. Every room was filled. People were beginning to line the hallways. She asked the nurse pushing Christopher’s wheelchair if she had