Blood Test

“Yeah! She kicked him out and he even paid for the house with his money!”

I sat him down, took a chair opposite him, and put my hands on his small shoulders as I spoke:

“Ricky, I’m sorry everything is so sad. I know you want your mom and dad to get back together. But that’s not going to happen. Do you remember how they used to fight all the time?”

“Yeah, but then they’d stop fighting and be happy to us.”

“When that happened it was nice.”

“Yup.”

“But the fighting got worse and worse and there wasn’t much happiness left.”

He shook his head.

“Divorce is terrible,” I said. “Like everything’s falling apart.” He looked away.

“It’s okay to be angry, Ricky. I’d be angry, too, if my parents were getting divorced. But it’s not okay to run away because you could get hurt that way.”

“My dad’ll take care of me.”

“Ricky, I know you love your dad very much. You should. A dad is someone special. And a dad should be able to be with his children, even after a divorce. I hope some day your dad can see you a lot, and take you places and do fun stuff with you. But right now — and this is really sad — it’s not a good idea for him to spend a lot of time with you and April. Do you understand why?”

“Cause he’s sick?”

“Right. Do you know what kind of sickness?”

He ruminated on the question.

“He gets mad?”

“That’s part of it. He gets real mad or real sad or real happy all of a sudden. Sometimes without a good reason. When he’s real mad he could do mad things that wouldn’t be right, like fight with somebody. That could be dangerous.”

“Uh uh! He could beat ’em up!”

“That’s true, but it would be dangerous for the person he beat up. And you or April could get hurt, accidentally. Do you understand?”

A grudging nod.

“I’m not saying he’ll always be sick. There are medicines he can take that can help. And talking to doctors, like me, can help, too. But right now your dad doesn’t want to admit that he needs help. So the judge said he couldn’t see you until he got better. That made him really mad and now he thinks everyone is a bad guy trying to hurt him. But we’re really trying to help him. And to protect you.”

He stared at me, stood, found the drawing paper, and proceeded to construct a fleet of paper airplanes. For the next quarter hour he waged a solitary battle of epic proportions, destroying entire cities, massacring thousands, stomping and shouting and shredding paper until Mal’s antique Saruk was covered with confetti.

After that he drew for a while but wasn’t happy with any of his creations and tossed them, crumpled, in the trash. I tried to get him to talk about the runaway episode but he refused. I reiterated the danger and he listened, looking bored. When I asked him if he’d do it again he shrugged.

I brought him back and took Darlene into the office. She wore a pink pantsuit with a faint diamond pattern and silver sandals. Her dark hair was piled high and sprayed in place. She’d spent a lot of time on her makeup but still looked tired and worn and scared. After seating herself she pulled a handkerchief out of her purse and passed it from hand to hand, kneading and squeezing.

“This must be really hard on you,” I said.

Tears oozed out of her eyes. Up went the handkerchief.

“He’s a crazy man, Doctor. He’s been getting crazier all along and now he won’t let me go without doing something really crazy.”

“How have the kids been doing?”

“April’s a little clingy — you saw her out there. She gets up a couple of times at night, wants to come into our bed. But she’s a sweet thing. He’s my problem, just angry all the time, refusing to mind. Yesterday he said the ef word to Carlton.”

“What did Carlton do?”

“Told him he’d whip him if he did it again.”

Great.

“It’s not a good idea to get Carlton involved in discipline at this point. Having him there is a big adjustment for the kids in the first place. If you let him take over they’ll feel abandoned.”

“But Doctor, he can’t use language like that!”

“Then you need to handle it, Mrs. Moody. It’s important for the children to know that you’re there for them. That you’re in charge.”

“Okay,” she said, without enthusiasm, “I’ll try it.”

I knew she wouldn’t comply. The word try was the tipoff. In a couple of months she’d be wondering why both children were ornery and miserable and impossible to manage.

I did my job anyway, telling her that both of the children could benefit from professional help. April, I explained, showed no serious problems but was insecure. Therapy for her was likely to be short-term and could reduce the risk of more severe problems in the future.

Ricky, on the other hand, was a troubled little boy, full of anger and likely to run away again. She interrupted at that point to blame the running away on the boy’s father and said that come to think of it he reminded her of his father.

“Mrs. Moody,” I said, “Ricky needs the chance to blow off steam on a regular basis.”