worst things that can happen. It still scares me when she cries out at
night-I never know what’s going to happen.”
She broke into tears again and dabbed at her eyes with the crumpled
tissue. I gave her a fresh one.
“I’m really sorry, Dr. Delaware. I just can’t stand to see her
hurt.”
“Of course,” I said. And the irony is that the very things that are
being done to help her-the tests and procedures-are causing her the
most pain.
She took a deep breath and nodded.
I said, “That’s why Dr. Eves asked me to see you. There are
psychological techniques that can help children deal with procedural
anxiety and, sometimes, even reduce the pain itself.”
“Techniques,” she said, echoing the way Vicki Bottomley had, but with
none of the nurse’s sarcasm. “That would be great-I’d sure appreciate
anything you could do. Watching her go through her bloodwork is like
.
. . It’s just horrible.”
I remembered what Stephanie had said about her composure during
procedures.
As if reading me, she said, “Every time someone walks in that door with
a needle, I just freeze inside, even though I keep smiling.
My smiles are for Cassie. I try really hard not to get upset in front
of her but I know she’s got to feel it.”
“The radar.”
“We’re so close-she’s my one and only. She just looks at me and she
knows. Iøm not helping her but what can I do? I just leave her alone
with them.”
“Dr. Eves thinks you’re doing great.”
Something in the brown eyes. A momentary hardening? Then a tired
smile.
“Dr. Eves is wonderful. We . . . She was the . . . She’s really
been wonderful with Cassie, even though Cassie won’t have anything more
to do with her. I know all these illnesses have been horrible for her,
too. Every time the E.R. calls her, I feel bad about putting her
through it again.”
“It’s her job,” I said.
She looked as if I’d struck her. “I’m sure with her it’s more than
justajob.”
“Yes, it is.” I realized the LuvBunny was still in my hand. I was
squeezing it.
Fluffing its tummy, I put it back on the ledge. Cindy watched me,
stroking her braid.
“I didn’t mean to snap,” she said, “but what you just saidabout Dr.
Eves doing her job it made me think about my job.
Being a mother. I don’t seem to be pulling that off too well, do I?
No one trains you for that.”
She looked away.
“Cindy,” I said, leaning forward, “this is a tough thing to go
through.
Not exactly business as usual.”
A smile danced across her lips for just an instant. Sad madonna
smile.
Madonna-monster?
Stephanie had asked me to keep an open mind but I knew I was using her
suspicions as a point of departure.
Guilty till proven innocent?
What Milo would call limited thinking. I resolved to concentrate on
what I actually observed.
Nothing grossly pathologic, so far. No obvious signs of emotional
imbalance, no overt histrionics or pathologic attentionseeking. Yet I
wondered if she hadn’t succeeded-in her own quiet way-in keeping the
focus squarely on herself. Starting off talking about Cassie but
ending with her maternal failings.
Then again, hadn’t I elicited confession? Using shrink looks shrink
pauses and phrases to open her up?
I thought of the way she presented herself-the rope of braid that
served as her worry beads, the lack of makeup, conspicuously plain
clothes on a woman of her social rank.
All of it could be seen as reverse drama. In a room full of socialites
she’d be noticed.
Other things clogged my analytical sieve as I tried to fit her to a
Munchausen-by-proxy profile.
The easy usage of hospital jargon: Spiking tenps . . . pulling a
double.
Cyanotic.
Leftovers from her respiratory-tech training? Or evidence of an
untoward attraction to things medical?
Or maybe nothing more ominous than too many hours spent in this
place.
During my years on the wards I’d met plumbers and housewives and
teamsters and accountants-parents of chronically ill kids who slept and
ate and lived at the hospital and ended up sounding like first-year