Valerie

I: Richard

I’ve failed you, Valerie. I’m so, so sorry.

***

“Has your daughter ever displayed any psychotic tendencies, before the incident in question?”

Dr. Joanne Bertrand claims to be a specialist in teenage psychiatry. She’s small and mousy, but her round eyes are surprisingly bright and very blue.

As with Valerie, I elect to say nothing.

“Mr. Argyll,” she ventures hesitantly, “I completely understand how difficult this must be for you. But anything you tell me will be greatly valued.”

Beth is sobbing quietly beside me. She can’t tell Dr. Bertrand. So I have to. Don’t I?

Would I be betraying you, Val?

The truth is, even as a young child Valerie was different. Special. She would play imaginary games so vivid that no amount of coaxing could draw her out of them. They’d last for days at a time. Everything she did, she would do in that world, in that character. She wouldn’t speak unless you talked to her in the context of that game. For a while she had no friends. None of the other children could keep up with her imagination. For them, the games ended along with playtime. This infuriated Valerie. She needed to finish the quest, slay the dragon, reunite the prince with his lover - an even once that tale had finished, more would ensue.

For one so imaginative she had an unusual hatred of books. This didn’t surface until she learnt how to read for herself. This occurred relatively late in comparison to most children, when she was about six or seven years old. Although it had taken her a while to grasp the fundamental basics of it, she soon developed an insatiable appetite for books far above her age category. Beth and I had read fairytales to her when she younger, and found that she didn’t care for the two-dimensional, bland characters that the narratives relied on. The opposite was the case with the characters she soon encountered. They were rich and deep and subtle. Their happiness was her happiness. Their laughter was her laughter. Their pain was her pain. Their sadness was her sadness. They say no book is worth reading unless it contains some heart-wrenching moments for the reader. But for Valerie they were far more acute than for anyone else.

It wasn’t just that which led to her hatred of them. She didn’t like it when the book ended. She wanted to know what happened to the characters next, how their lives continued. It was all very well to finish one event in their lives, but for her they lived on. She needed it to continue. And of course, it rarely did.

So she stopped reading. Her favourite stories lay untouched in her bookcase, collecting all manner of dust and cobwebs. She ignored them. It was as though she’d forsaken all contact with them.

Her first friend emerged when she was eleven. Em Beaufort was didn’t possess an imagination to rival Valerie’s, nor was she able to engage and occupy my daughter with her  conversation. But she did have an uncanny ability to listen, and to understand. When the voices first started to plague Valerie she would attempt to understand the complex authority they had over her. Em would pay genuine attention to all Val said, and not once did she suggest that they were merely a figment of her imagination.

Em was far better at dealing with Valerie than me. At first I didn’t know what she meant when she described the voices. I just ignored them and tried to distract her, and eventually they did go away. But they returned soon after, far more insistent and more potent than before. And as I watched Valerie succumb to their will, I realised that the problem was far greater than I had ever imagined. They took her over. Soon her responses to everyday life slackened. It know longer mattered to her. Only the voices and their instructions had any meaning.

I don’t know if I can tell any of this to Dr. Joanne. She seems to know what she’s doing, but its not that I don’t think I can trust her. It’s that I would be betraying private information to her, information that isn’t really mine to give. Beth sniffs tearfully beside me.

“Tell her,” she mumbles, quietly.

Should I, Val?

And so I do. I tell her everything, reluctantly at first but soon the words are spilling out of my mouth, telling her everything and more.

Dr. Bertrand nods and scribbles it all down in her notebook. It’s close-ruled and her writing is very small, so that I can’t read the consensus she has reached.

“So, what is it?” I finally ask.

She seems to know what I mean.

“I don’t believe in diagnosing patients in that way. Of course, there are official categories, and sometimes I am forced to comply with them. But everyone’s individual and their symptoms differ." She catches sight of the look on my face and sighs. "If I had to categorise your daughter, I would have to say schizophrenia. The auditory hallucinations are a common feature of it, and so it is the closest match. But, of course, it can depend. For example she is also demonstrating bipolar tendencies.” She pauses, to give us time to take it. Schizophrenia. I’d been expecting it, but it was still hard accept. Dr. Bertrand waits a few seconds longer before continuing in earnest, “With your permission I would like to keep your daughter with us a while longer. I need to study how she interacts in order to determine more. It’s not customary, so it is your decision. But it is necessary if I am to help you further.”

We don’t have a choice, Val. It’s for the best, I promise.

I'm doing the right thing for her, aren't I? It will benefit her in the long term, won't it? I have to believe that it will. Otherwise I have nothing.