“It’s a device you wear on a necklace, it has GPS and a distress call,” he said. “I can use it to find you if you wander off again, or you can use it if you need help. They’ve got an app for our phones that shows where you are, plus I can set alarms on you. For instance, I can set it so if you get more than a hundred feet from the house after midnight, it gives me an alarm.”
She was quiet for a few moments before she looked up at him. “I’ll wear it,” she said. “Dad, last night scared me too. I woke up and I didn’t know where I was or how I got there. I kind of stumbled around until I found a trail I recognized and followed it back to the house.”
“It will be here in a few days,” he told her as he pulled her into his arms. “We just want you to be happy and safe, and I don’t want to have to lock you up so you don’t wander away.”
“I love you, Dad.”
“I love you too, my Treasure.”
Mom came in with two Seven Ups and a sleeve of saltines and set them on her bedside table. “Eat a couple and wait a while to make sure they settle before you eat more,” she told her as she opened her closet. She found the plastic bucket and set in on the other side of the bed in case she threw up again. “Get some rest,” she said as she kissed her before leading her husband out.
Rea looked at her phone and ate half a sleeve of crackers before she went back to sleep.
A few hours later, she was being wheeled out to Mom’s car for the doctor visit. She didn’t know anything more than she did earlier, so they talked for a while about the events leading up to the episode. He couldn’t identify any triggers, unlike the anger that had fed previous episodes. “The headache is the last thing you remember?”
“Yes, I didn’t hear anything this time. I don’t remember taking my clothes off, though they were piled on the deck by the chair. I don’t remember anything until I woke up.”
He wrote some stuff down. “When you woke, how did you feel?”
“Like I’d been beaten with a baseball bat. Seriously, my whole body hurt; my muscles, my joints, it was like I had an intense workout then slept bad. I probably did, I was on the forest floor with roots and rocks around. It took me a few minutes just to roll onto my hands and knees. I’ve never had pain like that before, but it went away after a bit.”
“What were you thinking when you woke up?”
“How the hell did I end up here, mostly. Then I was freezing and realized I was naked in the woods and the sun would be up soon. I started working my way out of there, scared to death I’d be seen, or I was going the wrong way and would never get out. I didn’t have shoes, and it was slow. There were rocks and twigs everywhere, and it really hurt my feet. It took me a long time to make it back.”
Doc wrote some more notes, he felt for her. Most of his patients didn’t have the complete psychotic breaks that Treasure had; they had voices or visions, but they didn’t lose themselves. It was like she was two people in the same body, neither sharing with the other. He called her parents in to join them. “I think her current drug therapy is close, but not enough to control all the symptoms. I’m going to wean her off her current medication over the next week and start a new one.” He gave them the name, it meant nothing to them. “The hope here is that it gives more complete relief from the breaks, while not having the side effects of the first-generation drugs.
They picked up the medication on the way home, Mark was once again glad he had good health insurance through his State Patrol job.
By the time her feet had healed enough to walk without pain a week later, two things had changed. The new medication was in place, and she was lucky not to experience side effects. The second was that she wore a tracker around her neck, held in place by a beautiful sterling silver necklace her Grandmother gave her.
New Year’s Eve, 2014
Rea kissed her Dad goodbye as he headed out the door for his 12-hour overnight shift. The State Patrol was at its busiest on this night, with every available officer and supervisor out on drunk driver patrols. Her whole life, New Years was celebrated without her Dad and often without Mom too, as nurses were in high demand. Grandma would come over, they would bake cookies and watch movies, and she would try to stay up until the ball dropped in New York City.
Mom wasn’t working tonight, and she was old enough to stay up, but the rest of their night was set. Chick flicks, popcorn and cookies.
“Be safe, Dad. I love you.”
“I love you too, Treasure. Don’t stay up too late with them, they’re getting old you know.”
“I HEARD THAT,” Dawn yelled from the kitchen.
“I’m sixteen, I just graduated from high school, I can handle them,” she giggled.
He just laughed and hugged her tight. “I’ll be back home by seven,” he said. He kissed her head, then turned and walked out into the cold December night. The weather forecast wasn’t good, a front was coming through about 10 pm and it was going to be near zero with blowing snow by morning.
After dinner, she felt like some air, so she told them she was going out to walk around a bit. They were used to this, with no school to go to and no friends to visit, she had to get out of the house sometime. She put on her Sorels and her jacket, hat and gloves, and headed out the door to the back yard. Over the years she had started walking through the same woods she got lost in, creating a trail of her own. Since it didn’t intersect with the paved trails in the area, nobody else knew about it and she could walk for miles without being seen or harassed. In the summer, it was a good running circuit, but tonight she would just walk for a while.