“About a year, fourteen months. She had just learned how to walk and couldn’t go far. But I would find her in places it seemed impossible she could get to. She’d tell me another, older child brought her there, but there was no one else. I’d scold her for fibbing, but she’d still insist. Then in pre-school, right away, the reports about her work and behavior were so erratic, you see, changing all the time.”
“What did the teachers do about it? Do you mean you never saw any of this happen?” Dr. Moss wrote his notes in a book and never looked at me during the entire interview. I found that unnerving, and it was difficult to keep my focus, but I knew I had to, for Jamie’s sake.
“I thought you had their reports,” I said to him. He turned away from me and spoke to one of the other doctors present, who got up and left the room, coming back a moment later with a file. Dr. Moss held it up while he was still writing.
“This is our file on the school, but we need to hear what else you have to say,” he answered, laying the file on the desk in front of him. I could see the title: “Jamie Wenson, Fifth Level.” I knew what that meant. They thought she would never get better.
“All right,” I said. “She would answer to her name sometimes, and other times she wouldn’t. She would tell everyone not to call her Jamie.”
“What were they supposed to call her?”
“I don’t know. And by the time I arrived at the school, she was Jamie just as I know her to be. She was fine.”
What those teachers told me was to put her in a special school. We are such a small town here, everyone talking, knowing our business. I thought the special school would help give Jamie some room to breathe, and for a few months it seemed better for her. Only, the counselor there fooled me. She called in Dr. Moss. After our interview, he told me more could be done to help my daughter. I let them take Jamie to the state hospital over in Andersonville. They said if I were with her it would be harder for her, that she’d be okay once they had left. My little girl was so frightened, holding her arms out to me, and I did nothing. I believed them. How do I forgive myself for that?