What the fuck was my mother thinking? Why would she take me to a charlatan? Was I that close to death? Were we so desperately out of options?
I dig deeper into his record. After Dr. Don left the traditional medical world with a badly tarnished reputation, he reinvented himself as an “alternative medicine specialist,” slipping through a loophole in FDA regulations through a private practice that he called Miracle Solutions. My blood surges when I find a photograph online of the building I came to know as MS Hospital, where I spent the worst days of my childhood. It was in Pottstown, Pennsylvania—and felt like a thousand miles from home.
I never once thought about what it looked like from the outside—just a squat concrete box—probably because I spent so much time trapped inside. Now it’s like a protective barrier has broken down in my mind and I remember it all: the shared room, the revolving door of young roommates, our nighttime cries echoing off the walls, the bedpans filled with puke, and that ever-present smell of sickness.
The more I read about Dr. Don, the worse it gets. My skin is prickling all over now, a million tiny needles on my skin, my legs are shaking, and I have to put my head between my knees to breathe.
As I let the memories flood back, I’m struck by the stark horror of those days. How many gruesome experiences I’ve suppressed. I remember when a girl in the wing, Isla, just twelve, died in thebed next to mine. Her body lay there through the dark hours of the night, untouched until morning light when there was a shift change. Her parents, unaware until then, arrived and mourned over her still form, their grief echoing down the sterile halls.
How could I have forgotten Isla, with her soulful eyes and bunny teeth? How did I not relive the sheer horror of hearing her mother’s keening? How could any of us have accepted this as normal?
I typeMiracle Solutions Rogers Pediatricinto my phone and learn that in the five years he operated it, Dr. Don marketed the place as a groundbreaking clinic offering alternative and holistic cancer therapies and targeted desperate families who had been failed by conventional medicine. The treatments included unapproved drug regimens, experimental procedures, Reiki, and natural herbal supplements. All untested. Mostly junk science. There’s a detailed exposé inThePhiladelphia Inquirerwith a cover image of Dr. Don grinning at the camera in his doctor’s coat, a stethoscope looped around his neck.
When I see his face, I have to run to the bathroom to vomit.
Curled over the toilet, I shake as my body relives every nightmarish appointment with the evil man. Dr. Don stabbing a hypodermic needle into my arm. Dr. Don, with a smile, asking me to rate my pain on a scale of one to ten while I was in too much agony to even answer. Dr. Don leaving me to lie in my own piss and shit for hours until the nurses came on shift.
My mother must’ve still been reeling from my father’s death, making her an easy target for a shady doctor promising a miracle when regular medicine failed to immediately cure my leukemia. Dr. Don made it sound like he had the key to something groundbreaking, and in her fear, she believed him. That’s the only way I can make sense of it.
I dig back into the files, and this time, I extract a wornenvelope caught under the flap of cardboard at the bottom of the file. Brittle with age, addressed to Nonna, it’s from the year my father died. Carefully, I open it and pry out the letter tucked inside. The handwriting is familiar—Mom’s again. As I unfold the letter, a wave of apprehension washes over me. So far every revelation has been worse than the last.
Dear Mama Rosa,
I know these past months have been hard on us all with Harry’s passing. Even though your visits are fewer than I’d like, I’ve received good care here and I am much better. The doctors think that I will soon finally be ready to come home. I worry what my staying too long at this place will do to the baby.
Come home? When was Mom away from me?
I check the return address on the envelope.
Sharon Goggins Greene
275 Holloway Road
Shelton, PA 19320
Wait, 275 Holloway Road? I know that address. It’s the address for Ravenswood. The now-shuttered psychiatric facility—aka the House of Horrors.
What the fuck? When did my mother live at Ravenswood?
No wonder she can’t even drive by the place. Numbly, I keep reading:
Nighttime is the hardest. I lie in bed, trapped in my mind and body, thinking about Harry. And Josie. And the life we were supposed to have together.
I am not going to lie to you. I am also very scared to leave, Rosa. But I miss Josie so much. I feel that if we are reunited, I will be better. She will cure me. That is what babies do. They are little miracles. Next Sunday, when you see me, they are going to let you sign for my release. Rosa, you know it is the right thing to do. Harry would want you to do this for me. I should not be kept one more month from my precious little girl, especially with Harry gone. I will love her and keep her so safe and healthy with every cell in my body.
Love,
Sharon
This is all too much.
I need the truth. The real truth.
I need to see Nonna.
Forty-Three
Axe
