“You have an infection somewhere. It’s your leukemia returning. This is exactly how it started last time. I got your bloodwork back. Your white cell count is elevated. Get inside, or I’m taking you to the emergency room.”
“Mom—”
“Let me take your temperature.”
“I’m not staying. Lex is picking me up in ten minutes. We’ve got a storm brewing over Lipscomb County, and—”
“You aren’t going anywhere.”
I huffed. “Yeah, except, I am.”
“Ozrik—”
“Save your breath.” I shoved past her into the house, aiming for the kitchen. The bloodwork results—a test I should never have consented to—lay on the table. Sometimes I did things simply to get her off my back. It was easier, but it also fed her delusions and wound up biting me in the ass.
I loved my mother to death, but something had to give. I couldn’t go on like this.
I scooped the papers before she could hide them and aimed for the fridge. As I poured a glass of orange juice, I scanned the results, far more familiar with medical jargon than a typical twenty-four-year-old who wasn’t in med school should be.
As I suspected, the level for my white blood cells was within the normal range, but because it was arange, the precise number exceeded my mother’s perceived version ofnormal, so she had gone ahead and diagnosed me.
“See?” She gnawed a fingernail as I returned the orange juice container to the fridge. “You’re sick. Sit down and let me feel your head.”
I didn’t sit, not immediately.
First, I studied the juice, sniffing it, checking its color and consistency, and tasting a sip. It washerjuice. Technically, it should be safe. Gone were the days of trust. I was not the naïve boy I’d once been. Swishing the juice around my mouth, I search for anything that didn’t belong. A gritty texture or a strange flavor. Nothing seemedoff—not a foolproof method of detection, but the best I could do—so I brought the juice to the table.
Stella Deveraux had spiked my food and drink enough times in my life that I was alert to her tricks.
If I refused toactsick, shemademe sick.
After repeated hospitalization at age twelve with symptoms that quickly vanished after a day or two in care, the doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me. A student doing his med rotation suggested my mother was purposefully making me sick. He’d recently read a case study about Munchausen syndrome by proxy, and something about my case rang a bell. A battery of tests followed, and lo and behold, a discovery was made. My mother was intentionally poisoning me.
Beckham County Child Services investigated the doctors’concerns. Was she ever properly diagnosed? No. Were the police involved? Never. Was it child abuse? Who knew? It was a topic of constant debate and depended on who you asked.
Instead of removing me from the home, her case worker recommended that she seek therapy and deemed that she was not a threat to my well-being. According to their final verdict, what had put me in the hospital was an accidental misuse of medication.
For two years, things calmed down. I was the healthiest child at school. Stella never went to therapy, and no one followedthrough. She feared they would take me away, so she behaved. Once the storm of concern blew over, I was an official teenager and less of a state concern.
My teen years meant more independence. More independence meant distance from my mother. Separation was my mother’s greatest fear and the root cause of her problems. Hence, Stella slowly reverted to her old ways.
Except at fourteen, I was more aware of what was happening and fought back. Could I have sought help? Exposed her? Yes, but the state would have separated us—I was still underage—and despite her terrible obsession with making me sick, I loved her and didn’t want us to be parted. I didn’t want to live in foster care. Stella wanted attention, so I did what I could to play her game and give her what she needed.
We had the unhealthiest relationship known to mankind. She needed professional help, but I couldn’t find it in my heart to do the right thing.
At the table, I suffered Stella’s attention. She felt my forehead and the back of my neck before pressing her cheek against mine. She wouldn’t dare use a thermometer because I would challenge the results and insist on seeing her imaginary numbers with my own eyes. I wasn’t a dumb kid anymore who believed everything she said simply because parents didn’t lie. She had all kinds of tricks up her sleeve, but I was attuned to most of them.
“You’re warm.”
“It’s eighty-five degrees outside.”
“You’re clammy.”
“I’m sweaty because it’s eighty-five degrees outside. I need to change. Are you done?”
“No.” She cupped my face, angling my head to study my eyes. “You’re pale.”
“I’m sporting a decent tan. The furthest thing from pale.”
