Chapter 7 - The Psychologist's Office
By Thursday afternoon, the heavy weight of Detective Vance's revelations hung over me like a thunderstorm as I drove the kids across town to the pediatric trauma center for Dr. Alana Vance’s second evaluation session.
Dr. Vance’s office was designed to look less like a sterile medical clinic and more like a sunlit playroom, complete with soft beanbag chairs, a massive wooden dollhouse, bins of colorful building blocks, and an overflowing shelf of storybooks.
While Lily sat happily on the floor building an impossibly tall tower of wooden blocks with the assistance of a gentle psychiatric nurse, Drew sat across from Dr. Vance at a small round table, holding a box of crayons. He wasn't drawing superheroes or fast cars. On a blank white sheet of paper, he was meticulously sketching a dark, enclosed square with thick, jagged black crayon strokes, pressing down so hard the paper nearly tore.
I sat in a chair near the corner of the room, watching the steady, repetitive motion of his hand.
"Drew," Dr. Vance said, her voice like warm velvet, melodic and entirely unthreatening. "Can you tell me what this room is in your picture?"
Drew stopped coloring. He looked down at the dark, oppressive square he had created, his small fingers still clenching the black crayon. "It's the quiet room," he whispered, his voice barely audible over the hum of the air purifier.
"What happened in the quiet room, buddy?" Dr. Vance asked gently, leaning forward resting her elbows on her knees.
"When I dropped my juice cup, or when Lily cried too loud because her tummy hurt, Mom put us in the box," Drew explained, his eyes fixed blankly on the paper. "There was no light. You couldn't see your hands even if you put them right in front of your face. She put a big heavy bolt on the outside so the monsters couldn't get in, she said. But the real monsters were the ones scratching at the walls from the inside."
A cold shudder rolled down my spine. I gripped the armrests of my chair so hard my knuckles turned white. For three years, while I sat at home eating dinner, watching football, or working on freelance projects, my six-year-old nephew had been locked in a dark storage closet under the stairs, absorbing trauma that would take a lifetime to unpack.
"You're not in the box anymore, Drew," Dr. Vance reminded him softly, her eyes shining with unshed tears. "You are safe. Uncle Mark is right over there, and nobody is ever going to put you in a dark room again."
Drew looked up slowly, his gaze drifting from the psychologist to where I sat by the door. He didn't smile, but he let go of the black crayon, reached into a bin of colored pencils, and pulled out a bright, vibrant yellow. Without a word, he began drawing a blazing sun directly above the dark square, filling the margins with green grass and a tall, sturdy treehouse.
May you like
Dr. Vance caught my eye and gave a subtle, encouraging nod. The healing process was going to be long, winding, and filled with landmines of memory, but the first shoots of green were finally breaking through the frozen soil.
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