Here I am. Send me--Chapter Two

Evelyn Dunham deals with the immediate aftermath of her harrowing experience.

CHAPTER TWO

"Are you okay?" Dr. Amanda Burrows was head of the Crisis Treatment Center (CTC) of the Partner-in-Care Program for Psychiatric Health, Inc. (PHI). She had come in on Sunday in response to the event with Josey Marshall. Evelyn sat on the couch in her office. Amanda's desk was pushed toward the wall, and she was facing away from it and toward Evelyn. There was no barrier between them.

"I'm fine. No problem." Evelyn tried a forced smile. It didn't feel right, so she dropped it.

"No superhero stuff. That was a traumatic event. Don't hold it in."

"I understand, and we'll see what happens in the next few hours. But, right now, I'm good."

"Then let's get the assessment de-brief done while it's still fresh..."

Amanda allowed Evelyn to talk through the events of that morning without interruption, making steady notes. Evelyn got to the end, added a couple of items, and then stopped talking.

Amanda looked up from her notes, "You fed her delusion." Her tone was not accusatory. She was reiterating a key point.

Evelyn made no excuses, "That's correct. The safety of the child was the priority, and I felt that leaning into her beliefs was the quickest way to get her to put the knife down."

"But then your officer had to wrestle the weapon away and restrain her."

Well, when you put it that way... "That's correct."

"Now that you've had some time to think about it, would you do anything differently if a similar situation occurs in the future?" This question had freaked Evelyn out when she was new on the job. Now she knew that it was a standard part of the after-action report.

"In the moment, I made what I felt to be the best decision for the welfare of both the patient and the child."

"How do you feel that the Partner-in-Care program performed on this assessment?" Another rote question.

"The child is safe. I believe that the assessment met program objectives."

"Even though the assessment ended in an arrest?" The primary metric for the program was the percentage of assessments that ended in mental health care rather than arrest. That number was over ninety-six percent. That meant job security and increased funding. Every arrest was scrutinized.

"Given that the subject threatened her daughter's life, arrest was the only option."

"At what point did the situation escalate to the point that the child's life was endangered?"

Evelyn thought for a moment. "Sometime between when we got the call and when we arrived on the scene."

"How long was that?"

"I don't know. Five or ten minutes, maybe."

"So, the situation escalated before the assessment began."

"In essence. Yes."

Amanda's voice went stern. "Not 'in essence'. The answer is 'yes'."

Evelyn nodded. "I understand."

"MNPD has asked for a preliminary psyche eval. I'll be doing it tomorrow morning at ten. I want you with me."

"No problem."

"We'll leave from here about 9:30. Be on time."

Evelyn nodded.

Amanda started to turn back toward her desk. "Did you perform a wellness check on the child?"

"I... uh..." Evelyn slumped back in her chair. "No, I didn't. So much happened so quickly. She seemed fine, and I was placing her in the care of a family member with whom she'd already been living. It was an oversight on my part. I'll go back tomorrow."

"Please do that and then we can close out the report."

"MNPD also told me that the patient requested clergy. So, we'll take the new chaplain with us on the psyche eval."

"New chaplain? Since when do we have a chaplain?"

"Since he volunteered to work here without pay. He's seminary-trained and on staff at Lakeland."

"The big church on the river with all the billboards?"

"The same. Nearly twenty percent of the patients who come through here request clergy. When his resume landed on my desk, I jumped on it. And, like I said, the price fit my budget."

"What's his name?"

"Chris Leighton. He seems nice enough. Tomorrow is his first day, but he's checking the place out today. I'll introduce him officially at the staff meeting on Friday." Amanda spoke in the clipped, terse sentences she used when she was talking and reading e-mails at the same time, which was always.

Evelyn stood, "I'll get the wellness check done tomorrow. Sorry about that."

"Like you said, you had a lot going on. No problem. Good job. Why don't you introduce yourself to Chris? He's around here somewhere."

Properly dismissed, she walked down the corridor and peeked into the break room. Wendy Templer was sipping a cup of coffee while speaking with a man of about Evelyn's age whom she didn't recognize. That must be the guy.

She stepped in. "Hi Wendy."

Wendy was a nurse practitioner who had worked her way up the ranks. She was well-read, well-educated, and had the bedside manner of a Waffle House server. "Well, hi there, hon. I was just trying to scare our new chaplain off."

He smiled, "I'm not too scared yet." Chris's eyes went from Evelyn's face to her chest and back to her face. That was the problem with wearing a uniform that had her name over her breast. It was hard to tell whether a guy was a sleaze or just trying to learn the name. Of course, it wasn't like those things were mutually exclusive.

Evelyn pulled up a chair. "That means that she hasn't gotten to the best parts." She held out her hand, "Evelyn Dunham, co-responder."

He shook her hand and let go, "Oh. You're one of the people who ride with the police officers."

"That's me."

"That must be stressful."

The earlier events came unbidden to Evelyn's memory. I have to stop her! Don't you see?! I don't want to! I have to! She's... She's...

She's what?

SHE'S EVIL!

Evelyn looked down onto her lap until she could get her smile back in place. "I guess that's what we're there for." Her laugh was forced.

She saw the flash of professional concern cross his face as he figured out the best way to offer help. She headed it off at the pass, "Where do you live, Chris?"

"I'm in La Vergne."

She couldn't remember if she had ever actually been to La Vergne. "That's quite a hike from Lakeland Church."

He paused, trying to remember if he had mentioned where he worked. "Well, I didn't want a roommate, so I looked for the nicest place I could afford. That's where I ended up. I'll admit that I was a little shocked at housing prices around here."

"Aren't we all!" Volunteered Wendy. "Sugar, ten years ago, it wasn't this way. Housing prices and traffic. If only..."

Evelyn knew where this was heading and interrupted, "So, you're new to town?"

"That's right. But I'm not from the West Coast." He had been in town long enough to learn the local animosity toward the glut of new arrivals from California.

Wendy jumped right back in, "Good. We don't have to hate you, then."

Evelyn glanced down and noticed that the ring finger of his left hand was empty. Why on earth had she done that?! She quickly raised her eyes, trying to discern if he had noticed. Nothing would tank her professional credibility faster than acting like an aging bachelorette on the prowl.

If he did notice, he covered it well. She relaxed and tried to smile at whatever he had just said. She'd missed it entirely. He was a reasonably good-looking guy. She pulled herself back from that rabbit hole and tried again to rejoin the conversation. Maybe she was an aging bachelorette on the prowl.

"Really?" He said. Both he and Wendy were looking at her. There was a jolt of anxiety as she tried to pick up some hint of what they had been talking about from her recent memory. Nothing.

She might as well come clean, "Really what?"

Wendy didn't miss a beat, "I was just telling him that you co-responders are a bunch of adrenaline junkies."

"If, by adrenaline junkie, you mean someone with a social work degree that wants to eat and pay rent, then I'm you're gal."

"Yeah, right." Wendy turned to the chaplain, "Just today, this one saved a child's life."

His head tilted slightly, "Oh, that was you. I'll be going with you tomorrow to meet with the... potential patient." He was learning the office vernacular.

"Amanda told me."

"Are you okay with that?"

"The patient requested clergy. You're clergy. I'm glad that we finally have one on staff."

"Any guess as to why she requested a pastor?"

Casual talk about assessments was against the rules. It was not a strongly enforced rule, but this conversation was a toe over that line. Wendy stood, "It sounds like y'all are going to be talking business, I've got some paperwork to do."

Chris stood with her, "I didn't mean for..."

"Sugar, don't you worry. I would sit here and flap my lips for an hour if you let me, and then I'd be here until after dinner getting all my work done. And then my husband would growl at me because he had to cook his own frozen pizza. I know, right now you're wondering how I can stand to live such a glamorous life. It's a curse." And she was gone.

They were now alone. Chris reseated himself. "Since tomorrow will be the first time I'm meeting a patient, I hope to gather as much information as I can. Anything she said that I should know?"

The bullet points of the story were fresh in Evelyn's mind after the report. "She refused to say her child's name because the name had power. She said her child was evil. When I asked her why she thought that her daughter was evil, she said that God told her. She said that she had to stop her daughter. When I said that God wouldn't want her to kill her child, she said that God had asked Abraham to kill Isaac."

"That's an interesting story for her to use."

"I know. Right? I told her that, like Abraham, she had passed the test, and her little girl could be spared."

"The story of Abraham and Isaac justified your point better than hers. Maybe she tossed you that softball because she wanted to be talked out of it."

"Then I didn't do a particularly good job. Toland had to tackle her to keep her from stabbing the girl."

"Toland?"

"My officer. The police officer that I'm teamed with."

"Not your partner?"

"The cops are pretty stingy with the word 'partner'. He's my officer, and I'm his co-responder. We just go with that." She looked at the plastic battery-operated clock on the wall. "Well, my shift is over, and I'm working for free now. Time to head home. It was nice to meet you."

"Would you mind if we swapped phone numbers?"

The aging bachelorette rose again, and she smashed it down. He meant in the company phones. Since he was new, he had to be added to everyone's contact list. If they waited for IT to do it, it would happen sometime between never and never.

He took her phone and held it up to his. It made an electric noise, and he handed it back. The words Accept New Contact--Chris Leighton? Popped up on her screen. She hit Yes.

He smiled. "Got it. It was nice meeting you, too. I look forward to working with you."

Evelyn punched out, walked outside, and quickly scanned the small parking lot for her thoroughly dented and scratched 2010 Honda Accord. The temperature felt good as late winter was moving into early Spring. She climbed into the driver's seat and squinted as the afternoon sun perfectly caught the crack across her windshield and refracted a kaleidoscope of colors into her eyes. Surprisingly, the engine started on the first try.

Traffic was horrendous, as always, and she crept around I-65 from the Metrocenter area slowly north toward Madison and her apartment. She was sitting in the bumper-to-bumper traffic on Gallatin Road when her right hand began to tremble.

Here it comes.

By the time she had made the last two miles to the apartment, her whole body was shaking, and her stomach was doing cartwheels. She usually took the stairs rather than waiting for the amazingly slow elevator, but her knees were wobbly, and she waited the extra minute.

Using two hands, she was able to get the plastic key into the door and step inside. Beth, her roommate, was sitting on the couch and doing something on her phone.

Beth didn't look up. "Hey."

"Hey." Evelyn responded and made it to the shared bathroom, where she closed the door, dropped to her knees, and vomited.