“They go in the isolation rooms.”
“Is that what they teach you here?”
“I guess so.” He was getting tired of the questioning. The rabbit would have been scared away by now. He stood, awkwardly. Martha leaned over to pick a tiny pine needle from his shoulder.
“Go inside now.”
The next morning, several large boxes arrived in the mail from Arizona. Martha King chose an empty room at the end of the treatment ward. It was soundproof and secure, with a locking metal door. The walls were bare concrete, but she dressed up the room with thick rugs, unrolled with the help of Ike Tressler, who was settling down under her leadership. She held trainings and instructed the staff on her ways. They were there to help the boys, she said. Not punish them.
She set a plastic bucket chair in the room, for her to sit on. On one of the soft rugs, she arranged piles of pillows, sheets, and a rolled-up rug. Then she sat back and looked over the room, satisfied.
In her office, she reviewed the files of the boys at Brightwood. There were thirty boys at the center, with room for more. She was thinking about expanding the upper floor.
She made a list. The names of the boys who had been here the longest and were the most troubled—with diagnoses like reactive attachment disorder and oppositional defiant disorder—were at the top.
Among these names was Dennis Owen.
She would start with a group of eight, she decided. They would get the most intensive treatment, but all the boys of Brightwood would eventually benefit from her methods.
Dennis would be first.
There was a knock at her door, which was open.
It was the cook. The cook smiled at her. She liked having another woman in charge. So far, the two got along. Martha never looked down on her staff. In fact, she made them feel crucial.
“The dining room is ready for your inspection, ma’am.”
Martha had asked the cook to make the dining room more like a real dining room, and not an institutional one. It was important that the boys be prepared to leave for real families, she had said. The cook had rearranged the tables and even added centerpieces, with fake flowers in vases.
“I can’t wait to see,” Martha said, and got up to take a look.
Dennis woke to the smell of bacon and eggs. Bacon was a rare treat at Brightwood, and he jumped right out of bed. He could hear other boys waking, up and down the hall.
“Knock knock.”
It was Ike Tressler, at his door. The man looked uncomfortable in his new dress shirt, worn at the instruction of Martha.
“She wants you,” he said.
Dennis was led down the treatment ward. At first he thought he was being taken to isolation, and wondered why, but Ike kept walking until he came to the end of the hall.
Ralph was in his custodian closet, getting ready for the day. He saw Dennis, and his expression changed. There was a look of sorrow on his face that Dennis could not understand.
Martha was waiting outside her new treatment room.
“Come, Dennis,” she said.
Ralph watched as Dennis was led inside the room and Martha closed the door behind them.
Inside the room, Martha sat in her chair and signaled for Dennis to sit on a rug. She read over his file. But she was not really reading. She was studying him, and preparing.
“Do you know why you are here, Dennis?”
“No. I’m missing breakfast.”
“You can have breakfast later.”
Martha always did the treatments on an empty stomach. Sometimes the children got sick.
