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“Are you thinking about sending her back?” Dr. Belzan asks.
Perceptive.
“We want what’s best for Lindsay,” Harry announces.
They want what’s best for his presidential campaign.
I shuffle in my seat and face Monica square on. “For God’s sake, you said it yourself, Monica – she’d only been home for about a week before those bastards kidnapped her, degraded her, abused her – on national television -- and worse. She was party to a murder in front of an audience of millions. We damn near lost her. Give her time to heal. At home,” I say pointedly.
“I told you we shouldn’t have him here,” Monica says, not even bothering to lower her voice.
“So I was the savior a few days ago and now I’m a gadfly?”
“You’ve always been a gadfly, Drew,” she responds flatly.
“You’re looking for any excuse to send her back. You can’t, you know.”
“If she’s not competent, we’re her next of kin. We absolutely can.”
I look at Dr. Belzan. “Is she incompetent?”
She shakes her head. “I see no signs of legal incompetence. She’s capable of self care. She’s just choosing not to speak.”
“That’s a sign of mental illness in and of itself. Who would choose not to talk when they can?” Monica insists.
“Someone who is extremely traumatized.”
“If she’s that traumatized, she needs intensive psychiatric help! The kind we can’t give her!”
“You mean the kind you won’t give her, because you’ve placed Harry’s ambitions above your own daughter’s well being,” I snap.
I expect to be slapped. Maybe I deserve it. Instead, Monica stands and walks out of the room. She looks back at Harry. It’s clear she expects him to follow.
He doesn’t.
She slams the door as she exits.
“You’re right, Drew, but do you have to be so damn blunt about it? She’s a grieving mother,” Harry grouses. His normally commanding presence is being ground down by exhaustion.
And probably by spending so much time with Monica.
“Grieving? Is that the term your PR folks have decided polls best?”
His look hardens.
But he doesn’t argue.
Throughout the exchanges, the doctors stay quiet. They’re clearly uncomfortable.
I’m done with feeling anything.
I’m done with allowing Lindsay to be treated like a thing. A pawn. They’d be horrified by the analogy, but what Monica and Harry are doing is no different than what Nolan Corning did.
The degree of abusiveness is the only difference. It’s a big one, sure.
The general principle is the same: they’re all using Lindsay without any regard for her wishes.
I am the keeper of her volition.
