Saving Max. Antoinette Heugten van

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СКАЧАТЬ heart races. She flashes back to that horrible day when Max assaulted Jonas—the blood on his head and Marianne’s stricken face. “Why didn’t you tell me this? Did he … hurt him?”

      “Unfortunately, we had to keep Jonas under observation all day yesterday.” She touches Danielle’s arm lightly. “He’ll be fine. The fact remains, however, that Max punched Jonas in the nose, and the boy bled profusely. It also seems that Jonas has a cracked rib.”

      Danielle is shocked. “Where is Max now?”

      “We put him in the quiet room—”

      “How dare you?” Danielle has seen that room. It’s solitary—that’s what it is. A big white box with canvas padding all around and a slit of a window to shove food through. She stalks toward the door. Reyes-Moreno grasps her arm.

      “Danielle—he isn’t in there,” she says. “We’ve had a bit of a … situation arise. Please, let’s sit.” Reyes-Moreno closes the door and continues. “As you know, we put Dr. Fastow on Max’s team at the outset of his assessment. He has done a stellar job with Max’s medications and is confident that he has found the right—”

      “Cocktail,” snaps Danielle. “What does that have to do with—”

      “There simply isn’t any other way to explain it, except to admit that an error has been made,” says Fastow. “We are uncertain precisely how it happened, or who is responsible, but it appears that Max received a far higher dose of his current medications—”

      “Oh, God,” she says. “Is he all right?”

      Fastow regards her calmly. “Of course.”

      Reyes-Moreno takes Danielle’s trembling hands into her firm ones. “Max is resting comfortably in his room. He’ll weather the overdose and be back to normal very soon.”

      Danielle yanks her arm free. “Normal? You think overdosing him is normal? I want to see him.”

      “There’s nothing to see right now, Danielle.” Reyes-Moreno’s voice is salve on a burn. “He’s asleep. I assure you that we’ll call you the moment he wakes up.”

      Danielle stands rooted to the floor. It is all suddenly unbearable—her relinquishment of Max to this place; his terrifying displays of violence; the unspoken presumption that her insistence that she remain here with her own child is injurious to his treatment; and the even stronger undercurrent that somehow her son’s very presence here must be her fault. The implication is that she, as his mother, should have seen the “signs” of the severity of Max’s problems long before he wound up at Maitland. Her fear galvanizes into anger. “I’ve had about all of this I can stand. Why don’t you tell me how such a thing could happen? You people are supposed to be running the foremost psychiatric hospital in the country—according to the pundits of your profession—and the minute I’m gone, you overdose my child!” She jerks her head toward Fastow. “And now we have his medicating physician, the famous psychopharmacologist, who has screwed up in colossal fashion—”

      “Ms. Parkman, I must object to your accusations.” Fastow’s flat, liverish eyes fasten on hers. He leans forward in his chair, head and arms in praying-mantis pose. “This is very disturbing for you, I’m sure, but this was a staff error, not a prescribing error.”

      All of her pent-up frustration, fear and anger burst to the surface. “I don’t care who fucked up—and that’s the only word for it—but it’s my boy in there. Who knows what an overdose like that will do to him?” She shakes her head when Fastow tries to respond. “Look—both of you—I’ve been more than patient and cooperative since we got here. When I tell you I want to stay here with my son, you tell me to go home. Then you put me on supervised visitation like I’m some kind of axe murderer. And now you tell me that Max has attacked a patient. It’s absurd!”

      Fastow folds his arms across his chest and stares at her, unperturbed. Reyes-Moreno’s emerald eyes are kind. There is that pat on the arm again. Danielle fights the urge to shake it off. “Danielle,” she says softly, “you have to keep in mind that we are dealing with a young man with serious issues—one who is obviously suicidal; who now appears to be having psychotic episodes; and who is becoming alarmingly violent. These things take time, which is why we don’t like to meet with parents before we can give a true assessment.”

      Danielle feels the fury in her subside. Now she’s just worried out of her mind. What is really wrong with Max? Is it possible that because he’s been stripped of the old medications, this “psychotic” behavior—whatever it is—is the true Max coming out? She sighs. But this isn’t a courtroom where she can use righteous indignation, however justified, to her advantage. She reminds herself that Maitland—and its doctors—are the very best in the country. It doesn’t matter if she chafes at Fastow’s arrogance. It’s Max that matters. And if Max is exhibiting violent, psychotic behavior, he desperately needs their help, and she has to let them do their job. She turns to Fastow, her voice quivering as it always does when her anger gives way to fear. “I want a list of every medication Max is on—the milligrams, dose frequency and any known side effects.”

      Fastow gives her a bland look. “Of course. I’m sure most of the medications are known to you, although the combinations may be different.”

      An idea forms in her mind. She stares at him. “You don’t have him on any experimental drugs, do you?”

      Fastow’s eyebrows—fat, ugly caterpillars—form upside-down U’s and stay there. “Absolutely not. Surely you do not question my ethics—”

      Reyes-Moreno steps between them, her voice poured oil. “When we have a collective diagnosis, I will schedule a meeting immediately.”

      “I’ll be there.” Danielle turns to Fastow. “Will you?”

      He and Reyes-Moreno look at each other. Fastow uncoils his lean frame from the chair, a supercilious smile on his face. “I’m sure we’ll have an opportunity to converse should Dr. Reyes-Moreno’s explanation prove inadequate to address your concerns.” He extends a bony hand to her, snake dry to the touch.

      “I’ll hold you to that.”

      Fastow gives her his hubristic stare and stalks out. Danielle wants to yank him back into the room and tell him what an arrogant son of a bitch he is, but doesn’t. He isn’t the first egomaniac in the medical profession who believes—no, knows—that he is God. Telling a deity that he is mortal is pointless. She starts to stand, when she has a revelation. Maybe she detests Fastow because she wants him to be the enemy. If he’s giving Max some crazy medication—or overdosing him—then Reyes-Moreno’s claim that Max is having psychotic episodes simply isn’t true. Danielle knows enough about psychotropic medications to know that the risk of drug-drug interactions can be devastating. But if Fastow is on the up-and-up …

      Danielle fights the black ice that grips her heart. Max can’t be crazy. A slim hope surges in her. Maybe the hospital doesn’t know all it should about Fastow, even if they think they did a good job screening him. She’ll ask Georgia to run a background check on him. What could it hurt? She turns to Reyes-Moreno. “May I see Max?”

      She shrugs. “I told you—he’s fast asleep. But if you insist, please keep your visit brief. We don’t want to upset him.”

      Danielle bites her tongue as Reyes-Moreno disappears down the hallway. “No,” she mutters, “we certainly don’t. СКАЧАТЬ