I, Robot To Protect

to offend them by over or underexplaining.

Lucianne shook her head. “We have experience with a lot of childhood disabilities, but neither of us has specific psychiatric knowledge. We’ve looked it up, but the books at the parental level seem too cautious and nonspecific. The technical journals go over our heads. What is the long-term prognosis for Sharicka? We’re sick to death of pussyfooting.”

Susan took them at their word. “Conduct disorder in children is rarely diagnosed because it’s considered a permanent label. It’s reserved for the most intractable cases.”

As the parents did not seem put off by that revelation, Susan continued. “About five percent of children get the ADHD diagnosis at some point in their lives, and about a third of those carry it into adulthood. Of the five percent with ADHD, about twenty percent are diagnosed as also having oppositional defiant disorder or ODD.” She pronounced each letter separately. “About half of those with ODD go on to have serious adult psychopathology. When it comes to conduct disorder, however, it’s one hundred percent. That’s why psychiatrists hesitate to ever place that diagnosis on a child, particularly before the teen years.” She allowed that revelation a moment to sink in. “The younger the individual is when conduct disorder is diagnosed, the worse the prognosis.”

Lucianne nodded repeatedly before finally speaking. “So Sharicka’s prognosis is poor.”

“Yes,” Susan admitted. “May I be brutally honest?”

“Please,” the father said quickly.

Susan wondered just how offensive her words would sound. “I would never ‘give up’ on a child, especially one so young. However, given her current level of treatment and response, I worry about Sharicka. Until she decides to cooperate with her treatment, and the right combination of medications is found, it’s only a matter of time before she kills someone, probably before the age of eighteen.”

The mother stiffened but showed no other signs of agitation. “Depends on how you define ‘kill.’”

Susan did not understand. “What do you mean?”

Though the mother had raised the issue, the father explained. “We noticed from a very young age that Sharicka had a cruel streak. She has two older, nonbiological siblings, whom we also adopted; and we also had younger children in our home through foster care. It started as constant tears and bickering. Then, our oldest began locking his bedroom door at night or crawling into our bed with a score of sudden fears. Mysterious wounds and bruises on the fosters brought us into the spotlight.”

A light sparked in the mother’s eyes, actual anger. “We had fostered for longer than a decade, without ever using any type of physical discipline. We actually published a book on firm but gentle child rearing. We were considered experts. Then, suddenly, we were being accused of abuse. Us!”

Elliot hushed his wife with a wave. The topic, and the rage it sparked, had probably not served them well in the past. “It was Lucianne’s mother who noticed it first, Sharicka’s grandmother. She had always loved all our children unconditionally, but she admitted one night to disliking Sharicka because ‘that little girl is just mean.’”

Lucianne took up the story again, “So we started watching Sharicka, and my mother was right. Wherever we took her, someone got hurt. Playgrounds were the worst, especially if they had solid plastic crawling tunnels, where the insides were essentially invisible. She had no compunction about harming strangers. She seemed to target older children, whose parents found it difficult to become irate about the behavior of a toddler, even when it hurt their own child. Some of the fathers came down hard on their own kids instead of us.”

Mean. Susan became stuck on the word. It was short, simple, and vividly descriptive of Sharicka Anson. “She’s quite smart for her age, isn’t she?”

“Brilliant.” Lucianne managed a wry smile. “We used to take such great pride in that; but now it seems her downfall, because she’s capable of plans far more cunning than her age would suggest.”

Elliot added, “She’s also subtle. If someone announced they needed to use the restroom, or simply headed there, she would zip in first and slam the door in their face. Didn’t matter if she was inconveniencing an adult or a not-fully-potty-trained child. We noticed urine in peculiar places: people’s laundry, around the refrigerator, on one of the kids’ rugs. At first, we blamed the dog.”

The parents looked at each other and winced before he continued. “But the problem went on long after she beat the dog to death. She was three years old.”

Tears filled Lucianne’s eyes. “We all loved that dog. Even Sharicka, we thought. She can disappear in a heartbeat. By the time we found her behind the garage, the deed was nearly done. It was the first time we ever spanked her; it’s hard to argue that capital punishment might teach violence to someone who just slaughtered a beloved pet. Sharicka hollered bloody murder. She never could tell us why she did it, never showed a hint of remorse. And the misplaced urination continued.”

Elliot clearly wanted to end the discussion, but not without making a few more important points. “Once, we got an incident report from the day care center that our current foster child, just learning to walk, had tumbled down a flight of concrete steps. It was weeks before one of the young women finally told us Sharicka had offered to help her brother down the stairs, then shoved him. The worker claimed the reason she didn’t tell us was because she thought we had a bias against Sharicka, and this moron of a girl felt all Sharicka needed was ‘someone to love her.’ ”

Lucianne fairly growled. “What an ungodly, offensive thing to say. No one, no one, could have loved that little girl more than we did. She is our daughter, and we have stood by her through things most parents could never comprehend.”

Her husband took her arm, squeezing warningly. Clearly, this was a familiar tirade that could result only in wasted emotion. Rehashing past offenses would not help the current situation. “Lucianne . . .”

The father continued, finally getting to the issue that had raised the sudden outpouring of information. “After killing the dog, Sharicka developed an obsession with death, constantly asking questions about it. What was it like? What happened afterward? What kinds of things could kill people? After a visit to Florida, she focused on drowning. I guess it shouldn’t have surprised us when Sharicka nearly succeeded in drowning her older sister in a bucket of water.”

Susan’s nostrils flared. “How old was this sister?” She had not known about this incident.

Now, Lucianne’s eyes blurred completely. She rose from her seat, unconsciously, and started to pace.

“Misty is nine. She took Sharicka for a walk, trying to be a good big sister. Sharicka seemed absolutely thrilled. Usually, her older siblings don’t have a lot to do with her.” The father watched his wife walk; but, as she made no move to stop him, he went on. “After a bit, I thought I’d better check on them. I found them at a neighbor’s house, and I heard splashing. Then I caught up to them. Sharicka was holding her sister’s head in a bucket of water. Misty was thrashing wildly, but Sharicka is stronger than she seems, and . . .” Now, tears filled his eyes, too. “I stopped it immediately, but Misty fell unconscious . . . and . . . and . . .” He started sobbing too hard to continue speaking.

Lucianne stopped, placed her hands firmly on the back of her chair, and finished for him. “You’ve heard of near drowning, I presume.”

Susan nodded, fingers knotting of their own accord. Technically, anyone who survived at least twenty-four hours after submersion was considered a near drowning, even if he expired at twenty-six hours. “She survived?” Susan asked hopefully.

The mother bit her lip. “It was touch and go. Three months in the hospital, now in physical therapy. She’s not the same clever, sweet girl who gallantly offered to take her little sister for a walk.”

Elliot finally found his voice again. “Misty remembers nothing. I’d probably be in jail right now if Sharicka hadn’t admitted to everything. Proudly, I might add.” He shook his head. “I think most people still secretly believe I tried to kill my daughter and Sharicka just took the blame to save me.

“Sharicka was admitted here then, but they only kept her two weeks. Said she was a model patient, and they used the word ‘alleged’ a lot, especially when it came to the near drowning.” The father shook his head. “On the drive home from discharge, she punched and kicked her older brother, flung toys at us, went into a swearing fit, kicked the back of my seat until I nearly crashed the car, and refused to stay in her booster. We managed to get her off to bed, then ourselves. We were awakened at three a.m. to anguished screams from her brother. When we ran downstairs, she was standing over his bed hitting him with a baseball bat. We brought her back immediately.”

Susan guessed, “And she’s been here since.”

“No.” Lucianne retook her seat. “She stayed another two weeks. Then, they sent her to a so-called professional foster home, where she attempted to strangle a thirteen-year-old autistic child.”

Susan remembered reading about that. She also saw places in the chart where physicians had recorded an