“Precisely. Good point. And I suggest you leave mine to me. Jason Wexler is my patient, I've been seeing him since his first suicide attempt, and I'm not liking what I see at all, or what I'm hearing from you, as a matter of fact. If you'd like to look up my credentials on the Internet, Dr. West, be my guest. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go back to my patient. Thanks for the call.” He was still blustering when she hung up, and she had to hide the fact that she was livid when she walked back into Jason's room. It wasn't their problem that she and Helen's physician had hated each other on the phone. He was the kind of pompous jerk who cost lives, as far as Maxine was concerned, and a real menace, dismissing the seriousness of the crisis Jason was in. He needed to be in a locked psychiatric facility just like Silver Pines. Screw Dr. West.
“Did everything go all right?” Helen looked at her anxiously, and Maxine hoped that she couldn't see how angry she was. She covered her anger with a smile.
“It was fine.” Maxine examined Jason then, and stayed with him for another half hour, telling him what Silver Pines would be like. He pretended not to care or be scared, but Maxine knew he was. He had to be. This was a frightening time for him. First he had almost died, and now he was stuck having to face life again. As far as he was concerned, it was the worst of both worlds.
She left them, and assured Helen that she would be available all day and that night and the next day for calls. And then after signing his discharge papers, she left the hospital and walked home. She was fuming about that idiot doctor, Charles West, on her brief walk up Park Avenue. And Daphne and her friends were still asleep when she got home. It was almost noon by then.
This time, Maxine strode into her daughter's room and raised the shades. The bright morning sunlight poured into the room, and she called out loudly, telling them to rise and shine. None of them looked well as they groaned and got up. And then, as she climbed out of bed, Daphne spotted the lineup of empty beer bottles on her dresser and saw the look in her mother's eyes.
“Oh shit,” she said softly, glancing swiftly at her friends. They all looked scared.
“You might say that,” Maxine said coolly, glancing at the others, then, “Thanks for dropping by, girls. Get dressed and get your stuff. The party's over. And as for you”-she turned to Daphne again- “you're grounded for the month. And whoever brings any kind of alcohol here again won't be allowed to come back. You all violated my hospitality and my trust. I'll speak to you later,” she said to Daphne, who looked panicked. The girls began to whisper frantically as soon as Maxine left the room. They dressed hurriedly, and all they wanted to do now was leave. Daphne had tears in her eyes.
“I told you it was a dumb idea,” one of the other girls said.
“I thought you hid the bottles in the closet,” Daphne complained.
“I did.” They were all near tears. It was the first time they had done anything like it, but surely not the last. Maxine knew that better than they did.
“She must have checked.”
The girls were dressed and gone in under ten minutes, and Daphne went looking for her mother. She found her in the kitchen, talking quietly to Zelda, who looked at Daphne with stern disapproval and didn't say a word. It was up to Maxine how she chose to handle this.
“I'm sorry, Mom,” Daphne said, bursting into tears.
“So am I. I trusted you, Daff. I always have. I don't want anything to screw that up. What we have is precious.”
“I know…I didn't mean to… we just thought…I…”
“You're on a month's restriction. No phone calls for the first week. No social life for the month. You go nowhere alone. And no allowance. That's it. And don't let it happen again,” she said sternly. Daphne nodded silently and slunk back to her room. They both heard the door close softly behind her. Maxine was sure she was crying, but she wanted to leave her alone for now.
“And this is only the beginning,” Zelda said glumly, and then both women laughed. It didn't seem like the end of the world to either of them, but Maxine wanted to make a big impression on her daughter so it didn't happen again anytime soon. Thirteen was too young for them to be having beer parties on the sly in her bedroom, so she had made her point.
Daphne stayed in her room for the rest of the afternoon, after turning her cell phone in to her mother. The phone was her lifeline, and giving it up was a major sacrifice.
Maxine picked up both boys by five o'clock, and when he got home, Daphne told Jack what had happened. He was startled but impressed, and told her what she already knew, that it was a really dumb thing to do, and that their mother had been bound to find out. According to Jack, their mother knew everything and had radar of some kind and X-ray vision implanted in her head. It was part of the options package that came with moms.
The four of them had a quiet dinner in the kitchen that night, and all of them went to bed early, since the next day was a school day. Maxine was sound asleep at twelve o'clock when the nurse at Silver Pines called her. Jason Wexler had made another suicide attempt that night. He was in good condition and stable. He had taken off his pajamas and tried to hang himself with them, but the nurse assigned to him had found him and revived him. Maxine realized they had moved him out of Lenox Hill in the nick of time, and thank God his mother hadn't listened to the pompous, idiotic Dr. West. She told the nurse she'd be out to see Jason the following afternoon, and she could only imagine how his mother would take the news. Maxine was grateful he was alive.
As she lay in bed afterward, she realized that it had been a busy weekend after all. Her daughter had gotten drunk on beer for the first time, and one of her patients had attempted suicide twice. All things considered, matters could have been a lot worse. Jason Wexler could have been dead. She was relieved he wasn't, although she would have liked to give Charles West a piece of her mind. He was an utter fool. Maxine was happy that Jason's mother hadn't listened to him, and had trusted her. All that mattered was that Jason was alive. She just hoped he would stay that way. With each attempt he was at greater risk. Compared to that, Daphne's little beer party on Saturday night was child's play, which was all it was anyway. She was still thinking about it when Sam padded into her room in the dark and came to stand next to her bed.
“Can I sleep with you, Mom?” he asked solemnly. “I think there's a gorilla in my closet.”
“Sure, sweetheart.” She slid over and made room for him, as he cuddled up next to her. She was wondering if she should explain to him that there wasn't a gorilla in his closet, or just let it go.
“Mom?” he was whispering next to her, cozy beside her.
“Yeah?”
“About the gorilla…I made it up.”
“I know.” She smiled at him in the dark, kissed his cheek, and a moment later, they were both asleep.
Chapter 3
She spent an hour alone with Jason, met with the attending psychiatrist about the events of the night before, and talked to Jason's mother for half an hour. They were all grateful he was at Silver Pines, and that his third suicide attempt had been foiled. Helen was quick to give Maxine credit, and say that she'd been right. She shuddered to think what would have happened if she'd insisted on taking him home. More than likely, this time, he would have succeeded. Unlike what Helen's internist had suggested, these were not bids for attention. Jason wanted out. He was profoundly convinced he had killed his father. He had had conflicting feelings about him all his life, and given that and the argument they'd had the night before, Jason remained convinced that the combination of those facts had killed him. It would take months, or even years, to show him otherwise, and assuage his guilt. Both Helen and Maxine knew now that it was going to be a long haul for Jason. And contrary to his mother's initial hopes, he would not be home in time for Christmas. Maxine was now hoping that they would keep him there for six months to a year, although it was still too soon to say that to his mother. She was badly shaken by his near success at hanging himself the night before. And he had told his mother that morning that if he wanted to kill himself, he would. Nothing could stop him. And much to her chagrin, Maxine knew from experience, he was right. What they
