Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness

only gotten worse. Some of the leftover shrimp from the meal Stephen had cooked had spoiled in the garbage. Without hesitating, my father and Giselle began cleaning. They scrubbed the floors and disinfected every inch of that small apartment, but I didn’t even offer to help. I just walked around them, watching them clean and pretending to gather my things.

“I’m so messy!” I said, stroking my cat triumphantly. “Messy, messy, messy!”

After they finished, my father motioned for me to follow him out of the apartment.

“Nah,” I said, nonchalantly. “I think I’m just going to stay here.”

“Absolutely not.”

“How about I meet you in Brooklyn after I get a few things together?”

“Absolutely not.”

“I will not leave!”

Dad and Giselle exchanged knowing glances, like they had prepared for such an outburst. Presumably Mom had warned them about me. Giselle rounded up the cleaning supplies and headed downstairs to get away from the unfolding unpleasantness.

“Come on, Susannah, we’ll grab some coffee. I’ll cook you dinner. It will be nice and calm. Just come over.”

“No.”

“Please. Will you do this for me?” he asked. It took a half hour but finally I agreed, grabbing a handful of underwear and a few other clean clothes. The illness seemed to wane momentarily, allowing the old, reasonable Susannah to return briefly. The three of us chatted a little as we walked toward the subway on Forty-Second Street. But the calm didn’t last long. Paranoia took hold as I was crossing Ninth Avenue. My father has taken my keys. I have no way to get back to my apartment. I am his prisoner.

“No. No. No!” I shouted in the middle of the street, stopping just as the lights turned green. “I’m not going. I want to go home!” I felt my dad’s tight grip on my shoulders as he pushed me out of the way of the oncoming traffic. I continued to scream as he hailed a cab. When the cab pulled up, he pushed me inside, and Giselle entered on the other side so I was wedged between them. They were determined to prevent another escape attempt.

“They’re kidnapping me. Call the police! Call the police! They’re taking me against my will!” I screamed at the Middle Eastern cab driver. He looked back in his rearview mirror but did not drive. “Let me go. I’m calling the cops!”

“Get out. Leave car. Now,” the driver said.

My father gripped the bulletproof partition and said, through gritted teeth, “You better fucking drive. Don’t you dare stop.”

I can’t imagine what the driver thought, because it must have looked tremendously suspicious, but he obliged. Soon he started to speed, darting in and out of traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge.

“I’m calling the police when I get out. You’ll see. You’ll be arrested for kidnapping!” I shouted at my dad. The driver glanced at us warily in the mirror.

“You do that,” my dad said nastily. Giselle remained quiet and looked out the window, as if trying to block out the scene. Then my father softened his voice: “Why are you doing this? Why are you doing this to me?” Honestly, I had no idea. But I was convinced I wasn’t safe in his care.

By the time we arrived at their brownstone in Brooklyn Heights, I was too exhausted to fight anymore. I had nothing left, which wasn’t surprising since I hadn’t eaten or slept in a week. When we got inside, Giselle and my father headed to the kitchen. They began to cook my favorite meal, penne arrabiata, as I sat on the couch in the living room, staring dazedly at my father’s busts of Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. My father’s house is an ode to American wars, filled with antiques and memorabilia spanning the Revolutionary War to World War II. He even calls one anteroom that separates the den from the living room the “war room.” There are muskets from the Civil War; M1 Garands that were used from World War I to Vietnam; Colt revolvers from the 1800s; a Revolutionary War sword and a soldier’s hat from the same era. Before the divorce, he’d kept most of these possessions in our Summit house’s family room, which scared off many boyfriends during my high school years.

They set the long harvest table and brought over a heaping, pulsating dish of reds, greens, and yellows— tomato, basil, cheese, and penne—in a blue Le Creuset pot. Pancetta glistened unnaturally in the blood-red tomato sauce. I stifled the urge to vomit or throw the penne against the wall and just watched as my dad and Giselle ate the pasta in silence.

After dinner, I went into the kitchen to get some water. Giselle was cleaning. She walked past me to put the dishes in the sink, and as she moved, I heard her say, “You’re a spoiled brat.” The words hung in the air around me, like pockets of smoke. I didn’t see her mouth move.

“What did you say to me?”

“Nothing,” she said, looking surprised.

My father waited for me in his den in a patterned antique rocking chair that had belonged to his aunt. I opted for silence about what I believed Giselle had called me.

“Stay here with me tonight?” I asked him instead, sitting on the leather couch by his side. The TV was off, so we made small talk, our conversation punctuated by uneasy blocks of silence. “I’m scared of being alone.”

“Of course,” he said.

Then: “Leave me alone! Get out of the room.”

And then, all over again: “I’m sorry. Will you please stay?”

This went on for several hours, moving from hysterics to accusations and then back to apologies. Beyond that, I can’t remember much at all of that night, which might be my body’s way of trying to preserve some self- respect. No one wants to think of herself as a monster. My father doesn’t remember what happened either, although it’s more likely that he has consciously chosen to forget. I do know that I said something terrible to him— something so awful that it made my father cry, the first time I had ever seen him cry in my life. But instead of generating sympathy, this just added to my twisted need for power. I ordered him to leave the room and go back upstairs to his bedroom.

A few moments later, a sickening blast and boom came from upstairs. POUND POUND POUND. I chose to ignore it.

I walked into his war room; picked up the Revolutionary War sword; removed it from its sheath, entranced by the blade; and then returned it. Then I heard Giselle’s voice. She was pleading with my father. “Please don’t hurt me,” she begged. “Don’t hurt me because of her.”

Again, the imaginary POUND POUND POUND.

I returned to the den and sat back down on the leather couch. A painting depicting the drafting of the Declaration of Independence bustled with activity. Over the fireplace, a large oil painting of a railroad scene came to life, the train emitting tufts of coal-covered smog. The bust of Lincoln seemed to follow me with its sunken eyes. The dollhouse that my father made for me when I was a child was haunted.

POUND POUND POUND.

It was the sound of fists hitting a hard object, like a skull. I could see it all clearly. He was beating her because he was upset with me.

POUND POUND POUND.

I needed to find an exit. There had to be some way out. I clawed at the apartment door frantically but found it locked from the outside. Is he keeping me in here to kill me next? I hurled myself against the door, ignoring the shooting pains in my right shoulder. I must get out. Let me out.

“Let me out! Let me out! Someone help me!” I screamed, banging my fists against the door. I heard my father’s heavy footsteps on the stairs above me. I ran. Where? Bathroom. I locked the door behind me and tried to move the heavy eight-foot armoire against the door to barricade myself in. The window. It overlooked a two-story drop; I figured I could survive the fall.

“Susannah, are you okay? Please open the door.”

Yes, I could probably have made the jump. But then I caught sight of a small Buddha that Giselle kept on the bathroom counter. It smiled at me. I smiled back. Everything would be all right.