January First: A Child's Descent Into Madness and Her Father's Struggle to Save Her by Michael Schofield Page A

doesn’t take naps.
    “She was waiting for you all day,” the technician tells us, “then about an hour ago she said she wanted to sleep.”
    “Janni?” I call softly as I enter. The room is spartan, bare of everything except the bed and the sheetless mattress.
    She is sleeping deeply. I hate to wake her, but I only have an hour and I am not going to leave without her knowing we were here. I don’t want her to think we didn’t come.
    “Janni, we got Pizza Kitchen for you.”
    She doesn’t stir.
    “Janni?” I sit down next to her and touch her back.
    No response.
    “Janni?” I stand up and come around the other side and see the puddle of drool at the bottom of her sagging mouth, soaking the right side of her face, plastering her hair.
    “Janni?” I shake her more urgently.
    Nothing. I lift her head, which lolls back and forth in my arms, a deadweight. Her eyes don’t move.
    “Janni?!” I practically shout. Something is seriously wrong. She is unresponsive. “You stay with her,” I say to Susan. “I’m gonna get the nurse.”
    I run out of the room to the nurses’ station. I wait at the counter. I see several staff milling about, but no one seems to notice me.
    “Hello?” I call out. It takes everything I have not to hop the counter and wrap my hands around the first throat I reach. I can’t do that. I have already learned that these people couldn’t care less that this is my daughter. All they care about is their damn rules.
    “Hey,” I yell now. “We need some help here.”
    The head nurse comes over.
    “Yes?”
    “Janni won’t wake up.”
    “She was very tired,” she answers in a blasé tone.
    “She won’t wake up!” I repeat, attempting to drive through this woman’s thick skull the fact that this is a medical emergency. “She’s lying in a puddle of her own drool! I want a nurse to check her vitals!”
    “She’s fine. Somebody checks on her every few minutes.”
    “She was alone when we came in! How do you know she is fine? She’s not hooked up to an EKG!”
    “She’s just tired. It happens.”
    I’m powerless. Janni may be dying and nobody cares.
    “I’m taking her home tonight,” I snarl at the nurse. I’ve had enough of this.
    “Well, that’s your choice,” the nurse says like she doesn’t care either way. “But we would need to get permission from the doctor first, and he’s already left for the day.”
    I back away, my fists clenched, desperately wanting to put a holethrough the drywall but knowing that would only get me kicked out. Janni is my child, but I have no control over her fate. I’m not a father anymore. I’m a “visitor.”
    I go back into the quiet room. Susan is gone, probably talking to one of the other girls. I sit down and cradle Janni’s head in my lap. I talk to her, repeating “Daddy’s here,” and telling her I brought her favorite, mac ’n’ cheese from California Pizza Kitchen, hoping she will wake up. I touch her chest. I can still feel her heart beating.
    Where the hell is Susan? I set Janni’s head down and come out of the room, looking for her. I find her sitting in the dining area, talking to a girl. This is the youngest girl I have seen here after Janni. She looks about ten or eleven, but her appearance shocks me. She is wearing a fishnet shirt over a black half top. She looks like a hooker.
    Susan turns to me. “This is Carly, Janni’s new roommate. Carly, this is my husband, Michael. Tell him what you just told me.”
    I don’t want to listen to some kid. I want a doctor.
    “I told you to stay with Janni,” I say, barely able to contain my anger. It’s not Susan I am angry at, but she is the only one I can get angry with right now.
    “I know, but you need to hear this. Carly, tell him.”
    Carly starts speaking. “Janni was jumping on her bed. I told her to stop because I was afraid she would fall and hurt herself, but she wouldn’t listen so I got the staff. She wouldn’t listen to them, either. She started