Standing at a Screen Door Jessica Cheverton
I had already noticed the two-story brick house on the side of the busy road. It had bright red shutters and a wooden swing set in the tiny side yard. The house was my idea of what I envisioned as my first home. The house, though, appeared out of place beside the busy highway. It belonged in a small neighbor where the children could play without their dear young mother having to worry about them running into the street. I had no idea this was the least of her worries. When I approached her, she was talking with an Amherst County Deputy. I took notice of her frustration when she screamed, “Just arrest me now. I know you’re going to anyway.” When I got close enough, both the unstable woman and the police officer turned their attention towards me. Before I could even say anything, the woman shouted, “Well, look who’s here to make fun of me now. Yea, I took a lot of pills, why do you care?” I hesitated for a brief second but then placed my hand gently on her upper arm. I then began attempting, in a reassuring way, to make her comprehend that we were only there to help. She rolled her eyes, threw her hands behind her back as if she were already arrested, and through tears wailed, “Just arrest me now.” This time, the policeman supported her requests. He plucked the handcuffs out of their holder on his belt, roughly placed them on both of her wrists, and declared that she would have been a hell of a lot more comfortable if she had gone with us in the ambulance. Of course, then she proceeded to exclaim that she would go with us. However, by this time, the cop was tired of her behavior and declared that she had lost that opportunity. I remember when Amherst County Rescue Squad was dispatched to this rescue call one Saturday morning in February. After the alarms went out, dispatchers instructed us to respond to 1790 Amherst Highway for a 36-year-old female who had taken approximately forty pills of an unknown prescription medication. As my partner, Sarah, our ambulance driver Carla, and I pulled out of the bay and started our course to the scene, the warning lights were on and the sirens were screaming. As I sat in the passenger seat, I had begun to organize what my plan of help would be to aid this woman. However, when we pulled onto the scene of the two-story brick house beside Highway 29, and I jumped out of the tall ambulance, I remember thinking that I would not be able to begin with my plan of help unless this woman was willing to receive it. Therefore, I had to accomplish what I believed I usually could do effortlessly, and try and comfort this woman in suffering. But, when she pulled away from me and spoke irrationally, I knew that I was not dealing with a patient, I was dealing with a disorder that had selfishly taken over this woman’s once sane mind. I stood and watched as a stereotypical police officer heaved this reluctant woman into the back of a caged cop car, but found myself feeling embarrassment for her. I chose to turn away. When I angled my body towards her home, I had positioned myself so that I was staring at the front door and into the face of a small boy with blonde curls and an old pacifier fixed in his mouth. At the screened-in-door, the boy’s short stature did not inhibit him from being a bystander as his mother literally lost her mind, was restrained and then thrown into an officer’s car. His small hands made an imprint in the screen of the door as if he was trying with all of his minuscule strength to get outside. “Jessica,” “Jessica,” “Jesssssiiccaaa.” I turned around to find my partner looking at me with a scrunched up face and a worried look in her eyes. I had been standing right in front of her, but I did not hear her calling my name. “Yea?” I said trying to forget the image of this fragile child and to listen to what my partner needed. “We need to go inside and get information from the husband for our run sheet,” she replied. As if this scene is happening right before me now, I can still see this innocent being standing in the doorway. I do not know if this child will remember that incident on that Saturday morning when he grows up to be my age, but I do not think I will ever forget watching him witness it. Mothers are expected to be strong. They are expected to be the one taking care of scraped knees and elbows, giving kisses for bruises, and comforting their child after a bad dream. Mothers are supposed to be invincible; they do not ever need to be the one receiving the help. At least, that was what I believed when I was about the age of that small child with the blond curls who observed his mother being anything but invincible. I wondered how this would change him? When his mother got home after she left the hospital did he see her in a different way? Would he feel that she could not take care of him in the same way that she did before she got sick? And even if this child’s brain did not remember the tragedy directly, would there be underlying problems indirectly caused by it? My childhood was full of playing hide-and-go-seek, coloring, playing dress up--not trying to understand why my mother was going crazy and being carted off to jail. How is it chosen that I got such a wonderful, carefree childhood, and other children have to deal with difficult situations and questions that most grown ups do not even have to tackle? When we stepped through the same front door that the small child had been staring through, we entered into a home that, though charming and quaint on the outside, was a complete mess on the inside. Children’s toys cluttered the floor, dirty diapers were disposed not in the trash can but on any available surface, and a small bird cage housing a yellow parakeet in the corner of the living room was putting off a rank odor. I took my eyes from the filth to the only clean surface I could find, the red brick fireplace. There, residing above the fireplace, was a portrait of a beautiful woman lying seductively on a black sofa. As I examined the picture closer, I realized this stunning, vivid, fit, youthful human being was the broken woman who had just been taken to the hospital for attempted suicide. When the husband walked into the room from the kitchen, I asked if indeed the picture was of the same woman. He turned his eyes towards the fireplace and regretfully nodded his head. “Yes, that was right after we got married. She gave that picture to me for a late wedding gift.” He breathed heavily and looked at me with sorrowful eyes. “Things sure have changed. She was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder a few months ago. She has had a time finding the right medication to help her, but we thought we had found the right one. However, seeing that she just took forty pills of that medication makes it seem that something’s not right.” What caused the woman in the portrait above the fireplace to change? She had a great house to live in, a seemingly commendable husband, and a precious child. Was this mental disorder that creates havoc caused by a mishap that happened early in her life, the results of the incident not revealed until her thirties? If so, would her child who had witnessed a horrible scene end up having a mental disorder also? Or, would the disorder be handed down to him in his genes? Does this mean the cycle never stops? Every day, I drive past that house to go to and from school and, every day, I glance quickly over at it. I look at it differently than I did before. Before I was a rescue member, I used to think Amherst was a town in which people lived in nice houses like mine. I truly believed that if a child lived in a descent house and had her mom and dad around that she would have a great childhood, would go to school, would grow up and then raise her own children, who would experience the same sort of life. However, this incident and several others I have encountered since my first year of rescue work have taught me that I was badly mistaken. I now see that people may be fortunate enough to live in a proper house, have a family, and seem to outsiders that life is picturesque, but that their life is anything but. I have many unanswered questions about that day and other days. For instance, what really causes a person to finally hit the point where taking forty pills will be the answer? Could this happen to someone I love? Could this happen to me? I do not know if I ever will ever find answers to these questions. However, I have learned for certain that I cannot be naïve enough to think that a pleasant looking house on the outside means a pleasant family life on the inside.
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