My Crazy Daughter

Sometimes, I think that I'm going mad myself. It's all the stress and fear that comes of watching your child lose her mind. I know I should get her help, and there are ever so many good mental facilities around. But I can't let her go. I keep telling myself, against all experience, that she will get over it.

It started when she was 7, 8 years old. Came home from school one day and started spouting the craziest gibberish. But she was a kid, you know. You figure she'll grow out of it. But she didn't. She's 17 now, and no better. I blame her mother. Not blame, exactly. It isn't her fault, but it's in the genes. Joanie - that's my wife - has episodes at home, but at least she knows how to behave in public. She can control it. Not Becky. Becky can't control it.

I should get her help. I know. But I keep thinking about this kid Gary from down the street. He's about Becky's age. In fact, they were in school together. Now, Gary is psychotic. No question about it. Claimed he talked to God, and God said outlandish things that God would never say. So he definitely needed help. But they put him in a mental institution, and I just couldn't bear that for Becky. I just wish she wouldn't keep trying to get out. Oh, God. There she goes again.

"You can't keep me locked up in here, forever, Dad," she says.

"And I don't want to!" I insist. "It's for your own safety!"

"You don't seriously think that the neighbors are buying the story that I'm dead," she says with what sounds like a trace of sarcasm.

"They wouldn't believe that you died suddenly of Swine Flu," I admitted, as I relocked the shackle she had picked. "That is a bit lame, but they do think I killed you to save the family name. That's the stroke of genius. I deliberately make up a weak story to grease the skids for the second story, which they think they thought up themselves. And the bonus is that they now give me a wide berth. Just in case."

"If you don't mind my saying so," says Becky, "this is crazy."

"Ironic that you should say that," I sigh. "Believe me, this is for your own good. I don't want you to end up like poor Gary."

Her eyes flash. "Those rotten, self-serving, hypocritical ... " she begins, but I cut her off.

"I'm sorry," I say. "I know you liked him, but you must admit, he needed help."

"Help, hell!" she spits. I'm afraid her illness is kicking up again.

"After all," I say reasonably, "talking to God?"

"He never said he talked to God," Becky whips back. "He just said war was a crime against God."

"And how would he have 'known' that, if he hadn't been talking to God, hmm?" I ask.

"From reading all the great religious texts," she says.

"Well, there's only one great religious text," I reply, "and is not anti-war! God loves this country. He would never say anything disparaging about war. That's crazy talk, that is! That boy is lucky the authorities recognized his mental illness and didn't just shoot him for refusing to defend his country."

For some reason, Becky is crying. It must be the madness, but I never give up hope.

"I just don't want them to take you away, darling," I say. "They'll lock you up."

"Worse than this, you mean?" she sobs.

"Um, yes, I'm afraid. Worse than this."

"And why would they do that?" she asks, not for the first time.

"You know that," I fidget uncomfortably. "It's because of the crazy things you say."

"That we have too much money and ought to give what we don't need to the poor?" She certainly has an obstinate streak.

"Shhhh!!!" I cry. "Someone might hear you! That's as bad as that other crazy friend of yours who thinks people shouldn't have to pay for medical treatment! Do you want to be locked up like she is?"

Becky is smiling now, as if she gets a joke that no one else can even hear. I have to be patient. I know she can't help it.