A Night at RV - Part 1

Andy and I, however, have been spending most of our time at RV Hospital, meeting with Sierra's doctors and therapist.

Ever since Sierra was diagnosed, I've been wracking my brain in a vain attempt to figure out just exactly when it all started to go wrong for her.

And I can't remember.  

It's like, one day she was a perfectly normal kid...

... with whom I had a very close relationship because we were a lot alike as kids....

...and the next day, when I woke up, she was a sullen, angry, belligerent monster with absolutely no regard for anyone.  

We were constantly fighting because she was constantly getting into trouble, skipping school, getting into fights, you name it, she was doing.  As bad as my sons were, and for them in retrospect it was more mischief than criminal, Sierra is about twenty times worse. 

 

I didn't even recognize her.  I didn't know who she was.  She was not my little girl anymore.  Between the black clothes and the technicolor hair and the shitty attitude, it was like "The Invasion of the Body Snatchers" had replaced my daughter with an impostor.

The night of her high school prom, she announced to the family that she was a lesbian.  

I think she fully expected us to react.  We didn't.  And the truth is, I kind of knew.

After she was remanded to Fort Starch following a brutal beating of a fellow classmate that was posted online, she continued to push the envelope, posting pictures of herself experimenting with fireworks in her dorm room.  

Then she was accused of hacking into Fort Starch's classified computer network, a charge she denies.  

Because of Sierra's high SUAT test scores, she began taking college courses and eventually was enrolled in Sims University's honors program, the same program AJ and Sage were admitted into.

I went with her to the three-day orientation where she dropped a bombshell on me:  She claimed to have been abducted by aliens as a very young teen.

Then, as time went on, her behavior got stranger, culminating in an arrest on campus for vandalism.  

Which leads us to where we are now. 

The four of us -- me, Andy, Sierra, and Dr. Bill, her therapist -- sat in a dimly lit conference room at Rudolph Vanderburg hospital.  Andy and I were on one side, Sierra and Dr. Bill on the other.

 

  

 

Sierra was seated directly facing us.  Her hair, naturally the same color as mine, had long been chopped short, and she'd inherited my dad's deep blue eyes.  Her face was completely devoid of any expression.  It was catatonic, as if her entire humanity had been ripped away from her. 

First he began to talk about the journal entries she'd turned in to his fellow counselor and assistant, Ms. Simpson.  

"Mr. and Mrs. Cheesman, I've been reading your daughter's journals -- I have to say, this is a deeply disturbed girl."

Andy and I looked at each other.  "I know," I whispered to him, but Dr. Bill heard me.

"Yes," he replied almost angrily, "This child is in a very dark place.  She talks about getting pleasure from beating up other kids.  She talks about wanting so badly to take out her frustrations on someone.  She talks about her purported abduction with clarity, as if it happened yesterday -- and then there's a plan for an advanced robotic creature."

"Advanced robotic creature?"

"She says that where she went she saw these advanced robotic creatures and she wanted to try to build one of her own.  She says she thinks about her abduction all the time.  She also wants to write a science fiction story."

Sierra wants to write sci-fi?

"That's not all your daughter said, Mrs. Cheesman.  She said that growing up she always knew she was 'different."

"What do you mean?"

"She says she never 'felt' like other girls, she hated dolls and dresses.  She wonders if she should have been born a boy.  She's a very angry young woman.  What we need to do is find an outlet for all that pent-up frustration."