PART I:
THE GHOST
1
The girl cut herself.
With a knife, most likely—a paring knife or steak knife pilfered from the kitchen when her parents weren’t around—or maybe she used a pair of scissors already in her bedroom, opening them up and then pressing the tip of one of the blades against her skin.
It was one of the things I would eventually get to, but not today. Today was the girl’s first appointment. An intake, really. All I had was the referral that had been sent from the psychiatric inpatient facility where she’d been for eight days. It didn’t include much information. Her name: Chloe Kitterman. Her age: thirteen. The reason she’d been admitted: cut her wrists with suicidal ideations. The aftercare recommendation: continue med management and start outpatient therapy. Which was what had brought Chloe and her mother to my office today.
Still, even without the discharge summary, I might have guessed Chloe was a cutter. She had that look to her. Thin and petite. Long red hair. A splash of freckles on her face. Her fingernails painted black. But none of that keyed me in to her penchant for cutting.
It was her clothes. She sat on the black pleather couch beside her mother, staring down at her phone. She wore faded low-rise jeans, sneakers, and a gray Hollister hoodie.
It was late April, and the temperature outside had just tipped over eighty degrees. Way too hot for a hoodie. She was trying to hide the cuts on her arms.
Her mother, Mrs. Kitterman, seemed to have perfected her role as a trophy wife. She was in her late forties but looked much younger, her face smooth and bright without the hint of a wrinkle. Her sandy-brown hair perfectly coiffed. Either she ate next to nothing or exercised every day, probably with an extra session of yoga. The diamond on her finger was so big I was surprised she managed to lift her hand without assistance. Her husband probably brought in a hefty six-figure salary; she dressed like she bought all her clothes from Neiman Marcus. Her cotton chinos, block-heel dress sandals, cotton Henley shirt—her wardrobe today alone had to cost more than I made in a week, and that didn’t count the leather Hermès bag she had propped between herself and her daughter.
The woman had been droning on ever since they’d entered my office. Saying how all this was very new to them. Saying how nobody in her family had ever needed therapy before. Was her daughter supposed to lie on the couch and tell me about her feelings like they do on TV? On and on she went, lamenting how terrible life was now because of her daughter’s depression, while Chloe sat quietly beside her, her gaze glued to the screen of her phone.
At one point, Mrs. Kitterman stopped midsentence, as if suddenly realizing where she was and to whom she was offering up such private information. She glanced around the cramped room—the walls mostly bare, only spotted with the occasional framed motivational poster—and then glanced at her daughter. She spotted the phone and gave a heavy sigh.
“Chloe, I thought I told you to put that away.”
Chloe didn’t answer, kept staring down at the phone. Her thumbs moved across the screen in the strange choreography known only to teenagers.
“Chloe, don’t make me tell you again.”
A second ticked by with no response, and then Chloe issued a heavy sigh of her own and slammed the phone down on the arm of the couch before hugging her arms across her chest.
Mrs. Kitterman stared at her daughter, then shook her head and rolled her eyes at me.
“I mean it, I have no idea what’s going on with this girl. She’s just . . . different. She used to be happy. I used to be able to have conversations with her. Now all she ever gives me is attitude.”
My cell phone vibrated on my desk, two quick buzzes, signaling a text message.
Ignoring it, I nodded at Mrs. Kitterman to continue.
She frowned at me. “You’re younger than I expected.”
“I’m twenty-eight.”
“So you haven’t been doing this very long.”
Her tone suggested that I lacked the necessary experience to work with her daughter. Which in a way was true. I’d been working full-time as a therapist for only four years. Some of the other therapists at Safe Haven Behavioral Health had been working full-time for decades.
“If you’d like Chloe to see another therapist, I can certainly make that referral. From what I understand, though, you requested me specifically.”
The woman’s perfectly shaped nose wrinkled at this suggestion.
“Well, not you specifically, but yes, you were recommended by the therapist at the inpatient facility. She was young, too, and she thought Chloe might be able to open up to somebody who’s not so much . . . older.”
She said it dismissively, like she couldn’t begin to fathom why her daughter wouldn’t be able to connect with someone three times her age.
I forced a smile. “Again, if you’d like Chloe to see someone else, I can make that referral.”
“No, you don’t have to do that. But it’s just—” She paused, spotting the ring on my finger. “Are you married?”
“Engaged.”
I looked down when I said it. My diamond was much smaller than Mrs. Kitterman’s.
“So you don’t have any children.”
She said this almost judgmentally, like I was expected to have at least two kids at home right now being taken care of by an au pair.
I told her I did not.
“Then how—” She waved her hands around as if hoping to pluck the right word from the air. “How are you supposed to help my daughter?”
“Mrs. Kitterman, I’ve worked with many girls Chloe’s age since I graduated from college.”
“And you’ve helped them all?”
“No.”
She seemed to flinch at the bluntness of my response.
“No? Then why should my daughter waste her time seeing you?”
She was being combative, which was to be expected. This was new to her. She was scared, uncertain what would come next. I didn’t blame her.
“Mrs. Kitterman, you have to understand: therapy is not an exact science. There are many factors involved besides me and your daughter. There’s you and your husband and all the students at Chloe’s school and any friends she might have outside of school. I can’t promise we’ll establish a connection immediately, and any therapist who will promise you that is not a therapist I would recommend your daughter see.”
The woman stared at me, clearly flummoxed by my answer. Maybe she’d expected me to be more servile, since I was the one being paid.
On the desk, my phone vibrated with another text message. Again, I ignored it and kept my focus on Chloe’s mom.
“Mrs. Kitterman, I think I should make it clear that my role here is not to work for you or your daughter. My role is to work with your daughter. Does that make sense?”
She nodded. It was slight, almost imperceptible, but she nodded.
“This is our first session,” I said. “In fact, it’s not even a session—it’s an intake. I’m listening and gathering information. Assuming you would like Chloe to see me, I would typically only meet with her one-on-one.”
Mrs. Kitterman looked stricken by this idea, but then she shook her head.
“This is all new to us. I’ve never even known someone who needs therapy, let alone my own daughter.”