An excerpt from
Simon's Story

The rain had not been forecast. It was teeming and I was having difficulty finding my newly assigned parking place in the construction zone when my headlights picked up a drenched child moving in and out among the parked cars. I drove carefully, watching for an adult to rein him in. He did not seem to be aware that I was so close. I tooted my horn and lowered my window.

“Hi, there, are you looking for someone? Can I help you?” He just stood there dripping, mutely shaking his head. “Wait there while I park and we’ll get out of the rain together, OK?”  He did as he was told, mostly because he seemed not to have any kind of plan and was relieved to have someone take charge.

“I’m Grace Tooley, who are you?” I asked while walking him in the direction of the campus infirmary and child-care center. Again, he said nothing though he reached up and took my hand. I explained where I was taking him and why.

I could not think what to do with the child other than to get him inside some place dry and in the care of people who would handle the situation, at least for the moment. I was due to moderate a panel discussion in a very few minutes. I would check back later.

A social worker appeared, grabbed a big towel and went for some hot cocoa from a machine. The little boy looked up at me and asked if I would come back. I assured him I would. At least he was not a mute…just scared and confused.

I rushed to the auditorium, shrugged off my rain-cape and took my place at the lectern. As the moderator for the evening, I came first.

“There is nothing nice about divorce,” I began. “Relief is only the rebound from the tension which precedes the final break-up. The sudden release makes a person giddy—at times euphoric. The fear and anxiety which follow is both unexpected and confounding—no matter your therapist has warned you as you sought divorce counseling.”

 I stopped there. The audience let out a collective sigh. Luckily, I had hit the right note for openers. As chief of the psychiatric service lecturing first year residents, I had a big job. It was immensely useful to get their attention at the start of each session.

“To continue, the format for this evening will be as outlined last week. There will be four presenters. Each will have a maximum of fifteen minutes to give an overview of his or her case, noting the salient points directly applicable to the Law of Unintended Consequences as it affects divorce--the topic under scrutiny this evening. A question and answer period will follow each presentation.. Total time for each case will be thirty minutes. We will take a fifteen-minute break after the first two presentations and then plunge on. If the topic is of sufficient interest to you, I will be glad to schedule further time as a group or individually.

“Now to the first case: Dr. Needham, are you ready to begin?”

At the break, I realized I had been only half listening. The rest of my thoughts were on the young child I had so unceremoniously left to the tender mercies of a social worker. I headed to a quiet spot down the hall, pulled out my cell phone and called the infirmary for a check on what was found out about the boy. Satisfied that he was still there and quite co-operative, I felt more comfortable about continuing with my seminar. I would skip the after session re-hash and get straight over to him and evaluate the situation as best I could. Thus far, no one had the story on what had happened and so opted to wait for me, the child psychiatrist, to take over.