I am by no means a sentimental person. I do not allow myself to waste time with magical thinking. We cannot change the past. All we can control is this moment. Wishing, longing, and bargaining do no good. I do, however, find myself imagining that Wilson Hicks was alive now so that I could tell him all of this. I imagine him lighting a cigarette, listening carefully, his head cocked to the side in that thoughtful way he had, as I describe the adrenaline rush that came over me when I learned who my new client was, that he happened to come from that same poor family Dr. Hicks and I spent months, years, gathering information on. And I do believe that Wilson Hicks is the only one who could truly understand the significance of all that has transpired since that first meeting with D.P.
I had the opportunity to question D.P. about his family during my intake meeting with him. He never met his maternal great-grandfather, William, who died five years before D.P. was born. The cause was a self-inflicted gunshot wound, shortly after his diagnosis with metastatic liver cancer.
D.P. lived with his wife and two daughters in a two-bedroom trailer on rented land. When I did my home visit, I discovered the conditions were truly squalid. No running water. An outhouse. Windows layered in plastic wrap to keep the cold wind out. D.P.’s wife was an unattractive woman who had not passed seventh grade. She too was an alcoholic and used drugs, primarily amphetamines.
Their older daughter, 14, was a juvenile delinquent. She rarely attended school, sniffed glue and gasoline, drank alcohol, was sexually active, and frequently ran away from home.
The second child was a girl of 8. And somehow, in this child, this girl, I sensed possibility. She was small for her age, quite pale, with filthy hands and face, tangled hair. But in her eyes, I saw something—a spark. A hint of intelligence; of promise.
I instantly knew she was the perfect candidate for the next phase of the Mayflower Project.
There are moments in research, breakthrough moments, where an answer seems to suddenly appear after years of toil. Meeting this child was one of those moments.
I asked D.P. to bring his wife and daughters to our sessions, telling him that family therapy was part of his treatment. After the initial group session, I explained that I felt the younger of the two girls was in need of one-on-one therapy. D.P. complained, said he didn’t see the need and that he couldn’t take time off from work to shuttle the girl to any appointments. I offered to pick her up on my own and warned that I didn’t want to have to take my concerns for the girl’s well-being to the state authorities. “An intervention now could make all the difference,” I assured him. “And I’d be able to report to your probation officer that you are compliant with all areas of suggested treatment.”
At last he agreed. And so I began to pick her up from school weekly, taking her out to get doughnuts—what child can resist a sweet?—building trust.
As I got to know this child, I became certain that she was the one I’d been looking for.
What if I could take her, this poor unfortunate creature, and give her a new self, a new life?
Raise her up from the filth and squalor, reshape her.
I looked at this child with her dark eyes, body too skinny from poor nutrition, and I knew she would truly be a pilgrim of a sort. A traveler entering new and sacred lands.
But first, as with any true pilgrim, she would need to leave her old world behind. To sever all ties to her previous life.
I began to formulate a plan and, in time, to implement it.
Fortunately, the girl proved very easy to influence. I began an intensive regimen of programming and hypnotic suggestion.
* * *
IT WAS A fire that killed them. Not technically the fire itself, but smoke inhalation.
D.P. and his wife were too soaked in cheap vodka to wake. The older girl was in her room, most likely too high or drunk herself to know what was happening.
Patient S—the little girl with a book of matches in her pocket and kerosene-stained hands—was never found.