“Your son was depressed,” the coroner said.
“He had a psychiatrist’s phone number in his wallet,” the coroner said.
“The police told me the alcohol in the orange juice was fermentation.”
The cancer and the chemo and the grief coalesced into a knot of bile.
–Pieter, age seven, September 1986
He denied having even the usual fears and anxieties of childhood. He drew some pictures that were barren and without people. This boy seems to have a serious disorder impairing his reality testing capacity. –psychiatric consultation, Northern Suburban Special Education District, March 1987
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
The news was devastating but not inconceivable. The family had watched Pieter’s uncle struggle with schizophrenia for years. Nevertheless, Mary-Anne thought the diagnosis hinged on some rather slim evidence. Pieter’s sister Mimi never watched cartoons either. And Pieter did have normal childhood fears–he hated going down to the basement alone, for example. Mary-Anne vacillated between trusting the opinion of a professional and trusting her own instincts. She remembered the psychiatrist in South Africa who had been so troubled when Pieter drew his family as plants. At the time Mary-Anne had been unwilling to delve for meaning in a crayon sketch of smiling flowers. Now, however, a second doctor was insisting that her son’s drawings indicated a psychological problem. Just how well did she know her son?
