Who was she? Without an answer to that question, Patient Jane Doe 22 would be doomed to live out her days in the psychiatric ward.
Vera rearranged the pictures on her desk. These crudely drawn images were the only clues to Jan Doe's identity. She hadn't spoken since her involuntary commitment.
They'd found her wandering in a wash near Las Vegas Boulevard. She carried nothing--no luggage, no ID. No hint as to why she was there, or who she was.
The pictures she drew were richly symbolic. Themes repeated in a world askew, vivid dreamscapes that could hold the key to her identity.
Vera picked up a picture--a map, perhaps, of J.D.'s psyche.
There is a fixation in almost all the pictures, on children, and menace.
Vera picked up another picture, a grotesque juxtaposition of elements.
Gradually, clues began to fit together. The woman's memories were not from the Vegas area. Judging by the flora, likely she'd lived in a farm community. Maybe in the Northeast, or Northwest.
What had happened to her? What had shattered her connection to reality?
Vera picked up another picture.
A child trapped in a pit. And man atop, hovering, sinister.
J. D. was seated in the corner of her room. She could always be found by the window, staring at a solitary tree that had survived decades of property renovations.
"Hello," Vera said, as she sat across from J.D. "Is it alright if I sit here?"
J.D. held her gaze on the window view.
"I've brought someone with me today."
Vera looked over her shoulder and signaled a figure in the doorway to come forward. It was a cleric, with a black robe and collar. This might be a breakthrough. The one picture that had been repeated more than any other, with precise detail, had a religious theme.
"You! Get out! Get out!"
The shrieks echoed down the hall. They escalated until an attendant came and medicated the distraught woman.
That night Vera redoubled her efforts to discover J.D.'s identity. She examined the pictures with the compelling new clue: something terrible had happened at a church or that involved a church. As disastrous as the afternoon had been, this was a wedge, an entry point into the puzzle of J.D.'s mind.
Vera looked at a picture that had no children, but had an ethereal quality. A cat sleeping on an open well.
Something about the well, and the way the cat was perched precipitously near the opening caught Vera's attention.
She resolved the next day to visit J.D., if the hospital would let her in. She'd bring the pictures, and start talking about them.
It was five weeks later that the first smile appeared on J.D.'s face. Vera was holding a picture. A surreal impression of a vine-covered tree.
"This is a beautiful tree, but I've never actually seen one like this. It's almost as though it came from a fairy tale," Vera chatted, without expecting a response.
That's when J.D. smiled. And talked.
"Of course it's not real. It's a cat, like the Cheshire Cat, in a tree. It's a magic place."
Then she started to weep.
Vera rose to call an attendant. But J.D. stopped her.
"No. No more numbing. I have to be here. I have to go back and bear witness. No more hiding. There are those who must be held to account. If I don't go back, no one will ever know. Let me see my pictures. Let me see my children. It's all I have left of them."
She held the pictures gently, and tears flowed. Over the weeks that followed, her story emerged.
She had six children. They struggled to make ends meet. One of the children fell ill. Then she fell ill. Food was scarce, as was her husband. The family tried to warm the house with a kerosene heater.
One morning J.D. woke. But the children did not. They lay peacefully in their beds, their mouths open as they struggled for air in the deepest of sleeps. The heater had malfunctioned and poisoned them with carbon monoxide.
She left her home that day, and took nothing with her. How did she make it to Nevada? She didn't know. How long had she been wandering? She didn't know.
But she was ready to return now, to hold her husband to account. To hold the priest to account who had told her marriage vows tied her to that husband forever, no matter the circumstances. The story might not be important to anyone, but it would be told. For her children.
Vera asked, "What will you do once you have told your story?"
"What is there for me? I cannot look beyond the story."
J.D.--now with a name, Maricia-- was getting ready to leave, packing her possessions. Maricia's story had touched more than one heart at the precinct house. They took up a collection so she'd have a ticket home and some cash to travel with.
Maricia turned to Vera.
"I have something for you. One of the last pictures I drew. Keep it for me. My sweet child, at a happy time."
I drew them digitally. Parts of some pictures have appeared elsewhere, but not in this form. These were recreated to fit the story line.
Thank you for spending time with me
