The Long Shadow of Small Ghosts by Laura Tillman Read Free Book Online Page A

real and that these spirits might really exist. And instead of what a good parent would do—‘Look, John, these things are not real, and I’m going to help you and comfort and support you’—she encouraged him to believe that those apparitions, those delusions, had some substance.”
    Juan remembered John saying that he was going to destroy the devil. When asked in court why he didn’t tell Hilda, Juan said, “I wasn’t going to snitch on him on his mother.”
    John mailed me copies of some of his school reports from his elementary days through high school. In his request for a psychological evaluation, Coronado wrote that eight-year-old John required “constant attention in class in order for him to complete assignments.” He also exhibited low self-esteem.
    John is not motivated by rewards offered for completed work or good behavior. He seeks approval and acceptance by his peers but their interactions with him are often limited. Peers tend to avoid interactions with him. He often feels that no one cares.
    On the same form, below the question “What is the problem as the mother sees it?,” Hilda’s take is that “he is just spoiled.” His father noted John’s mood swings: “He can be happy one minute and unhappy the next.” Juan also told me that John would get angry when he didn’t get his way. The same year, his teacher reported that John had thoughts that were inappropriate to a given situation, and that his behavior could be “self-serving” and “manipulative.” He lacked social awareness and could act in ways that were “idiosyncratic” and “bizarre.” Young John was already found to show signs of pervasive depression, a term the teacher underlined.
    Coronado said that John seemed like he had potential, but the support wasn’t there in his home life to help him realize it.
    At age ten, John’s learning abilities seemed to be improving. His special-education teacher wrote that John “has made huge strides in reading this year,” “uses fluent English,” though he did not always use correct grammar, and had excellent math and science skills. But at the end of an otherwise positive report, the teacher wrote that John was a “very emotionally needy child—he often reverts to babyish behavior as a coping or attention getting behavior. Parents should be encouraged to do parent training classes. (This has not happened so far).”
    The following year, a teacher noted he had “little patience, he calls out, he gets upset when someone says anything mean or upsetting to him. He has trouble ignoring.”
    The checks to support John’s disability helped keep the family afloat. John told me that Hilda used them to pay the rent, and she sold food stamps to pay utility bills.
    In sixth grade his emotionally disturbed label was removed after he took behavioral improvement classes.
    John couldn’t remember his exact age when his parents split for good, but it was around his fourteenth year. In the past, Hilda had broken up with her husband after a particularly bad brawl, only to get back together. This time it was permanent. When John’s father came to visit, he took John to a bar and bought him a beer. John remembered waking up the next day to screaming.
    JOHN! JOHN!
    His mother was yelling for him to come help her, he wrote: Hisfather had stayed the night, too drunk to drive home, and Hilda needed John’s help to protect her from him. John said he asked his father to sleep it off or leave.
    He told me he was my dad, that he tells me what to do NOT the other way around. I told him the same thing again and he slapped me. When he slapped me in my mind I saw ALL the times he beat up on my mom, how he would tell me I was worthless and always would be worthless, and lots of other things he would say and do that were really hurtful, and I put all that hurt and anger into a