Chapter 3

To be perfectly honest, I was at somewhat of an impasse at that point. Everything I had learned meshed with Bob's story. His memory of seeing "Santa" making love with his mother had to be a dream or hallucination, of course, but it was still real in his own mind. And facts and circumstances in his life tended to support his irrational beliefs. I could understand that, since my own thoughts had been hijacked by this troubling concept.

The real problem wasn't that Bob believed in Santa. That's a relatively benign delusion to have, never mind those social service agencies Bob had mentioned that think believing in Santa is harmful to the psyche. But this new facet of Santa's proposed existence was something that, for some at least, would turn him into a nightmare instead of a jolly, generous, friendly sort of fellow.

As I thought more and more about Bob, I decided that the challenge was to bring some rationality back to his perception about children born in September. For that, I would need facts that would offset his hypothesis of who fathered September's children. If I could counter his statistics, perhaps I could refute his analysis and bring him to see that it was a simple obsession, based on erroneous interpretation of incomplete data. Once he saw that, he would have the anchor from which to begin changing his beliefs. At best he'd come to grips with the fact that we all have to give up Santa sooner or later, regardless of how much we wish he was real. At worst Bob could still believe in Santa, but that belief just wouldn't be so dark.

Just like that, as happens so often in this business, I had a plan.

The problem with my plan was that the facts on which he based his analysis proved to be accurate, as best I could determine. My research disclosed sources of information I had no reason to suspect as faulty. Much of it came from web sites that dealt with hunger, or pediatric illnesses. The census might not be exactly correct, but it's not off by a huge margin, and there was no reason to suspect it was wrong concerning birth rates. The same was true of sources of information outside the United States, though some of them might be tainted by political issues.

I ignored Bob's data on Santa Claus. I wasn't going to give any credence to that part of his fantasy at all. But the truth is by the time I had mined the available data about births in September, and by irrevocable connection, conceptions in December, I didn't have anything to refute his obsession with.

I admit I got a bit desperate.

That's why I began collecting anecdotal evidence. I know what you're thinking. Anecdotal evidence is all but worthless in the scientific process, other than to produce questions to answer using scientific method. But it was all I had left. I tried to collect the data and treat it on a scientific basis, but I admit the pool was small, in terms of a statistical study. Still, since I was using my own friends and acquaintances rather than selecting specific test subjects, it stood to reason that any information I got could be considered truly random

For most people, going around asking everyone you know how old their children are and when they were conceived is a prescription for getting odd or even hostile looks. But as a psychiatrist, explaining that I was dealing with an odd case and was trying to get a broader view of things was usually enough to get me anything I wanted in the personal information arena.

The odd thing was that it turned out I knew a lot of people whose children were born in September. It was astonishing, really, and a bit unnerving by the time I had exhausted the pool of people I felt I could interrogate on that kind of level.

What was unnerving was that, once I had collected all the data on all the children and when each was born, it ended up that children born in September represented 18.635% of all the children in my little study.

Think about that for a second. If you have a hundred children, born over a twelve month period, it comes out to a little over eight percent per month if distributed evenly. But my statistics showed a figure over ten percent higher than that for September children!

I thought about how my information pool was restricted to people much like myself, and toyed with the idea that certain social classes might have some as yet unidentified preferance for mating in December. But my little group, which included two black couples, an Asian couple and a Mexican woman who was the single mother of three, was diverse enough that I couldn't quite cement that in my mind.

I stared at the results of my analysis, and knew immediately there was nothing there I could refute Bob's obsession with. If anything what I had done supported his abnormal beliefs.

I thought about asking for a consult from a few other doctors, but decided not to. For one thing I suspected other doctors would laugh at this particular obsession. I would become known as "The Santa Doctor," or worse "The doctor who killed Santa." Besides, once anyone found out that I had done an obviously flawed and unprofessional study, I knew I'd lose support and respect among my peers.

So I was stuck, and I was running out of time.

I called the judge and went out on a limb. I told him that Bob could, indeed, understand the charges against him, but that there were issues that would influence his defense. I added that I had no reason to believe that Bob was dangerous to anyone. I knew that would start the wheels of justice rolling again, but I hoped I might come up with something that could be used in his defense by the time his case actually got to trial.

That was when I realized that I was too close to this case. I wasn't supposed to take sides. All I was supposed to do was produce a diagnosis and, if appropriate, a treatment plan. What happened in court was something I was supposed to be divorced from. When the judge thanked me, and said my services were no longer needed, I must admit I heaved a sigh of relief. I felt a little badly about telling Bob's sister I would try to help him, and that was why I decided to keep an eye on his case. I suspected he'd be ordered into psychiatric care, particularly if he explained his actions in court. At least I could share with his future doctor, whoever that was, what I had learned.

The only problem I had after that was that Bob's case had gotten under my skin.

One day, while I should have been listening to a patient's long and admittedly boring recitation of every wrong that anyone she could think of had ever committed against her, I got an idea. Sadly, it wasn't an idea about what to do with the paranoid woman on my couch. It was about Bob instead.

While the data I'd gathered wasn't useful for dissuading Bob from his erroneous interpretations of the data he collected, I had a number of mothers at my disposal who had given birth to September children. And that meant I had a number of mothers at my disposal who could tell me why they conceived in December. It was simple and, I thought, almost brilliant. True, there were only eight, which is a small number no matter how you look at it, but if I could present their rationalization as to why they chose December to become pregnant, it might at least put a chink in the armor of Bob's belief.

I did get some odd looks when I went back to these women the second time. I thought it might be safe to share a little anonymous information with them, to get me off the "weirdo hook," as it were, so I explained that I had a patient (tiny falsehood) who wanted to have a child, but who was paralyzed by trying to determine the best time to conceive. That last was a rather larger falsehood, but I felt justified in perpetrating it, which probably should have alerted me that it was perhaps time to seek treatment myself.

Of course I had to ask about all the children of the eight couples who had one or more children born in September or October, and why the date of the other children's conception had been planned, but that still only represented eighteen children in all, so it wasn't too onerous a task to get the information on the ten of them I was actually interested in.

If only I had let things lie, where I had left them with the judge.

I scheduled all the interviews for a Saturday, so I'd have the whole day to knock them out. I have changed the names, of course, but here is what I found out:

Melanie and Roger had two children, one of which was born in September. They explained that they wanted children three years apart, and that once Susan was well into her terrible twos, Melanie went off birth control. That was it. They let nature take it's course and Melanie became pregnant again during the holidays. She smiled and said "We've always called her our Christmas baby, because missing my period in January was such a gift to us."

Juanita, the single mother in the group, was a former patient of mine who I had treated for depression. The depression was related to her inability to find a man who she could both fall in love with and respect. She found it easy to fall in love. The respect part came harder, which was why her history was full of men who loved her and left her, as they say. It was also full of children whose fathers left them as well. Two of her three children were born in September, but at the time I had been treating her, she had'nt had them yet. Part of her treatment had revolved around the fact that she thought if she let a man get her pregnant, he would act responsibly, and bond to her. I thought we had dealt with that issue. The additional two children gave me pause about that.

Technically she wasn't an active patient, though I had kept in touch with her after her depression was dealt with, and had adjusted the dosages of her medications a couple of times. The latest had been downward and when I interviewed her to find out when her children were born I had told her it was just a follow-up to see if she was doing all right. She had said she was fine, and I had simply asked when her other two children had been born. It was an opening for her to re-engage about any problems she was having. She recognized it as an opening too, but insisted that the two she'd had since then had been because she wanted them. I hadn't asked her to expand on that at the time.

She seemed a little embarrassed when I came back the second time and asked for more details on her children. I assured her it was just to help this "other woman" decide when to have a child.

She blushed, but spoke. "Ees little embarrassing," she said in her lovely Hispanic accent. "I was doing what jew tole me to ... jew know, being picky about the men, except that I love to go to the Chreesmas party every year. An I always drink too much tequila, and dance with so many men..." She looked at me, clearly hoping I wouldn't judge her for losing control.

"That has happened to many women, Juanita," I said. "Maybe you need to go to a different party, where there are different men."

"I deed!" she yipped. "The next year I went to a nice party at Meez Sorenson's house, where I clean for her. There was no tequila, only wine. An I doan remember even haffing sex around then, but ... here come Esmerelda!"

"Oh," I said, feeling unnerved by her anguish. "That's too bad."

"Oh I not depressed," she assured me. "I love all my cheeldren. They make me so happy. My seester, she no have any babies yet, and she helps me take care of them sometimes. She ask if I half another one maybe she can adopt eet, but I tell her no way. I mean I not wanting another one, but I'm doing hokay. I doan think any man weel want me now anyway, so I geeve all my love to my babies."

Linda and Frank were next on my list. Frank wasn't there, having gone golfing, but Linda said she'd field any questions I had. They had three children, the eldest born in early October. When I asked her why they'd chosen December to get pregnant she laughed.

"We got married on Christmas Eve. We basically skipped Christmas with the family that year. He didn't let me out of bed for a week."

Lois and Bill explained that they had planned all of their children based on Lois's teaching job. She took a year off each time she had a child, so they tried to get pregnant such that the timing would make the child a year old when she went back to school. It had worked two out of the three times.

For Jill and Terry, who had one child (born in September) with another about halfway along, it was a completely different story.

"I wanted a baby, but Bill said we weren't ready," said Jill. "We got into huge fights about it."

"Then, without telling me, she went off the pill," said Bill, though his tone wasn't angry.

"I did not!" she said, only slightly agitated.

"This argument has been going on ever since then," said Bill smiling. "She insists she was on the pill when she got pregnant."

"I was," Jill insisted. "That was a horrible Christmas, because we were fighting so much. Remember how many times you slept on the couch? But I wouldn't just stop taking the pill without your agreement," she complained.

"I thought we weren't going to bring this up again," said Bill.

"The pill isn't always effective," I said, trying to soothe the situation.

"That's not what he means," said Jill.

Bill said he was thirsty and got up, asking if anybody else wanted anything. He left the room.

"What he was alluding to," said Jill, "is that because we were fighting so much, we didn't have sex for almost all of December. I kept begging with him to let me get pregnant, but he insisted we weren't ready. When I did turn up pregnant, and we figured out the timing, it looked to him like I had cheated on him. But I didn't!"

"We got over it," said Bill, coming back into the room with a tray of drinks. He had obviously overheard some of her comments to me. "One look at Larry, with my hair and the same birthmark I have convinced me I was being a fool."

"I'll drink to that," said Jill, raising her glass and finally smiling again.

Serena and Louis had identical twins born in September. Louis was playing golf with Frank, but Serena invited me in when I explained what I was asking for.

"It was kind of funny," said Serena, offering me coffee, which I declined. "Frank just wanted to get me pregnant, and he had this fantasy about twins. He'd get all horny," she blushed, but went on, "and then, while we were ... um ... doing it ... he'd tell me he was going to knock me up with twins. I thought it was cute, because he was so pathetic about it. I think it made him feel macho to say things like that."

"But then you had twins," I said, smiling.

"That's the odd part," she said. "There's nothing in either of our family histories that would suggest we could even have twins."

"Oh," I said, somewhat taken aback.

"He was so proud when we found out," she said. "And other than the fact that it caused me to swear off ever getting pregnant again, I'm glad it happened. I mean they're so special. But it's a puzzle."

Lizette and Randy, like Melanie and Roger, had just wanted to have children and went about letting nature decide when it would happen.

"Mariah came along fine," said Lizette. The girl, now seven or eight, was sitting on her mother's lap and beamed, as if she were responsible for being born. Her mother didn't seem to notice though, and went on. "She was born in May, and that was nice because by the time I was ready to take her out, the weather was really nice.