Chapter 15: Tumbling Down

As he, Cheri, and Rebecca waited outside Dr. Li's office, Tony reflected back on the first half of the week. Some progress had been made, at least on the personnel front. They had interviewed two candidates for the wheelchair rehab position and settled on George 'Go-Go' Collins. George was quite the character and didn't exactly have a perfect arrest record. He assured Tony and Tina that his moonshining (from where he got the nickname, not a certain type of nightclub) days had been over for some thirty years now. He put his skills to use repairing automobiles and eventually moving on to body work instead of building hot-rods trying to outrun the "revenuers". Now in his sixties with a wife and a brood of grandchildren, he wasn't likely to revert to his old ways. His unofficial adoption of Tina as another grandchild was completed by the first half of the interview and Tony, while he liked Go-Go as well, wasn't going to oppose her decision. She loved the old coot from the second she laid eyes on him.

The other position was even easier. Chrissie's mother Alice had all the skills to run an office, including some computer skills. She was so fascinated and in awe of Tammy's Wheels and the work they did that she offered to quit her job and take a pay cut to work with the charity. Tony made sure that she didn't have to actually take a cut in pay. It was a little more than they had budgeted for, but then they got a lot more than they expected.

Not everything went so well. The conversation with Anita didn't go well for Tony, or Anita for that matter. The circular logic still made his head hurt when he thought about it. If he could take Cheri with him, he could take Anita. If it's unfair to leave Tina then we just take her too. Same for Rebecca if that's what she wants. We'll all just pack off and go to college with Tony. If Tony was responsible for Cheri then why couldn't he be responsible for her as well? The concept of abuse or fear of authority or any such thing didn't penetrate her mind at all, but abandonment? She was sure Tony wasn't ever coming back and that was unacceptable.

One thing that Tony learned for sure was that while he was comfortable with Cheri, he was in no way competent to have the permanent care of a twelve-year-old mind. He vowed to talk to his parents. If it was this bad a full nine months before he would actually leave, it was only going to get worse. In the end, Anita was just going to have to be dictated to with a firm no. He could get around anything with a logical discussion with Cheri. Where Cheri was a few years older she also probably had at least a near-genius level IQ. Anita was a bright, emotional girl firmly in the grips of early puberty and logic just didn't work well with her.

Tina, on the other hand, seemed to have long since resigned herself to the idea. Like Rebecca, she wasn't happy about it, but she acted like everything would be fine. Also, like Rebecca, while adopting Cheri seemed strange in the extreme she could see the logic in it.

Tony decided that right about now was a very good time to stop picking up strays. He loved all the girls, but any more he figured would put him in an early grave.

"Miss Harris, Mr. Smith, Dr. Li will see you now," the secretary's voice called from her desk.

Tony stood and looked down at Rebecca. "I'm sure she'll want to see you. Just hang on for a minute until I can explain." They shared a brief peck on the lips and Tony straightened and, putting his arm around Cheri's shoulders, headed to the psychiatrist's door. "Into the lion's den baby-girl," Tony whispered as they entered.

While not a laugh, it at least primed Cheri's face with a smile as they walked through the door. Ms. Li was a willowy oriental woman about five-seven. Not Japanese, Tony decided, probably Chinese in origin.

'"Please, please come in and have a seat," she said, motioning to a couple of comfortable looking chairs in front of her desk. Tony took the time to approach her and first shake hands and Cheri followed his lead.

While everything in the oh-so-non-threatening beige and earth tone office was perfectly in place, the desk had on it a rather thick folder. A folder Tony recognized. It was his psychiatric medical record. That didn't just put him on the defensive. It flat out pissed him off.

"Before we start Ms. Li I need to know who you are working for. Unless I'm mistaken those are my records and those could have only been released to you by my parents. If you believe yourself to be working for them we have nothing further to discuss."

"No Mr. Smith, may I call you Tony?"

"Please do."

"And you are Cheri then?"

"Cheri is fine ma'am."

"OK as to your question Tony you are correct. These are your records. Your mother sent them with specific instructions along with additional documentation. One is a medical power of attorney issued to you for your own psychiatric care and the other is a waiver of disclosure, to wit your parents may not be informed of what goes on here unless you specifically authorize it. I went to college with Carol. She simply thought I'd gain some insight into your situation if I had your file, so she sent it to me."

Tony relaxed. "Where is the fun in that Doc? You get to start out already knowing I'm nuts."

"Yep, misplaced guilt, abandonment issues, all resulting in a pretty plain case of rescue syndrome among other minor issues. Yep, you're a little nuts alright."

"Come on Doc, I was hoping for at least moderately nuts, but that's nothing I didn't know already. Please, while I'm certainly involved here my primary motivation is to seek help for Cheri."

"Oh yes," she smiled at Cheri. "If he's the rescuer, then you must be the rescued."

Cheri smiled back. "I think that's a fair description."

"OK then, tell me your story."

Cheri did. It took over half an hour for her to recall events, often with prompting by Dr. Li, from her natural father's death to the present. Tony listened quietly, carefully controlling his emotions when some of the sordid details were revealed.

"Your relationship with your real father before he died: how would you characterize that?"

"Wonderful. I was always closer to my dad than my mom."

"OK, stop right there. Tony you actually intend to adopt Cheri on your eighteenth birthday?"

"Yes, I do."

"And you think that's wise."

Tony laughed. "Wise, what is wise? I'm sure the mythical average man on the street won't think so. Is it what's best for Cheri, yes, I believe that."

"This will affect more than just you and Cheri you know?"

"Yep, and the most important one is waiting patiently outside the door. We brought her with us: my girlfriend Rebecca."

"Oh by all means, ask her in." The doctor stood and moved another chair beside Tony's while he went to the door to get Rebecca.

After a brief introduction the doctor looked briefly at Rebecca and Tony and then back at Cheri. She nodded her head. "Yes, OK. Cheri sometimes, quite often actually, a patient in your situation will transfer that gratitude that you feel is owed to Tony for helping you into romantic feelings. You and Tony are certainly affectionate to one another, but without even the slightest romantic inclination. Those two now..."

Cheri giggled, "Noticed that did ya? Tony and Rebecca are just Tony and Rebecca. What they have is off the charts."

"Where did it go? Those feelings of gratitude? Do you know?"

"I'm not sure if this is going to sound reasonable. Of course there are still a lot of those feelings for Tony. I think most of it went into trust though."

The doctor looked back at Tony. "Do you understand what she means?"

"Absolutely Doc, Cheri and I have taken to actually calling each other father and daughter, but our relationship is a bit different, it has to be. Everything is based on trust. She has to trust me implicitly for this to work. In turn, I have to trust her."

"Why is that?"

"Well you're the doc, one issue she certainly has is a fear of authority figures, male mostly, am I right?"

"Yes, I'd say that was correct. It's certainly common in abuse cases."

"Well I'm not much of an authority figure. Cheri's not afraid of me. As a matter of fact I'm the safest person in the world to her, or at least the most non-threatening male. That being said I do have that paper calling me her legal guardian in all things. A typical father-daughter relationship isn't going to work. I can't sit her down and lecture her on right and wrong or I start becoming the authority figure she fears. We can, and do talk all the time, however. I make my point from a slight advantage of years and experience and she trusts me and acts accordingly."

"What if you're wrong Tony? She trusts you to do the right thing."

"The reason I'm seldom wrong is if I don't have an answer I go find one. I have parents. Rebecca has parents. The school has counselors. I talk to them all. It's one of the reasons the judge in New Jersey trusts me with Cheri. Every time I do something like that I send them a note and wherever possible have the other party involved send one as well. I'd be stupid to try and do this in a vacuum. Cheri doesn't trust me to know all the answers. She trusts that I'll know how to find the best answer though."

Cheri was nodding. "Tony, let's see, he couches his orders to his daughter as suggestions. He doesn't jump up and down and say absolutely not! He explains why what I want to do is probably sometimes a bad idea. That makes him really more of a trusted friend than an authority figure. I know some parents that could learn from him."

"Why is that?"

"Trust, back to trust again. He builds trust all the time. I normally stay with Rebecca at her house and if for some reason he hasn't talked to me that day he calls. He finds out how I feel, asks if I need anything. He asks if there is just plain something I want that he can get for me. He makes me feel beyond cared for, he really is my dad."

Ms. Li turned back to Tony. "A girl could take advantage of that you know."

"Not Cheri. It's not just enough that she trusts me. I have to trust her as well. That's her end of the bargain right? All of this wonderful caring and loving has a price. She has to care and love back and make sure I can trust her as well. Quite frankly we both fear breaking trust with one another. We both know the whole thing comes tumbling down if we do. The consequences of that happening are quite frankly too scary to contemplate."

"That's a bit overly dramatic don't you think Tony?" the doctor asked.

Tony laughed. He reached over and tapped the file on the psychiatrist's desk. "Consequences of failure to do everything on earth to help Cheri to Tony's whackily wired brain Doc? You did read the file right? I know what's in there."

"Point taken, but for Cheri?"

"You're on baby-girl."

"I guess I'd end up back as a ward of the State of New Jersey. From there I don't know. The foster care system until I was eighteen I'd imagine. I'd be terrified no matter where I ended up."