At home, a sense of liberation comes over me: I am in control, my decisions are final. I purge: Bags of clothing, boxes of dishes and toys, are hauled to the thrift store; a broken chair is deposited at the dump.

When the garage is cleared, I move on to the extra bedroom, the one that was always intended for the other child I didn’t have, and since the Departure, for houseguests that don’t visit, but which has always actually been the room where junk and clutter can accumulate behind a door that can be closed when people come over.

Huge bags of clothing sit in piles against the wall, and I open each bag to sort the contents, I discover clothing I bought just a few weeks earlier; these are the things that have been tried on and discarded each morning, over and over until we’re both late, and it dawns on me that maybe her endless changes of clothing weren’t a deliberate effort to make me late. Maybe she really is so lost that she suddenly hates things that she loved just a short time before.

On Tuesday, The Child begins taking Prozac, and that evening, we sit in a small room together, away from the din, building a castle out of moon sand. She tells me about her new friends: the homeless kid, the drug addict, the one who wakes up screaming at night. She doesn’t seem unhappy, though she misses her bed and her friends.

She wants to know how much longer she will stay.

I don’t know; it’s beyond my control. Even if it weren’t, I need time to make the house safe for you.

She says, I’m not going to kill myself, you know. She’s sarcastic, but quieter than before, the sharp edge slightly worn away.

I don’t know that. We just have to see what the doctors say.

I visit The Child that evening. I bring her clothes, but am not allowed to give them to her: Everything must be given to the front desk, where it is labeled, then inspected by the staff, and only then, turned over to the patients. I think I am being prudent, leaving behind the psychology book she has requested, but I’ve overlooked the string in the waistband of her sweatpants, so I have to bring her more pants the following evening.

I have to know a code word, and show ID, and be photographed, and put my handbag into a locker, and then be escorted by a guard to the East Wing, where the teen psychiatric patients are.

It is extraordinarily noisy, and institutional, and in need of fresh paint. The Child sits on a ledge in the back of a room full of teens and as she walks over to me, she looks dazed, shell shocked, exhausted.

I ask, How’s it going?

How long do I have to stay here?

That’s beyond my control, I tell her.

I don’t belong here, she says: These people have real problems.

We talk for a few more minutes, about how she was awakened at 4am for a blood draw, how the blood draw went wrong and now her arm is bruised and hurts, how her phone was confiscated on her arrival. She wants to see her boyfriend, but I’ve been told no one under 18 is allowed in.

She insists I am wrong, that he can visit if he comes with me, so I question the nurse on duty amidst the noisy throng of teens, and she is firm: No one under 18 is allowed to visit.

The Child argues for a few moments, and I start to tell her I’ll ask again tomorrow, but before I can finish she turns away and walks down the battered hallway to her dormitory.

I’m not worried when I leave; she can’t hurt herself here.