It’s been a week since Dr. Ryan saw Gypsy and her mother. He spends his lunch hour searching for Gypsy’s New Orleans physician, calling colleagues in the parish where they lived before coming to Springfield. He is about to give up when a hospital administrator reads him the number for Gypsy’s primary care physician, a Dr. John Wyatt.
He has just fifteen minutes before his next patient is scheduled. He dials Dr. Wyatt’s office, and a woman’s voice asks if he wouldn’t mind holding. Before he can answer, he’s listening to a Muzak version of Billy Joel’s “Piano Man.” He reviews the results of Gypsy’s blood work while he waits. The tests show tell-tale signs of malnutrition. Her electrolyte levels are perilously low, and she’s deficient in almost every essential vitamin. Her complete blood count, however, gives no indication of leukemia. Dr. Ryan is stumped.
“Dr. Hall’s office,” a new, more gravelly female voice says. “I apologize for the wait. How may I help you today?”
“Dr. Hall? I’m sorry, I was trying to reach Dr. Wyatt.”
“Good luck with that,” the woman says. “He retired a few months back. Last I heard he was hiking the Appalachian Trail. He’s seventy years old but still fit as a fiddle, that one.”
“I see. My name is Dr. Daniel Ryan. I’m calling from Springfield, Missouri. It seems I’ve inherited one of his patients. Would you by any chance have access to his records?”
“In my head I might. Katrina wiped out our paper trail, but I’ve been a nurse in this office going on fifteen years. Who’s your patient?”
So Dee Dee had been telling at least a partial truth: Katrina really did erase Gypsy’s medical history.
“Her name is Gypsy Rose Blancharde,” Dr. Ryan says.
“Oh, I remember Gypsy all right,” the nurse says. “How could I forget? She was here so much we thought about charging her momma rent.”
Dr. Ryan perks up: this is the first glimmer of hope in an otherwise wasted hour.
“Do you remember what Dr. Wyatt was treating Gypsy for?”
“Gosh, I’d have to say just about everything at one time or another. I remember a visit where she had high blood pressure, then another where she barely had a pulse.”
“But no specific diagnosis?”
“I know she had asthma. And eczema, maybe. That girl’s skin would flake like the devil.”
“Nothing more serious? No cancer? No autoimmune illness? No chromosomal abnormalities?”
“No sir, nothing like that. Gypsy was all symptoms and no disease.”
Dr. Ryan does his best not to sound accusatory.
“Do you know then how she wound up in a wheelchair and an oxygen mask?”
“Well, you’d have to ask Dr. Wyatt about that. Like I said, Gypsy had no shortage of things wrong with her. They just didn’t add up to any one illness.”
Dr. Ryan decides to press a little further.
“If you don’t mind my asking, what kind of physician was Dr. Wyatt?”
“Oh, he was a plain old family practitioner.”
“I guess I’m asking more about—”
“I know what you’re asking about. Dr. Wyatt wasn’t a quack, I can tell you that much. Knew his medicine inside and out. But he was…fearful.”
“Fearful?”
“Mostly, Dr. Wyatt did what he could not to get sued. Especially once the end was in sight. He wanted to get out the door without any headaches chasing after him. And no one put him on edge like that girl’s mother. She had civil court written all over her. I’m telling you this for your sake. And Gypsy’s, too.”
“I see,” Dr. Ryan says. “Thank you very much. You’ve been a big help.”
He hangs up with just a few minutes left until his next appointment. His first thought is that he would like to find this Dr. Wyatt and wring his neck. He’s certain now: Gypsy isn’t sick so much as she’s being made sick by her mother. But why? Why would any parent deliberately manufacture a sick child?
Dee Dee, he reasons, is like a stage mother gone to the opposite extreme. Instead of pressuring her daughter to be perfect, Dee Dee burdens Gypsy with debilitating illness. Instead of organizing her life around Gypsy’s auditions and classes and recitals, she organizes her life around Gypsy’s doctor visits. Like a stage mother, Dee Dee controls her daughter’s every action, but unlike a stage mother, Dee Dee has an airtight defense should Gypsy ever choose to rebel. To all appearances, Dee Dee isn’t forcing Gypsy to do anything against her will: rather, she is selflessly shepherding her daughter through the most difficult life imaginable.
Dee Dee must have worked hard to create a universe where no one would suspect that there was nothing at all wrong with Gypsy. To begin with, she would have needed to limit the witnesses—get rid of the father, if he was ever in the picture; alienate any extended family; insist on homeschooling. Later, when Gypsy was old enough to understand, she must have convinced the child herself that she was sick. She must have fabricated evidence. Poisoned Gypsy’s food so that eating came to mean nausea, vomiting; smothered her in her sleep and called it apnea; injected her with urine to stimulate infections; induced seizures with drugs or sleep deprivation.
Finally, Dee Dee would have had to convince the medical community. She likely shopped around until she found the right doctor, one who saw her as a concerned and loving parent who would gladly trade her own life for her child’s health if only such a thing were possible. A doctor who promised to rise to the challenge, find the rare diagnosis that fit Gypsy’s extraordinary range of symptoms.
By making Gypsy sick, Dee Dee had created a need that only she could fill. She’d given her life a vital purpose, a purpose that wouldn’t end once her child was grown, though it might very well end with her child’s death. At which point, Dee Dee would become a martyr.
Not that Dee Dee consciously thinks in these terms. Dee Dee, Dr. Ryan understands, is the one who’s ill. She suffers from a psychological disease that allows her to believe in her daughter’s sickness. It’s as though there are two separate Dee Dees: the one who poisons and starves her daughter, and the one who fights to keep her daughter alive. The savior might be vaguely aware of the villain’s existence, but the two have never met face-to-face.
But Gypsy is still young. There is time to stop this before the damage proves irreversible.
Dr. Ryan turns to the front page of Gypsy’s file, picks up the phone, and dials Dee Dee’s number. An automated message informs him that she is unavailable. He waits for the tone.
“Hello, Ms. Blancharde,” he says. “This is Dr. Ryan calling. I have Gypsy’s test results, and I need to speak with you in person as soon as possible. Please call my office to schedule an appointment. And please do not plan to bring Gypsy; I’d like to speak with you one on one. Again, this is urgent.”
He hangs up with the sinking feeling that Dee Dee will never return his call.