Free The Girl Behind the Door by John Brooks

we just had to lay down the law with her. Eventually she’d come around.
    The staff psychologist at Casey’s school, Dr. Klein, repeated what we’d already heard from her teachers—good student, well-behaved, played nicely with other kids, thoughtful but sometimes a bit pushy. That was a good thing. It meant she stood up for herself. She’d never had even the mildest disciplinary citation.
    We talked about Casey’s early years in the orphanage, but had so little data to go on that there was no way to know what, if anything, harmful she could’ve inherited from her birth parents. As with our meeting years earlier with Dr. Johnston, our conference with Dr. Klein yielded little more than reassurances that lots of kids that age had coping problems; she’d grow out of it. But she didn’t.
    We tried therapy. In most families, it would have been ridiculous to take an eight-year-old to a shrink, but not in Marin County, where lots of kids had therapists. We thought that therapy would be a safe place where Casey might open up. Perhaps a professional would have some success drawing her out where we’d failed so miserably.
    We met with a child psychologist, Dr. Darnell. She was a pleasant, soft-spoken woman in her thirties—so quiet, in fact, that she seemed almost timid. Casey could be rough around the edges when she felt threatened, so we hoped that she wouldn’t make mincemeat out of Dr. Darnell.
    We set up a schedule for them to meet once a week after school. But after every therapy session, Casey would come home in a churlish mood, tramp off to her room, slam the door, and dissolve into screaming fits. Dr. Darnell was “lame” and a waste of her time. They played Monopoly rather than talked and had failed to make any meaningful connection. It was difficult for us to deal with the ugly aftermath of each session. Erika and I met with Dr. Darnell for some insight over Casey’s sessions, but they yielded nothing of value. Monopoly was probably not the best tool to understand our child. Between Casey’s tearful pleas and belligerent protests, she ground us down, so we discontinued the sessions with Dr. Darnell.
    Our break from therapy lasted less than a year. During that time much had changed in our lives. I had another new job. We’d moved from a rental to a dilapidated house the size of a shoe box we bought in the town of Tiburon, a financial stretch but an easy commute for me just over the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. And after years of stalling for time, we caved in to Casey’s incessant begging for a companion, adding a new member to our family. His name was Igor, a handsome, skinny, brindled English racing hound known as a whippet. They are famously gentle, sensitive, and quiet; the perfect therapy dog. Casey was in love. A family, a new job, a home, and a skinny little dog.
    Things seemed to fall into place, but not quite.

NINE
    C asey had discovered a talent for writing in middle school, and I encouraged and praised her work at every opportunity. Writing was her true calling and our way to connect, just the two of us. She had a gift for vivid imagery and depth of thought well beyond her years. As she got older, her self-image became more fragile. Writing would help boost her self-confidence. One poem she’d written in eighth grade she titled “Ode to the Orange”:
    Tangy, succulent juices
    drip
    off my lips
    as I plunge into the first bite.
    It has a party
    in my mouth.
    But for all of her talent, Casey was a hypersensitive perfectionist. When she tried something that didn’t go just right, she’d react as if her world had come to an end. She became more introverted and could no longer be coaxed onto the stage as she could in musical theater when she was younger. Shyness and self-doubt weren’t unusual among preteen girls, but it complicated our attempts to introduce her to new things that could have interested