After her suicide attempt, we found Martha at the hospital, locked up alone in a small room with big windows so she could be observed continuously. She wore a hospital gown and had nothing in her room but a bed, her Bible, and a cup of ice water to relieve the burnt tissues of her throat. 

Martha at sixteen in summer 2010, running the desk at our tag sale.

Martha’s first year under psychiatric care led to the most dangerous crisis of her life until then. The crisis happened at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in the summer of 2010. But before then, she lived through a year of growing madness, seemingly intensified rather than subdued by her doctor’s ministrations. 

Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania

As she started high school, Martha was a girl with a secret. She was passionately in love with a 300-year-old Russian prince, Aleksei—in fact, she had married him. She feared few people could understand the existence of this ghost husband, least of all her parents. So she kept us from knowing about him for as long as she could. 

Martha at about fifteen in ninth grade, circa 2009, wearing black in mourning for Aleksei

At fourteen, Martha discovered the love of her life. He had been dead for three centuries, but to her he was still alive. He was a Russian prince named Aleksei. He accompanied her all the way to her death. 

Russian tsarevich Aleksei Petrovich Romanov (1690-1718)

As Martha entered seventh grade, she became miserable, the beginning of a year of emotional problems. Looking back on her life later, she reflected that she had always had a melancholy temperament, but that it fully began to express itself on the first day of seventh grade, when she cried during her first orchestra class of the year. 

Martha at fourteen in 2008

In a diary entry on July 18, 2004, Martha at ten first showed signs that she was leading a secret life. “This diary is a front,” she wrote, “and all I can write in it is milestones, joy, and mock anger. Where can I express emotions?” I don’t know what emotions she meant because she didn’t write them down. 

Martha at eleven in sixth grade, 2005

Until now, the focus of this book has been Martha. But for this chapter, I must turn the attention to me. As an indirect result of our family trip to Denver in 2003, I was diagnosed bipolar, and in the context of my diagnosis Martha’s insanity later emerged, the insanity that led to her death. 

Fredric March as Mr. Hyde in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Paramount, 1932)

Third grade was Martha’s first hard year of school. It wasn’t academically hard—academics was never hard for her. She almost always got Es, occasionally Gs, never anything less. We didn’t push her to excel; she pushed herself. But third grade was emotionally difficult. She had had an existential crisis during Christmas vacation in second grade, but third grade was rocky all the way through. 

Martha at nine, getting off the school bus from third grade, 2003

In September 1999, Martha started kindergarten in the Dobbs Ferry public school system. She would stay in that system for most of the rest of her life. 

Martha at seven, with her parents, circa 2001

In September 1997, Martha started preschool and the world changed. It changed in a way that was at first subtle but whose profundity would become clear over the years, like a crack that eventually becomes a chasm. 

Martha at five, in 1999, at Community Nursery School

Martha now lived in the house and village where she would live until the night before she died. 

Martha at three, in 1997, in her backyard in Dobbs Ferry

By the time Sad Dog became her chosen stuffed animal, Martha had developed a definite personality. Melinda and I called her “gentle and intense.” 

Martha at two, with Sad Dog, in 1996

My happiest day with Martha was the day I took her to Typhoon Lagoon. It almost made up for the day, years later, when she killed herself. 

Martha at ten, with Piglet, in 2004, on her last visit to Disney World