Know Your Enemy

"Adrienne--please, please listen to me---they are not trying to hurt you. They just want to make you better---"

"What do you know?! You're on their side! I heard you whispering with them, telling them what give me! Get away from me!"

Her fists beat against his chest. He could tell she was using all of her strength but her arms were so frail that he hardly felt a thing. A lump formed in his throat when he closed his hands around her tiny wrists and felt nothing but bone. He was petrified that his touch would break through her paper-like skin.

"Adie---sweetheart---no one was whispering. They're trying to make you better. Please let them help you get better---"

"Fuck you Billie Joe! Fuck all of you! I won't do it! You can't make me go! I won't go!"

Her screams of anguish were too much to bear. He looked helplessly from one doctor to another, and then back to Adrienne; tears of desperation rolled freely down his cheeks.

"Mr Armstrong---you do understand that if Mrs Armstrong won't come with us freely, we will have to detain her under the Mental Health act---"

"See! See! they think I'm crazy! They want to lock me up!"

The strain of the situation made him want to tear handfuls of his hair out. He hated to see her upset. But he knew it would be for the best, even if she couldn't see it for herself.

And he hated the illness. He hated the way it had changed her. Gone was the fun loving, caring woman he had spent sixteen years of his life with. In her place was a paranoid, angry stranger. He and his two sons, constantly walked on egg shells. They knew that the slightest suggestion of going to talk to a doctor would tip her over the edge and hours of screaming and crying would commence.

Much like now.

"Adrienne," he whispered approaching her carefully, his hands held up to show her he meant no harm. "I know you're frightened. And I know you don't think so---but the doctors only want to help you. You're ill, baby. This is for the best."

"Why are you doing this to me?" Her voice was quiet, scared. She sounded like a child.

He lowered his tone to match hers. "Sweetheart, you know I love you. And it's because I love you that I called the doctors. I don't want to see you hurting anymore. I don't want to see the kids being frightened of their own mom. I need the woman I married back. I need that Adrienne."

"I am that Adrienne. Why can't you see that?"

Gingerly, he put his hands on her shoulders, shuddering as he felt her bones under his fingertips. He turned her towards their oven so she could look at herself in the reflective doors.

"This is not the Adie I married," he whispered, stroking her hair softly. "The Adie I married had sparkle in her eyes. She had rosy cheeks. She had a smile that could light up a whole room. This Adie---" he gestured towards her reflection. "This Adie is sad. This Adie looks tired. This Adie won't let anyone in---"

"Please stop---" Sobs made her shoulders heave under his hands.

"I love you so much sweetheart." He slowly encased her in a hug. Every touch made him afraid that he would break her. "Get better for me. Get better for the kids."

"We'll take good care of you Mrs Armstrong," the younger, female doctor who was present joined in. "Just think of how happy your children will be when they see that their mom is getting better. Just think of how happy you will all be when you come back home again."

Wiping her eyes, she peered out from Billie's chest. "How long will I be gone for?"

"That depends on how much you want to help yourself. If you fully cooperate then we can have you home in a month---"

Billie heard her inhale sharply. Not wanting to ruin the progress they had made, he began rubbing small circles on her back to soothe her. "One month isn't that long---it's just thirty days. I go on tour for longer than that---"

"What will you tell the boys?"

"I'll tell them the truth. That you've gone to get better."

"Do they hate me?"

"No! Not at all!"

"I didn't mean to hurt Joey. You know that, don't you?"

He kissed her forehead softly. "I know. And Joey knows. And these doctors know."

"I heard you say that he's had to have a cast on his arm?"

The pain in her voice made his insides ache. "Yeah, he's got to wear a cast for a little while. But he's cool with it. He think it's amazing---he says he's going to get all his friends to write on it!"

She laughed quietly and wiped the last of her tears off her cheeks. "Will you bring them to visit me?"

"Yes. Yes of course. We'll be there any time you need us."

Taking a deep breath for courage, she stepped away from her husband's embrace and turned to face the doctors. "Ok. I'll go."

Relief washed through Billie in waves. So much so that tears once again brimmed over his eyelashes. "I love you," he whispered over and over into her hair. "I'm so proud of you."

Adrienne had packed her things and had left with the doctors within ten minutes of her admitting to help. Once alone in the house, Billie cried. He cried for his wife. He cried for his children. He cried for himself. His sobs of sorrow reverberated off the walls, emphisizing his agony. He couldn't help but feel that he had betrayed her by calling the doctors.

But he knew that he had had no other choice. Her paranoia had just caused her to put her own child in hospital. He told Joey not to try and make her eat. But he was just a kid, he didn't understand that she was ill. He just thought she was being moody.

Glancing up at the clock, he realised that he had to drag himself out of his pit of misery as Jakob would be home from school at any moment and then they would have to go to the hospital to visit Joey.

"It's going to be OK," he chanted. "Everything will be OK."

He hoped it was true.