ABSTRACT
Just 4 weeks after her father Tommy’s telephone apology, September lay near death in the local emergency room. Her suicide attempt had been the closest thing to success the teenager had experienced to date. Another 30 minutes and the doctors believed she would have died. This was no doubt her plan for a future she did not care to endure; she had downed 84 lithium and 8 valporic acid tablets while nobody else was home. Only the unexpected arrival of her 12-year-old foster brother started the chain of events ending in her rescue. Worse, September didn’t see this as a turn of good fortune. When she awoke to find that she had failed yet another of life’s awful tests, she explained to the staff that she would simply lay low, work the program, and await her next opportunity to suicide.
