Working with papers and charts, the doctor outlined the sequence of events that she believed caused Mary Kay to fall apart.
She fell into a depression when her marriage began to crumble, according to Dr. Moore. Steve had cheated on her and fathered a baby outside of their marriage. Mary suffered a miscarriage. She had given herself so completely to her role as teacher that she had excluded close relationships with adults who might have seen how devastated she was. She was alone. When her father's cancer resurfaced, it was too much for her to handle.
She flew out of the depression into her hypomanic self, followed by mania. The mania, she said, was marked by pleasure in high-risk activities—for a teacher, having sex with her student couldn't have been more perilous. When Mary Kay lost her grip she found a young boy who was there at the right time. Though he was twelve, Vili became the man in her life. Steve couldn't be that man, and in reality, he never was. Her father, the most important man in her world, was dying.
Ellen Douglas wanted—needed—a way to make sense of what had happened. Why was it that Mary was willing to set aside everything she had held so dear for the love of a boy? The very idea that there was a name for it made it somewhat easier to take.
“I admit I want it to make sense. I need a reason to understand how you could do this when you loved your kids, and even if you don't love your husband anymore and that's breaking up on both parts… I think the bipolar helps us understand.”
One face was new to everyone. It was Abby Campbell. Ellen had heard of Abby for a while, though she didn't know much about her, except that she hadn't met Mary until after she became newsworthy.
“My feeling was that she was like a groupie,” Ellen said later.
Outside of Dr. Moore, Abby Campbell appeared to have the most to contribute during the meeting. Ellen thought the woman's running commentary was odd, almost inappropriate. At one point, Abby piped up with her take on Washington State law.
Where did you come from? Who are you? Ellen thought.
The new friend also provided her opinion about the injustice of it all and how the judge might react to Mary Kay's treatment and what her future might be. Ellen couldn't understand the new friend's role in the whole thing.
You can say all you really want to, Ellen thought. It doesn't matter. It is up to the lawyers and the judge.
Mary Kay prepared a two-page handout for her friends. She had felt used and misunderstood on her appearance on Seattle's KOMO-Television's Town Meeting and wanted them to hear from her. The media and the law had distorted the reality of what had transpired between teacher and student. She had originally written it for the media and gave it to her “media representative,” Bob Huff.
She wrote:
“What is really at the heart of this case is a very personal and deeply painful story of a couple that tried earnestly year after year to provide an enriched life for their children—a home. The family was in need of resources, but proudly private and set on making the best out of every day for them, and their children. The foundation of marriage was not there to endure the complexities of a household, the complexities of life's changes. Boundaries collapsed. The woman here happened to have been a teacher.”
Mary Kay told a friend that Bob Huff never gave her written statement to anyone, though she had asked him to. Months later, she surmised the reason why: “Mary's not allowed to talk. Her voice is worth money. We can't let her give her voice away.”
One Shorewood teacher heard about the bipolar meeting later. What stunned and hurt her was that it was held at a friend's house. She knew she hadn't been on the guest list for obvious reasons—she was angry with Mary for dragging Shorewood and the teaching profession through the mud with her arrest. She had hurt so many.
“There's a secret thing between us that we can't bring out,” the teacher said of her friend and colleague. “They've never mentioned they did it; it broke my heart. They could have at least told me.”
Mary Kay waited in her cell for the sentencing. She barely slept. Her mind was full of thoughts of Vili, her children, and the treatment that had been prescribed. Drugs to dull her senses and words to turn her children against her. She had told supporters that she had no intention of following the treatment provider's plans. She would never sit down with her children and brainwash them with lies.
She thought of Christmas and how she'd spend it with Steven, Mary Claire, Nicky, Jackie, and Audrey—though terms of her treatment specified no contact for six months. She had missed Halloween with her children and that had hurt. Christmas with all her children at Beth Adair's would make up for it.
“Everything's set out in a box at Beth's. Their stockings, the decorations, the presents… everything for Christmas,” she told a friend.