Before he could provide the court with an evaluation, he would have to learn Billy Milligans history. Considering the massive amnesia, that posed a serious problem.

On Thursday, March 23, Gary Schweickart and Judy Stevenson visited their client for an hour, going over his vague memory of events, comparing his story with those of the three victims, planning alternative legal strategies, depending on Dr. Hardings report to the court.

Both attorneys found Milligan more at ease, though he complained about being locked up in special care and having to wear “special precaution” clothes. “Dr. George says I can be treated just like the other patients here, but nobody here trusts me. The other patients are allowed to go off the grounds in the van on excursions, but not me. I have to stay here. And I just get furious when they insist on calling me Billy.”

They tried to calm him, to explain that Dr. George had gone out on a limb for him, and that he had to be careful not to try the doctors patience. Judy sensed he was Allen, but she didn’t ask, always afraid he might be insulted that she didn’t know him.

Gary said, “I think you should try to cooperate with the staff here. It’s your only chance to stay out of jail.”

As they left, both agreed that they were relieved he was safe and that the day-to-day responsibility and worry were off their backs for a while.

Later that day the first therapy session was a strained fifty-minute hour for Dr. Harding. Milligan sat on the chair facing the window in the interview room at Wakefield, but he would not, at first, make eye contact. He seemed to remember very little of his past, although he talked freely of the abuse by his adoptive father.

Dr. Harding knew he was being overcautious in his approach. Dr. Wilbur had told him to find out as soon as possible how many personalities there were, to establish their identities. The alternates needed to be encouraged to tell why they existed and to be permitted to relive the specific situations that had caused their creation.

Then all of the alternates had to be encouraged to know one another, to communicate and to help one another with their different problems, sharing things instead of being separated. The strategy, Wilbur had said, was to bring the others together and eventually introduce Billy—the core personality—to the memories of those incidents. Then, finally, fusion might be attempted. Though the temptation was great to try her approach, the way she had skillfully brought the personalities out in the jail, George Harding had long ago learned his lesson. What worked for someone else didn’t always work for him. He considered himself a very conservative man, and he would have to learn in his own way, and in his own good time, who and what he had here.

As the days went by, Nurse Donna Egar discovered that she was pretty much on a one-to-one basis with Milligan. He slept very little, far less than most of the other patients, and waked early, so she got to talk to him a great deal. He spoke about the other people who lived with him inside his body.