When Greg comes out of the bedroom, it's late afternoon. The sun is about to set; slanted rays fill the living room with the day's final light. There's a fire in the big stone fireplace. He takes a chair next to it and watches the flames, his mind still a little muzzy from a troubled sleep.
"Hey." Gene drops into the chair opposite his. Greg waits for the inevitable ''how dare you be mean to my wife' speech, and braces for a battle. "Going to the game tonight?" Gene stretches his long frame. Greg stares at him.
"You're not taking me to task for picking on your little Okie madokey?"
Gene gives him a mild look. "What goes on between you and Sarah is private."
Greg groans. "Holy shit, are you people for real?" he snaps. "You both act like you're OD'ed on Prozac. It's sickening."
"Just high on life," Gene says, and laughs at Greg's muttered curse. He folds his hands over his spare middle. "Sarah and I respect and trust each other. We do the same for everyone else, unless they give us a good reason not to."
"You might as well wear a 'kick me' sign," Greg says in disgust. Gene shakes his head.
"Living in non-stop distrust is a waste of energy and time," he says. "It gives your power away to others who don't deserve to have it." He laughs. "God, I sound like the worst sappy self-help book. Sorry."
Greg can't hide a snort of resentful amusement. "At least you know you're full of shit."
"Yeah, but you need shit to make things grow," Gene says. "So, you going tonight? It's gonna be a good time. Double A teams, grudge match, cheerleaders, pizza and beer . . . what's not to like?"
"I thought we were supposed to have a war council," Greg says.
"That's tomorrow. I have a consultant coming in to talk with us, but he can't make it until Saturday afternoon." Gene gives Greg a direct look. "Worried?"
"You think I think you're both trying to soften me up with a lot of New Age garbage about trust and respect so I'll agree to stay in treatment forever, thus keeping the general populace safe from my nasty grinchy self." Greg shrugs. "Nah. Nothing to be concerned about there."
"You've got people to diagnose," Gene says. "We want you doing what you do best, but with as little cost to your personal life as possible."
"What personal life?" He regrets the words as soon as they come out, but Gene doesn't even give him an 'I told you so' look. He just says
"That's something you and Sarah can talk about if you like. I'm pain management, nothing more."
"Yeah, right," Greg mutters as Sarah comes into the room. She has on a shabby knitted sweater of dark blue over a white tee shirt, black jeans and an old pair of thick socks. Her hair is a wild tangle of auburn curls and her cheeks are flushed, but she seems calmer. She plops into the chair next to Greg's and looks at him.
"Did you get some rest?" she asks. There is real concern in her voice. He can't stand it.
"Stop pretending," he says, his voice rough with anger. "You couldn't care less, admit it. Especially after I pissed you off."
"You didn't piss me off. Why do you think I'm pretending?" she says. Gene starts to rise, but she glances at him. "If Greg says it's okay, you can stay," she says.
"What the fuck ever. Stay, go, blah blah." Greg flaps his hand in Gene's general direction, then focuses on Sarah once more. "Everyone lies."
"I'm not everyone," she says. "When I ask if you're okay, I really want to know."
"So it's a diagnostic question to make sure you didn't fuck up, not because you care," he shoots back at her. "Come on, stop being such a goddamn hypocrite! This is one big long therapy session created to massage your wounded pride. You weren't getting anywhere in Mayfield so you thought you'd pry more out of me here, where there are no time constraints or anyone to look over your shoulder at unethical practices. I found out what you were up to, so now you have to cover your ass, and it's pissing you off." He leans back. "Little Miss Perfect," he taunts, just to remind her of his previous statements, all of which he stands by. Silence falls in the big room.
"Christ on a freakin' crutch, you are one stubborn bastard," Sarah says after a time. There is no amusement in her voice, but he can sense her professional interest is awake now, ready to pounce. He knows that feeling well himself, and readies his defenses.
"Don't let her get to you," Amber whispers inside his mind. "Don't play her game."
"When I'm right, I'm right," he says.
"And when you're wrong, you're dead wrong and won't admit it," she says. "Fine. You say you want honesty. I've been honest with you from the beginning whether you believe me or not. You've done nothing but evade the truth. Now I want some truth from you. You owe me that much before you find another doctor." She watches him for a moment. "Why do you feel you're unlovable?"
Greg glances at Gene. "You can leave now," he says. Without a word Gene gets up and exits the room. Greg watches him go, a little nonplussed. No argument, no grumbling—just simple compliance. "What was the question?"
Sarah gives him the mom look. "Gregory."
"Yeah, okay." He searches for something that will mystify her so she'll leave him alone. "My real name is Crabby Appleton. Shh, don't tell anyone. State secret."
"Rotten to the core," she says. He's surprised someone her age would get the reference to an old cartoon. "You really believe that?"
"Everyone else does," he says. "Who am I to say them nay?"
"Who's everyone else?"
Shit. She won't let it go, I'm stuck now till she's satisfied with my answers. This is the therapy motherlode. Yee-haw, or whatever it is they say in Oklahoma when they get excited. "Let's see, how about, oh, seven billion people?"
"The entire world population thinks you're unlovable. Boy howdy, you do get around." She gives him a quizzical look. "Throw me a bone here. How about a name or two?"
"The team. They know it for sure," he says, and smirks. "My patients. Cu—" He stops.
"Doctor Cuddy," Sarah says. "Why did you hesitate?"
"I didn't. It was a hiccup."
"You believe Doctor Cuddy is the exception to the rule," she says. "Or maybe you hope she is."
"Oh, she has up front, personal, first-hand knowledge," he says. "We—she and I—you know."
"No, I don't. Tell me," she says. It's a request, not a demand.
"There was a night way back when. College," he says, and hopes if he gives her a few juicy tidbits she'll be satisfied. Even as he thinks it he's knows won't happen. "We did the nasty."
"So she was your girlfriend," Sarah says. "Obviously she thought at some point you were worth being with."
Greg shakes his head. "One night stand."
"Really?" She looks surprised. "I thought you were exes or something."
He wags a finger at her. "Assumptions."
She nods. "Point taken. So why didn't you date?"
"We're back to the same circular argument. I knew she wouldn't want to," he says. Sarah gives him a long look that makes him squirm.
"Look out," Amber hisses in his ear. "Here it comes. Don't give her anything more. Stop this NOW."
"You have this way of deciding what other people should think and feel about you," Sarah says after a time. "Did you ever ask her out?"
He shrugs. "What would be the point?"
"The point would be to discover what she wanted. Maybe she would have liked to be seen with you."
Greg looks away. He doesn't know what to say that he hasn't said already.
"So you never asked her," Sarah says.
"I just said no." He's getting nervous now for some reason.
"Then how could you know what she wanted?" She raises an eyebrow. "You're psychic?"
"I don't—didn't have to ask!" he says, and raises his voice to hide his slip.
"Why?" Sarah sounds genuinely interested in his reply. It infuriates him.
"Because I just know! How many times do I have to say it?"
"Sounds to me like someone important in your life frequently told you you were unlovable and you believed them," she says quietly. "Who was it?"
"No one!" He pushes out of the chair and limps to the fireplace, turns his back on her. "No one told me anything!"
"Showed you, then," she says. He stays silent. The knot in his gut is back, worse than ever. "Who was it?"
She won't leave him alone until he gives her an answer. Greg falls back on an old lie he's used before, one that sounds plausible. "Oma," he says. "My grandmother."
"She lived near you?" Sarah sounds skeptical.
"Yes." He can't keep the defiance out of his voice. She won't buy it. He's right.
"It wasn't her." It's a statement of fact.
He grips the mantelpiece. "I just said—"
"It was someone closer to home," Sarah says. "In the most literal sense of the phrase."
"You've already made up your mind it was my dad," Greg says, and winces at his blunder.
"Shut UP!" Amber yells at him. He ignores her. Too late to stop now.
"I didn't look up to or respect him," he says. "He wasn't important in my life. Problem solved. Session over."
"How could he not be important? He was your dad."
"Did you respect your father?" he asks, deliberately mocking her.
"No," she says simply. "I had my reasons, good ones. What were yours?"
"Oh, let me see . . . maybe the fact that he was an asshole, to start with." He closes his eyes and wishes he was a thousand miles away, in flight (fleeing) down the highway on his bike, nothing on his mind but escape.
"What made him an asshole?"
He rests his hands on the mantel. they shake, but he manages grips the ledge hard enough to whiten his knuckles. "I don't want to talk about it."
"My dad was an alcoholic, among other things," Sarah says after a brief, tense silence. "He was inventively cruel when he was drunk. One night he got out a hunting rifle, put it to Mom's head and kept it there until we did our chores to his satisfaction. I hated and feared him for makin' me scrub floors with an old toothbrush to keep my mother's brains from being blown out."
"He just would have made you clean that up too," Greg says.
"Yes, he would." He was half-joking; she isn't. A chill runs down his spine. Even his old man wasn't quite that bad.
"Oh my god," Amber moans. "I cannot believe you're actually falling for this."
"My dad . . ." Greg hesitates. "He—he wasn't my biological father." He turns and faces her. The fire's heat is warm on his back. It feels good, even though his leg hurts like hell and his stomach is tied up in knots so tight he should be bent double. "I'm pretty sure he knew, but it was one of those things."
"A secret," she says. He nods but says nothing more. "You never overheard your parents talking, arguing about this?"
"My parents didn't argue," he says. "Dad told us what to do and we did it."
"He was a hardass," she says. He rolls his eyes.
"Duh. Jarhead turned Marine pilot instructor," he says, scornful now. "Total flyboy."
"So he applied military discipline to and pulled rank on his family." Her face is impassive, but he can see speculation in her eyes, along with something else—he's not sure what it is and doesn't want to know. "Part of that discipline can involve breaking down an individual's will by any means at hand, including calling them names, belittling their efforts, telling them they're useless, a waste of carbon."
He can say nothing to this. She looks down. "Okay," she says. And that sets him off more than anything else she's said.
"Swell. You have me all figured out," he snarls, furious at her presumption. "My dad was a prick, he told me I was worthless and a waste of time but he didn't really mean it, and now I'm free."
"Oh, he meant it," she says very quietly. Greg pauses in mid-rant.
"What?"
"He meant every word, at least in the moment he said it. He had to, or you would have known he was lying just to get you going," she says. "You've got a very sensitive bullshit detector, Greg. I wouldn't be at all surprised if it came with you into the world."
He didn't expect this. It feels like she's hit him in the solar plexus with the pointy end of a big stick. His leg is in hard spasm; he won't be able to stand much longer. "You think he-he really believed it."
"Yeah," she says. Silence falls, broken only by the crackle of the fire. He moves away from the hearth to the chair he'd claimed before and sits, rubs his thigh to relieve the tight cramp. He feels a curious light-headedness; his thoughts whirl in some strange pattern he cannot perceive or put in order.
"The fact that he believed what he was saying only reinforced his apparent authenticity," she says after a time. "Some of the latest studies have started to confirm a theory that children are hard-wired from birth to imitate and model the adults taking care of them. That includes wholesale trust and belief in what those adults say." She doesn't look at him. "How did your mother treat you when your father was present?"
"She . . ." Greg tries to wrap his mind around this revelation. Intellectually he knows, has known for years, what Sarah says is true. But some other part of him has learned it for the first time tonight. "She didn't . . . contradict him, she didn't . . . intervene."
"She strengthened his believability by not protecting you," Sarah says. He shakes his head.
"It wasn't a question of protection. Dad took care of discipline."
"What if she knew you were being wronged? Did she speak up for you, defend you, try to minimize your punishment?"
"Don't blame this on her," he says, roused to anger. "She couldn't do anything!"
"Why not? Mothers protect their babies at any cost," Sarah says.
"She was unfaithful to him," he says. "She had no say in anything because he never let her forget what she did."
"But you said you didn't hear them argue about the affair."
Greg shakes his head. "It was always there between them, even when they seemed close. I didn't understand that until I was older."
"So your father used his strength to exploit natural human vulnerabilities and force both of you into a position of complete subservience," Sarah says. He laughs, a bitter sound.
"It didn't work with me."
"I bet it didn't." She gives him a small smile. "Good for you."
"God, she is playing you," Amber says, her words freighted with urgency. "Don't fall for it, come on! You're smarter than this!"
He shouldn't be surprised by what Sarah's said, but he is. He blurts out "You're not supposed to say things like that."
"I say what I mean." She stands up. "If you're going to the game with Gene take a jacket from the coat rack, it'll be frosty tonight. I'm staying home." With that she leaves him in the living room, with its dying fire and deep shadows.