ONE

* * *

He always noticed the parents.

This was an old habit; perhaps he had it because he had read too much Freud. Perhaps a part of him still believed the old theories that if you understood the madness of the parents, you would understand the madness of the child. Who had said that? Szasz?

Maybe. It didn't matter, though. Those theories were wrong.

But he still noticed the parents.

These two were like so many others. There was a stiffness to them, a weight to their eyes that was palpable. An imploring, too, as they looked at him.

Please help our child.

The father was the quieter of the two. He didn't move much, either, just sat and watched. From time to time he would come up with a question, sit quietly as it was answered. He knew the lingo, the jargon, knew every page in his daughter's file by heart. As they talked the doctor got the distinct impression that the man felt he could bring his daughter back just by this knowledge alone, that with knowledge it would be possible to see her look at him again.

And he was holding all this in, the father was. The doctor could see that too.

This was not unusual.

The mother had the most striking face. It penetrated you, got in deep. Every emotion was in that face, there to read, to understand. There was a hardness there, too, like so many mothers he had seen. Because it so often fell to the mothers; the responsibility, the sacrifice, the pain. I carried this child inside me for nine months. I pushed it into the world. I held it at my breast. I am responsible.

Now, as the woman stared at him, Dr. Garrett wondered how many mothers the psychiatrists of the old days had destroyed with their blame.

"Doctor ...." the mother said slowly. The father shifted a bit in his chair.

Garrett looked up at her from the file. The mother spoke again.

"Can you help her?"