Chapter 5

"Like him how?" Dr. Case eased Sara forward.

"Crazy." Her forehead to her knees, eyes closed, the only place left to look was inside. It was time.

"Is he crazy?"

This got Sara's attention, put the analytical mind to work. "What? Of course he's crazy. Didn't you hear me? His mother…it's unthinkable."

"So he suffered, does his pain make him crazy?"

Suddenly Sara looked small and tired. "I don't know."

"I think you do. Why do you think you're crazy Sara?"

Again, patience while Sara rocked herself, folded, closed, deciding.

"Crazy's the wrong word." Good, she was analyzing. It wasn't as helpful as feeling, but it was better than shutting down.

"Give me the right one."

"Broken." Sob.

"What's broken, Sara?"

"I am." She cried now, not silent tears slipping quiet pathways down rosy cheeks as she had in the past but great torrents that left white streaks of salt on her skin. Gulping for air she continued, "I'm wrong… Just am… Never been right… Don't know how."

The doctor let Sara cry for a bit. In another case she might have moved to the couch and wrapped the poor little bird in her arms, but she had been at this long enough to know, this one would not let her.

"How does this broken-ness, this wrongness manifest itself?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Sara looked up, puffy-eyed, red faced, spent. She let her legs fall loose now, not relaxing but deciding there was nothing much worth protecting.

"It isn't to me, no. I see a girl who had some rough times, who wants to love and be loved. Nothing broken about that."

Sara turned herself on the sofa facing completely out at the rain now. "Other girls, women, my age, they have husbands and children and PTA meetings. They grocery shop and cheer at soccer games. I never got any of it. I don't understand how you make those things happen."

"You never saw them. Not up close. Your family didn't follow that model. Does being different make you wrong?"

"I'm sick of being different." Sara laid her face on the sofa back, exhausted.

"Do you want those things? A husband, children, shopping and the rest?"

"I never thought about it. I guess there was a time when I thought I could be that girl. I must have believed it when I was younger. I don't remember."

"You don't remember wanting a husband and family of your own?"

The rain had slowed, and Sara felt cheated that she wouldn't be driving home in it.

She turned to face Dr. Case once again, this time she was more composed.

"Very little of my life has been about what I want, at least until recently. I've just sort of known it was something I wouldn't ever have."

"Suppose that you could be 'that girl' as you put it. Tell me what that would be like."

"I couldn't. That's just it. You're asking me to paint you a picture in a color I don't have." Sara leaned forward, as if she were finally getting to the center of the issue. "If I knew how it would look maybe I could make it so."

Dr. Case changed tactic. "Picture those women in your mind, the PTA/Soccer mom's. Tell me in one word about their lives."

The light was changing in the room. Sunlight was beginning to peek through the clouds and Sara resented its intrusion. "Can you close the drapes?"

"Are you afraid to let the light shine on your doubts?"

"I think better in the dark."

"I'm not asking you to think. I'm asking you to feel."

"I feel better in the dark."

A smile played at the edges of the doctor's mouth. "Why?"

"No one can find me there."

It was imperative to keep Sara talking, keep her from thinking herself back into closing off. "And if someone finds you?"

"Then we'll both know there was nothing much there all along."

"What about those women Sara, what do they have?"

"Assurance."

"Of what?"

"That they're…real. That they're normal. That someone knows that they exist and would notice if they stopped existing."

"You don't think anyone would notice if you stopped existing?"

Sara grew silent again and examined her nails. She was getting comfortable in the role of nonexistent girl, but she couldn't honestly say that no one would care if she were gone.

"If you didn't show up for work tonight. Who would notice?"

"Stop. I get it, okay? Let's not do the whole ghost of Christmas future thing. I always hated that stupid movie. I know I have an effect on people's lives. I know that if I disappeared today I would be missed and that victims who never knew I existed might get a little less justice because I wasn't there to fight for it. I know Greg would worry and I know Nick would be depressed. I see all of that, but it isn't the same."

"How is it different?"

"I keep hearing this terrible old expression in my head. 'Left on the shelf.' Those people would miss me because they are used to having me around, and yeah, okay, I'll concede the point that they've come to care about me, but they never CHOSE me. It would be nice to be chosen."

"Grissom chose you."

Sara's lower lip quivered. Her chest felt heavy. "That's work."

"You were bright, certainly, but there are hundreds if not thousands of bright and qualified professionals who would love the opportunity to work in Las Vegas's Crime Lab. Grissom hand picked you. Do you think you outshone the rest professionally so profoundly that there was no other choice?"

"Trick question. If I say yes I've got an over blown ego and if I say no then Grissom bases his career decisions on personal preferences."

"But what's the answer?"

"The answer is he picked me because he knew me and he knew I was someone he could trust, not just to do the job but to be honest and discreet about the job I was pulled in for in the first place. There may have been others more qualified, but not that he knew personally and felt comfortable placing trust in."

"So he chose you, based on respect and trust."

"Yes. He chose me to work for him. He also chose Nick and Warrick. These women, they are the ONE choice of the man they spend their lives with."

"Some are. Some are cheated on, some are cheating, some are living with men that never look at them or talk to them except to make demands."

"I'm not saying I think marriage is a fairy tale. I'm just saying…it's what most people have and I feel completely unconnected to it."

"That man in the asylum, you said he chose you. Did you feel special?"

Sara nearly jumped out of her skin, but then got eerily calm. "Yes."

"Because he chose you?"

"Yes."