1994 - spring

Tate sat on the edge of his bed, hands folded tightly between his knees. Lawrence was sitting right next to him, intruding on his room and his personal space. Tate wished he would just go away. But he didn't. He kept sitting there. Talking, talking, even though Tate didn't want to hear what he had to say.

"I understand how tough it is, growing up without a father," Larry said. "My father passed away when I was eleven from a heart attack. Can you imagine? A forty-six year old man having a heart attack."

Tate wished Larry would have a heart attack.

"You know," Larry went on. He didn't seem to notice that Tate didn't care about his stupid stories. "I always wanted to have a son."

Tate looked at him then, sidelong.

Larry noticed that. "It's true. I think every man does. Someone to carry on the family name." He patted Tate's knee. "Your mother and I are going to get married eventually. Then we'll be a real family."

Tate stared at him. Married. He felt like he'd just been diagnosed with a terminal illness. "She doesn't want to marry you."

"Yes, she does, Tate. We're in love. And she knows how important it is for you and your siblings to have a father and a provider."

Tate didn't want to believe what he was hearing but there was a scary ring of truth to it. "You'll never be my father."

Larry looked disappointed. He sighed and patted Tate's knee again. He left his hand there. "I know this isn't easy for you. But if you'd just give things a chance-"

Tate shoved his hand away and stood up. "You're never going to be my dad! Get out of my room! I don't want you here!"

Larry got up and reluctantly went to the door. "You're upset. I understand. But you need to understand that I love your mother. Together we can make this family work."

"Go away!" Tate yelled as loud as he could.

Larry went. Tate felt marginally better. He knew 'go away' didn't really work on the living but just then it kind of seemed like it did. He wished he could make Larry go away. Forever.

The teen sat back down on his bed and put his head in his hands and counted the days. He used to count the days till summer vacation. Now he was counting down to World War T. Sometimes the countdown was the only thing that got him through.

One week before Easter, Beauregard died.

They tried to say he died in his sleep, from respiratory problems, but Tate had seen Larry coming down out of the attic that night. He'd seen the guilt and the horror on the man's face.

What would happen when Constance and Larry grew tired of caring for the rest of her children? Would Addie be next? Or Tate himself? The questions that nagged his thoughts didn't scare the teen. They made him mad. Mad at Larry, mad at his mother, mad at the world that never gave him or his siblings a chance. The dark, dark world. There was no light in it, he was sure. He could only see darkness.

Two weeks after Easter, Tate was dead.

...

2 days after Constance's funeral

Chad, Patrick and Tate were in the library. Unknown to Tate, Violet was there as well. He just couldn't see her. Everyone else in the room knew she was silently watching.

Chad hadn't prepared her for how Tate would appear so Violet was surprised when he came in looking like a child. She knew men tended to see Moira as much younger but Violet had never seen her as anything but old. Seeing him so young was strange.

He was a cute little guy. The hair and clothes screamed Chad but the attitude was all Tate. She watched them browse about individually then regroup at the fireplace settee. Chad and Patrick each took one of the reading chairs. Tate sat on the floor. Violet leaned on the back of one of the empty reading chairs. She couldn't help staring at the boy. It looked like Tate and yet didn't.

She wondered briefly if she could shrink down in age and decided that she didn't want to try it. The idea felt as strange as the notion of wanting to be old, like Moira.

"What did you get?" Chad asked the boy as he picked through the three he'd grabbed for himself.

"Just a collection of some old poems. It's got scans of the originals in it. The hand-written stuff," answered Tate. He started flipping through the oversized pages, listing poets as he went. "Keats. Byron. Shelley."

He paused on a page. "Hey. I thought all these poet guys were gay. But look at this copy of Shelley's 'Ozymandias'."

He turned the book around so the other guys could see what he saw. It was in the exact opposite direction of Violet.

"Tell me that doesn't look like a vagina," Tate said.

Violet moved to improve her view.

"Tate!" Chad scolded.

"..he's right," Pat said. "It does."

Violet only got a glimpse of the page before Tate moved the book again. She couldn't see the controversial poetry.

"That's still not appropriate," said Chad. He gave Patrick the evil eye and then looked at Tate. "Go get a different book. Put that one back where you found it."

The boy closed the book, disappointed. "You're the last person I'd expect to censor art."

"I'm not censoring art, Tate," Chad said. "I'm censoring you."

Tate took the book back to the shelf it came from and poked around a bit more. Violet made a mental note of where he put the book, for later reference. It wasn't that she wanted to see the anatomy. She just wanted to judge for herself whether it looked like what they said. She suspected it might or Chad wouldn't have objected so much.

She found the whole thing amusing.

Chad took Tate's new book before he could sit down with it. Only once he'd skimmed through it did he let the boy have it back.

"Chad-approved," Tate murmured to himself. He sat down cross-legged, ignoring the icy look the man gave him.

Chad was beginning to wish he'd cheated and told Tate he would be under surveillance.

"You have a session with Doctor Harmon later, don't you?" he said while flipping through a cook book.

"Yeah," said Tate. "Hey, did you know bird's nest soup is actually made with bird spit?"

Chad made a sour face. "Third world gourmet. Yum." He shut his book and put an elbow on it. He propped his chin lightly on his fist. "Don't forget to tell him about the dreams."

Tate rolled his eyes and turned the page of his book. Patrick sent a flat look Chad's way.

"You also need to ask him about using the laptop to study for your GED," Chad added.

"I don't need to study," Tate said as he turned the page. "I just need to take the test. I don't know why you want me to though. It's not like it's going to help me get a job."

Violet moved to look over Tate's shoulder at the book he was looking at. It was a photo-filled one about 'Lords of the Air'. A bird book.

It was strange being so close to him. Regardless of what he looked like, though, it was the closest she'd allowed herself to get to Tate in years. She found it virtually impossible to see the monster she knew was lurking in the little boy beside her.

She decided it was time to leave.

...

Ben had been on edge ever since he found that strange baby in his office. When he'd finally gathered the nerve to go back into the room, the child was gone without a trace. But Ben was sure of what he'd seen. Just as he was sure he knew who was responsible. So he'd stressed out privately through the days, debating whether to confront Hayden. But he wasn't ready. Not yet.

So he kept to his schedule. He hoped routine would help put him at ease.

He let Tate in and had a seat in his rolling chair. Tate climbed over the arm of the couch and dropped himself onto the cushions, growing up to his teen state as he did. He bounced about till he was comfortable then looked over at Ben.

"I'm supposed to tell you that the dreams are waking me up again," he said.

"You're telling me this because you want me to know?" asked Ben, even though he already knew the answer. "Or because someone else wanted me to know?"

Tate smiled. "Chad says hi."

Ben gave a half-smile and looked at the notes on his pad. "Right." He jotted something down. "I could give you something to help you stay asleep."

"You know I don't want that shit, doc," Tate said. He tugged on his thumb ring, twisting it around.

"Hey," Ben said, hands up. "No pressure. I just want you to know your options."

"I don't think I'll forget that one."

Ben shifted in his chair, getting more comfortable. "So is there anything particular on your mind today?"

"Always," said Tate. He also got more comfortable, slouching so that he was almost laying down. He steepled his fingers together above his middle. "I think my mother is a whore." He looked at Ben sincerely then. "I mean it. I think she actually fucks people for money. "

Ben nodded slowly and wrote that down. "And what's led you to this conclusion?"

"Well. I can't remember her ever having a real job. Odd jobs, yeah, but nothing that would pay our bills. Especially the medical shit for Beau and Addie. Then there were all those boyfriends. I mean, some of them, like Travis, she wasn't fucking them for money. But others... They had to have been giving her something other than the high hard one."

"Do you think it's possible that she had an insurance policy?" Dr. Harmon suggested.

Tate mulled that over. He hadn't considered that. "I guess maybe. She woulda had to have my dad declared dead for that though."

"Does that bother you?"

Tate shrugged without actually thinking about that question. "Nah. It's the sort of shit thing she'd do to get him back for not paying child support." He rolled to his side and propped his head with one hand. "I still think she was a whore though. Hey, you remember that Halloween we took that exterminator guy's bones out to the pier?"

Ben's brows lifted a little at the sudden subject change. "Yes..?"

"Can we do something like that again sometime?"

The therapist gave him an odd look. "You want to go dump another corpse together?"

Tate laughed. "No, Doctor Harmon. That's pretty funny though. I mean, you're the first guy I'd want to bury somebody with, if I had to. I just meant maybe... like, maybe near Halloween we could go get some coffee or something. You and me. No corpses involved."

"Sure, Tate," said Ben with a mild smile. He propped his ankle on his knee. "What's got you thinking about that?"

The teenager pulled on his sleeve cuff, hooking it over his thumb. "I just liked doing something with you. I like doing stuff with you in general."

Ben studied his patient. As much as the compliment stroked his ego, he couldn't take anything Tate said at face value. "You said your mother had a lot of boyfriends... Any long-term ones?"

"Just Larry," said Tate, making a face as he said the name complete with one arm drawn up in a comic impression of the man's handicap. It made Ben smile. "There were a couple others but nobody that actually lived with us or anything," Tate went on. "Funnily enough, most guys find two special needs kids a huge turn off where commitment's concerned. But you'd be surprised how many'll put up with the situation long enough to get their rocks off."

"You seem fixated on your mother's sex life," said Dr. Harmon.

Tate blinked at him, brows furrowing. "After this place we lived in a pretty small shithole of a house and she fucked a lot. It was either listen to her or watch Tales from the Darkside reruns. Usually both."

"You could hear..?"

"Yeah," the teen pushed himself upright. "Fucked up, huh?"

Ben wrote some quick notes. "In modern American society it's not practiced but there are many places around the world where families share a single-room home. I don't think there's anything inherently damaging about knowing when a parent is engaging in intercourse or even seeing the act. Some sociologists have suggested promiscuity stems from not having enough living examples of sex to learn from."

"You think people should learn how to fuck from their parents?" Tate boggled. "You're more twisted than I thought, Doctor Harmon!" He was impressed.

Ben smiled mildly. "No. I don't think that. There are some people who believe that if we're exposed to the act more before we actually try it that we'll make less coupling errors. I'm just trying to reassure you that knowing a parent is having intercourse doesn't necessarily have to be a scarring event."

"Do you want to see your parents have sex?" Tate asked.

Ben's smile faded. "My mother gave up custody of me when I was a toddler. I never knew my father."

Tate sat up a little straighter. "Really? Wow. Were you adopted?"

He shook his head. "No. Fostered a couple of times but nothing ever... clicked."

"That's rough," Tate said sympathetically. "I knew a kid once who lived in one of those group homes. It was like prison. I went to juvenile hall once and it was a cake-walk compared to what that guy's life was like. Which is totally wrong."

Ben nodded. "Not an easy life," he said, deliberately understating things. "But then few are."

"It's no wonder you became a shrink," decided Tate. He chewed on his thumbnail then added: "Probably saw all sorts of crazies, huh? Did you ever get stuck with a family like the ones in the papers?"

"No," said Ben. "Nothing that interesting. One was just in it for the paycheck. One was a nice family but they had no clue how to handle a boy who'd never had a family."

"What happened?"

"I ran away. After that I couldn't get placed," said Ben. "Too old. Too much trouble."

"That blows," said Tate around his thumbnail. He lowered his hand. "So you never got to do any father-son stuff either, huh?"

Ben gave a soft, humorless laugh. "No, not really."

"We could do that stuff," suggested Tate. He got up and wandered over to the rocking chair but he didn't sit down. "I mean, we can't go play street hockey or stuff like that but we could, I d'know. Watch bowling."

"Bowling?"

"I don't know!" Tate said. "What do dads and sons do? I'm pretty sure it's not what I've been doing with Pat and Chad."

"I don't really know, Tate," the doctor said. "I don't think it would be a very good idea."

"Why not?" Tate asked, hurt.

Ben could think of several reasons, beginning with Vivien and ending with Patrick but he simply said: "I just don't think it would be a good idea."

"Okay," Tate said. But his eyes were full of wounded tears. "It's cool. I was just thinking it'd be something to do."

"Let's save it for Halloween," Ben offered.

Hope replaced sorrow, leaving a couple of tear streaks down Tate's cheeks. "Okay. Sure. Yeah," he smiled and dropped into the rocking chair.

"Right now," said Doctor Harmon. He set aside his notepad. "I'd like to talk about lucid dreaming."

"Lucid dreaming?" Tate pulled both of his sleeves over his hands. "Is that like the Native Americans do?"

"Not exactly. You're thinking of waking-dreaming, where a waking mind drops into dream state. I'm talking about recognizing you're having a dream while you're still asleep. It's a method of nightmare control," the doctor said. "A... type of therapy that helps train you to realize when you're having a nightmare so you can escape it, without having to wake up."

Tate looked skeptical and started rocking in the rocking chair, just a little bit. "Does it work?"

Ben shrugged. "It works for some people. It's not a drug so I thought you might want to give it a try."

Tate rubbed his sweater-covered thumbs over his chin as he thought. "What would I have to do?"

"Nothing much," Dr. Harmon reassured. "I'd just have to sit with you a few nights while you sleep. When you have a nightmare, I'll be there to help you recognize it before it brings you fully out of REM. "

That didn't sound so bad to Tate. "It's okay with me, I guess. Do I have to do anything but sleep?"

Ben smiled. "Nope. Not a thing."

...

Author's Note:

For the record, there is a scan of Shelley's 'Ozymandias' on display at Wikipedia.

Check out my Profile for my song list. I updated it. It's long but really worth the listen.

One more chapter to go for this episode. Brace yourself. It's not pretty.

Episode 5 is called Ghost House and dips into a few different points in the house's history. It's partly named after my favorite Claire McNally book. Check for it soon!