Gregg Hurwitz - The Program

Striking a contrast with the sleek furnishings, a lopsided ashtray sat on Will's desk, glossy from some classroom kiln. LH was etched in the side. Tim had never seen Will smoke and, from the sweatsuits, algae juice, and exercise room, guessed he did not.

Will wore a smirk, but his eyes were gentle. "How old does a woman have to be to no longer decamp to her mother's?"

Tim, who felt as disconnected from sitcom marital humor as from jokey golf maxims, managed a sympathetic shrug.

"She's exhausted, which is her version of pissed off. Long Beach for the weekend – I'd rather take bamboo shoots under the fingernails, but Emma finds it a haven. I sent Rooch and the nanny to look after her and the baby." Will's lips pursed. "Doug elected to take a few days off."

Aside from a plaque declaiming, THE SLEEPER CELL, $367,923,000 DOMESTIC GROSS, the wall behind Will was dedicated to photos of him and Leah together – picnicking at the Hollywood Bowl, posing courtside with Shaquille O'Neal, riding in a limo with Will hoisting up an award like a title belt.

"The phone rang more then." Will pointed to an impressive desktop telephone. "That quiet – it's a kind of death knell for a producer. It used to be you needed a head of gray hair to run a studio. Now they're fresh out of braces, telling you to cast a rap star, hire some MTV epileptic to direct." The lighting accented his crow's-feet. "I used to have it figured out, but they went and changed the rules on me. Now kids in Zegna suits tell me I'm their inspiration, I get lifetime-achievement awards. It's all so…posthumous." He studied the quiet phone. "There's a reason all our heroes die young. The older we get, the less we have figured out."

Still standing, Tim slid his hands into his jacket pockets. "She kicked your ass in there pretty good. Leah."

Will nodded solemnly. "I've had better meetings." He turned to the glass doors, watching the yellow husks of leaves cartwheel into the pool. "Leah's father was a contractor. Simple guy. He died slow and hard. When I met Emma, she needed to be taken care of. She'd had Leah young, missed out on the part of her life that was supposed to be easy. And she was intoxicated by this whole world, the glamour." A wave of his hand encompassed the room with its myriad Hollywood trinkets. "She wanted this new life, and I wanted to give it to her. That can be intoxicating in its own way, playing Richard Gere."

"And Leah?"

His smile was soft, almost shy. "It's different when you take someone else's child into your life. There's no genetic imperative. You either fall in love with them or you don't. With Leah it took me about five minutes."

"When's the last time you told her that?"

Will fidgeted in his overpriced chair. "You get into these patterns with a kid. You give so much to them, so goddamn much. Now this cult leader wins her over so…cheaply." His face darkened -anger shifting to grief and back again.

"She's still your daughter."

Will pulled open a desk drawer and hefted a sheaf of photocopies onto the desk. He fanned it with a thumb, showing off page after page of handwriting. "I've sent her a letter every week since she's been gone. She hasn't responded to one of them. Not one. Holding out hope takes its toll. It eats at you from the inside. How long am I supposed to keep at it?"

"All I can tell you is, we're meeting again tomorrow, same place, same time."

Will made a muffled, pensive noise and swiveled in his chair, watching the wind work the eucalyptus. He didn't seem to notice when Tim lifted two photos off their hooks.

"I'd like to show these to Leah."

Will responded with a vague flick of his hand that Tim took to be affirmative. As Tim left, Will's back stayed to the door.

Tim tapped the door with a single knuckle, the same knock he'd used on Ginny the night a car-bomb threat had called him away from father-daughter night at Warren Elementary. Jacket folded over his arm to hide the framed photos, he eased open the door to find Leah lying on the mattress, facing the wall. Sluggishly, she propped herself up and sat cross-legged, facing him.

"Listen, I appreciate what you've tried to do for me here, but these are my decisions. And they may not look perfect from the outside – or even the inside – but they're all I have. I think I'm ready to go back to the ranch. It may be dangerous for some people, but it's the only place I belong anymore."

"Give it one more shot, Ginny." He caught himself a second too late, his face burning.

"Who's…?" A strangled little noise of recognition terminated Leah's question. When he could finally look her in the eye, she returned his gaze evenly. "Look, I know you're worried about me, but you're trying to save your daughter here. And you can't. Where does that put you? Or me?"

It took him a moment to answer. "You're right. I'll try to stop."

She rubbed at her rash through her sweatshirt.

"I'd like to have another meeting tomorrow," he said. "With Dr. Bederman and Reggie."

"How about Will and my mom?"

"Your mom went to Long Beach -"

"Of course. With the baby."

"I'm sorry."

"And what about Will?"

Tim flared his hands to show he didn't know. Leah looked crestfallen. "What's the point of doing this, then? I certainly don't want to. Who cares?"

"I do."

"Great. After nineteen years of life, that's what I've got left outside The Program." She looked away. "No offense."

He pulled the first photo out from under his jacket – Will grinning beside her in the limo, the award raised over his head. The etching on the brass plate clearly read PRODUCER OF THE YEAR.

"Will didn't leave you behind at the Beverly Hills Hotel that night."

Her eyes darted over the picture. "That must have been taken on the way there."

"The award's right in his hands, Leah." He drew out the second photo – buoy-ensconced Leah setting sail for romance. "Will also didn't make you miss your prom."

Her voice took on a hint of desperation. "The pictures must be fakes."

He set the photos down beside her. She stared at them, disbelieving. Her shoulders sagged, and her body seemed to go limp. With shame, Tim realized that some petty part of him shared her disappointment. He'd unwittingly staked himself on the notion of Will as the evil father, on a fantasy bond between himself and Leah, orphans of neglect. He'd done on his own what TD had prompted Leah to do – indulged his own childhood pains, licked his wounds, carved out a part of his identity around his victimization. The underpinnings to TD's gibberish revealed their precious-metal gleam: The truth is fluid; reality is interpretation; belief drives perception.

Watching Leah collapse onto the mattress, Tim felt world-weary and old; he'd long learned that exhaustion is the price of dispensing with simplistic answers. Relinquishing clarity didn't feel noble; it felt like a surrender to disillusionment.

"It's not possible." Leah averted her gaze from the photos. She was drowning. "I remember…I swear I remember…"

"I'm not denying Will screwed up sometimes," Tim said, "but you can't lay everything at his feet." He paused, and when he continued, his voice was gentler, more humble. "Trust me – you don't want to spend your adult life harping on the things he did wrong."

She found a foothold in anger. "So you're on his side."

"There are no sides, Leah."

"It's my memory." She dug her hands into her hair, making it stick out between her fingers in brown tufts. "It's what's in my head. It can't be wrong. It can't. Will never cared. He never wanted me around."

"What about all the letters he's sent you?"

A blank stare. "What letters?"

"He's sent you a letter every week for the last three months."