Джеффри Дивер - The Goodbye Man

But Colter Shaw also had to admit that maybe what had happened was this: Here in the close room, sitting before a perceptive and smart and sympathetic man, the undercover fiction had been suspended. Shaw , not Skye, was here, a Companion at the Foundation, and really was suffering from the tragedy of a missing brother. He really was undergoing the first stage of the Process in an effort to true up. He really did desire to move up to the Apprentice level, then become a Journeyman and a member of the Inner Circle, earning a coveted silver amulet.

It was perfectly natural for him to blurt out that the main reason he was here was the consuming Minus in his life: the sorrow of his brother’s vanishing.

He thought with some bitter irony of Eli’s story about Osiris and his brother.

Samuel was jotting. He looked up. “Ah, yes, yes. I see in your face, Novice Carter, that we’re onto something. We get many people here about their siblings. See, that’s the trifecta of the Process. People are plagued with Minuses from love, from work and from their families. Parents, of course. What a minefield that is! My own father and mother were certainly poster parents for the ill-equipped. I am, after all, ensconced here. Master Eli truly saved my bacon when it came to Mom and Dad. But siblings too. Ever a source for joy... and consternation. Your brother. His name?”

“Randall.” Too close to Russell? No matter. He had spoken; there was no going back.

“Randy?”

“No. Randall.”

“Was he named after a relative?”

Ashton Shaw had named his children after pioneers. Russell, for the nineteenth-century explorer Osborne Russell; Colter, for mountain man John Colter; and Dorie, after Marie Aioe Dorion, one of the first mountain women in North America.

“So Randall has brought you here.” Samuel’s voice was low as he added, “Has he passed away?”

“We don’t know.”

“We?”

“The family. My mother, my sister.”

Okay, watch yourself. Get ahead of the situation.

More water.

“So he left home, and never was in touch?”

“That’s it, yeah.”

“I see. A question of to be or not to be. Or to shift from the infinitive conjugation to the present tense — is or is not. Look at that narrowing of your eye, Novice Carter. If I had a stethoscope on your chest, I suspect I’d hear a little acceleration of the lubdub, lubdub, wouldn’t I?”

“Maybe. I guess.”

Then the man’s eyes narrowed and the smile vanished. “You understand I joke because we’re treading through dangerous territory when we start uncovering the big Minuses. The serious ones. I want you to feel at ease. What we’re doing here is vital to truing up, to your becoming a Journeyman, free of the Minuses that have prevented you from reaching the garden of your True Core. You’re hurting, you came here to fix that. Master Eli wants to help you, he lives to help you. And we can help. We will help.”

Samuel was right about the ticker.

Lubdub...

“Tell me about it.”

“He was my big brother, my protector. Then he was gone. Just left.”

“You hesitated just a wink there once again. Before ‘my’ protector. You have mettle, Novice Carter, mettle and street smarts. And you know how to use your fists. I don’t really think you would need protecting at any age. No, within your family, I suspect someone else would need looking out for. Your mother, maybe. No... wait. You’re the product of a strong mother too. Your sister. Am I near the mark?”

“That’s right.”

“And her name?”

“Doris.”

Too damn close. Watch it, Shaw told himself sternly, picturing again Hugh’s fierce blow to the reporter’s face.

“So Randall was protecting her from what? Or whom? Your father? Was he... inappropriate?”

“No, no, nothing like that.”

Samuel’s tone and furrowed brow were that of an attentive and benevolent father — a man very different from Ashton Shaw, later in his life, whose shifting eyes and mouth chewy from the antipsychotics forced Shaw to look away from him. A man whose words, brilliant in his younger days, grew increasingly inane and dark toward the end.

“Go on.”

Shaw was thinking: I come here to find out why a man died in my care, and to help out a complete stranger, and I end up in a shrink’s session. Colter Shaw was a man who had never been to therapy, resisting even Margot’s suggestion. He recalled an incident from several years ago, his lover tossing her light blond curls off her shoulder looking over at him from behind her desk in the university archeological department. She asked him point-blank if they could go see a therapist. He’d demurred. Sometimes he thought this had been a grave mistake; sometimes not.

Restless...

“Doris was strong, is strong. But Father pushed her too far. He thought he was doing it for her own good. He was putting her in danger.”

“At sports?”

Ashton tried to force her, at thirteen, to rock climb a sheer hundred-foot cliff by herself at night. And that was just one of the trials the demented man had in store for his children. To toughen them up. To teach them how to survive.

“Yes. He was pushing her too hard. He put her at risk, physically. Mentally too.”

“And Randall put a stop to it?”

“Yes.”

“We’re near something here, Novice Carter. But hovering only. A troubled, dangerous father... an older brother looking out for a little sister. You... you haven’t mentioned your role in this story. Let’s talk about that.”

Palms glistened once more.

“Not long after the last incident with Doris, our father died.”

“How?” Samuel asked quickly.

Shaw paused. “At first, it looked like an accident.”

“‘Looked like.’ That’s a loaded phrase. But it wasn’t?”

“No. Murder or manslaughter.”

“My. And you thought...?”

Shaw said, “I thought my brother killed him.”

“Patricide. Well.”

“He didn’t. We found out later who really did it. Ru — Randall had nothing to do with it. But he disappeared right after the funeral. Which didn’t make sense.” Shaw lifted his hands. “And no word since. It’s been years.”

“And you think he knew you suspected him. And hated you for it.”

Shaw nodded.

“And you never had a chance to talk to him. To apologize or explain.”

“No. All these years. I’ve tried to find him and talk to him. No luck.”

Samuel leaned back. “What would you say was the greatest Minus regarding your brother? What hurts the most?”

“He’d been my friend.” Shaw took a breath. “I was his. And I ruined it.”

“Well, Novice Carter, we’ve made excellent progress on our first session. Best to give it a rest for now. We’ll break that Minus down. Grind it up like making gravel from rocks. Don’t worry. You’re doing fine. We’ll leave it there for now. Go and journal about what you told me. But don’t go far. You don’t want to be late for Master Eli’s Second Discourse. No, sir, you’ll want to hear every word.”

“How bad was it?”

Shaw turned.

Victoria stood ten feet behind him.

“I saw you come out of Building Seven. You don’t look so good.”

Shaw shrugged.

She gave a wan laugh and her high forehead wrinkled slightly with faint, early-thirties lines. “Who’s your trainer?”

“Journeyman Samuel.”

“He’s good. No hardball tactics like some of them. Still, it’s tough to be interrogated over every detail of your life. About the library business. What had my late husband done professionally, how did that affect me? What do I feel about my father being a rich bank lawyer? Do I resent him?”