Orson Card - Lost Boys

"I'm not mad at you. I'm just reminding you that in all our years of marriage, I've never snuck off and done something about our family that you were against. Have I?"

"No," she said.

"So maybe I deserve a little trust here. You're not the only parent Stevie has who loves him."

"That is so unfair," she said. "I never said that, I never thought it, I never would—"

"I actually go through every day doing pretty well, DeAnne. I dress myself now, I carry on whole conversations with strangers, and I almost never have to call home for help. I've even used a credit card without confusion, and the grocery store lets me cash checks as long as I have a permission slip from my mother."

"Are you trying to make me cry?" asked DeAnne. "Are you trying to make me feel guilty because this is the first time you've taken Stevie to Dr. Weeks and I worry that you'll do something or say something to-"

"You see?" said Step. "You really don't trust me. For five months you've been in charge of everything at home, and now I'm back home again and you think that unless you program every word I say, unless I stick to your program every single moment, without deviation, without side trips, without thinking for myself, then everything will fall apart."

"Let's not fight," she said. "Please, please, please."

"We're not fighting," said Step. "I'm just expressing my resent ment about the fact that you don't trust my judgment. Don't you remember that we decided together to send Stevie to Dr. Weeks? Or do you still think it was because you manipulated me into it and you don't dare let up on the manipulation?"

"Don't do this to me!" she said. "I have to go up there to the hospital and hold my baby who is so drugged up that he hangs like a rag doll in my arms and we have to suction the milk out of my breasts and force it into his throat in his sleep! I have to deal with all those doctors who think that I can't even understand English and force them to tell me what's going on so that I can have some idea of what's happening to my baby, and now you attack me like this—"

"Well if you're so tough and rigorous about finding out what the doctors are doing to Zap," said Step, "then why the hell have we gone two months sending Stevie to Dr. Weeks and you don't even know what goes on in the sessions? And when I say that I'm going to go up there and do with Dr. Weeks exactly what you're doing with Zap's doctors, you think that I'm too stupid or too emotional or too bigoted to do it. Well, I'm trusting you with Zap's life when you handle things up there. Don't you think I deserve the same respect in dealing with Dr.

Weeks? Or am I the vice-president in this marriage? Will I just get trotted out for funerals?"

DeAnne gasped. "Don't say that!" she cried. "Oh, Step, you really think he's going to die!" She burst into tears.

Step was horrified. "It was just a figure of speech. I was just saying-Reagan sends Bush around to funerals, that's what I mean. Lik e when Sadat was assassinated. I wasn't saying anything about Zap. Really."

He put an arm around her. She turned toward him and wept into his shirt for just a moment. Then she lifted her head. "I'm not going to do this," she said. "I'm not going to cry. I'm not going to let go. Do you understand me?"

"Yes," he said.

"If I let go, then I won't be there for Zap. Or Stevie, or anybody. I'm just walking along the edge, Step.

Right along the edge. You mustn't push me. You just mustn't. You're the one I've got to hold on to."

"So hold on to me," said Step. "Don't push me away. Trust me. Trust me the way I trust you."

"This whole argument, this is just because we're upset, that's all. We're upset and worried about Zap."

"And Stevie," said Step.

"Yes," she said. "And Stevie. I have to go."

"DeAnne," he said, "I have to know. Are you with me on this?"

"On what?" she said.

"On finding out from Dr. Weeks what's happening with Stevie."

"Yes," she said. "Do what you think is right."

"I won't do anything," said Step. "I'll just find things out. The way you find things out about Zap. All right?"

She looked at him steadily "If you can see that Dr. Weeks isn't helping, you can discontinue the sessions.

Without asking me or anything."

"But I won't," said Step. "Not without discussing it with you."

So it was that Step drove alone to Dr. Weeks's office, following the directions DeAnne had given him.

When he went inside, Dr. Weeks stood up and greeted him warmly. "Mr. Fletcher," she said.

"Please, call me Step."

"Step, then. I've been thinking that it was about time I had a session with you and your wife."

"She's at the hospital. Our new baby is in intensive care."

"Oh, I'm so sorry. What's wrong?"

Step explained, briefly, and then said, "That's why I'm here today. We're coasting along without insurance.

The bills for these sessions are quite steep, and we thought it was time for us to evaluate where we stand-what exactly you've found out about Stevie's problems and what you think it looks like for ... you know, down the road."

"Well, we've been making good progress, Stevie and I. He talks quite often during the sessions now. I think he's getting used to me."

Step wanted to say, He talks quite often? You mean we've been paying for sessions in which he hasn't talked at all? After two months he's only now getting used to you? But he remembered DeAnne's concerns about him and curbed his tongue.

"Beyond that," she said, "I'm still in the process of diagnosis. His reticence to speak is, of course, one of the symptoms of his disorder, but it also makes the process of diagnosis rather slow. I think that in another month or two I may be prepared to give you a prognosis. In the meantime ..." She turned over a couple of sheets of paper on her desk.

Trying to keep his voice calm, Step interrupted. "What I'm interested in today, Dr. Weeks, is not a final statement, but an explanation of what you know so far, or what you suspect so far. DeAnne and I have to decide now, not two months from now, whether to continue treatment."

"I'd be happy to work out a payment schedule with you," said Dr. Weeks. "But I can hardly discuss an ongoing process, especially when you are not the patient."

"The patient is eight years old," said Step. "And if I were a fellow psychiatrist, you would have no trouble at all talking with me about what you think the diagnosis might turn out to be."

"But you are not a psychiatrist, Step."

"I have a Ph.D., Dr. Weeks. It's in history, which isn't an exact science like psychiatry, I know, but it does mean that I'm an educated human being, and I think that if you try to explain to me what's wrong with Stevie, I'll understand you." Thinking of what was going on at the hospital with Zap, he added, "For instance, you must have some idea of what his condition isn't. Things you've eliminated."

"It would be much more helpful to the whole process, Step, if you and your wife came in for some sessions with me yourselves. In fact, I suspect that your insistence on hurrying the diagnostic procedure may suggest possible sources for Stevie's abnormal reaction to stress."

I should have expected this, thought Step. The very fact that I want to hold her accountable is proof of my disorder. Well, he was not going to let Weeks establish a doctor-patient relationship with him. "Fine," he said.

"If you explain to us what you think the problem might be and why our coming in for sessions might be helpful, then we might well agree that our joining in the therapeutic process might be the indicated course of action."

"Step," she said, "you seem to feel some hostility toward psychotherapists, along with an apparent fascination that has caused you to learn some aspects of psychological jargon. I wouldn't be surprised if you have unconsciously communicated this hostility to Stevie."