Orson Card - Lost Boys

"She's conniving, not crazy," said DeAnne. "The only really crazy Mormon I've known recently is Dr.

Weeks's own son, and she can't blame that on us."

"Give her time," said Step.

"It makes me so mad that she would dismiss what we believe as if it wasn't even worthy of consideration."

"Well, she believes in a competing religion," said Step. "If ours is true, then hers is kind of silly."

"Well, ours is true, you know," she said.

"And hers is kind of silly."

"As you said all along."

Step shrugged. "This isn't about I-told-you-so. It's about Stevie. We can try another psychiatrist later. But I don't think he should continue going to a psychiatrist who firmly believes that the only way to help Stevie is to cure us of our religious delusions. Even if she could succeed, it certainly wouldn't help Stevie, since that's not his problem."

"I agree," said DeAnne.

"So Dr. Weeks is toast, right?"

"Right."

"Only for Lee's sake we tell her that we're going to hold off on continuing treatment for a few months, while we watch Stevie to see if he improves by himself."

"Excellent," said DeAnne.

The radio wasn't on very loud, but it happened to start playing "Every Breath You Take" during a momentary pause, and they both noticed it. "They're playing our song," said DeAnne.

"Weird stuff is happening to us all the time," said Step. "Makes me feel special."

"Jeremy's problems sure put things in perspective, though, don't they?" said DeAnne. "I mean, it's hard to get excited about Sister LeSueur's silliness when you've seen your baby in a glass box like that. And that anonymous record-"

"Still bothers me," said Step.

"Me too," said DeAnne. Then she reached out and put her hand on Step's leg, feeling the muscles flex and move as he moved his foot from the brake to the accelerator. "Step," she said, "thanks for seeing Dr. Weeks. I don't know if I would have been able to get her to come forward with her diagnoses. It was obvious she was trying to keep us from finding out what exactly it was that she was doing to Stevie. If you hadn't kept pushing, we wouldn't have known."

"I only did it because I knew you were with me on it."

She squeezed his leg. "I love you, Step."

"I love you too," he said. "I'd love you even more if you'd remember that I'm very ticklish on my leg and when you squeeze just above the knee like that I'm likely to have a fit and lose control of the car."

She squeezed his leg again, repeatedly, but even though he was very ticklish there, he had learned how to relax his stomach muscles and resist laughing-a technique that had allowed him to sur vive childhood with an older brother who was a merciless tickler. "You're no fun," she said.

"Try it again when you're in shape to do some serious tickling."

"I hope it's soon," she said.

"So do L"

When they got home, they found Stevie in the family room sit ting on the couch, and told him the news right away: He wouldn't be going back to Dr. Weeks.

"Oh, OK," he said. "She was kind of stupid anyway."

"Oh?" asked DeAnne.

"She said that Jesus was just like Santa Claus," said Stevie. "Only everybody knows that Santa Claus is just a story."

"Well," said Step, "she believes that Jesus is just a story, too."

"That's only because she doesn't listen when he talks to her," said Stevie.

"I guess not," said Step. He glanced at DeAnne, caught her eye. "Clearly dissociative," he said, grinning.

She shook her head at him. He shouldn't try to joke like that around Stevie- he was likely to catch the drift of what he was saying.

"Does this mean I can still play with my friends?" asked Stevie.

DeAnne sighed. It was one thing to realize that Dr. Weeks was simply playing out her own prejudices, and quite another to sup pose, just because Weeks was no help, that Stevie didn't still need help.

"I'd rather you played with your brother and sister," said DeAnne.

"But when I'm not playing with them, I can play with Jack and Scotty and those guys? Cause we got a new kid."

DeAnne wordlessly got to her feet and left the room. Stevie watched her go in silence.

"Do what you need to," said Step. "Do what you think is right." Then he, too, left, following DeAnne into the bedroom, where she clung to him in silence for a long while.

They brought Zap home from the hospital after two weeks in intensive care, with a bill for more than eighteen thousand dollars and no diagnosis. It had finally come down to a day when Step and DeAnne were standing there listening to a doctor who had come in from Chapel Hill. He was describing several procedures and drugs they could try "in case" Zap's condition was caused by this or that, until Step said, "I don't think I want my son being treated for an undiagnosed condition." The Chapel Hill specialist looked at him in surprise; his whole demeanor changed; he was more respectful, almost apologetic for his early tone. "Oh, I didn't realize you were a doctor," he said. There was not a trace of irony in his tone, and so Step realized that this specialist really was proposing things that he might not have so confidently proposed if he had thought Step and DeAnne actually knew anything. That was enough for them.

The hospital was very good about things. They accepted two thousand dollars and a promise to pay at least half the balance as soon as Step got his option money from Agamemnon-or else the completion money for the

64 version of Hacker Snack, whichever came first.

Then they brought Zap home and began the slow process of discovering just exactly how much was wrong with him, and how little they could do about it.

The only really good thing that had come out of Zap's long hospital stay was that they realized how much they could depend on people in the 1 st Ward who they had thought were merely acquaintances, and now discovered were true friends. Vette remarked on it, too. You have a good ward, she said. They really care about you.

If only there were something about Stevie's condition that could evoke the same community response that Zap's had brought forth, thought DeAnne. If only they could rally around Stevie, and fast and pray for him.

Maybe they should tell people about what Stevie was going through, and give them a chance to help him. But no. There was too great a chance that in the case of a mental illness and not a physical one they'd shy away, they'd shun the boy and make his isolation even worse, his descent into madness steeper and faster than ever.

And could we really blame them? thought DeAnne. If I were a mother of a normal child and I heard that a little boy of his age was seeing hallucinations of imaginary friends, would I really be willing to let them play together? Would I feel so much compassion for someone else's child that I would put my own child at risk of being hurt in some outburst of madness? No, the hurts of the mind were too strange, too invisible, too magical to hope for the same kind of tolerance and help from even the best of people.

It frightens me, thought DeAnne. Why should I expect others to be better than I am?

So Stevie's problem remained a matter for their family alone. Until a newspaper article forced them to see things another way.

This is the headline on the front page of the Steuben Times-Journal on the morning of Sunday, 21 August

1983: SERIAL KILLER IN STEUBEH? The headline brought fear to the hearts of parents all over the city, for this was not a tabloid, and the story was not irresponsible shock journalism. The chief of police had formed a task force that included the county sheriffs office and had close liaison with the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation. They were also bringing in outside experts on serial killers, especially those who specialized in the kidnapping and murder of young boys.