Richard Powers - The Echo Maker

She gazed out the window, on a street slowly filling with moving bodies. “The father was kind of a loner. Joan Swanson had some family down in Hastings. But, you know, she was the kind of person who believed that the Kingdom was coming tomorrow afternoon, at 4:15 p.m. And nobody she knew was ready to make the cut. Tends to drive even family away.” She shook her head sadly and stacked the dirty dishes. “No, not much safety net for those two kids.”

He returned to Good Samaritan for a follow-up with Dr. Hayes. They reviewed Weber’s three days of materials. Hayes studied the GSR results, facial recognition scores, and psychological profiles. He asked a dozen questions, of which Weber could answer only a third. Hayes was impressed. “Strangest thing you could hope to see, and still come out intact!” He smacked the sheaf of notes. “Well, Doctor, you’ve raised my appreciation for the case. I suppose that’s good science for you. But what’s indicated now? How do we treat the condition and not just the symptom?”

Weber grimaced. “I’m not sure I know the difference, here. The literature has no systematic treatment studies. No real sample size to work with. Psychiatric origins are rare enough. Trauma-induced cases are almost fiction. If you want my opinion…”

The neurologist bared his palms: no sharp implements. “No turf in medicine. You know that.”

If Weber knew anything from a lifetime of research, it was exactly the opposite. “I’d recommend intensive, persistent cognitive behavioral therapy. It’s a conservative course, but worth pursuing. Let me give you a recent article.”

Hayes raised an eyebrow. “I suppose,” he said. “I suppose we could even get spontaneous melioration.”

Weber countered the attack. “It has happened. CBT has a track record in delusions. If nothing else, it can help address the anger and paranoia.”

Everything about Hayes radiated healthy skepticism. But the first rule of medicine was to do something . Useful or worthless, however irrelevant or unlikely — act. Hayes stood and offered Weber his hand. “I’ll be happy to refer him to Psych. And I look forward to seeing your piece, wherever it appears. Remember to spell my name with an ‘e.’”

There remained only to say goodbye. Weber arrived at Dedham Glen after Mark’s afternoon physical therapy. Karin was there, a chance to combine both farewells. He saw them from a distance, out on the front grounds, Karin sprawled on the grass fifty yards off, like some quarantined babysitter, while Mark sat on a metal bench underneath a cottonwood next to a woman Weber instantly recognized without having met. Bonnie Travis wore a sleeveless baby-blue blouse and denim skirt. Having removed his knit cap, she was placing a garland of woven dandelions around Mark Schluter’s head. She planted a twig in his hands, a garden Zeus’s scepter. Mark wallowed in the treatment. They looked up as Weber approached across the lawn, and Bonnie’s face broke out in a smile that could only have arisen in a state with fewer than twenty-two people per square mile. “Hey! I know you. You look just like your photograph.”

“You, too,” Weber answered.

Mark doubled over giggling. Only grabbing Bonnie kept him from falling off the bench.

“What?” Bonnie begged, laughing along. “What’d I say?”

“You’re both nuts.” Mark strafed them with his scepter.

“Splain, Markie.”

“Well, first off, a photo’s flat? And it’s, like, this big.”

Bonnie Travis cackled like a fiend. It struck Weber that they’d been recreating before his arrival, although he smelled nothing. Karin stood and walked over to Weber, her face filled with suspicion. “This is it, isn’t it?”

Mark reeled. “What’s happening? You exposed her? You’re arresting her?”

Weber addressed Karin. “I’ve spoken with Dr. Hayes. He’ll refer you to intensive cognitive behavioral therapy, as we discussed.”

“She’s going to the slammer?” Mark grabbed Bonnie’s forearm. “See? What’d I tell you? You didn’t believe me. This woman’s got a problem.”

“You’ll be involved,” Weber told her. As promises went, this was the feeblest.

Karin’s eyes interrogated Weber. “You’re not coming back?”

He gave her the look of friendly respect that had won him the trust of hundreds of altered, anxious people — all the reassurance he had just last night misplaced.

“You’re leaving?” Bonnie pouted. In truth, she looked nothing like her picture. “But you just got here.”

Mark jerked up. “Hang on. No, Shrinky. Don’t go. I forbid you!” He pointed his imperial trident at Weber. “You said you’d get me out of this joint. Who’s gonna spring me if you don’t?”

Weber arched his eyebrows but said nothing.

“Man! I gotta get home. Get back to work. That job is the only good thing I’ve got going. They’ll shit-can me if I hang out here any longer.”

Karin palmed her own temples. “Mark, we’ve been over this. You’re on disability. If the doctors feel you need more therapy, IBP’s insurance will…”

“I don’t need therapy; I need work. If those health people would just get off my back. I don’t mean you, Shrinky. Your head’s in the right place, at least.”

Mark had accepted Weber as spontaneously as he rejected his own sister. Nothing Weber had done deserved such trust. “Keep working on yourself, Mark.” Weber cringed at the sound of his own words. “You’ll be home in no time.”

Mark looked away, crushed. Bonnie leaned over and put her arm around him. He made a sound like a slapped dog. “Handing me back over to her! And after I proved …”

“Excuse me,” Weber said. “I need to check some things with the staff before I go.” He headed back to the facility and slipped inside. The reception area looked like the starting line of a wheelchair race. Weber approached the desk and asked for Barbara Gillespie. His pulse raced, vaguely criminal. The receptionist paged Barbara. She appeared, unsettled by the sight of him. Her eyes, that green alert: leave now. She tried for lightness. “Uh-oh. A medical authority.”

He found himself wanting to jest back. So he didn’t. “I’ve been speaking with Neurology at Good Samaritan.”

“Yes?” Instant professional register. Something in her knew what he was after.

“They’ve agreed to some CBT. I’d like to enlist your help. You have…such good rapport with him. Clearly, he dotes on you.”

She turned cautious. “CBT?”

“I’m sorry. Cognitive behavioral therapy.” Strange that she didn’t know. “Would you be interested?”

She smiled, despite herself. “On some days, yes. Definitely.”

He barked a single-syllable laugh. “I’m with you on that. I often…”

She nodded, reading him without explanation, the lightest touch. It struck him again, her absurd rank. Yet she excelled at what she did. Who was he to promote her beyond that calling? They shared a nervous moment, both of them searching for the final, forgotten detail. But no such detail existed, and he wouldn’t invent one.

“Thank you, then,” she told him. “Take care.” The words sounded hopelessly midwestern. Yet her voice — so coastal.

He rushed it out. “Can I ask you something? Have you, by any chance, read anything of mine?”

She looked around the room for support. “Yikes. Is this an exam?”

“Of course not.” He backed away.

“Because if it is, I’ll need to study first.”

He waved apology, mumbled his thanks, and broke for the outdoors. He imagined her eyes on his back all the way down the walk. He felt as he rarely did, as if he’d botched an interview. The morning’s nausea followed him down the walk.

Flanked by the two women, Mark sat enthroned on his bench while a smattering of rehab residents, caretakers, and visitors wandered the grounds of his lowland Olympus. A garland of dandelions, a scepter of cottonwood: how Weber would remember him. In Weber’s brief absence, Mark had changed again. The bitterness at betrayal had fled. He held up his rod and waved it at Weber in benediction. “God-speed, voyager. We send you back out upon your restless search for new planets.”