CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Both Sandra and Tab cried in whispers, at separate times, on the drive to Dr. Clifford’s. There, Tab began to wonder why she’d even brought him along. He passed forty-five minutes in the waiting room beanbag chair without his sketchbook, uninterested in any of the titles on the children’s bookshelf. There was much adventure in those volumes, but also a lot of reminders of fear and death. His mother had darted through the door to the treatment rooms with his sketchbook dangling from one hand and her bag clasped in the other.

He considered trying to summon Roy. The ghost apparently made for a terrific spy. He wanted to know what they were saying about him when he was not in the room. More, he wanted to know what they might be doing back there. Yet he remained frightened of Roy because there was an undercurrent of conniving and malice slashing at the ghost’s truths. Ashley Reardon, the man at the zoo, Tab’s dad, all three were events Roy had been truthful about and which he might have caused. Or maybe Tab had caused them. Whether Roy was lying about the nature of what Tab had come to alternately think of as a power and a disability was difficult to pinpoint.

There were also the times that were obviously without malice, though. His cat, Alfie. Roy had been protective of Alfie during the storm. He suspected Alfie, too, could sense Roy’s presence. But he had never so much as hissed at or gotten his back up at the ghost. At least, not that Tab ever saw.

He closed his eyes and sank into the beanbag chair. His third eye cracked open as he began to drift, finally enabling him to see inside Dr. Clifford’s office. Therein, he lowered his gaze to his feet, orienting himself. What he saw on the floor were a giant’s work boots. They connected to thick tree trunk legs hidden by beige coveralls. Above his knees dangled boiling red, cracked hands. Tab wasn’t just seeing through Roy. He was Roy. The Tab who was not Roy grimaced. His body was too big, his shirt too tight against his belly. Friend or foe, he would never be comfortable with Roy.

On the other side of his office, Dr. Clifford held Tab’s sketchbook in his lap. The depiction of his late father’s hand clawing out of the grave seemed less menacing in the presence of these clinical fluorescent lights. His mother sobbed in heaving gasps, inconsolable. She sat on the couch across from Dr. Clifford, her elbows on her knees and her face in her hands.

“Is there no possible way you could have seen this drawing before?” the doctor asked.

Tab’s mom shook her head. “No.”

“Tell me about the dream again.”

Sandra shivered. “I’m standing in the graveyard,” she started. Her voice cracked on the last word. She cleared her throat and continued, “I’m standing in the graveyard, looking at Tim’s headstone. I’m wondering if I’ll ever see him again, thinking about how much I’d love to feel him wrap his arms around me. I mean, we weren’t getting along very well. We’d grown apart, I guess. And his temper got so much worse as he got older. But I remember the days when we couldn’t stand to be away from each other. That’s the part of me that wants him back. That wants to tell him I love him one more time. I will always love him.”

“Mmm-hmm. So what happens next?”

Her eyes widened, images from the dream apparently flooding her head. “All of a sudden, this hand—Tim’s left hand—bursts out of the ground at my feet. As I start to back away, his right hand bursts through, too. They claw at the dirt, which in my dream is a lot looser than it was when I was standing on it.” Her voice rose, tremulous. “The hands push at the dirt, moving it out of the way. All of a sudden, I catch sight of his face. His eyes are open. They’re sad, haunted. He’s looking at me, and I think he wants me to help him. But I can’t. I can’t bring myself to reach out to him because he can’t still be alive. I’m afraid he’ll be cold. And slimy. I’m afraid if I tried to pull him up that the gray, dead skin would slide off his hands in my grip. I mean, it’s been weeks since we buried him.”

She sniffled and swallowed. Dr. Clifford wordlessly gifted her the box of Kleenex from the end table beside him. Sandra plucked a tissue from it, dabbing at her eyes and nostrils before continuing.

“I’m trying to decide what to do when he speaks to me. He says Tab’s in danger. A man is after him; a man I can’t see. All I can think about when I wake up is that ghost Tab thought he saw in his closet before Tim died. All I can think about is what if it’s real? What if something is trying to take my baby boy away from me the way it took my husband? How can I protect my kids from something I can’t even see?”

That last ended in a sob, which next collapsed into an uncontrolled series of them. She blew her nose into the tissue, trying to recover herself. Dr. Clifford waited, but Sandra had nothing left.

“Okay,” he said. His voice was soft, reassuring in an unexpectedly maternal way coming from someone with such an overtly masculine appearance. Unmanly, Tab’s dad and brother would say. And probably Ashley Reardon, too. “I think I understand. It’s not uncommon for anxiety to spread its fingers throughout a household during a time of grief like this. I see why you say your nightmare last night was almost this same scene.” He tapped the drawing with the trigger end of his pen. Sandra maintained her gaze on her hands wringing her tissue, not wanting to look at the abomination again. “Indulge me for a minute. Let me give you a different idea of how all of this could have happened in a rational way.

“It’s easy to fall into magical thinking when life throws coincidences at you.” He closed the sketchbook and set it aside. Sandra’s hands fell into her lap. She opened her mouth to protest, but the doctor stopped her with a raised finger. “Listen to me for a moment. Your entire family is grieving an enormous loss right now. Grief within the family unit is one of those rare times when everyone under the same roof is mostly on the same page. You’re all noticing the same things, finding reminders of Tim and what happened to him everywhere.”

“Oh, you’re right about that! I found a wrinkled and water-stained old Marilyn Monroe calendar from 1955 tucked in his sock drawer the other day. I remember it. He found it on the floor of his Aunt Kathy’s old store after he’d inherited the land. I wonder if it’s worth anything.”

Dr. Clifford smiled but transitioned the conversation back to his point. “It’s not impossible that you and Tab watched the same TV show or saw the same magazine or book cover somewhere, which triggered this image in both of you.”

Sandra chuckled, her eyes wet and sad. “Well, Tim did have a big collection of horror books and movies with some bizarre covers on them. All three of us have been kind of revisiting his things in the house lately, I think. Just remembering who he was.” She pointed a finger toward the sketchbook in epiphany. “That drawing is the same as the DVD cover for Mortuary! One of Tim’s favorite horror movies!”

Dr. Clifford’s eyes brightened. “Tab is an artist. A damned superior one, if you don’t mind my saying so. It’s natural he’d use his sketchbook to process something like this if he’s been exposed to a similar image from something that belonged to his father. You’ve tried to bury your hurt deep down inside because you have to press forward. You’re the sole breadwinner now and you have a household and a farm to run. Mostly on your own because of how young your boys are. Because you can’t allow yourself to process it consciously, your subconscious—your dream world—is doing it for you.”

“But why is Tab saying he didn’t draw it?”

“That is a question I’ll need to address with Tab,” Dr. Clifford said. “Shall we call him in?”

Sandra glanced at the clock. “Oh! I’ve already used up our whole hour. I wanted you to talk to Tab, too.”

“Yes, but I have another one available right now. I think it’s important we keep working through this while it’s fresh. In fact, I’ll give you this next hour for free. That’s how important I think it is.”

Tab’s vision cleared as Dr. Clifford poked his head out from behind the door to the offices and motioned for him to follow. The boy’s eyes felt heavy, as if he’d just awakened from a deep sleep. It must have been evident on his face because Dr. Clifford asked him about it.

“Did you fall asleep out there?” the doctor asked, paternal joviality in his voice. It was different from the tone he’d taken with Sandra a few minutes before. Brotherly and mannish. Tab shrugged and seated himself on the couch. He was careful to leave the middle space open, separating himself from Sandra.

His sketchbook lay closed on the end table by Dr. Clifford’s chair. A hot pang of embarrassment, betrayal, and rage stabbed at his chest. Her violation of his privacy infuriated him. Work he took pride in, work he wanted to become his life, had gotten him into trouble with not one, but three people in the space of a day. He retrieved the sketchbook without asking, sat with it, and finger-traced the Strathmore logo on the cover, acknowledging neither of the adults in the room.

“So, what’s going on?” Dr. Clifford asked. “Can we talk a little about what happened this morning?”

“My brother stole my sketchbook and showed it to my mom,” Tab intoned, his voice flat. He did not look up from the sketchbook cover. “Then Sandra freaked out about a drawing in it I didn’t do. That’s all.”

Sandra looked hurt. “It’s Mom, Tab,” she said. “You always call me Mom.”

He paid her no mind. “I don’t know why she’s so freaked out about it. It’s just a drawing of a hand.”

“It’s your dad’s hand coming out of the grave.”

“I didn’t draw it,” he said again. Then, with a hint of mockery, “Sandra.”

Dr. Clifford shot Tab’s mother a warning glance, stopping her before she could retort. “Let’s save this for a bit,” he said. “For now, why don’t you tell Tab why you were so upset by it?”

“Because of your nightmares,” Tab said before she could answer.

Sandra’s mouth dropped open. “My—”

“She’s told you about her nightmares?” Dr. Clifford asked.

“No.”

“Then how do you know what Dr. Clifford and I have been talking about in here?” Sandra asked. She transitioned from shock to anger mid-sentence. Her narrowed eyes pierced him. He only shrugged in reply.

“Were you listening at the door, Tab?” the doctor asked.

“No.”

“So how do you know?”

“Roy,” Tab said, tapping his bump with the end of his pencil. He began to rock, bending forward at the waist and backward into the couch, not looking at anyone. “When we’re connected, he can see even though he doesn’t have eyes. And he can go places I can’t go. Roy was in here with you. He heard you, so I heard you.”

“This again,” Sandra spat. She folded her arms and turned her back on the boy, glaring out the window at the gleaming tops of cars sitting in the direct sun of the parking lot.

“So through Roy you could hear what your mom and I discussed?”

Tab nodded.

Dr. Clifford leaned back in his chair. “Okay, do you understand that in using Roy to overhear us, you’ve done the same thing you accuse your brother and your mother of doing? I’m not saying your brother had a right to take your sketchbook. Not at all. I just wonder if you feel any different about listening in on our conversation than you do about your sketchbook.”

Hot pins and needles pricked at Tab’s cheeks. “Oh,” he said.

“Yes,” Dr. Clifford said, smiling. “So, do you think both of you can acknowledge the violations of privacy?” He glanced from son to mother and back. “If you can, maybe we can move forward a little and drill to the core of what’s going on here.”

Sandra and Tab locked eyes. “I’m sorry, Mom,” he said.

“I’m sorry, too, hon. Your brother has no business going through your stuff. If you know about my dream now, you know why the drawing scared me so much. Are you having the same nightmares about your dad I’m having?”

“I didn’t draw it,” he said again.

Sandra threw up her hands. “Oh, come on, Tab! We were starting to make some progress!”

“Now, now,” Dr. Clifford said. “Let’s talk about this.” He turned his gaze to Tab. “If you didn’t draw it, who did?”

“I thought Jeremy did. Maybe Roy did it.”

Sandra grunted. “I’m done with Roy. I don’t want to hear any more about him.”

“But you do,” Dr. Clifford said. “I’ll get to why. But first, I want to ask Tab a few more questions about Roy. So bear with me for a minute. Tell me something, Tab. When you’re in school, do the other kids seem to appreciate your drawings? Do they like them?”

Tab shrugged. “I guess.”

“Do any of them ever make fun of you for them?”

“Mom and Dad always said they’re jealous.”

“Do you show your drawings to other people much?”

He shook his head.

“No? Have any teachers ever made comments to you about your art?”

“They say I have a vivid imagination. But sometimes they yell at me about it, too. They think I’m not paying attention.”

Sandra nodded. “We’ve had a couple of parent-teacher conferences about it,” she said. “Ms. Bowman got so frustrated with him for not listening in class.”

“What happens then?”

“Well, we talked about taking the sketchbook away, but we were afraid he’d draw on his homework and test papers instead. So we took away television and computer privileges for a couple of days.”

Dr. Clifford steepled his fingers, his gaze above their heads. “Have Tab’s grades suffered because of his drawing?”

Sandra thought for a moment. “No. As far as I’ve seen his grades stayed much the same.” She smiled, prideful. “Tab’s always made excellent grades. He’s a sharp kid.”

“Uh-huh. And have you considered talking to the teacher about just allowing Tab to draw when he needs to draw if it’s not interfering with his schoolwork?”

“But—”

“What I’m hearing is Tab’s art is impressive and that he has a vivid imagination,” Dr. Clifford said. “What I’m hearing is his drawing during school hours does not interfere with his grades or schoolwork or behavior. Is that right?”

“Yes, but—”

“What I know, and this comes from years of experience as well as study, is punishing a child who is exploring a talent can cause the child guilt or shame about indulging in that talent. By choosing to punish Tab, you and his teachers are telling him his creativity is a problem. This is even though you admitted it isn’t hurting his school performance.

“When a child does something wrong or inappropriate, it’s natural to feel mild shame when corrected. It’s even natural for the child to want to deflect blame for it—say, to an imaginary friend named Roy—in order to escape the shame. It only becomes a problem when parents or teachers use punishment instead of reassurance to correct the child.”

“But if he’s not paying attention?”

Dr. Clifford grinned knowingly. “Is he not paying attention? Growing up, you and I learned we had to sit still and sit straight in our chairs, eyes on the teacher. Pay attention or get in trouble. But not everyone is wired the same way. For some kids, forcing them into traditional learning poses, for lack of a better term, actually inhibits their learning. I got bored and tuned out as a kid in classrooms like that. I went day-tripping in my own head if I couldn’t busy my hands with something while the lectures were going on.

“Tab is an incredibly creative and talented young man. He needs to know it’s not something to be ashamed of. Instead of punishing him, try reassuring him. Remind him he’s not doing anything wrong. Remind him grownups are nervous people who think he isn’t paying attention in class if his eyes are not where they expect them to be. Next, have another chat with his teachers. Tab might need some accommodations from them, for them to understand he needs to be able to draw while he’s learning. I think if you’re able to come to an understanding with the school, you’ll find Tab will start to separate criticism and correction from attacks on his character. You might even find he starts to take more responsibility when he does make mistakes.”

Dr. Clifford returned his attention to Tab. “We all make mistakes. Never believe you should be defined by them. You are not the mistakes you’ve made. Nor are you the bad thoughts you’ve had. You’re a good person. You’re a smart person. You’re a talented artist. That’s who you are.”

Sandra sat stone-faced for a moment, pondering the doctor’s words. Then it was as if someone flipped a switch behind her eyes. “That makes so much sense.”

“Of course it does. Sometimes we have to take a step back from what we—you and I—learned from our parents when we were growing up. My mom and dad thought a slap to the back of the head or a switch on the rear-end was the solution for everything.”

Sandra chuckled. “I was so straitlaced. I don’t remember ever getting in much trouble. My brother, though. Wow. I guess that’s why I watched my Ps and Qs so much. It took four years of college before I said my first swear.”

Dr. Clifford’s face lit. “And what was that swear?”

Sandra cut her eyes at Tab and back to Dr. Clifford, nervous. “Ass,” she said.

Dr. Clifford burst into laughter. Sandra followed. And Tab, although he didn’t understand what was so funny about “ass,” even after he’d laughed with Jeremy and his mom about it in the car. It was another name for donkey. He knew it could also mean butt, and butts were always funny. He couldn’t remember having used the term either way. His memory gears ratcheted up anyway, scanning for times he might’ve embarrassed himself by using “ass” in an incorrect way. Saying swears was one of those things that felt forbidden to him, but also enticing. His brother said them sometimes without consequences. Well, other than his mom shouting his name, which most of the time for Tab felt shaming enough.

Dr. Clifford met Tab’s eyes. “Now, let’s talk a little about Roy if you’re comfortable. Do you remember I suggested you talk back to Roy when he gets in your head? Have you been able to do it?”

Tab squirmed. “A little,” he said. It was more lie than truth. He hoped it was not written on his face. Neither Dr. Clifford nor his mother believed Roy was an actual entity. They’d almost had Tab himself not believing it. There had been too many coincidences since then, though. Dr. Clifford eyed him with a puzzled, bemused expression.

He probably knows I’m lying, Tab thought. I’m going for it.

“Too many things I’ve drawn or that Roy has shown me have come true,” he said. “He’s not my anxiety. He’s not OCD. He’s real. Sometimes he’s in the room with me. Sometimes he’s using my eyes to show me things.” He turned to his mother. “That’s how I knew about your dream. I wasn’t listening at the door or anything. I was in the bean bag chair outside, but Roy was in here with you and Dr. Clifford. So I heard a lot. I didn’t mean to. I mean, I thought about asking Roy to help and decided not to. Then it kind of happened anyway.”

“Really, Tab?” Sandra asked. Her nose was scrunched and her lips puckered as if she smelled something rotten. She leaned back on the couch and folded her arms across her abdomen. “We’re going in circles now.”

“No, this is good,” Dr. Clifford said. He tapped the end of his pen against his lower lip. “Are either of you acquainted with synchronicity?”

“The Police album? Sure. I had a copy of it as a kid.”

“No, I mean the idea of synchronicity proposed by Carl Jung and Wolfgang Pauli. It’s dismissed by much of the scientific community these days, and with good reason. Unless you’re into quantum physics or something. But at its simplest, it’s the possibility of meaning or interconnectedness between strings of coincidences. Like after 9/11, when a lot of people were saying they’d seen the numbers nine and eleven everywhere before the attacks. Some people think it’s God or the universe or whatever trying to send them messages. Most of us in the sciences tend to agree it’s confirmation bias, coincidence combined with some hindsight that fits a few puzzle pieces into place.”

“What’s confirmation bias?” A kindling of hope sparked in Tab’s chest, and he wanted to nurture it. It was hope he might be wrong about Roy, that the doctor might banish all this worry the eyeless phantasm had caused him with a single rational explanation. That Roy might not be real after all.

Dr. Clifford pressed his tongue into his lower lip and glanced toward the ceiling before he answered. “Confirmation bias is when we take something that happens as evidence we’re right about a specific idea we have, even if the two things are not related. For example, you thinking the drawing of your friend Ashley getting hurt caused her to get hurt.”

“She’s not my friend.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry. Your classmate?”

Tab shrugged.

“I remember the news stories on Channel 6 about your neck of the woods. Parents had been complaining about how heavy those school doors were for years. Some had even predicted a child would be hurt by them one day. It was only a matter of time until one did. It just happened to be on the same day you drew it, a day she picked to harass you in the hallway. Right?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah. It wasn’t the first time she picked on you, either. I remember when you were here before, what she said about you in the waiting room. Someone else in your shoes who hadn’t drawn the picture you drew would’ve thought it was karma. She got hurt because she hurt you and the universe answered for you. But because you drew the picture, you think you caused it. It could just be you already knew about the heavy door controversy and drew your picture based on it. By coincidence and no fault of yours, Ashley got stuck in the door. Make sense?”

“I guess. But I don’t remember any news about the doors being heavy.”

“Well, it was brought up in PTO meetings,” Sandra said. “We always took you with us to those.”

Dr. Clifford nodded, emphatic. “I’ve said this today already. I don’t mean to sound repetitive. But you are an artist, Tab. Most artists are astute observers, I’d guess. You’re aware of things around you even if you’re not aware you’re aware. So, synchronicity—your sense that your drawings and thoughts are connected to external events beyond your control—isn’t anything but your smarts combined with a little bit of our pure human penchant for confirmation bias.”

“But everything Roy tells me about comes true!”

Dr. Clifford leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “Does it?”

“Yeah! There was Alfie, the guy at the zoo, Ashley, my dad’s accident, you and my mom uh—” He’d almost said going together, as in affair. He hadn’t told either his mother or the doctor about his first bean bag chair vision. They might be angry if they knew he knew. Plus, giving voice to it might make it true.

“Your mom’s conversation with me earlier?” Dr. Clifford asked. Tab wanted to affirm but found himself shaking his head instead. “Your, uh, friendship with my mother?”

Bewilderment crossed Dr. Clifford’s face. His lips parted but issuing no words. Tab examined his mother’s expression and found it much the same. He immediately regretted bringing it up.

“What do you mean by friendship, Tab?” Sandra asked.

He grimaced. He couldn’t talk about the L-word or the S-word with his mother. Instead, he studied Dr. Clifford. “Roy showed me you and my mom doing...stuff people who like each other do. People who like-like each other. Grownup stuff. Here. In your office.”

“Uh-huh,” Dr. Clifford said, cautiously. He thought for a moment. “I think I understand. Look at my eyes, Tab. I can one-hundred percent assure you your mother and I have never been together in that way. Not here or anywhere else. It would be a serious ethical violation on my part, to start. At best, it could damage my work with both of you. At worst, I could lose my license to practice.”

“Oh.” He screwed up his face. “But you had my mom’s makeup on your neck that day.”

Dr. Clifford looked surprised, his hand stroking his neck automatically. “I did? Well, I might have had makeup there.” He glanced at Sandra. “I imagine your mother and my wife might wear similar shades of stuff like that. And I do make sure I hug my wife before we both leave for work every morning. It wouldn’t be the first time we’d accidentally smeared me with her makeup.”

“And I’m not that kind of person!” Sandra snapped. Tab winced at the offense in her voice. Or it might have been defense. “Your father is just in his grave. What do you take me for?”

Dr. Clifford shot her the warning look again. Tab didn’t know what it meant, but it caused his mother to sit back and place her hands in her lap, her eyes wandering the patterns on the gray industrial carpet.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” Tab said, a cry creeping into his voice.

Sandra sighed, not looking up. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

“Here’s the thing about anxiety disorders like OCD,” Dr. Clifford said. “They trick you into thinking they can predict things, that they know things because they seemed to predict things in the past. They also trick you into thinking you can do something to control the outcomes you fear.

“One classic example is repetitive handwashing. People who have OCD and who are afraid of germs are compelled to repeatedly wash their hands in order to prevent themselves from becoming sick. It’s called The Doubting Disorder because it tends to make you doubt your own memory and reason. You wash your hands repeatedly even though you think you remember washing them. You become doubtful you remembered to use soap. Or you fear you touched something germ-infested in the bathroom after you finished washing, so you have to go do it again.”

“I don’t wash my hands that much.”

“Well, as I said, that’s an example. In your case, your OCD is this eyeless phantom named Roy who has convinced you he can show you things that are happening or will happen. Or make you think you’re the cause of them or that you want to cause them. It’s called intrusive thoughts, and it’s a common companion of OCD. The thing is, Roy is playing on doubts and fears already in your head. He’s not telling you anything you don’t already know or couldn’t guess. But he is lying to you about the danger those things present and the danger you and your drawings pose to others.

“We’ve talked about how you might’ve predicted your classmate’s trouble with the school door. Have you considered you could have guessed the fellow at the zoo was going to get hurt? If I remember, you told me he looked unstable.”

“I think he was drunk.”

“Right. So, isn’t it possible you guessed he was going to be hurt and were right? Drunk people get hurt in traffic all the time. OCD—Roy, I mean. Let’s go ahead and name it. Roy is your OCD and Roy lies to you, too. Tell me. This is sensitive, I know. With your father gone, have you been afraid you will somehow lose your mother, too?”

Tab sat silent for a moment. He glanced at his mother, who took his hand in hers. “It’s okay,” she said.

“Yeah. I guess I have worried about it.”

“Mm-hmm. OCD latches onto our fears. So because Roy could predict what happened to the man at the zoo and the thing with the school doors, he’s convinced you he’s right about me and your mother as well. He’ll probably continue trying to convince you he’s right about it. That’s another thing OCD and other types of anxiety do. They cause you to constantly seek reassurance. You believe us now, but you might not on the car ride home if Roy decides he’s found some other form of ‘evidence’.” He enclosed the last word in air quotes.

“He’ll always be checking for you, searching for hints and pieces to make the puzzle picture into whatever he wants it to be, which is whatever will most likely make you anxious. It might be something you think you saw between your mother and me. It might only be the way we’re positioned across from each other. He’ll try to latch onto something to prove to you he’s right.”

“The Doubting Disorder,” Tab said.

“Exactly. The Doubting Disorder.”

“So what can we do to help him?” Sandra asked.

Dr. Clifford removed his glasses and rubbed at the corners of his eyes. “Well, you said talking back to Roy worked a little in the beginning, right? You thought he’d gone away for a while?”

“After Dad’s funeral. Yes.”

“Okay, I want you to start talking back to him again. Don’t only talk back, fight back. If he shouts at you, shout back at him. One of the hardest things you have to learn when you have OCD is how to sit with the anxiety and fight the need for reassurance. And by sit, I don’t mean sit in a chair and try to pretend nothing is happening. I mean allow yourself to feel how you’re feeling and what you’re worrying about but talk back to it. Remind yourself that you are safe and you are not the cause of the world’s problems.

“Tell Roy he’s a liar and a trickster. Tell him you’re not going to fall for his tricks anymore. I think if you do those things, you’re going to see him diminish again.”

Tab made eye contact, hopeful. “I’ll be cured?”

Dr. Clifford’s benevolence shone behind his glasses as he replaced them on the bridge of his nose. “There isn’t a cure for something like OCD, I’m afraid. Maybe someday there will be. But if you keep practicing talking back to it, you’ll find you can live with it. You’ll have some good days and some bad days, but you’ll survive.

“Personally, I think you’ll thrive. At this point in your life, you can choose any path you want. The trick is to not allow Roy to choose it for you.”