“You called me a selfish fuck,” Renee corrected. “I finally offer myself to you, after a year of your selfish attempts, and you insult me?” She gave the air a deeply offended sniff. “It’s fine, Clay,” Then, after several seconds: “You pissed yourself. I stepped in your puddle and almost slipped—but I didn’t insult you for it.”
“You would have pissed too, if you saw what I saw.”
“But I didn’t.” Renee laughed a bitter laugh and shoved her door open. “The mercy fucks are over now, love. Don’t come begging.”
When Clay got home, his mother was waiting for him in his room, with the same concerned expression his father would wear two years later, after his son trashed his bedroom and refused to accept the blame. “It’s over now,” Clay said, and yes, he finally believed himself. “I swear to God it is.”
And his mother had kissed his forehead and gone back to bed.
That, in truth, was how Clay had managed to kick his habit, not Renee never talking to him again, not hardcore rehab or self-discipline, not his mother’s state of love and trust, not finding God—but finding the devil, the Queen Bitch, on the far side of a peephole.
Here he was, though, in therapy, a suspected vandal, a disturbed son, his only friend a famous ghost, and his only friend’s dead girlfriend trying to kill him. It overwhelmed one’s sense of reality. Clay wanted to crank down his La-Z-Boy and bolt out of Payton’s office.
He wanted to go somewhere and get high again.
Silence clung to the room. When it was obvious that his father talked himself out, Payton asked, very calmly, “Peter, you said your wife raised Clay better than he was acting. Do you not feel like you had a part in raising him yourself?”
“Of course I did,” Peter retorted. “It’s just that Tracy was always more than a parent. She was somehow Clay’s friend. I never had that with my parents. They put clothes on my back, provided an education, then sent me on my way.”
“Is that the sort of relationship you want with your son?”
“No.”
“But you don’t think you can achieve the closeness that Tracy did with him.”
“That’s called leading the witness,” Peter said. “I see a young man with his whole life to live, and I want him to know that the difference between success and failure lies in making smart decisions. Walking the line. Do I think I’m getting through to him? Not a bit.”
Payton rested a sandaled foot on his opposite knee and cocked his head. “Then you haven’t observed what I have in this session. You see, every time you’ve accused Clay of something, there’s been a reaction in him. Clay, I’m going to speak for you briefly, and say that you care about what your father thinks. And Peter, you being here tells me that you care deeply for Clay. Really, so many of my father-son patients come in because some third party put them up to it. They have no interest in making anything better. I don’t get that sense with you two.”
“That doesn’t excuse what Clay did to my room,” Peter retorted. “And why have I been doing all the talking? I’m a guest here, not your patient.”
“It does surprise me a little, Clay, that you would make such a dramatic gesture. Doesn’t seem your style. Why wreck your father’s room like that?”
“I don’t know,” Clay said, not failing to note the irony. I really don’t! Go ask the invisible lady who did it! “I guess I’m not ready to accept my mother’s death. Seeing my father with another woman, I was angry—I am angry that you think Mom is far enough in the past.”
“I’m only human,” his father said quietly. “I’m lonely.”
Clay met Peter’s eyes briefly and understood the candor in his words. “I’ll fix your room by the time you’re home tonight. And I’ll see to it that it doesn’t happen again. Because, believe me, I don’t want it to either.”
By the end of the session, Payton seemed pleased with their progress. “Make it a priority to spend time together over the next week. Talk to each other.”
Although if the therapist had instilled a positive vibe between father and son, if a little optimism could be gleaned for their new life on the left coast, it had evaporated by the time the elevator spit them in the parking lot. “He’s good, isn’t he?” Clay said.
“I don’t trust anyone who wears sandals to work.” Peter scrolled aggressively through his phone. “A professional knows how to dress.”
“Well, we’re not paying him for fashion advice.”
“You’re not paying him at all.” His father shook his head, and Clay saw their fate in that moment: Despite Payton’s observations, there would be no progress made between strangers living under the same roof, no deeper communicating than what had been done in the office today (Clay sensed his father was embarrassed by having expressed himself at all). “I’m late for work,” Peter told him, failing to note the expression on Clay’s face. “Make sure you have my room spotless. And not tomorrow, or a week from now, today.”
They had taken separate cars into Sherman Oaks and were parked on opposite ends of the lot. Clay watched Peter stalk toward his Mercedes. I didn’t do it! he wanted to shout after him.
But sometimes truth was only what you wanted it to be.
9
FEAR OF THE DARK
It took Boyle awhile to show, but Clay made enough of a ruckus in the Generator to rouse him. “I spent all afternoon cleaning the mess she left in my old man’s room,” he said.“The bottle was in sight the whole time. Deidre’s about as interested as a shark in a vegan hamburger.”
Let’s try a different approach, Boyle said.
“I’m not going in there after dark. My head hurts just thinking about it.”
You have the Rick with you?
“In my Jeep.”
Good, then you won’t need to go back
