“Did your parents ever talk to you about the circumstances of your adoption?”
“No.”
“Please don’t be concerned that I’m here to take you back to your birth mother—that’s never going to happen. But when you were placed here, there were some conditions. One is that if we ever found evidence that your mental health was suffering, we’d have to remove you from the home and find you a new one.” Dr. Barrow continues to look at him with false compassion, her own hands occupied with cupping her mug. His parents are pressed together, virtually shaking. “Roger, we received a very worrisome phone call. Your school nurse says you’ve been talking to yourself. Not playing pretend—all children do that—but really talking to yourself, like you were carrying on a conversation with someone who wasn’t there. Do you want to tell me about it?”
Terror crashes down on him, hot and fast and utterly consuming. He doesn’t want to be taken away, has never known this was something that could happen. He’s happy here, with his family and his things and his familiar little world. If he lies, she’ll be able to prove it: someone at school must have seen him talking to Dodger. A lie paints this woman as in the right, and puts his family in danger. The less appealing option is the only one that remains.
“I wasn’t talking to myself,” he says, and sees his father relax, just a little—enough to make him sure he’s doing the right thing. He focuses on Dr. Barrow and says triumphantly, “I was talking to my friend Dodger. She lives in California, and we communicate via quantum entanglement. That’s why I can talk inside her head and she can talk inside mine.”
His mother gasps and buries her face against his father’s shoulder. Dr. Barrow’s expression becomes one of understanding and, more worryingly, pity.
“Oh, Roger, sweetie,” she says. “I wish you’d said something sooner. I wish you’d told someone about this delusion. The adults in your life have only ever wanted to take care of you.”
“Please,” moans his mother, raising her head. “Please, we didn’t know, he didn’t show any signs, please. We’ll get him the help he needs. We’ll make sure this stops. Just don’t take our little boy away from us, please.”
“Mom?” says Roger. His voice is a squeak.
“There will have to be tests,” says Dr. Barrow. “A brief hospitalization may be necessary. We’ll want to avoid medicating him long-term if we possibly can; a brilliant mind like his shouldn’t be subject to the sort of side effects that come with antipsychotic drugs.”
There is another moan. Roger realizes, with surprise and dismay, that it came from his father.
“But if Roger is willing to work with us to recant his delusions, I don’t believe removal from the home would be in the child’s best interests.” Dr. Barrow’s eyes are sharp and glittering as she turns her attention back to Roger. “Well, Roger? Which is more important to you? A little girl who doesn’t exist, or your family?”
“I don’t want to go!” He will never remember moving, but he moves; he shoots across the room like an arrow, wedging himself between the bodies of his parents, clinging to them harder than he’s ever clung to anything in his life. This is where he belongs, this is home, and yes, he loves Dodger, she’s his best friend, but a best friend isn’t worth a family. She’ll see that. She’ll understand. The numbers don’t add up.
He turns a tear-streaked face to Dr. Barrow. “My family. My family is more important than anything in the world. Whatever you need me to do, I’ll do. She’s not real, she’s just a g-game I play that got too big for me, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I won’t talk to her ever again, I’m sorry. Don’t make me go.”
Dr. Barrow smiles.
REFUSE ME
Timeline: 23:17 PST, February 11, 1995 (hours later).
Reed is waiting when Leigh returns, still dressed in that ridiculous suit she put on to go and put the fear of God—the fear of him—into the Middleton boy. “Well?” he demands.
“It’s done,” she says. She stops in the middle of the hallway, looking at him. “He won’t make contact again. He’s too afraid. We should have pulled him from that household. Brought him back here. Broken him. They still have potential as a pair—so damn much potential, if they’ve figured out how to access the improbable road without us telling them how—but they need guidance. They need to be controlled.”