She looked into his eyes and froze-like a deer in headlights.

“Don’t worry” he said softly. “Trust me. I’m going to change your life forever.”

2

“They weren’t real bears.”

“Toys?”

“Bears in a story.”

“What’s so hard about this?” Dr. Peters asked.

“I don’t know.”

Crazy Megan gives her a good burst of sarcasm. Oh, good job, loser You’ve blown it now. You had to tell him about the book.

But the other side of her was thinking: Seven weeks of bullshit with Dr. Shiny Head Hanson and she hadn’t felt a thing but bored. Ten minutes with Dr. Peters and she was hooked up to an electric current.

Crazy Megan says, It’s too hard. It hurts too much.

But Bill couldn’t hear G.M., of course.

“Go on,” he encouraged.

And she went on.

“I was about six, okay? I was spending the weekend with Tate. He lives in this big house and nobody’s around for miles. It’s in the middle of his cornfields and it’s all quiet and really, really spooky. I was feeling weird, all scared. I asked him to read me a story but he said he didn’t have any children's books. I was really hurt. I started to cry and asked why didn’t he have any. He got all freaked and went out to the old barn-where he told me I wasn’t ever supposed to go-and he came hack with this book. It was called The Whispering Bears. Only it turned out it wasn’t really a kid’s story at all. I found out later it was a book of folk stories from Europe.”

“Do you remember it?”

“Yeah.”

“Tell me.”

“It’s stupid.”

“No,” Peters said, leaning forward again. “I’ll bet it’s anything but stupid. Tell me.”

“There was a town by the edge of the woods. And everybody who lived there was happy, you know, like in all fairy stories before the bad shit happens. People walking down the street, singing, going to market, having dinner with their families. Then one day these two big bears walked out of the woods and stood at the edge of town with their heads down and it sounded like they were whispering to each other.

“At first nobody paid any attention then little by little the people stopped what they were doing and tried to hear what the bears were saying. But nobody could. That night the bears went back into the forest. And the townspeople stood around and one woman said she knew what they were whispering about-they were making fun of the people in the village. And then everybody started noticing how everybody else walked funny or talked funny’ or looked stupid and they all ended up laughing at each other, and everybody got mad and there were all kinds of fights in town.

“Okay, then the next day the bears came out of the forest again and started whispering, blah, blah, blah, you get the picture. Then that night they went back into the woods. And this time some old man said he knew what they were talking about. They were gossiping about the people in town. And so everybody figured that everybody else knew all their secrets and so they went home and closed all their windows and doors and they were afraid to go out in public.

“Then-the third day-the bears came out again. And it was the same thing, only this time the duke or mayor or somebody said, ‘I know what they’re saying! They’re making plans to attack the village.’ And they went to get torches to scare away the bears but they accidentally set a house on fire and the fire spread and the whole town burned down.”

Megan felt a shiver. Her eyes slipped to the top of the desk and she couldn’t look up at Dr. Peters. She continued, “Tate only read it to me once but I still remember the last line. It was, ‘And do you know what the bears were really whispering about? Why, nothing at all. Don’t you know? Bears can’t talk.’”

This is so bogus, Crazy Megan scoffs. What’s he going to think about you now?

But the doctor calmly asked, “And the story was upsetting?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Maybe ‘cause everybody’s lives got ruined for no reason.”

“But there was a reason for it.”

Megan shrugged.

He continued, “The town was destroyed because people projected their own pettiness and jealousy and aggression on some innocent creatures. That’s the moral of the story. How people destroy themselves.”

“I guess. But I was just thinking it wasn’t much of a kid’s story. I guess I wanted The Lion King or 101 Dalmatians.” She smiled. But Peters didn’t. He looked at her closely.

“What happened after your father finished it?”

Why did lie ask that? she wondered, her palms sweating. Why?

Megan looked away and shrugged again. “That’s all. Bett came and picked me up and I went home.”

“This is hard, isn’t it, Megan?”

Get a clue.

Quiet! Megan snapped to CM.

She looked at Dr. Peters. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Would it be easier to write down your feelings? A lot of my patients do that. There’s some paper.”

She took the sheets that he nodded toward and rested them on a booklet he pushed forward for her to write on. Reluctantly Megan picked up a pen.

She stared at the paper. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Say what you feel.”

“I don’t know how I feel.”

“Yes, you do.” He leaned close. “I think you’re just afraid to admit it.”

“Well-”

“Say whatever comes into your mind. Anything. Say something to your mother first. Write a letter to her. Go!”

Another wave of that scalding heat. Spotlight on Crazy Megan…

He whispered, “Go deep.” “I can’t think!”

“Pick one thing. Why are you so angry with her?”

“I’m not!”

“Yes, you are!”

She clenched her fist. “Because..

‘Why?”

“I don’t know. Because she’s… She goes out with these young men. It’s like she thinks she can cast spells on them.”

“So what?” he challenged her, “She can date who she wants. She’s single. What’s really pissing you off?”

“I don’t know!”

“Yes, you do!” he shot back.

“Well, she’s just a businesswoman and she’s engaged to this dweeb. She’s not a fairy princess at all hke she’d like to be. She’s not a cover girl.”

“But she wears an exotic image? Why does she do that?”

“I guess to make herself happy. She wants to be pretty and young forever. She thinks this asshole Brad’s going to make her happy. But he isn’t.”

“She’s greedy? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes!” Megan cried. “That’s it! She doesn’t care about me. The night on the water tower? She was at Brad’s and she was supposed to call me. But she didn’t.”

“Who? Her fiancé’s?”

“Yeah. She went up there, to Baltimore, and she never called. They were fucking, I’ll bet, and she forgot about me. It was just like when I was little. She’d leave me alone all the time.”

“By yourself?”

“No, with sitters. My uncle mostly”

“Which uncle?”

“My aunt Susan’s husband. My mom’s twin sister. She’s been real sick most of her life, I told you. Heart problems. And Bett spent all this time with her in the hospital when I was young. Uncle Harris’d baby-sit me. He was real nice, but-”

“But you missed your mother?”

“I wanted her to be with me. She said it was only for a little while because Aunt Susan was real sick. She said she and Susan were totally close. Nobody was closer to her than her sister.”

He shook his head, seemed horrified. “She said that to you? Her own daughter?”

Megan nodded.

“You should have been the person closest to her in the world.” These words gripped her by the throat. She wiped more tears and struggled for breath. Finally she continued, “Aunt Susan’d do anything to have kids but she couldn’t. Because of her heart. And here Mom got pregnant with me and Susan felt real bad about that. So Mom spent a lot of time with her.”