The Obsession(20)

“No, I’m not like him.” And the determination, the bright intelligence in those eyes spoke as truly as the words. “I’m never going to be like him. Don’t you be like Mama. Don’t let him twist you up. He tried to do that to us all our lives, just like with her. It’s praise and punish. It’s how they get you to do what they want, how they train you.”

She understood it, or some of it. And yet. “He never hit us.”

“He’d take things away—promise something, then if we didn’t do something just the way he said, he’d say how we couldn’t go or couldn’t have. Then he’d show up with presents, remember? He put up the basketball hoop for me, brought you that American Girl doll. I got that brand-new catcher’s mitt, you got that little heart locket. Stuff like that. Then if we did anything even a little out of line, he’d take what he’d given us away. Or we couldn’t go to a party we’d been counting on, or the movies.”

“He said we were going to Kings Dominion, and we were so excited. I didn’t get my room picked up all the way, so he said we weren’t going because I didn’t respect what I had. You were so mad at me.”

“I was seven. I didn’t get it wasn’t you. He didn’t want me to get it wasn’t you. Maybe we’d give Mama a little sass when he wasn’t around because we knew she wouldn’t tell him, but we never bucked him. Never. We lived by his moods, just like you said, and that’s how he liked it.”

She’d never left so much as a pair of socks out of place in her room after that, she remembered. Yes, he’d trained her.

“What are you reading to come up with all this?”

“A lot of books in the library on psychiatry and psychology. A lot of stuff online, too. I’m going to study and be a psychiatrist.”

From her vast advantage of twenty-three months, she smiled a little. “I thought you were going to be a pro basketball player.”

“It’s what Seth and Harry, and Mama, need to hear now. And I like basketball. I’ll play my ass off if it helps me get into Harvard.”

“Harvard? Are you serious?”

“They don’t have scholarships, but they have like incentive programs. I’m going to get into Harvard, study medicine, get my degree. And maybe I’ll use it to get into the FBI, into behavior analysis.”

“God, Mason, you’re fourteen.”

“You were three years younger when you saved a life.” He leaned forward, those golden brown eyes intense. “I’m never going to be like him. I’m going to be somebody who helps stop people like him, who learns to understand so they can. You stopped him, Naomi. But he’s not the only one.”

“If you do all that, you’ll never put it behind you.”

“You put something behind you, Nome, it’s got its eyes on your back. I’d rather keep it in front of me, so I can see where it’s going.”

—

It scared her, what he’d said, and more the coolheaded logic behind it. He was her baby brother, often a pain in her butt, regularly goofy, and a slave to Marvel comics.

And he not only had aspirations, he had lofty ones he spoke of as if he’d already checked them off a list.

He’d spied on their mother. Naomi could admit to watching her mother—and closely. Living with Susan was like carrying around something delicate. You watched every step so you didn’t stumble, drop the delicate so it shattered.

She could admit to herself, and now to Mason, a huge sense of disappointment with their mother. Mixed in with the sincere effort to make some sort of a life had been lies and deception. And over a man who’d taken lives, ruined others.

Was it love that drove her? Naomi wondered.

If it was, she didn’t want any part of it.

She’d try sex, because whatever the books and songs and movies said, she knew one didn’t have to walk arm in arm with the other. She considered the best way to go about it, knew there was no way she’d discuss birth control with her mother. And as much as she loved Seth and Harry, such a conversation would be mortifying.

So the next time she went to the doctor, she’d ask. Then when she decided to have sex, she’d be prepared.

Maybe Mason was right, and if she put it, or tried to put it, all behind her, it meant the whole ugly business could rush up to nip at her heels anytime it wanted.

Like with the movie.

So as fall came to New York, she set it aside. She didn’t like the idea of keeping it straight in front of her—couldn’t you just trip over it then? But setting aside seemed like a good compromise.

And for right now her mother got out of bed every day, got dressed, went to work. Naomi kept busy with school, her yearbook and school paper assignments, and considering which boy it made the most sense to have sex with when the time came.

But she made it a point to get her uncle alone and speak to him about the movie.

“It’s coming out in just a few weeks now.”

“Honey, I know. Harry and I planned to talk to you and Mason about it.”

“But not Mama?”

“I’ll talk with her. I hate having to. She’s doing so well right now. But the movie doesn’t change anything. Your lives are here now. That part of your lives is over.”

“Not for her. You need to talk with Mason.”