Free Obsession by Jonathan Kellerman Page A

known to lock herself in her bedroom for days. Leaving Dad, banished, fuming, reeking of beer-and-shots, lurching through the four remaining rooms of the house in search of someone to blame.
    My sister, Em, the sib I hadn’t spoken to in years, had been quick to sniff the air and get away, an ace escape artist. I’d thought her selfish because the rules made her safe: You didn’t hit girls, at least not with a strap.
    Boys were another matter…
    Enough nostalgia, mawkish fellow, self-pity’s a lousy aperitif.
    Besides, I’d put it all behind me, courtesy of the training therapy required by my doctoral program.
    A stroke of good luck: random assignment to a kind, wise woman. The mandatory six months stretching to a year, then two. Then three.
    The changes I saw in myself reaffirmed my career choice: If you knew what you were doing, this psychotherapy stuff worked.
    By my final year of grad school, the cognitive starbursts and compulsive corrections were gone. Farewell, also, to rituals, invisible or otherwise.
    Death of the near-religious belief that symmetry was all.
    Which wasn’t to say vestiges didn’t crop up from time to time.
    The occasional bout of insomnia, the sudden stabs of inexplicable tension.
    Preoccupation that led nowhere.
    Therapy taught me to accept all that as proof of my humanness, and when I chatted with my parents over the phone I was able to hang up without fingernail crescents bloodying my palms.
    The best tonic was taking care of other people. I started off hoping that no parent who stepped into my office saw me as anyone other than the amiable, calm,
understanding
fellow with whom they entrusted their children’s psyches.
    Several years of success made me believe I’d pulled it off.
    Sometimes I allowed myself a bit of leeway. Like following through on Patty Bigelow’s museum wax suggestion. Because that was a housekeeping issue, nothing wrong with a bit of geometry, right?
    My patients’ faith kept me up at night, devising treatment plans.
    Patty Bigelow’s faith had endured and I wasn’t sure I’d earned it.
    Now she was dead and her child was depending on me and I was making a house call.
    A bit involved.
     
     
    The duplex was Spanish Revival, not dissimilar from the building on Fourth Street. Peach-toned stucco, mullioned windows inset with stained-glass bluebirds, flat lawn instead of a car park; a young paper birch weeping dead center.
    Alarm company sign staked to the left. Lights on in the second story. The stairs were whitened by high-voltage floodlights.
    Tanya opened the door before I finished climbing. Loose hair shawled her shoulders. She looked exhausted.
    “Thank God I’m not late,” she said.
    “Tough study session?”
    “Tough, but it was all good. Please. Come in.”
    The living room was oak-floored, barrel-ceilinged, pale pink. Cream-colored tiles painted with lilies fronted the fireplace. A lilac chintz sofa faced the curtained picture window and two matching chairs. In between was a bleached wood coffee table with gilded rococo legs.
    Patty had talked about being butch but she’d chosen delicate décor.
    Above the couch, a dozen photographs were set low on the wall, framed identically in faux-driftwood.
    The Story of Tanya from toddler to teen. Predictable shifts in hair-style, clothing, and makeup as Cute Tyke grew to Pretty Girl, but style-wise no signs of adolescent rebellion.
    Patty made no appearance until the final photo: Tanya in a crimson cap and gown, her mother in a navy jacket and white turtleneck, holding up a diploma and beaming.
    Tanya said, “Here’s one I just found,” and pointed to the sole photo on the coffee table. Black-framed portrait of a broad-faced young woman in a white uniform.
    Patty’s upward gaze was solemn, so contrived it was almost comical. I pictured some hack photographer clicking away and uttering rote instructions.
Think of your new career, dear…chin higher
—
higher
—
even higher—
there
you go. Next
!
    “She