Free An Act of Love by Nancy Thayer Page A

on your face?”
    Emily didn’t reply.
    His chair squeaked as he leaned back. “Do you have friends at Hedden?”
    “Of course.”
    “Close friends?”
    Emily nodded.
    “Do you confide in them?”
    She nodded again.
    “If they ask you—and know they will—why you attempted suicide, what will you tell them?”
    Emily looked down at her hands. The room seemed to swell with silence. “Maybe I won’t see them again.”
    “Don’t you want to see them again?”
    Emily shrugged.
    “I guess they’re not really close friends.”
    What right did he have to say something like that? She was trying to ignore his words, but they got to her, they were stirring her up inside.
    “So. No close friends at Hedden.” He wrote something down.
    Angry, she snapped, “I didn’t say that.”
    “How about your relationship with your parents and your brother?”
    “Stepbrother.”
    “Are you close to them?”
    She didn’t answer.
    “You and Bruce get along okay? Parents treat you both fairly?”
    This time she let the silence swell. The silence had no power, and Dr. Brinton had no power. Nothing mattered.
    “Emily, I’d like you to look at the picture and tell me what you see.”
    He was holding up a black-and-white abstract of a bunch of blobs. Did he think she was totally uneducated? That she didn’t know about Rorshachs?
    “Julie Andrews in the Sound of Music .”
    “And in this picture?”
    “ ‘The Brady Bunch.’ ”
    He displayed no impatience with her answers but continued through a set of ten, and when he was through, he swiveled in his chair to place the set on the table behind him. Then he turned back to face her.
    “I’d say we’ve got a little issue avoidance going on.”
    I’d say you look like Frankenstein’s brother.
    “One more thing. We’ve got a little test we’d like you to take. I’m sure someone as smart as you will have no problem with it. It’s multiple choice. One answer only. We’d like, of course, for your answers to be honest. Take your time.”
    Emily took the pencil and papers he handed her. She was sitting in a student’s desk with a writing table curling around her, and without a word she bent over the test.
    I often feel I don’t belong in any group.
Always.    ——
Never.          ——
Sometimes.    ——
    My friends keep secrets from me.
Never.          ——
Sometimes.   ——
Always.        ——
    My body is ugly.
Yes.            ——
Parts of it.    ——
No, it’s just fine.  ——
    As fast as she could, without reading the rest of the questions, Emily sped through the test, checking off the first line of every question. She handed it back to him.
    He took it without looking at it and leaned his forearms on his desk, earnestly peering at her from beneath his Cro-Magnon bulge.
    “I’d say you are as angry as you are sad.”
    She felt her face flame.
    “Further, I’d say you’re as angry with yourself as you are with anyone else. And you think no one can help. And you think you are the only person in the history of the entire universe who has ever had the particular problem you’re having.”
    She glared at him.
    “Isn’t that a little arrogant? A little solipsistic?”
    “I don’t know what that word means.”
    “Self-centered. Unaware of the rest of the world.”
    She shrugged. “Fine, just add being solipsistic to the rest of my sins.”
    “You’ve got sins ? A pretty young girl like you?”
    “Sometimes people are just born bad.”
    “I see. The Bad Seed sort of thing.”
    Emily nodded.
    Dr. Brinton leaned back in his chair for a moment and stared at the ceiling, humming tunelessly. Emily wished there was a clock in the room.
    “Now what bothers me,” he said, suddenly turning to her, “is that in these reports I’ve read, interviews with your parents and the dean of your school, I’ve come across nothing that indicates any kind of sinning on your part.”
    Emily didn’t