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“She's breaking up with us now,” Lucy said to Sari. “We've created a monster.” They all hugged and said goodbye and then Lucy drove Sari home.
II
The next day, Sari was back at work, where the usual craziness made her feel within minutes like she'd never been away, never sat on a beach or relaxed in her life.
Late in the morning, she walked a mother and son to the front door of the clinic and said goodbye to them. As she walked back into the building, she heard shrieking coming from the hallway. New kids always screamed a lot until they got the idea that there were better ways of communicating, and everyone who worked at the clinic learned to tune out the noise. But the kid let out a particularly loud scream, impossible to ignore, so Sari gri
“Wow. Good lungs on that one.”
Shayda looked up from the textbook she was highlighting. “You should know. It's Zachary Smith.”
“You're kidding.” Sari could feel the smile freeze on her face. “That's weird-he had pretty much stopped tantruming weeks ago.”
“Maybe with you… But Christopher said the kid's had a tough time accepting the switch in therapists.”
“Oh,” Sari said.
Shayda snapped the cap back on her highlighter. “Christopher's thinking maybe they should start taking him in another entrance or do something else to break the routine, so he'll stop expecting to find you here when he comes. But I don't know-I think maybe it's good for Zack to learn to accept change. He'll come around.”
“Yeah,” Sari said, but now that she knew it was Zack and he was crying for her, the shrieks she had barely noticed a minute ago tore at her heart.
Or maybe it was the guilt.
She wanted to run back to see Zack, to give him a hug and let him know that she still loved him. But she knew she couldn't do that-it would only make him think that screaming for her worked, and next time he would scream even louder and longer and be even more crushed if she didn't come. And Christopher would kill her.
She couldn't go back there, but it hurt not to.
She sighed and looked down at the file she was holding, for the family she had just seen. She had work to do. She plucked a pen off of the desk and sat down in one of the chairs in the waiting area to jot down some notes on the session. The screams got louder and sounded more like sobbing. She gritted her teeth and tried to concentrate on the papers in front of her.
She heard someone enter the room. Shayda said, “Rough in there?”
“He was clinging to me, and Christopher thought it would be better if I left.” Jason Smith's voice. Sari looked up at the sound, and he spotted her. “Well,” he said. “So you do still work here.”
“Hi.” She managed a casual smile. “How's Zack doing?”
“Can't you hear for yourself?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Sounds like he's having a bad day. It happens with all the kids from time to time.”
He came over to where she was sitting. Shayda was watching them from the desk, her eyes round with curiosity-she probably knew that Sari had asked to be taken off the family, had probably already speculated with the others about why.
“He never had a problem before.” Jason was standing right over Sari now, looking down at her. “Or have you already forgotten what he's like? He's crying because you're not there, Sari. He's done it every session since you dropped him. He goes into the room and he looks around for you and he even says your name sometimes-did you know he could say your name? Because I didn't-and then he starts screaming for you.”
She stared down at the file in front of her, not seeing it. “Kids get used to certain routines-”
“That's bullshit,” Jason said. “It's bullshit and you know it. He thought you were his friend and then one day you just disappeared and you never even said goodbye to him.”
Sari darted a look at Shayda, whose mouth had fallen wide open. “I know it happened fast, but I just thought-”
“I don't care what you thought. And right now I don't even care that you jerked me around and dropped me flat and made me feel like an idiot for ever-” He waved his hand with an angry noise of dismissal. “But to stop working with Zack, with no reason or explanation-man, that was cold. You're supposed to want to help kids, not break their hearts. What the hell is wrong with you?”
“You don't understand,” she said. “I couldn't do it. Not anymore.”
“Why not?”
She just shrugged and wouldn't look at him.
He squatted down so his face, his eyes, were at her level. “Was it because of me? I asked you if it was okay-everything I did, every time I-” He banged his fist against the side of the sofa-not near her, but it made her jump anyway. “Do you think I would have done anything that might end up hurting Zack? Or you, for that matter? What do you think I am?”
“It wasn't because of that.” Sari wished Shayda wasn't watching. They were speaking in low voices, but Shayda could probably still hear a lot. “You don't understand-”
“I know I don't understand!” he said, his voice rising. “That's my whole point. I don't understand. Why would someone like you want to hurt a kid?”
“I don't know!” Sari said with a rush of anger that was a relief, since it blew away the guilt. “You tell me! Why did you want to?”
“Excuse me?” he said.
“No,” she said. “I won't.”
He rocked back onto his ankles. “What are you talking about?”
She leaned forward. “Why did you torture my brother on a daily basis? Why did you and your friends make fun of him and shove him around and make him scared to go to his own school? Why did you have to make me ashamed of him-of my own brother, who never did anything to hurt me-until I couldn't even stand the sight of him?” Her voice broke on the last word, so she stopped, but she fought the tears and glared at him.
“Your brother?” he repeated.
“My brother. Charlie. I’ve told you about him. He has autism, just like Zack. And just like Zack, he could have had a shot at a better life, only unlike Zack he didn't get it. Instead, he got to be treated like shit, called a retard, have his lunch stolen and his pants pulled down in public. All thanks to you and your friends.”
“Me? What are you talking about? I never did anything like that.”
“Oh, please!” She curled her hands into fists on her knees, almost giddy with the relief of being the one on the attack now. She didn't even care if Shayda heard them. “I remember you, Jason. You, strutting around in your team uniforms, laughing with your friends, acting like you were hot shit because you could knock something out of the hands of a kid who couldn't even defend himself. And then I saw you again here, and I was supposed to help your kid. And I actually tried to. I tried to help your kid because he deserved it even if you didn't, but I couldn't take it anymore. Charlie's got nothing in his life and your kid will be fine, and it's not fair. It's just not fair.”
“You're wrong,” Jason said. His face had softened, lost its anger-exchanged it for bewilderment. “You're wrong, Sari. I’m sorry if kids were mean to your brother, but it wasn't me. I saw stuff like that happening sometimes, but I wasn't the one doing it.”
“Right,” Sari said. Her fingernails were digging into her palms, but the pain felt good. “It was always someone else. That's how people do things like that-they do it in a group and then no one takes the blame for it. There was always a bunch of you around whenever anything bad happened. I always got there too late to see who'd done it, too late to stop it-but you were there laughing at him. I saw you. I saw you there laughing at him. I can still see you laughing at him.”
He shook his head, but not in denial. More like he was trying to clear it. “Maybe I laughed. I don't know. If I did, God knows it wasn't because I actually thought anything like that was fu