False Memory

in New Mexico,” Claudette told her husband.
    “Really?” Lampton said, raising his eyebrows.
    “I told you,” Skeet said.
    “That’s true,” Lampton confirmed, addressing Dusty rather than Skeet. “He told us, but with such flamboyant detail, we assumed that it was less reality than just one of his dissociative fantasies.”
    “I don’t have dissociative fantasies,” Skeet objected, managing to put some iron in his voice, although he couldn’t meet Lampton’s eyes—and instead stared at the floor when he raised his objection.
    “Now, Holden, don’t be defensive,” Lampton soothed. “I’m not judging you when I mention your dissociative fantasies, any more than I would be judging Dusty if I were to mention his pathological aversion to authority.”
    “I don’t have a pathological aversion to authority,” Dusty said, angry with himself for feeling the need to respond, striving to keep his voice calm, even friendly. “I have a legitimate aversion to the notion that a bunch of elitists should tell everyone else what to do and what to think. I have an aversion to self-appointed experts.”
    “Sherwood,” said Claudette, “you don’t advance your argument whatsoever when you use unintentional oxymorons like self-appointed experts.”
    With a remarkably straight face and measured tone, Martie said, “Actually, Claudette, it wasn’t an oxymoron. It was a metonymy in which he was substituting self-appointed for the more vulgar if more accurate arrogant asshole experts.”
    If he’d ever had the slightest doubt that he would love Martie forever, Dusty knew now that they would be bonded through eternity.
    As if she had not heard her daughter-in-law, Claudette said to Skeet, “Derek is absolutely correct, Holden, as to both issues. He wasn’t judging you. He’s not that kind of person. And you do, of course, have dissociative fantasies. Until you acknowledge your condition, you’re never going to heal.”
    Getting across the threshold, although difficult, was always less of a challenge than moving beyond the foyer.
    “Holden has stopped taking his medications,” Derek Lampton told Dusty, while his gaze slid down and lingered again on the shape of Martie’s breasts.
    “You had me on seven prescriptions,” Skeet said. “By the time I took all of them in the morning, I didn’t have room for breakfast.”
    “You will never be able to realize your potential,” Claudette admonished, “until you acknowledge your condition and address it.”
    “I think he should have stopped taking his medications a long time ago,” Dusty said.
    Looking up from Martie’s breasts, Lampton said, “Holden’s recovery isn’t facilitated when he’s confused by uneducated advice.”
    “His father facilitated his recovery until he was nine, and you’ve facilitated it since.” Dusty forced a smile and a light tone that he knew fooled no one. “And so far all I’ve seen is a lot of facilitating and no recovery.”
    Brightening, Skeet said, “Mother, did you know my father’s name isn’t really Holden Caulfield? It was Sam Farner before he had it legally changed.”
    Claudette’s eyes pinched. “You’re fantasizing again, Holden.”
    “No, it’s true. I’ve got the proof at home. Maybe that’s what Ahriman meant, after he shot me, when he called him a fraud.”
    Claudette pointed a finger at Dusty. “You encourage him to go off his medications, and this is where it leads.” To Skeet, she said, “This Ahriman person called me a whore. Am I to assume, Holden, you think that word fits me as well as you think fraud fits your father?”
    Dusty’s head was filled with that ominous buzzing that usually didn’t afflict him until he had been in this house for at least half an hour. Desperate to get back to the urgent issue, he said, “Derek, why would Mark Ahriman harbor such animosity toward you?”
    “Because I’ve exposed him for what he is.”
    “And what is he?”
    “A charlatan.”
    “And when did you expose him?”
    “Every chance I get,” Lampton said, his mink eyes gleaming with dark glee.
    Moving to her husband’s side, slipping an arm around his waist, giving him a playful hug, Claudette said, “When foolish men like this Mark Ahriman get stung by my Derek’s wit, they don’t forget it.”
    “How?” Martie pressed. “How did you expose him?”
    “Analytical essays in two of the better journals,” Lampton said, “putting his empty theories and his jejune prose under a spotlight.”
    “Why?”
    “I was appalled by how many psychologists were beginning to take him seriously. The man’s