Speaking in Tongues

said, ‘I know what they’re saying! They’re making plans to attack the village.’ And they went to get torches to scare away the bears but they accidentally set a house on fire and the fire spread and the whole town burned down.”
    Megan felt a shiver. Her eyes slipped to the top of the desk and she couldn’t look up at Dr. Peters. She continued, “Tate only read it to me once but I still remember the last line. It was, ‘And do you know what the bears were really whispering about? Why, nothing at all. Don’t you know? Bears can’t talk.’ ”
    This is so bogus, Crazy Megan scoffs. What’s he going to think about you now?
    But the doctor calmly asked, “And the story was upsetting?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Why?”
    “I don’t know. Maybe ’cause everybody’s lives got ruined for no reason.”
    “But there was a reason for it.”
    Megan shrugged.
    He continued, “The town was destroyed becausepeople projected their own pettiness and jealousy and aggression on some innocent creatures. That’s the moral of the story. How people destroy themselves.”
    “I guess. But I was just thinking it wasn’t much of a kid’s story. I guess I wanted The Lion King or 101 Dalmatians.” She smiled. But Peters didn’t. He looked at her closely.
    “What happened after your father finished it?”
    Why did he ask that? she wondered, her palms sweating. Why?
    Megan looked away and shrugged again. “That’s all. Bett came and picked me up and I went home.”
    “This is hard, isn’t it, Megan?”
    Get a clue.
    Quiet! Megan snapped to C.M.
    She looked at Dr. Peters. “Yeah, I guess.”
    “Would it be easier to write down your feelings? A lot of my patients do that. There’s some paper.”
    She took the sheets that he nodded toward and rested them on a booklet he pushed forward for her to write on. Reluctantly Megan picked up a pen.
    She stared at the paper. “I don’t know what to say.”
    “Say what you feel.”
    “I don’t know how I feel.”
    “Yes, you do.” He leaned close. “I think you’re just afraid to admit it.”
    “Well—”
    “Say whatever comes into your mind. Anything. Say something to your mother first. Write a letter to her. Go!”
    Another wave of that scalding heat.
    Spotlight on Crazy Megan . . .
    He whispered, “Go deep.”
    “I can’t think!”
    “Pick one thing. Why are you so angry with her?”
    “I’m not!”
    “Yes, you are!”
    She clenched her fist. “Because . . .”
    “Why?”
    “I don’t know. Because she’s . . . She goes out with these young men. It’s like she thinks she can cast spells on them.”
    “So what?” he challenged her. “She can date who she wants. She’s single. What’s really pissing you off?”
    “I don’t know!”
    “Yes, you do!” he shot back.
    “Well, she’s just a businesswoman and she’s engaged to this dweeb. She’s not a fairy princess at all like she’d like to be. She’s not a cover girl.”
    “But she wears an exotic image? Why does she do that?”
    “I guess to make herself happy. She wants to be pretty and young forever. She thinks this asshole Brad’s going to make her happy. But he isn’t.”
    “She’s greedy? Is that what you’re saying?”
    “Yes!” Megan cried. “That’s it! She doesn’t care about me. The night on the water tower? She was at Brad’s and she was supposed to call me. But she didn’t.”
    “Who? Her fiancé’s?”
    “Yeah. She went up there, to Baltimore, and she never called. They were fucking, I’ll bet, and she forgot about me. It was just like when I was little. She’d leave me alone all the time.”
    “By yourself?”
    “No, with sitters. My uncle mostly.”
    “Which uncle?”
    “My aunt Susan’s husband. My mom’s twin sister. She’s been real sick most of her life, I told you. Heart problems. And Bett spent all this time with her in the hospital when I was young. Uncle Harris’d baby-sit me. He was real nice, but—”
    “But you missed your mother?”
    “I wanted her to be with me. She said it was only for a little while because Aunt Susan was real sick. She said she and Susan were totally close. Nobody was closer to her than her sister.”
    He shook his head, seemed horrified. “She said that to you? Her own daughter?”
    Megan nodded.
    “You should have been the person closest to her in the world.”
    These words gripped her by the throat. She wiped more tears and struggled for breath. Finally she continued, “Aunt Susan’d do anything to