The Husband

parents without becoming like them. This achievement seemed no less impressive than if nineteenth-century scientists, with nothing but steam power and primitive voltaic cells, had sent astronauts to the moon.
    "Anson just signed a major consulting contract with China," Daniel said.
    Brontosaurus, diplodocus, brachiosaurus, iguanodon, moschops, stegosaurus, triceratops, and other droppings were labeled by engraving on the bronze stands that held the spheres.
    "He'll be working with the minister of trade," said Daniel.
    Mitch didn't know whether petrified stool could be analyzed so precisely as to identify the particular dinosaur species or genus. Perhaps his father had arrived at these labels by the application of theories with little or no hard science supporting them.
    In certain areas of intellectual inquiry where absolute answers could not be defended, Daniel embraced them anyway.
    "And directly with the minister of education," Daniel said.
    Anson's success had long been used to goad Mitch to consider a career more ambitious than his current work, but the jabs never broke the skin of his psyche. He admired Anson but didn't envy him.
    As Daniel prodded with another of Anson's achievements, Mitch checked his wristwatch, certain that he would shortly have to leave to take the kidnapper's call in privacy. But the time was only 5:42.
    He felt as if he had been in the house at least twenty minutes, but the truth was seven.
    "Do you have an engagement?" Daniel asked.
    Mitch detected a hopeful note in his father's voice, but he did not resent it. Long ago he had realized that an emotion as bitter and powerful as resentment was inappropriate in this relationship.
    Author of thirteen ponderous books, Daniel believed himself to be a giant of psychology, a man of such iron principles and steely convictions that he was a rock in the river of contemporary American intellectualism, around which lesser minds washed to obscurity.
    Mitch knew beyond doubt that his old man was not a rock.
    Daniel was a fleeting shadow on that river, riding the surface, neither agitating nor smoothing the currents.
    If Mitch had nurtured resentment toward such an ephemeral man, he would have made himself crazier than Captain Ahab in perpetual pursuit of the white whale.
    Throughout their childhood, Anson had counseled Mitch and his sisters against anger, urging patience, teaching the value of humor as defense against their father's unconscious inhumanity. And now Daniel inspired in Mitch nothing but indifference and impatience.
    The day Mitch had left home to share an apartment with Jason Osteen, Anson had told him that having put anger behind himself, he would eventually come to pity their old man. He had not believed it, and thus far he had advanced no further than grudging forbearance.
    "Yes," he said, "I have an engagement. I should be going."
    Regarding his son with the keen interest that twenty years ago would have intimidated Mitch, Daniel said, "What was this all about?"
    Whatever Holly's kidnappers intended for Mitch, his chances of surviving it might not be high. The thought had crossed his mind that this might be the last chance he had to see his parents.
    Unable to reveal his plight, he said, "I came to see Kathy. Maybe I'll come back tomorrow."
    "Came to see her about what?"
    A child can love a mother who has no capacity to love him in return, but in time, he realizes that he is pouring his affection not on fertile ground but on rock, where nothing can be grown. A child might then spend a life defined by settled anger or by self-pity.
    If the mother is not a monster, if she is instead emotionally disconnected and self-absorbed, and if she is not an active tormentor but a passive observer in the home, her child has a third option. He can choose to grant her mercy without pardon, and find compassion for her in recognition that her stunted emotional development denies her the fullest enjoyment of life.
    For all her academic achievements, Kathy was clueless about the needs of children and the bonds of motherhood. She believed in the cause-and-effect principle of human interaction, the need to reward desired behavior, but the rewards were always materialistic.
    She believed in the perfectibility of humanity. She felt that children should be raised according to a system from which one did not deviate and with which one could ensure they would be civilized.
    She did not specialize in that area of psychology. Consequently, she might not have