Land of Echoes by Daniel Hecht

Author:Daniel Hecht [Hecht, Daniel]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Mysteries & Thrillers, Fantasy
ISBN: 9781582343938
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Published: 2004-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

27

THE CHIEF of psychiatry at Ketteridge Hospital was a dignified-looking, white-haired man, tall but carrying himself with a stoop that brought his face level with Cree's. He met Cree in the visitors' lounge on the juvenile floor, shook her hand, and took a seat in the chair across from her. The little room was empty and quiet but for the burble of an aquarium against one wall, where three dazed-looking goldfish hovered.

"We think the world of Dr. Tsosie here," Dr. Corcoran told her. "A good man—the best. And Joseph tells me wonderful things about you."

Cree tried to mask her surprise. "Thank you. And thank you for letting me see Tommy."

He put his palms up, the least I could do, and smiled. "It's a very troubling case. If you've established good rapport with him, as Dr. Tsosie says you have, perhaps you can make some progress. He talks to me only with great reluctance."

"Why, do you suppose?"

"I'm just an old white guy! What the hell do I know?" Dr. Corcoran chuckled indulgently, then made a sterner face. "Poor kid— little does he know that if he keeps this up he's going to be talking to old white geezers like me for a long, long time." He shook his head and sighed. "Seriously, his reticence ties in with the whole complex. Here's a boy who's very stressed by his new school experience and is seeking a way to retreat from that which frightens and overwhelms him. It has opened up his repressed grief at the death of his parents, the sense of rejection and abandonment. As for why he won't talk to me, it's because, first of all, he's at the stage where he resents all Anglos for their historic and continuing sins against the Dinê. But, more important, because he doesn't want the problem to go away. He needs the problem. If I helped solve it, he'd have no excuse! Part of him is also very ashamed of himself too—of how excessive all this is. Of how obvious and, frankly, thin it is."

Again, Cree tried to compose her face and voice. "But he's been in boarding schools all his life. Why would he suddenly feel so much stress just now?"

"Ah. Two reasons. First, because he's been at run-of-the-mill schools where it's been easy to stand out, to wow everybody with his talents and intelligence. But at Oak Springs his peers are equally sharp. I think there's an implicit competition there, and Tommy is making it plain he doesn't feel up to it. I also understand he attended his first college-counseling session not long ago." Dr. Corcoran smiled modestly at his own insightfulness. "Suddenly the bigger world impinges. He wants to shine, to stand out, but now he discovers that as bright and talented as he is, he's just one of many. He's told just how competitive college admissions are going to be, how he's got to mind his p's and q's from here on in. Keep his 'cume' up, prepare for the SATs, and so on.

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