In the Blood Read Online Free Page A

said, “we moved here from the city so that Lukecould attend Fieldcrest during the school year and over the summer as well.”
    “Oh,” I said. “I see.”
    Okay, so he was troubled. No problem. Who wasn’t? I mean, I had been classified as a troubled kid and I hadn’t set things on fire. Much. Just kidding.
    “At his age, another kind of boy might be approaching the point where he could spend some afternoons at home alone. But I don’t feel comfortable leaving Luke to his own devices. He’s quite smart, and certainly capable of taking care of himself. But he needs someone—” She stopped short of finishing the sentence.
    “To keep him out of trouble?” I said.
    She looked relieved. “Yes.”
    I searched for a tactful way to ask what his problem was, but she asked me if I wanted some tea and I said yes. She motioned for me to follow her into the kitchen. I took a seat in a breakfast nook that looked out onto a trim backyard—a square of lawn, a single bare tree, a lonely bistro table and two chairs. Beyond that, there was a thick wooded area. I knew there were more houses on the other side, but I couldn’t see them.
    “Luke has had a lot of different diagnoses,” said Rachel, reading my mind. She flipped on the electric kettle. “But none of them quite fit. We thought at first that it was ADHD. One doctor thought it was clinical depression, which runs in my family.” Here a kind of darkness fell over her features, but then was gone. “Another said that Luke was bipolar. He’s been in therapy, taken various medications.”
    She took tea bags from a box by the kettle and poured the water into two mugs. She went on about how she’d reached the end of her rope with having to change schools, doctors, how her work (shedidn’t mention what this was) was suffering, Luke was growing ever more difficult and hard for her to manage on her own.
    Then she’d read about Dr. Charles Welsh and the work he was doing at Fieldcrest. I knew Dr. Welsh; he was Langdon’s direct supervisor, a warm and disheveled man whom everyone adored and held in the highest regard. His work with troubled children and his theories on childhood psychopathy were groundbreaking. When Luke was accepted to Dr. Welsh’s program, Rachel and Luke moved here to The Hollows.
    “We left family and friends behind,” she said. She sat down at the table, putting a cup in front of me. The scent of peppermint and honey rose up to greet me. She hadn’t asked what kind of tea I wanted or how I liked it, but it was perfect. “But to be honest, those relationships were becoming very strained. Luke’s behavior. It’s—well, it can be—appalling. Even my family, what little I have, wasn’t equipped to handle him.”
    I took a sip of my tea. She wasn’t exactly selling the position.
    “I just want to be honest,” she said, maybe reading my expression. “There’s no point in your taking the job if you’re going to be overwhelmed by him.”
    For whatever reason, maybe it was hubris, or the naïveté of youth, or just a general lack of foresight, but I wasn’t discouraged. In fact, I felt a bit proud of myself for wanting a job that probably no one else would want. Or maybe it was because, when I was young, my behavior could have been called appalling, and many people had difficulty “handling” me. Or maybe it was this idea I had twisting deep in my psyche about helping people.
    She went on to talk a little bit about his behavior, his unnatural attachment to her, his rages, his silences, his manipulations. As she went on, she seemed to get more and more tired, her shouldersdrooping, head bowing. I waited to say something about Luke’s father. But she didn’t.
    “Things have been—challenging,” she said. I couldn’t see her face at all.
    I’d known plenty of kids like Luke at Fieldcrest, and had spent time helping them during the summer program. Often, they did better without the parents around. Those relationships were so complicated,