“But I didn’t.”
“But you didn’t only because the neighbor happened to be walking by with that terrible dog. If that dog didn’t ask to be taken out every other minute, that house would be gone anyway, probably with you in it. It’s not to your credit that it didn’t burn down. It was sheer luck.”
Marilyn dug around for an answer, but found nothing.
“They’re going to put me in jail,” she said.
“Probably just for a couple of months.”
“That’s a couple of months too long for my tastes.”
“Remember what you used to tell me when I was a kid?”
“I told you all kinds of things. Can you be more specific?”
“You used to say, ‘You got yourself into this trouble, so it’s nobody’s job but your own to get yourself out of it.’”
“Oh,” Marilyn said. She could hear the lack of strength and spirit in her own voice. It felt alarming, yet somehow it was an alarm she could barely feel. Or only very distantly feel. “Yes, I guess I did use to say that, didn’t I?”
Chapter Nineteen
Sylvia Stole
Stewie
He sat in the psychologist’s office, staring at his own knees. He was wearing shorts, and it was hot, and the skin on the backs of his legs felt sweaty, and stuck to the leather chair in an uncomfortable way.
The doctor had told him once that the office was equipped with air-conditioning, but he didn’t like to use it. He’d said he didn’t care for the feeling of artificial cold, and would rather be too warm. It seemed rude and a bit cruel to Stewie—like saying, “I could solve your problem, but I’ve decided not to.” It also seemed like he was saying he was more important than Stewie. Stewie figured he probably did think so. Most adults seemed to think that.
Neither of them had spoken for a weirdly long time.
“Anything you want to tell me about your grandmother?” Dr. Briggs asked suddenly.
At least, it seemed sudden. It made Stewie jump a little.
He shook his head. “No, sir.”
“You don’t have to call me sir.”
“What am I supposed to call you?”
“Dr. Briggs is fine.”
“Okay.”
Then they sat in silence for a minute more.
“Anything you want to tell me about anything?”
“Yes, sir. I mean . . . Yes, Dr. Briggs. Two things. Well, one thing is more of a question. And then the other thing is more of a thing. You know. Like a thing to tell. Here’s the question: What about people who steal?”
“What about them?”
“Is that just, like, the worst thing ever?”
The doctor shifted around in his chair. It struck Stewie that he seemed genuinely surprised to be having a conversation that required his attention and thought. He seemed to be manually screwing himself back into the necessary mode.
“That’s a complex issue,” he said. “Yes, it’s wrong. Of course it is. It breaks our social contract, and anything that does that is a problem. But certainly not everyone who steals is a bad person.”
“Tell me more about that,” Stewie said.
He could feel himself leaning forward more in his chair. Leaning toward the doctor and his words.
“Sometimes a person will steal to survive. If they don’t have food, let’s say. Or medicine. Or if someone in their family needs something to survive, and they can’t afford it. This is not a bad sign about the person’s character. They’re simply being put in a bad situation, and they’re trying to choose the least destructive option. Sometimes a person will steal because they’re poor, and they feel the corporation they’re stealing from, like a chain of stores, for example, is unfairly rich. They’re objecting to the way society is structured.”
“I was pretty much keeping up with you until that last sentence,” Stewie said, feeling the area around his eyebrows scrunching down.
“I’m sorry. I should just say they resent having to live in poverty.”
“Okay. But if they’re not a poverty person?”
“Well, it’s relative. They may think they are. They might look around and see so many people who have so much more. But there are also people who steal for a different reason. They steal things they don’t even need. It makes them feel alive to break the rules. But you have to understand, Stewie, that I’m a psychologist. It’s not my job to label people good and bad. If I see a person with kleptomania, for example—which is a stealing problem—I see that person as a sick person, not a bad one. It’s my job to help them understand why they do what they do, and to get better. Very few people actually set out to be bad. Most people just have psychological wounds, or a sense of lack, and they’re trying to fix themselves the best way they know how. Do you understand what I mean by all that, Stewie?”
“I think so.”
“Now I have a question for you. Have you been stealing?”
“No! No, I would never! No, I was talking about this lady named Sylvia. She lives in the house where my friend Marilyn lives. I mean . . . used to live. Marilyn had some money, and Sylvia stole it. And now I have to try to get it back.”
“That’s a big job for a little boy. What if you can’t do it?”
“I have to.”
“But what if you can’t?”
“But I have to. I told her I would. Well. I told her I’d try. But I have to, because if I can’t get the money back, then she said she’ll have to go to jail.”
He shifted uncomfortably in his chair, trying to unstick his sweaty legs from the slick leather. He expected the psychologist to say something, and he assumed it would be something that would make him unhappy.
But Dr. Briggs only waited for him to go on.
“Here’s the thing,” Stewie said. “I was sort of asking about Marilyn. Not so much about Sylvia. Because I don’t really care about Sylvia, so I don’t really care if she steals. I mean, except that now I have to get the money back from her, and so that’s a problem, especially since I’m pretty sure she spent it on a car. But I don’t care so much what it means about her as a person. But I care about Marilyn, and I’ve been thinking about it, and if Marilyn needs the money back so she won’t get put in jail, then that probably means she stole it, too. I mean, I figure it probably means that.”
“I think you’re correct,” Dr. Briggs said. “And I think you were smart to figure that out on your own. And also . . . I guess . . . wise, for lack of a better word. But don’t give up on Marilyn just yet, because we don’t know for a fact that she did it, and even if she did, we don’t know why.”
“That’s true.”
Stewie noticed himself sitting back in his chair more. He heard himself sigh. Not so much a contented sigh, exactly. Maybe more of a relieved one.
He decided this Dr. Briggs was probably more okay than he’d been giving him credit for being.
“You said there were two things,” Dr. Briggs said.
“I did?”
But he knew he had. He simply felt uncomfortable about the thought now, and not at all sure he cared to express it.
“Yes. You said you had a question, which we just now covered, and then also something you wanted to say.”
“I don’t know if I want to say it anymore.”
“I wish you would.”
“I’m afraid it would sound weird.”
“But I want you to think of this as a place where you can say anything, and where you never have to feel concerned about how it will sound. I’ve been in this line of practice for forty years. There’s very little I haven’t heard. I hope you’ll trust me on that.”
Stewie wiggled in the chair slightly, a series of subtle movements with no real purpose.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“I can only help you if you’ll begin to trust me.”
Stewie sighed again. But this time there was no relief in it.
“I guess I could.”
But then, for a minute, he didn’t.
He sighed again, and forced himself to speak.
“A couple of nights ago I was lying in bed. I couldn’t sleep. And I started feeling like . . .”
He paused, feeling the impossibility of going further.
“Go ahead and tell me what you felt. There are no wrong feelings.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“I thought there were.”