And then there was Nashville spread out in front of them with its stadium and the Batman Building and the kind of white haze that always stood between it and the rest of the world once warm weather set in. But they weren’t going downtown. One exit, then one street and another and then they were in a brick box of a building. A young pretty girl who talked like a baby showed them into a room that looked like somewhere to sit and watch TV instead of talk to a doctor. Except there was no TV. Just a couch and two chairs and a coffee table with nothing but a grayish-pink box of Kleenex. The window looked out over the parking lot. Asher could see their car down there, baking in the summertime. There was a plastic ivy plant on the windowsill, in the sun, which troubled him. A fake plant sitting in the light. Asher imagined the leaves were very warm.

Asher hated all of this. The featureless room and the silence and the sickening scent of a vanilla deodorizer plugged into an outlet.

The therapist came in and leaned over to shake Justin’s hand like they were partners in crime. Then she said hello to Lydia as if they were old friends and turned to Asher as if only now realizing he was there, saying he should call her Leslie. Her teeth were very, very white. Leslie sat and crossed her legs, her stockings scratching together, then balanced a notepad atop her leg.

“Now Justin, we’re going to talk for just a minute with your mama and daddy here and then you and I will speak alone. Will that be okay?”

“Yeah, but I don’t call her ‘Mama,’ ” Justin said, as if he had explained this before and was exhausted by repeating it. “I call her ‘Mom.’ ”

“Oh, that’s okay.” Leslie laughed like there was some reason that wouldn’t be okay and wrote something down on the notepad. To Asher she seemed like a blank piece of paper and he had to chastise himself to keep from disliking her just because he had been left out of all of this by Lydia.

Lydia began to talk, saying lots of things about Justin as if he wasn’t sitting right there: “He’s such a good boy, we’re very proud of him but he still gets real upset if somebody or something is hurt even though I tell him that’s part of life, that’s just the way it is, and he can’t stand it if somebody is crying or upset. And I know you all talked about it but he still just has to touch everything.”