Justin was feeling the warm leaves of the fake plant in the window and seemed to not hear a word of this. Asher was surprised that this kind of conversation would happen in front of the boy. Leslie was scrawling across her notepad and looked up at Lydia as if enthralled.

“He stays sick all the time because of it, always a runny nose or a cough or stomach virus,” Lydia continued. Asher thought she’d never hush. “And there’s a boy who’s been picking on him at school. Today we just want to bring his daddy into the conversation.”

Leslie stood and motioned Justin into another room for his private therapy. “I’ll call y’all in before too long!” she said, as if all of this was meant to be great fun.

He stared at Lydia and he hoped that she could read his mind because he was thinking how he wasn’t sure if he could ever get over her doing this behind his back.

The therapist said Justin had an anxiety disorder. “G-A-D, I’m thinking, or Anxiety Disorder N-O-S,” she said, looking them in the eye, acting like everybody living in this world ought to know what all those initials stood for. “Since this is our third time together I think I’m going to refer him to a psychiatrist and I’m betting they’ll start him on an anxiolytic med, or an S-S-R-I—”

“Wait a minute now,” Asher told her, holding up his hand. “What if he’s just good to the bone? Maybe he’s just a good little boy.”

The woman leaned forward and tented her fingers. “You are extremely fortunate to have been blessed with this good little soul,” she said, and Asher knew she was believing every word she was about to say. “Really. I’ve seen children like this before, and they are wonderful. But you have to remember that it makes a hard life for him, carrying all these burdens on his little shoulders. I have no desire to change who Justin is, and neither will Dr. Conley. But I think he will agree with me that we can make his life a little more manageable.”

“But he’s not unmanageable,” Asher said.

“Asher, just let her explain,” Lydia said, and put her hand on his thigh.

“Mr. Sharp, I don’t think you’re aware of how stressful everyday life is for Justin. He worries about everything. He worries about being different from other kids. He worries that his grandmother might die in the night because she’s old. He worries about the dog that was lost in the flood—”

“All those things sound like reasonable things to worry about to me, things any kid might—”