“My father.” Mara pointed at another hard blue scar on her palm. “That was the second one. I won a medal for a story I wrote. I was so proud. I thought he would be proud.”

“He wasn’t?”

“The teacher sent a note with it saying I needed help with spelling and comprehension. She said I got my words mixed up. My father called me Moron. He used the word like it was my first name.”

“Your father called you Moron.” Kellen didn’t understand. Or didn’t want to understand. “He… What did he do?”

Patiently, Mara explained, “Every time I brought home a note saying I couldn’t read, every time a teacher called to tell my father I needed to be tutored, he took my mother’s beading needle and stabbed me through the palm.”

“Like you did to me.” The pain in Kellen’s hand made her queasy.

This story made her sick.

“He nailed me to the kitchen table. I didn’t need tutoring, he said. I was his daughter, he said. I should stop being stubborn and perform the work I pretended I couldn’t do.” Mara paced to the window and stared out at the night so black it pressed on the glass and howled with the were-wind. “In the morning, every time he released me, he made me kiss his hand and thank him.”

Kellen fought through the drug-induced disorientation to certain deduction. “So it’s nature and nurture.”

Mara turned in a slow swivel away from the window. “What are you babbling about?”

“Rae and I were discussing nature versus nurture, and you—you’re the daughter of a madman. You’re the daughter of an abuser. You might have been less deadly if you’d had a loving childhood, but he abused you.”

“I don’t understand what you mean.”

Had Kellen said it wrong? Was she back to the time after the surgery when her words were the wrong words? Had the drug destroyed all the work she’d done? She sobbed once, loudly, then control returned with a snap. “Your crazy father tormented you your whole crazy childhood and created a monster.”

Mara put her palm on the window and with her nails, she scratched the glass. “He didn’t torment me. He wanted me to be better.”

Kellen worked her way through the labyrinth of her own words. She’d said that Mara’s father was crazy and that Mara was crazy. Mara’s reply denied neither of those facts. She said… She said… “You’re defending him? His actions?”

“He required the best from me.” Mara sounded proud.

The world swelled and diminished, swelled and diminished, driven by the madness rife in this room. “Classic abused child defending the abusive parent. You are dyslexic. You couldn’t read. He refused any help for you. He preferred to hurt you instead.”