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"Sounds preposterous"

"Of course What made it worse was my parents had no way to defend themselves Any attempt they made to refute his claiuilty as charged Marty told him abusers always deny what they’ve done Heoff all contact, which was actually a relief Then she talked hi on a book and that’s what blew the lid off

"When Moot wind of it, they hired an attorney and sued the crap out of her for slander and defao to trial, they reached a settlened a confidentiality agreement Whatever it was, my parents were never able to collect a cent Marty filed for bankruptcy and that’s the last anybody ever heard from her For all we know, she’s still in private practice only soet it Why would she do such a thing?"

"Because she could She saw it as part of her job In her eyes, she did no wrong When they took her pretrial deposition, do you knohat she said? That even if his story wasn’t true, she was there to validate his feelings If he was convinced he was abused as a child, then she would support him in his beliefs In other words, if you think you were abused, you were, and that’s all it takes"

"Without proof?"

"She didn’t need proof She said if that was ‘his truth,’ he could depend on her to keep the faith"

"Did the family doctor who referred him knohat she was up to?"

"In his deposition he admitted he’d never met her She’d been recommended by another doctor whose opinion he respected In a way, it was beside the point You don’t need a doctor’s referral to see a therapist Just look in the yellow pages and pick anyone you like So their specialties Self-esteeeoes on and on Who ae or anxiety?"

"How do you knohich therapists are legitimate?"

"I have no idea I’ve never been in therapy I’ht even be skilled, but sexual abuse is like a siren call There’s a ton of money to be made"

"That’s a bit cynical, isn’t it?"

"Not as cynical as you o into therapy because your relationships aren’t working out the way you’d hoped Turns out that’s a symptom of early childhood abuse Write me a check and come back next week You don’t re ‘in denial’ You’ve repressed the memory because it was all so trau so horrible would happen at the hands of those you love Pay et to the root of it In effect, my parents paid Marty Osborne six thousand dollars to drive a stake into their hearts"

"They ht"

"They were devastated, and I don’t think they ever really got over it I can barely deal with it myself and I wasn’t one of the accused After the case was settled, my parents swore they’d put it behind thely episode They were desperate to believe Michael loved the was okay Here’s how ‘okay’ it was A couple of years afterward,accident, and my father dropped dead sixhis will, so after what Michael put us through, he inherited an equal share of their estate"

"That’s a tough pill to s"

"What choice did I have? I’ve made my peace with it The money was theirs and they could do with it as they pleased Maybe that was always my father’s intent, to look after hi "So you think Michael’sis just more of the same"

"Basically," she said "How did he come up with this story in the first place? Doesn’t that sound suspect to you?"

"I’ll admit I was skeptical at first," I said "He says he read a reference to Mary Claire in the paper and it triggered his o What makes him so sure?"

"He said he saw them on his sixth birthday, July 21, and that’s how he made the association Your mother left him at Billie Kirkendall’s while she ran errands He andering around the property when he saw them"