After the tour Dr. Amoroth gave them a few minutes to say good-bye before Andrew was taken to his room. His mother cried and held him close, but the tears were forced though the emotional dullness of the Valium, and her hug was awkward, as if she followed a script in her mind. She told him over and over again that everything would be all right, but the very fact she said it over and over indicated she did not believe it herself. His father had only nodded to him in a slow, deliberate way, as though to say both “Good luck” and “Don’t kill anyone.”
After they left, Andrew followed an orderly to the room that would be his home for the next few years. He felt a pang of loneliness at the thought. His father hated him, and his mother could never truly be there for him, but they were his fa
