Page 117 of Sharp Force

I look over at him seated on the floor in front of a filing cabinet with a drawer open wide. He has a pair of reading glasses perched on the tip of his chiseled nose, and he looks tense, avoiding eye contact.

“I know what it is but not what she meant by it.” He turns a page and seems angry. “It sounds like some type of therapy. She’d advised ST for this or that. The patient engaged in ST or wouldn’t.”

“Possibly silent treatment means the obvious. She would stop responding, be unavailable. In other words, ghosting?” I suggest. “If so, what a terrible thing to do to a patient. Or to anyone.”

Benton abruptly gets up from where he’s been sitting on the floor. He turns his back to me, looking out the window, his hands in his pockets. I can feel his unhappiness like a vibration.

“Benton?” I ask, and he doesn’t answer.

He stares out at the river, the sun smoldering, the shadows longer.

“What is it, Benton?”

I ask him several more times.

“I told you I was looking through the F’s,” he finally says without turning around.

It dawns on me what he means.

“Farinelli. Lucy,” he adds.

“Her notes from when she was a freshman at UVA,” I reply. “It’s occurred to me the records might be in here, assuming they still existed. But I didn’t think it right for us to look at her file or any other patient’s unrelated to why we’re here.”

“I didn’t look for it,” Benton says with an edge, his back to me. “It’s more like it found me. Apparently, she saw Georgine intensely for the better part of her freshman year. Very intensely. It wasn’t the normal doctor-patient relationship.”

“I was aware at the time that it wasn’t normal,” I reply.

“I’m not sure just how abnormal that relationship was. But I can tell you that Georgine Duvall is an ethical nightmare. Of all people for Lucy to get saddled with. Especially at such a vulnerable time for her.”

“I’ve told you about the concerns I had…”

“You never mentioned they might have had a sexual relationship. For God’s sake.”

“Excuse me?” I ask, stunned.

“Lucy was what? All of nineteen?”

“Are you sure? What makes you think that, Benton?”

“I’m reading between the lines.” He watches a tour boat chug by on the river as the sun sets, painting pink and orange over the horizon. “And I don’t think Georgine ever met a boundary she wouldn’t crash.”

“I don’t know if she took things that far. Hopefully, she didn’t.But what they had was emotional and strayed well out of bounds. I certainly knew that much.” I feel terrible.

I look at the file open on the floor where he was sitting. I could pick it up and see for myself what he’s talking about. But I won’t. It wouldn’t be right.

“Saying anything about it to Lucy only made things more strained between us,” I explain.

“Well, I’m sorry as fucking hell that you didn’t ask what I thought back then.” He turns around, facing me, his white hair a nimbus in slanted sunlight.

“Benton, when Lucy was a freshman, you and I weren’t—”

“Not officially.” He won’t let me finish. “But we worked together often, and we had feelings. We just hadn’t done anything about them.”

“That’s not exactly true.”

“Why didn’t you tell me what was going on with Lucy? Why didn’t you ask for my help?”

“You were married then, remember?” I’m trying not to get upset. “Things were difficult enough between us without my pulling you into my family problems.”