The Hot Seat

What did Sage know and when did she know it?

That was the question we had to ask ourselves the next time we saw Sierra's therapist, Dr. Bill.  We were to see him to give a progress report.

The two of us waited in the lobby for Dr. Bill to come.  We didn't say anything to each other in those few tense moments.

Finally, he called Sage in.

"How are you, Sage?" he began.  "The last time I saw you, you were a teenage girl in pain.  Now you've turned into a fine young woman.  You've got a college degree, a boyfriend, a horse, a dog - a great life, so far, except for this crisis with your younger sister, which, by the way, you happen to have had a front row seat to, seeing her wrapped in the blanket outside of the movie theater.  How did you feel about seeing her in that state?"

 

I heard a deep sigh.  "Awful.  I just, just, covered my face to keep myself from crying."

"Now, Sage, you do realize that your sister's been officially diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, but that doesn't mean she can't live a full, rich, independent life.  It means she probably will need some assistance with that, and that's probably where you come in.  It means that in that life she's going to have certain difficulties, especially socially.  She's going to have difficulties determining boundaries sometimes, such as with the incident at the movie theater.  You do realize that, to a certain extent, your sister has no control over what she does, right?

"I - I think so."

"Now, I understand, your sister confided in you some things, some things she'd done.  Your mother mentioned something about a genie lamp?"

"When we were living in Moonlight Falls, she'd gone into the catacombs there and found a genie lamp.  She swore me to secrecy about that, told me not to tell anyone."

"Except your mother recently found that genie lamp, didn't she?"

"Yes, she did." 

"And you were forced to tell her."

"Yes, I was."

"Has Sierra told you any other things?"

 

A few minutes later Sage walked back out with Dr. Bill.  He and I both looked at her.  We both knew she was hiding something. 

"What else has she told you, Sage?" I asked. 

I heard Sage take a deep breath. That's when I KNEW she was hiding something.  Sierra had said something to her. 
So Dr. Bill and I spent the next twenty minutes trying to get it out of her.