Amy was upstairs in her room, the door closed. She barely appeared over the past day or two, but when she did her mood was obvious; her slumped posture, not coming down for dinner, grunting one-word answers to even the most cheerful questions.

“She’s depressed again,” Danny said from one of the two chairs in front of his mother’s desk in the study. “How’s the PI doin’?”

“Nothing yet,” Margaret said. “But don’t underestimate him. The man’s extremely resourceful.”

“Maybe he was,” Danny said. “But that’s a guy past his prime, I’m tellin’ ya.”

“Drop it,” Margaret said, “I’m telling you.”

Danny held his hands up, flat palms out. “I don’t even think we need him anymore, that’s all I’m saying. With Amy shuffling around here as usual, I’d say we don’t have anything to worry about. If she was doing something fun, heaven forbid, it’s over now. Guess she got dumped, whoever he was.”

Jonathan huffed. “Yeah, right. If she was dating some guy, there’s no way he dumped her.”

Danny looked at Jonathan, long and hard. “We gotta do something. She could be suicidal.”

“I’d send her to a thousand therapists if I thought she’d go,” Margaret said.

“Maybe we should have an intervention. She is drinking a bit more these days. And who knows, a few months in one of those places, a nice one, I mean, that could give her time to look into these other … issues she’s dealing with.”

“Other issues,” Danny repeated, “you mean us?” Of Jonathan and Margaret’s confusion offense, Danny explained, “I told you we were driving her over the edge. If she’s drinking or depressed or sneaking around, that’s on us.” Jonathan rolled his eyes and shook his head, so Danny went on, “I’m not against the shrink thing, I’m not. But what I am saying is, y’know, maybe we should think about family therapy.”

Margaret leaned forward in her chair, brows twitching. “You think we need therapy?”

“Maybe we do, maybe not. It couldn’t hurt though, right? We might have things which could come to the surface, clear the air a bit. And if we’re gonna send Amy in, I think it would be a nice gesture, you know, of support, show her we’re with her a hundred percent.”

Margaret and Jonathan glanced at one another, then back at Danny. Jonathan said, “You’ve been hitting the bong quite a bit lately yourself, Danny.”

“Among other things,” Margaret said, raising a martini glass to her lips.

Jonathan said, “Maybe it’s time for you both to take some time off.”

Margaret said, “If you go together, you could support one another.”

Jonathan nodded. “I’d like to think she’s got somebody nearby anyway.”

“Hey, hey now, hold on,” Danny said. “I’m not going into one of those places, neither is Amy. First thing that happens, they plow you up the butt.”

“Not the high-class places,” Jonathan said with a smile that was calm as it was fake. “You know we’d never send you or Amy anywhere you wouldn’t be safe.”

“Amy's safety has always been our only concern,” Margaret said. “But I suppose we were so worried about her that we forgot about you.”

Danny sat there with a cold knot tightening in his belly, sweat gathering in his palms. “Alright, look, take it easy, okay? I’m fine, alright? Whatever you wanna do, I’m fine with it. I’m just saying — ”

Jonathan snapped, “What, Daniel? What were you just sayin’?”

But a long, mean quiet wrapped around Danny, enough to strangle the breath out of him, and very nearly his life.

“Nothin’,” Danny finally said, slumping even further into his chair, “I wasn’t sayin’ nothin’.”

After the meeting, Danny went down to fix himself a ham sandwich. But the food seemed unappealing, his hands slow to move. Danny wasn’t tricked by his own distraction. If he was hungry for anything, it was for some fairness for his sister, and some self-respect.

They’re not really going to try to put her away, are they? They couldn’t be that cold-blooded.

But he already knew the answer to that. Margaret and Jonathan were so caught up in their own power trips and weird Freudian co-dependence, Danny knew they were capable of just about anything, and they were ready to justify their actions in a way that would satisfy both of them, even if it ruined Amy and Danny’s lives forever.

We really do need help, Danny told himself, all of us. It’s not Amy’s fault, and any amount of therapy will reveal that we did this to her. And if she has to go, maybe I should go with her. Maybe it’s time I got my head on straight, figured my life out. If they don’t see the problems they’re creating, at least I do.

Amy doesn’t even need that kind of help anyway. They’re just going to bum-rush her into some facility to keep her out of the way. They’ll put her on pills, dope her up, wipe out her personality altogether.

No, I’m not letting that happen.

“Danny.” The voice flexed with stern authority, but it was a tone that was less and less impressive to Danny. Jonathan calmly approached. “We gotta talk.”

“We just did.”

“Danny, you gotta know that we’re only concerned about Amy’s well being, and yours.”

“That’s mighty fine of you both.”

Jonathan stepped even closer, his smile almost convincing. “But you’re a grown man, Danny, you can take care of yourself. Sure, you have your little hobbies, we all get that. But it’s not like we think you’re a danger to yourself, or to anybody else. We don’t. You can handle it, that’s the way we figure it.”

Danny took a long, slow look at his brother. “But Amy can’t.”

Jonathan could only shrug. “Do you think she can? Like you said, she could be suicidal.”

“And you think locking her up in an asylum will help? Those places cause more mental health problems than they cure.”

“We’ll do whatever we have to do, Danny.” Jonathan stared Danny down, and both brothers knew what that stare meant.

“How can you live with yourself, lording our own family fortune over us like this?”

Jonathan shrugged. “We don’t do anything like that. You’ve got all the money you need, all you can spend and more.”

“For as long as we remain under your thumb,” Danny said. “But one wrong move and you’ll cut me off, that’s what it all comes down to. Amy too, you’re running us around in circles.”

“You’re both immature and irresponsible. Amy wouldn’t last a year out there, her behavior proves it. And you’d blow every penny and wind up in the gutter.”

“We’ve got hundreds of millions of dollars, how can either one of us come anywhere near to blowing that much?”

“Happens to almost every lottery winner, Danny. Use your head for once in your life. This is what’s best, for you and for Amy. If you know what’s good for you, for the both of you, you won’t interfere.”

Danny stared his brother down. “All right, Jonathan, okay, but ask yourself this; what would Dad make of all this? What would he do?”

But Jonathan just stared right back, unflinching. “He would do what was best for the family, no matter what it took.”