Page 42 of The Session

Mark felt a coldness he’d never experienced before. He was still trying to adjust to the fact that his father was an actual living person, and now he was trying to comprehend that he had a brother he would never meet.

“That might be why they reached out to you. With Kevin gone, there’s a void there. I don’t know how Marnie figures into the picture, though.”

“What about Tru Feingold? Can I trust her?” Mark asked.

“She would have been seven or eight when I met her. She seemed like a sweet kid—very bright. Her father, the other founder, Arnold, was a good guy for the most part, and he kind of got pulled into Max’s world. Arnold was a professor when he and Max met. Tru’s mother, Alicia, was an odd fit. Let’s just say being a professor’s wife wasn’t exactly the role she sought for herself. I think she was gunning for Max but decided to settle for Arnold,” Carol explained.

“I feel like I just came into a movie in the third act,” Mark said.

“Honey, this is season nine of the spinoff of the TV show.”

“Can I trust these people?”

“Absolutely fucking not, sweetheart.”

“So I’ll tell them I pass.”

Although Tru made it seem like this was the opportunity of a lifetime, Mark had been through more emotions in the last ten minutes than in the last ten years. He wasn’t sure jumping into what seemed to be an infinite drama factory was the best idea.

Carol shook her head. “No, you do what you want to do, but I say you take it. They do everything for a reason and they give away nothing, but they do create opportunities, and right now I think they need you.”

“Why? To keep my mouth shut? So he can’t say he abandoned us?”

“Maybe guilt. I can’t be sure,” she said. “But you have a secret weapon.”

“And what would that be?”

“You’ve got a moral compass, babe,” Carol said. “And that’s going to confuse the ones you have to watch out for the most. They’re very good at manipulating people who have the most to manipulate. Still, you’ll have to be extra careful.”

“I don’t know, this sounds like joining the Mafia,” Mark said.

“I’d be lying to you if I said they were a normal company, but the organization is not as sketchy as it used to be. I think most of those people are gone.”

“Tru said that there are good parts and bad parts,” Mark said.

“You have to do what feels right. But if I’m being completely honest with you right now, life hasn’t been very fair to you. And maybe there’s some opportunity here. Byron isn’t the man I thought he was,” she murmured.

“He is doing what he thinks is right for everyone,” Mark said.

“Except for you, Mark. Don’t make excuses for him.”

“All right, so just to be clear, you’re telling me to take a job they haven’t described with a company you’ve described as both sketchy and shady, and that forced you to sign an NDA that prohibited you from telling your only child important, critical details that might have changed the trajectory of his life,” Mark summed up.

“Jesus, when you put it that way . . . In all fairness, nobody forced me to sign the NDA. I could have gone after Lightman in court and probably gotten child support, but it wasn’t going to be what they were offering me, and sticking around was going to be awkward.”

“Sorry. I’m just trying to put everything on the table,” Mark said.

“I understand, baby,” Carol replied. “Let me explain the way I see it. The organization sees two kinds of people in the world: the corruptible and the incorruptible. The corruptible are easy—just give them the thing that corrupts them. The incorruptible, you find something you want and they want and make a deal. In fact, Lightman literally wrote that in one of his books.”

“I’m pretty sure we’re all corruptible,” Mark said.

“There are people who might try to make you that way, but that’s up to you.”

Mark groaned. “I still don’t know.”

“Okay, let me put it to you another way. Right now, you’re on Max’s radar. And if I know your father like I used to, he’s going to find a way into your life no matter what. Better to do it on your own terms.” She tilted her head and watched him.

“I guess what you’re really trying to say is I don’t have a choice.”