Debba shrieked and raised the stool.

“Debba, stop!” Clare stepped forward into view, her hands raised. Officer Flynn twisted around to stare at her, but Russ never took his eyes from Debba.

“We’re handling this, Clare,” he said, his voice tight.

Clare ignored him, fumbling with her parka’s zipper to yank it down like Superman revealing the S on his chest. “Remember me? From St. Alban’s? We talked the other day.” Debba stared at her, pulling the stool in tightly against her chest. Clare took another step into the room. “You don’t want to do this.” She could hear the sound of the nurse’s shoes as she reached the doorway and stopped. “I bet you don’t hit your children to discipline them, do you?”

“Of course not!”

“It wouldn’t surprise me if she-”

“Not now, Al!” The whispered command from the woman behind Clare cut Dr. Rouse off.

Clare reached one hand out slowly. “Then you already know that violence isn’t the answer.”

“You don’t know what he did,” Debba said. “He wrote my goddamn ex-husband and told him I was endangering the children. Today I was served with papers-he’s suing me for full custody! Except he doesn’t want to keep Skylar, he wants to institutionalize him!” She shifted the stool in her grip as if she might throw it at the doctor. “Did you know that? Did you know that before you wrote him, you bastard?”

Clare took another step forward. She was almost shoulder to shoulder with Russ. “You’re so angry and frustrated you want to hurt Dr. Rouse, don’t you? But I bet you’ve felt that way before, haven’t you? Every mother I’ve ever met has felt like that. Has been pushed so hard she wanted to lash out at her kids. To hit them. To hurt them.”

“Clare…” Russ’s hiss warned her to shut up.

“But you didn’t give in to that feeling, did you? You didn’t hurt anyone. You controlled yourself.” She stepped forward. Almost close enough to touch the stool if she stretched out her arm. “You controlled yourself. You are in control.” She deliberately looked away from Debba and laid her hand on Russ’s arm. Under the slick nylon of his parka, his muscles were tensed. “Chief Van Alstyne is a good man. Why don’t you let him help you? Before you get yourself into real trouble.”