CHAPTER 186

VARIETIES

The next day wasn't as easy as he had hoped it would be. Patrícia arrived in the morning for the therapy session, but Lara didn't even smile at her. She seemed to be in a different mode, the "therapy" mode, and shortly after the psychologist and Lipe sat down, she began:

"It didn't go as we imagined it would. My father came back home three days later. We didn't know where he was until that moment, and my mother and all of us automatically went into fear and apprehension mode, even though Dinha had told us not to fear him and kept repeating that my mother did very well in defending herself against him. But theory is one thing, right? In practice, it's very different. The social worker wasn't there. It was just us again with him, and he was very, very drunk! After years of torment, fear came rushing back, and we went into defense mode. Years of following the same script. As soon as he entered the room, he went straight to my mother's side, and my sister Lucy, the oldest among