openness engineered to guarantee concealment
works tremendously hard to hide her maternal dread of his possibly ever drinking like James himself or James's father, all so that Hal might enjoy the security of feeling that he can be up-front with her about issues like drinking and not feel he has to hide anything from her under any circumstances.
Context
The family's communication pathology institutionalized as maternal care: Avril labors to perform an unsmothering trust precisely so that Hal will feel able to be open, and the performed openness is what lets him hide everything twenty meters underground. A mother with a phobic dread of secrecy manufactures the conditions of secrecy by working so hard to seem un-anxious about it. The channel is engineered to feel clear and to carry nothing true. Landed here on the channel mechanics; the family system is family-hamlet's. [sweep · shared-ground family-hamlet]