Orin’s deposition to Steeply — "worship Mario and think Mario’s some…"
worship Mario and think Mario’s some kind of secular martyr to the mess she’d made of her adult life, all the while having to keep up a front of laissez-faire laid-back management where she pretends to let Mario go his own way and do his own thing.
Context
The other son gets the other operation. Where Hal is skull-lashed for approval, Mario is worshipped as "some kind of secular martyr to the mess she'd made of her adult life" — the disabled child recast as the saint who redeems the mother's guilt, adored behind "a front of laissez-faire laid-back management" that only pretends to let him go his own way. Both children are managed; the management just wears opposite masks, control disguised as approval for one and control disguised as freedom for the other. What Orin sees from outside the system is that even Avril's hands-off love is a maternal operation, the guilt-worship of Mario doing the same covert work as the skull-lash on Hal.