S. Johnson dragged behind the Volvo; the "pulverize-and-run" lie; Avril's uncanny response

pivotal · UNDATED (Orin ~16, B.S.), disputed

• When: UNDATED (an August afternoon soon after Orin got his driver's license, ~age 16, B.S.)
• What: Per Bain: Orin and Bain, "severely impaired," peeled the Volvo out of E.T.A. without noticing Avril had tied her beloved dog S. Johnson to the rear bumper; blocks later "What we had left… was a leash, a collar… and a nubbin." Orin then stood before the kneeling, weeping Avril and spun a lie about a hit-and-run "pulverize-and-run driver." Avril's reaction was "bizarrely furcated": deep private mourning (a small cherrywood coffin) coupled with an increase in her love-and-support bombardment of Orin — the episode Bain reads as the key to whether Avril's "almost pathological generosity" was for Orin's sake "or for Avril's own." A cornerstone of the mother-son lattice.