If anyone were to ask why there isn't a fourth developmental path, "becoming normal," Arthur would answer that no, there's no such thing.
Even though he understood the intent behind the question.
What is called "becoming normal" is actually just the limit set by morality and law, which citizens then abide by.
People belonging to the three developmental cases above are still, for the most part, normal, law-abiding citizens like everyone else. But that doesn't mean the personality traits from the development and a sum of their experiences will disappear.
This so-called "normal" is just a fictional reflection of the collective. In reality, everyone is distorted to a greater or lesser degree, it's just that the extent has not exceeded the legal framework.
Getting back to the main point, besides his own observations, Arthur had also discussed the questions Sarah would ask Brenda.
She would still be free to improvise as always, but Arthur needed her to occasionally insert some personal questions related to Martin.
Arthur didn't need the answers, because if the questions were too private, it would raise Brenda's guard. So both the questions and answers were about trivial, harmless matters.
What Arthur needed was Brenda's reaction when answering these questions.
"Church, you say... well, even though the boy is quite close to the priest, he doesn't go to church very often."
"I think... he probably loves reading. He buys a lot of books, comics, and stuff like that."
"His school grades... I think they're pretty good, he said so."
"Sometimes, I think sometimes... oh, no, sorry, the boy has never brought a friend home."
Brenda, like most women who finally find someone to talk to, began to be drawn into Sarah's questions.
Her voice gradually relaxed, shown by the leveling of her tone and the softening of her accents.
Her eyes also moved around more, no longer focusing solely on Sarah and Arthur. In communication, while looking directly at each other for a long time does happen, it's most common when one side is still "on guard" or "cautious" towards the other. Or when one side is entering a "predatory" state towards the other.
Brenda had relaxed and was gradually revealing genuine signs. Meanwhile, Arthur was still in a predatory state. Although he didn't seem to be paying attention, he was always using his ears to receive information.
He noticed that before each question, Brenda always paused for a small moment before answering, her eyes unconsciously shifting to the left. This is a sign of recalling information from memory to answer. Her answers were also quite disjointed and hesitant.
"So she's a mother who doesn't have too tight a grip, and doesn't delve too deeply into her son's inner world."
Arthur assessed to himself.
If Brenda were truly a mother who understood her child, she wouldn't answer in such a general and somewhat incoherent way. The time it took her to recall information was also a bit too long.
On the other hand, if Brenda were a mother with a tendency to control her child, she would fabricate the answer she wanted, regardless of whether she knew the correct one, by piecing it together from known information. This is how the mind of someone with a controlling tendency works: they assign a label from what they already know to things they don't.
So Brenda didn't fall into either of the two single-mother types mentioned above, but was a relatively gentle type of single mother—one who didn't let her own negativity affect her child, but also didn't have the closeness to truly understand him.
Thinking this, Arthur involuntarily sighed. For a moment, he wanted to close his eyes and cover his ears.
Because he was looking for evidence to incriminate this woman's son.
Arthur hoped he was wrong, but he also knew that for some things, sympathy was not the solution; something more resolute, more ironclad, was needed.
He couldn't be soft-hearted. Otherwise, even more people would suffer.
"Um, Mrs. Brenda? Where's the bathroom?"
"At the end of the upstairs hallway."
"Thanks."
Arthur stood up and left the living room.
He had observed enough downstairs; now Arthur needed to get to the main business.
Based on his analysis, it was clear that this boy, Martin, had a great deal of personal freedom, and this freedom was both comfortable and worrying.
"The lock is a knob type... so the door won't be locked, it seems."
A thought flashed through Arthur's mind as he walked up the stairs.
A mother's lax control would also be reflected in her child's living habits.
If Brenda was someone who didn't, or rarely, checked or cleaned Martin's room, he probably wouldn't lock his door carefully. There were no other siblings in the house, so Martin essentially had no one to fear invading his "territory."
In this case...
Arthur went from room to room, opening doors to see if it was Martin's.
If Martin had still decided to lock his door...
Finally, he was stopped by a door where the knob couldn't be turned.
...Then things would be a little different.
A child with an easy-going mother, an environment with no siblings to compete for privacy, and no imposed control. Yet he's trying to hide his own territory?
Others might assume the reason for this is teenage defiance, and that it's normal. But in fact, defiance only appears when there's an external influence as mentioned before.
But Martin didn't have that and was still intentionally hiding things, so it's highly likely that he was aware that what he was hiding was something that shouldn't be revealed. Therefore, he had taken precautions even when they were almost unnecessary.
Or Arthur could be overthinking things. Martin could very well just be hiding some magazines, comic books, or other publications not suitable for his age and definitely not something a minor should be touching. That's why he had locked his room, to prevent his mother from coming in to check.
"Let's see."
To know the result, Arthur would, of course, need to go inside and see for himself, not just make empty judgments from the outside.