Yes, but you were as startled as the rest of us when, without a word, Jerry rolled his car over the curb and pulled it to a stop on the sidewalk, only inches from the restaurant's front door, sprang out, seized you in his arms and whisked you inside. I've never seen you so ebullient, so purely joyful. That night I've always thought you were as close to euphoria as you have ever come. It was more than euphoria, it was genuine happiness. Disease is a theme that runs through all your books.
Nobody knows with certainty what shapes a personality.
But I can guess. I could assert that it came from the death of my father during a bungled operation when I was 5. Few people, however, adhere anymore to the Freudian models of developmental theory. I can point to people whose fathers died and who are not morbidly obsessed. And, conversely, there are others who are similarly obsessed, and whose fathers did not die early deaths.