Diana Reid is a brilliant scholar specializing in Renaissance literature. When Spencer is eight years old her husband walks out on them as her increasingly bizarre behavior and his distance from her has left him at a loss as to how to deal with her, he feels that he doesn't know how to care for his genius son either. Her condition continues to deteriorate. She rarely leaves the home but spends a great deal of time reading to Spencer. When her son is 18 he has her involuntarily committed. She pleads with Spencer to let her stay at her home.Once Spencer leaves home he writes almost daily letters of a page or more detailing his day to her. In spite of her illness he loves her dearly and respects her, at one point when it appears he may die he asks Garcia to record a message to Diana in which he states that he has, 'always been proud to be your son'.Spencer suffers from on again off again nightmares about a young boy from his neighborhood. These dreams grow so distracting and disturbing that he seeks Diana out for answers. He visits her at the location where she has been committed for several years and tells her he has permission to sleep on the couch in her room for one night. Diana's response is to threaten to claw her doctor's eyes out if Spencer is kept for more than a night. She later asks to be taken off her medication for a few days so that she can remember the events surrounding Spencer's nightmares. It is revealed that his 'imaginary' friend Riley Jenkins was a real boy, he was raped and murdered when Spencer was four.When Spencer was that young his mother was healthy and his parents were together. Diana notices a man in the neighborhood taking an interest in Spencer. She mentions it to Riley's father, the distraught father later beats the man to death. Diana stumbles into Mr. Jenkins' home while he is killing the pedophile, Diana slips in the blood and it stains her clothing. Distraught and hysterical Diana returns home where William finds her and gets the story out of her. He burns her clothes. Young Spencer senses the tension and disruption in the house, he sees his father burning bloody clothes.The strain of keeping the secret of what Mr. Jenkins did and what she saw worsens Diana's condition and takes a terrible toll on her marriage. William leaves (although it is later shown he was only 9 miles away from Diana and Spencer the entire time he was gone) and over the years even Spencer's eidetic memory edits and twists the fragments. The whole story becomes clear when the pedophile's body is discovered and a fingerprint on his glasses matches Mr. Jenkins. Spencer confronts his father and Diana backs up William's story. Spencer is still extremely angry with his father but is, in the end, satisfied with Diana and William's explanation.