by Lacy Hart
“Good morning,” she said to me, seeming quite chipper. “Wow, coffee all made, and what’s this?” she said, picking up one of the wrapped sandwiches.
“Bacon, egg, and cheese on an English muffin,” I said to her as I sat down at the table.
“What got into you this morning? It must have been a really good run and walk home with Sarah.”
“Actually, it was the opposite,” I told Linda soberly as I bit into the sandwich I made for myself. “She said she doesn’t want to see me or have me come to the diner.”
Linda sat down at the table next to me in shock.
“Why? What happened?” she said with surprise.
“I don’t know. I went to the diner last night, and she was busy working in the kitchen and couldn’t see me. When I went to meet her this morning, she had already left and was walking home. By the time I caught up with her and got to her place, she was telling me how she couldn’t see me anymore.”
“Something must have happened yesterday,” Linda answered.
“No kidding,” I said, realizing it sounded like a wisecrack.
“I’m sorry, Caleb, I’m just trying to help,” Linda said.
“I know. It has to be something with her sister-in-law,” I said, trying to decipher it all.
“What’s up with her?” Linda asked me.
I went through the whole story of what had happened to Sarah in the past with the pictures at school and her parents, and what happened recently between her and Denise, including spotting them at the restaurant the other day. I told her how Sarah was planning to talk to her brother or confront Denise yesterday when she got home.
“Some time between yesterday afternoon and this morning something went down, I just don’t know what. If Sarah won’t talk to me or see me, there’s no way I can help her. I tried sending her messages or calling her, but she doesn’t respond. I don’t know what to do, Linda.”
“I wish I could help you figure it out, Caleb. I need to get to the office. I have an early court appearance this morning. I can call you after that and maybe we can come up with an idea of what you can do.”
“Thanks, Linda, but I’m not sure there’s much to do right now.”
Just then, Adam came walking into the room with his backpack.
“What’s going on?” Adam said. He could see the concern on our faces.
“Just something with Sarah,” I said to him. “I made some breakfast for you,” I said to him, handing him a sandwich.
“Hey, thanks Dad,” he said with a smile. “I have practice and then a game tonight at 7. Are you guys coming?”
“I can’t tonight,” Linda told him. “I have a… a business meeting tonight,” Linda caught herself and didn’t say it was a ‘date.’
“Okay, how about you, Dad?”
“I’ll try, Adam,” I told him. “I have an appointment with Dr. Weber tonight. I’m not sure how long I’ll be there.”
“It’s okay if you don’t make it over,” Adam told me. “Is it alright if I go out with friends tonight after the game.”
“What about school tomorrow?” I said to him.
“Tomorrow’s a day off,” he told me. “Teacher’s conference day or something like that. So, is it okay?”
“Sure, I guess so.”
I heard a horn honking outside.
“That’s my ride,” Adam said as he picked up his sandwich and bag. “See you guys later.”
Adam went down the hall and out the front door. Linda got up from her seat and grabbed her bag as she got ready to go.
“Are you going to be okay?” she asked me with concern. “I can cancel tonight if you want and be with you.”
“No, don’t do that,” I said to her. “I’ll be alright. I just have to work through things. You can’t cancel with Doug. It might take you another fifteen years for someone else to ask you out.”
“Very funny,” Linda said, slapping my shoulder. “I’ll talk to you later. Call me if you need anything.”
With that, Linda left the house, leaving me alone in the quiet. I tried to busy myself with cleaning up after breakfast and putting things away. I even thought about straightening up the house a bit but then realized Linda had a cleaning service that came in twice a week keeping everything looking spotless.
I trudged back up to my apartment, trying to find things to occupy my mind – mindless TV, reading email, surfing the Internet – but none of it seemed to work well for me. All my thoughts kept turning back to Sarah. Part of me thought I should just storm over there, knock on the door and find out what was going on. I quickly realized that wasn’t going to be the solution and might cause bigger problems for Sarah or worse, make her want to stay away from me for good.
I went into the bedroom, hoping that maybe I could try to fall asleep and get some rest, but all I did was toss and turn. Everywhere I looked in the apartment seem to have something that reminded me of Sarah, from the t-shirts of mine she wore to bed each night in the bedroom, to the toothbrush she left in the bathroom, to the groceries we bought together in the kitchen.
I didn’t know how much more of this I could take and I could feel anxiety building up inside me and no way to let it out. It was then I picked up the phone and tried to call Sarah again. It went straight to her voicemail, but her mailbox was full, and it wouldn’t let me leave a message. I hung up with her and decided to make another call – this time to Dr. Weber’s office. I knew it was still early in the morning, but I had to talk to someone.
The phone call to Dr. Weber went to his answering service. I let the lady know on the other end that I was a patient of Dr. Weber’s and needed to speak with him, so if he could call me as soon as he could, I would appreciate it. It was less than five minutes later that I got a phone call from Dr. Weber.
“Caleb, I was surprised to get a message from you. Is everything okay?” Dr. Weber asked with concern.
“I’m sorry to bother you this early Doc, but do you think… do you think I could come in earlier to see you today? I think I need to talk to someone.”
“Are you at home right now?” Dr. Weber asked me.
“Yes.”
“Okay, meet me at my office in ten minutes. I’ll be there.”
“Thanks,” I told him as I hung up.
Normally I would just walk over to his office, but the urgency I was suddenly feeling made me decide to take my Jeep and drive over. I hopped in the car and was at his office in a matter of minutes. I parked on the street near his office, got out of my car, and waited out near the front of the building. I paced back and forth for minutes, alternately looking at my watch and then up and down the street to see if there was any sign of Dr. Weber. The last time I looked up, I could see Dr. Weber hustling down the street. He caught a glimpse of me and double-timed it over to the front of the building.
“You been here long?” he asked me as he unlocked the door.
“I drove over,” I admitted as we went in and Dr. Weber turned off the alarm for the building. He then opened the door to his office, and we walked in. He quickly switched on the lights and had me follow him in so we could sit down.
I sat down in one of the chairs while Dr. Weber pulled another chair over, so it was nearer to me.
“So, what’s going on?” he said to me as he wiped his glasses on his shirt.
“I feel like my anxiety level is suddenly at a fifteen,” I told him as I rubbed the palms of my hands on my legs.
I went on to let me know everything that had happened over the last few days, with Sarah coming over and spending days with me, to the resolution of the lawsuit and the upcoming anniversary of Ella’s accident, to what happened this morning with Sarah, and how it all led me to call him.
“That’s a lot on your plate in just a few days, Caleb,” Dr. Weber said to me. “Anyone would feel anxiety dealing with all that. Let’s talk some of it out. What do you think happened with Sarah?”
“I can only assume it has to do with seeing her sister-in-law at the restaurant and
how she confronted her about it. There’s no way for me to know for sure though. Maybe she just got scared off by things moving so quickly. I mean, suddenly, she’s in a physical relationship with me, and I’m telling her I’m falling in love with her. That could be scary, I guess.”
“Is it scary for you?” Dr. Weber asked me.
“No, I don’t feel scared about it. I never would have said it to her if I was unsure. And she didn’t seem to have a problem saying it to me. It has to be something else.”
“Caleb, I don’t know Sarah, and I’m not going to pretend to be able to figure out what she was thinking, but from what you have explained to me, it sounds like that are a lot of moving parts going on in her life. She may be afraid and confused about a lot of things right now. Traumatic experiences like what she experienced don’t just go away easily. Past emotions can get triggered easily by current circumstances. It’s very similar to what you go through with your experiences with your wife and with your military career. She may be going through a period where she feels powerless to do anything.”
“What am I supposed to do? Just let her keep feeling that way? I can’t just sit here and let that happen to her. I have to do something to help. She needs someone right now, and it doesn’t sound like she has anyone but me that she can count on.”
I stood up and started pacing around Dr. Weber’s office. He just looked at me from his chair, watching me walk back and forth.
“Don’t you have any suggestions? I thought you were supposed to be the expert here,” I barked at him.
“Caleb, I can’t tell you what to do. You must make that decision for yourself. I would suggest you not do anything rash that can cause problems or upset her further so that she pushes you further away, but Sarah’s not my patient. You are. I’m here to help you.”
“You can help me by giving me some advice about what I should do.”
“You called me because you told me you were feeling anxious and needed to talk to someone. What is it you are feeling most anxious about?”
I sat back down on the couch and thought about the question for a moment.
“I guess I’m anxious about… about losing her. It just seems like when I have someone I love in my life that I lose…” I ended my thought because I knew where it was going.
“So you worry about losing Sarah just like you lost Ella, and like you have lost people you served with.”
“Yes, I do. Is there something wrong with the fact that I don’t like losing people I am close to?” I yelled. I could feel myself tensing up the more the conversation carried on.
“No, there’s nothing wrong with that,” Dr. Weber told me calmly. “None of us like to have something like that happen, and when it happens to us once we always have the fear that it could happen again. Of course, you don’t want to get hurt and relive that pain, but you must know Caleb that you’re not going to go through the rest of your life never experiencing loss again. You have to learn how to deal with these feelings. Loss doesn’t just come in the form of the death of a loved one. Relationships, jobs, friendships, nearly everything we experience in life can end with a loss.”
“But this doesn’t have to end. This is something I can change. I couldn’t change what happened to Ella, but I can change this.”
“Sometimes we tell ourselves that just because it makes us feel better, and so that we don’t have to deal with the reality of the situation,” Dr. Weber said to me.
“If you’re trying to help me out, this doesn’t seem to be working.”
“Caleb, I’m not telling you that you should just give up on Sarah without trying to find out what happened and why. All I’m saying to you is that you have bigger issues that you need to deal with, ones that have to do more with how you see yourself and identify yourself beyond the different relationships you have in your life. Your relationships are very important to you, as they are to all of us, but they are not the only things that define who you are.”
“I get that Doc, I really do, and I know that’s something I need to work on. I have always found my identity that way – first through Ella, and then through the Army. When both of those were gone, I don’t think I knew who I was or what to do. When Sarah came along, it made me see something more about myself. She wasn’t just filling a hole for me with a relationship. She brought out something in me that I needed to come out. I can’t give that up, not this easily.”
“Just promise me one thing, Caleb,” Dr. Weber said to me as he saw I was getting ready to leave.
“What’s that?”
“That you and I will spend some more time talking about this, about talking about loss, and grieving, and coping. I think we still have a lot of ground to cover.”
“I promise, I’ll be back. How about Monday?” I said to him.
“Fine, give me a call and let me know when you want to meet. I’ll clear some time for you. Good luck with Sarah.”
“Thanks, Doc.”
I left Dr. Weber’s office and went back to my car. I sat behind the wheel for a moment trying to decide what to do. Going to Sarah’s house wasn’t going to be the answer for me. Maybe even going to the diner wouldn’t be the answer. I didn’t want to upset her at work and throw everything into a frenzy. I needed to give her today and a chance to sort things out better before I approached her again, and I had to have an answer, a way to help her and let her see that I would be there for her, no matter what.
28
Sarah
The day at home couldn’t pass fast enough for me. While I slept most of the morning into the early afternoon, I knew that the later part of the day was going to be unpleasant. As great as it was to see Lizzie, I found it tough to be with her as well, especially because she kept asking me what was wrong and why I looked so down. I felt so torn inside, with part of me feeling miserable because of the circumstances, and the other part of me boiling inside and wanting to do something to break free of all this. Summoning up the strength to make something happen was proving to be impossible. Without having a phone or computer I felt isolated, and even when I went to work, I didn’t feel like there was much I could do to help myself. Telling people at work that my sister-in-law was trying to blackmail me might bring me sympathy and support, and I am sure they would do what they could to help me, but what trouble might that bring to them? Denise had proven to have more power than I thought, and if she was linked to Jared Sterling, there was no telling what problems they could cause for everyone.
I went through the motions at home, getting housework done and trying to figure out ways that would buy me a little time with school work until I could figure everything out. The last thing I wanted was to fall behind with all my schoolwork as well and delay finishing up school once again.
I spent the rest of the day helping Lizzie with homework and cooking dinner and doing my best to avoid Denise completely when she got home from work. James was working late, so I really felt like I had no ally at home. Dinner passed along quietly, with Lizzie trying to open up the conversation more than once, but I would give short, terse answers to her questions because Denise seemed to be watching every word that came out of my mouth.
When dinner ended, and I was cleaning up, Denise retired to her bedroom, leaving Lizzie alone with me. She came up to me as I was washing the dishes and started drying to help.
“Are you mad at me for something?” she asked me quietly.
I gave her a quick glance and went back to paying attention to the dishes.
“I’m not mad at you, Lizzie,” I said, hoping the sound of the water and dishes would drown us out from anyone that might be listening.
“Then what is going on? I know things between you and my Mom are always a little tense, but you would have needed a chainsaw to cut through all that tension at dinner tonight. If there’s something wrong, maybe I can help.”
I turned the water pressure up a little higher, so it was louder and continued to talk softly. Maybe this would be my chance to get some help.
“I can’t really get into it with you Lizzie, not here at least, but maybe… maybe you can help me.”
“We can go up to my room after this to talk if you want,” she suggested.
“No,” I answered quickly. “Your Mom might… might notice that. I wish you could get to the diner tonight.”
“I think I can,” she said quietly. “There’s a basketball game at the school tonight that my friends are going to, and there’s no school tomorrow. I can ask Dad if I can go and then meet you at the diner so we could talk.”
“That might work,” I said hopefully to her as I washed the same pot for the third time as we talked.
Just then, Denise walked back out into the kitchen and Lizzie jumped back and started drying another dish.
