by Tom Bierdz
He responded to the first. “Everybody, Big Bertha, Mr. Gutierrez, keeps referring to when I get back home. I’m not ready.”
“Okay, I understand. Did you tell them that?”
“No.”
I locked eyes.
“I was hoping you would.”
“I see. You want me to fight your battles for you.”
He sat on his hands, rocked. “When you put it that way I sound like a wuss.”
“Are you?”
He glared at me. “No!”
“Okay. I agree you’re making a good adjustment now where you are, and are not ready to go home. I’ll go to bat for you, but you need to tell Mr. Gutierrez what you told me, why you want to remain there, and I want you to tell your mother why you don’t want to go home.”
“Tell her because she always picks on me and we fight?”
“Yeah, but if it were me, I’d say it a little differently. I might say I missed her, then tell her how good I was doing, and that I didn’t want to jeopardize my progress. I’d tell her I knew she wanted the best for me, and I needed to have more successes and be stronger so we wouldn’t get into the same negative patterns of the past.”
“I’m supposed to say all that.?”
“Something like that, in your own words. Can you see the difference between what you said and what I said?”
He thought about it for a while. “You didn’t blame her?”
“Exactly. I took the onus off her, put it all on you–what you needed and that by meeting your needs, you’d respond to her differently.”
“That works?”
“I don’t know. Want to give it a try?”
“I guess,” he said. He started to stand.
“Wait. We’re not finished. I want you to think about your lack of impulse control.”
“You mean like not waiting until our regular time to get together?”
I smiled. “Yes, that is an example, but I want you to feel that you can come to me. That’s more preferable than you acting out your anxiety, like getting into a fight or starting a fire. I was thinking more along the lines of you believing that you’re going to fall back into the same pattern if you go home: you get into a fight with your mother, she disciplines you–maybe inappropriately–, and you act-out. You need to be able to control that acting-out impulse, to control your anger. You have to learn to take responsibility for your own actions regardless of what anybody else says or does.”
“Yeah but... I want to get there, but I just can’t yet.”
“I realize that. That’s why I’m agreeing with your need to remain in the group home. I just want you to know that controlling your impulses is a long term goal. Can you talk to both, your mother and Mr. Gutierrez, before we get together in a couple of days?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Good. I’ll chat with Carlos when I pick you up and you can bring me up to date.”
Greg started to leave, then abruptly turned around. “Oh, I saw a red-tailed hawk effortlessly glide right over your office, then screamed sending a shiver through me.” He smiled, then added, “Sometimes I want to be like that hawk.”
Watching him walk away, I wondered if he meant flying free like the hawk or screaming his lungs out. Or, both?
When the workday ended I debated about calling Megan. I knew she’d expect me to, probably wanted to get together, but I wasn’t up to it. My head was still spinning with all the incongruities. I didn’t sense Sasha as being suicidal when I saw her, which sharply contrasted with Megan’s deep concern for her sister’s depression. But Sasha committed suicide, didn’t she? Detective Rollins thought otherwise. Nick didn’t impress me as a killer, and he was out of town when Sasha died. Nick warned me about Megan. Megan seemed broken up about her loss, physically showed the wear, but then, almost as quick as a weather break, dropped the sadness and wanted to play tennis. I needed to be by myself to try to sort things out, or at the very least, shut off the noise inside my head. I didn’t know how to express this to Megan so she’d understand, so I took the coward’s way out and didn’t call. Moreover, I turned off my phone so she couldn’t reach me. Earlier I called Gregory on not being direct with his mother and Mr. Gutierrez. Like he, I was avoiding a confrontation. Maybe I was a wuss. Regardless, this wuss needed his space.
Bobby drove me home, invited me to join him for a couple of drinks. That had a certain appeal but I just wasn’t up for cheerful chatter. Yet, I didn’t want to be home alone either. I decided to go to the Mariner’s game. They were playing the Texas Rangers and had been on a six game winning streak. There, I could be alone in a crowd and have a pleasant diversion. I’d pay my own way and not even let Bruce, who was not pitching, know I was there.
18
Clouds blanketed the sky, warning of the rain to come. I grabbed my umbrella and began my trek to the office. A Mariners victory and a good night sleep put me in a cheerful mood. Although I hadn’t resolved any of the myriad questions in my head, I had managed to shut them off for a while, and felt ready to tackle whatever was thrown at me today. Carrie wasn’t on the porch when I arrived, inhaling toxins into her lungs. I missed not seeing her and hoped her absence was not due to complications with Mike.
Over coffee Bobby schooled me on the difference between folding and mixing ingredients when preparing food. Afterward, I saw my first two patients.
I stepped out of my office and saw Megan, dressed in a clinging pink sweater and pink and gray patterned skirt, sitting and talking to Bobby. “What are you doing here?” I blurted. First Gregory and now Megan. Who will be my next mystery guest?
“I’m here for our appointment.” Her voice was cold. Calculating.
Temporarily I was speechless. I caught Bobby’s curious, watching eyes. “Sasha’s dead!”
“As if I didn’t know,” she said, standing and moving too close, invading my space. “You didn’t call.”
Her breath sent a shiver up my spine. An alarming shiver. We didn’t need to air our differences in front of Bobby. “Inside,” I said, leading her into my office.
Giving me the evil eye as she passed, she arranged herself on the edge of the sofa, looking tense.
“Let’s start from the beginning,” I said, working hard at modulating my tone. “This whole therapy thing was for Sasha’s benefit. Now that she’s gone there’s no need for these sessions.”
“You didn’t cancel.”
“Cancel! It’s self-evident!”
“Maybe this was the only way I could get you to be there for me.”
“Be there for you? I’ve been there for you!” I was shouting. I lowered my voice. “I needed my space. I needed to be alone.”
“Bobby said you went to the Mariner’s game.”
“Yes.”
“You were alone with thirty-thousand others.”
“Cut that shit out, Megan. I was alone in a crowd. You know perfectly well what that’s about. You’ve been there.”
“I do know what that’s like, but I buried my sister yesterday. I needed you there.” She pleaded like a child abandoned by a parent.
“You wanted to play tennis! That didn’t seem very needy to me.”
Anger stiffened her voice “So mister almighty shrink, you’re going to sit there and judge me? You, of all people, should know there’s no one way for people to handle emotions.”
She was right about that, but there were patterns, usual responses that were expected, that fell within the normal bell curve. Playing tennis after burying your sister was not one of them. But arguing the point was not productive. “Okay, I’ll give you that. I’m sorry that you feel I abandoned you, but people march to different rhythms. I was stressed out. I needed my space.”
“You could have called and told me. I couldn’t reach you. You had your phone off.”
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“You’re right. I could have. Should have. I guess I didn’t think you’d understand. I wanted to, needed to, avoid a confrontation like we’re having now.”
She was wagging her foot, her stylish Ferragamo heel loose and dangling. “There’s more you’re not telling me.”
“Yeah, I suppose.” I ran my hand down the edge of my desk “It’s all jumbled up in my mind. I feel I failed with Sasha...”
“You didn’t fail. You made it clear right from the beginning that you couldn’t help her from a distance. If anyone failed it was me.”
“You can’t blame yourself. You can’t control the behavior of another.”
“Isn’t that exactly what you’re doing?”
“Yes. Intellectually I know I couldn’t control Sasha or Kevin, yet emotionally I share some guilt. But it’s more than that.” I opened the lid on the box, let the suspicions out. “The bruises on Sasha’s arms. Nick didn’t seem like a killer.”
“You don’t know Nick, but Sasha wasn’t murdered. She committed suicide.” Her eyes narrowed. “Wait! Are you thinking I gave Sasha the bruises? That I had something to do with her death?”
“No, no!” Still, I couldn’t shake Nick’s warning out of my head. “Like I said it’s all jumbled up.”
She started swinging her foot again, the heel of her shoe slapping the heel of her foot. “Right now I’m doing everything I can to restrain myself from punching you for even having those thoughts about me. I’m trying to understand where you’re coming from.”
I shook my head, clenched my lips together. “I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve that. It’s just that so much has happened in so little time. Sometimes, I feel like I’ve been hit by a bus.”
“Well, I’m not the bus driver. I had nothing to do with Kevin’s suicide.”
Ouch! “Wow! You’re blaming my reaction on Kevin’s suicide?”
“I’m not saying your other concerns aren’t valid. But I think your son’s suicide is putting you over the edge.”
I sent her a half dismissive, half curious look.
“That’s not a slam, Grant. Your emotions are still raw. It’s understandable. Sasha’s suicide...through no fault of yours...stirred up the pot, making you extra sensitive.”
“You think I’m overreacting?”
“I do. Everything’s extreme. Exaggerated.”
Maybe she was right. Maybe I was seeing mountains where there were molehills. I did have a tendency to go to extremes. My womanizing and excessive drinking that led to my DUI were cases in point. I flashed to the game Carrie, Bobby and I played attributing falsehoods to the Noble Company, due to behavior we chose to identify as extreme or nefarious. Was I doing the same thing to Megan, casting doubt on behavior I didn’t see or understand? Playing the game was innocent fun and didn’t harm the Noble Company. Falsely accusing Megan was damaging. I had these thoughts with my head in my hand, my eyes fixed on the floor. I looked up to see Megan wiping tears from her eyes with a tissue.
I padded over to her, sat down beside her on the sofa. “I’m sorry I failed you. I got caught up in my own little world. And you just lost your–“
She put her hand over my mouth, smiled at me with moist eyes, and then bent her head so that our foreheads were touching. Then she kissed my neck, my chin, eased her tongue inside my mouth as her hand moved sending electricity between my legs. Our clothes fell away. Our bodies tangled on the couch, until we were spent in exhaustion and lay wrapped in each other’s arms
19
There’s something about sex that’s healing and revitalizing. I violated one of my cardinal rules–-to never have sex in my office-–and was not bothered by it. Sex with Megan had shattered the wall building between us, re-establishing our closeness. I felt like I was connected to someone, that I was part of something bigger than myself. I cast away my doubts, blaming them on my vulnerability due to Kevin’s suicide. I felt lighter like I had dropped one hundred pounds. It was awesome. Everything seemed brighter, new and refreshed. Walking to work I felt grounded, more connected to my little part of the world, mindful of how the rising sun illuminated my environment, lighting up an oak tree, a maple, a dogwood; casting a show in brilliant cinematography simply for my pleasure.
Bobby was in the office when I arrived and had already brewed the coffee. He brought me my cup. “Everything go all right yesterday? I heard some shouting between you and Megan--” He made a point of saying he couldn’t hear what was being said, just the loudness of it. “--When I left you were still in session.”
Making it on the couch, I thought, sipping my coffee. Being in a good mood, I took it head on. “We had a heated disagreement, a misunderstanding. Once we aired it, we resolved it rather quickly.”
“She seemed loaded for bear when she popped in here. Real antsy. Usually she spends time with me. Not yesterday.”
“Her showing up at her usual appointment after Sasha’s death is what pissed me off. I told you to fill that appointment time.”
“I tried.”
“How did she know I’d be free at that time?”
“She called.”
“Bobby, you have to tell me when she calls like that. Prepare me. I don’t like surprises.”
“You were with patients.”
“Poor excuse. Catch me in-between.” I started to go to my office, turned toward Bobby. “Megan will not be coming in any more now that Sasha is gone. Hopefully, that’s the end of it. But if not, fill me in.”
“Okay.”
I treated a couple of patients, then, sometime around mid-morning, Bobby said, “There’s a call you want to take.”
I pictured Megan on the other side of the line, her face glowing. I picked up the phone, answered with a lilt in my voice, “Hello.”
“I’m glad Bobby put me through,” Hanna said. “I was wanting to take you out to lunch. I have something I want to discuss with you.”
Hanna’s call threw me. I felt myself retreating. Her words seemed so far away. “Lunch? Today?”
“Yes, if you are free and can get away.”
“I think so, “I said, still disconcerted. I scanned my calendar. I had a two hour gap between appointments. “Yeah, that works. Pick me up at noon.”
I went into my next appointment wishing I’d asked Hanna what she wanted to talk about. I had to brush it from my mind several times during the interview to concentrate on my patient.
Dressed casually chic in a Kelly green ensemble that I hadn’t seen before, Hanna arrived early to huddle with Bobby, then drove me to a trendy Irish restaurant. Cool but sunny, we sat outside in the courtyard, under a patio heater protected from the wind by fencing and trees.
As soon as our wine was in hand, Hanna said, without preface, “I’ve been dating Hank Gentry.”
I shouldn’t have been stunned since Hanna had forewarned me, asking for my opinion of Hank, but I was. Maybe it was the intimate setting, the two of us sitting across from one another with a glass of wine in a restaurant. I was enamored with Megan, yet I felt a pang of jealousy. I smiled. Waited.
“I don’t know if you remember but Hank’s son, Chip, was on the same baseball team as Kevin...”
I nodded. I remembered him as a real hustler full of energy, the kind of kid that could spark the team.
“Hank asked me to go with him to Chips’ tournament in Bellingham and I wondered what you thought about that?”
“Are you asking me if you should sleep with him?”
Hanna laughed, wine squirting out of her mouth. “Sorry,” she said, wiping it off the tablecloth. “I think I can decide that for myself. No, I was wondering how it would look. I know many of the other parents who will be there. I didn’t want to blemish Kevin’s name.”
“What Kevin didn’t stain by jumping off the bridge, I did with my philandering and DUI.
Don’t let that stop you if you want to go. Besides, it’s been well over a year.” Her question struck me as unusual, and for a moment I wondered if she wasn’t throwing her dating Hank up in my face.
She touched my arm. “Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
Her touch felt reassuring, reminding me how much I’d missed that touch that always had a way of lightening my burden when I had come home hurting because something went wrong with a patient, frequently through no fault of mine. But it was easy to forget that touch when it wasn’t there when Kevin killed himself. Then, it was my fault and remained so, if unspoken. Did her reassurance carry over to Kevin’s tragedy too?
The waiter brought Hanna a second glass of wine. I declined since I still had patients to see. As I watched her sip I noticed she looked less gaunt. There was color in her face which had filled a bit, and the patches under her eyes were but shadows of their former selves. “You’re looking good, Hanna.”
She beamed. “You really think so? Some days I look in the mirror and see an old hag.”
I smiled. “So what’s the secret?”
“Don’t look in the mirror!” She laughed from deep down inside.
I couldn’t remember when she laughed so heartily.
“I’ve been walking and trying not to feel sorry for myself. And, I have to say, Hank has been good for me.”
“He’s been a gentlemen?”
“Too much so some time. He’s real old school. Can’t kiss the girl until the third date.”
I felt a little uncomfortable with this girlfriend-like chat. Although it all sounded quite innocent, I didn’t need to hear about her and Hank’s intimate moments. The whole luncheon felt strange. The fact that we could sit down and talk as friendly adults who shared a history was comfortable, but also reminded me what I once had and missed. We were replaying a piece of the past when we admired and believed in one another. I knew we could never go back. Too much had happened to change the core of who we were. There could never be a pre-Kevin, Grant or pre-Kevin, Hanna. That was sad and I mourned my loss.
