The Road to Redemption

by Stephen Morris

  One day he hadn’t shaved and was sitting on the front veranda, when he saw a horrible sight, coming up the path. It was Audry and she had George in tow.

  “He’s looking better today don’t you think Dad?” she had said right in front of him, as if he wasn’t even there.

  She is treating me like I am mental, a mentally ill patient, he thought.

  Each time she had come, Audry had had very little to say to him, preferring to go and talk with Dr Smith, about his “condition”.

  “ I don’t know why she is talking to Dr Smith, when Janet is my therapist.” He had said to himself. But that was Audry; she always had to talk to the top person.

  He wasn’t sure how long he had been in the hospital, but it was probably over two months, when Nurse Scott came up to him on the veranda and said Dr Rush wanted to see him. This was unusual, as their next session was not due until the following day.

  “Hi John, take a seat,” she paused, “how would you feel about going home soon?”

  “Well I guess I can’t stay here forever?” replied John, although he hadn’t really given much thought to going home.

  “Your wife is keen for you to go home, but I am not sure, do you think you are really ready for it?”

  “I guess so,” said John.

  “Well have a think about it. If you do decide to go home I would like you to become an out patient and still come and see me once a week.”

  John had a good think and yes, it was probably time to face the real world again.

  Chapter 20 Going Home

  John was sitting on the front veranda having a cup of coffee and enjoying his usual talk with Sandra, when a BMW pulled up right outside the front steps. Wait a minute, he looked at the number plate, that was his BMW and it was all shiny and new. No sign at all of the damage he had done to it.

  Out stepped Audry, she looked all business today. No greetings or how are you John.

  “Get your things John I’m taking you home. I just need to have a word to Dr Smith.”

  John and Sandra looked at each other, as John shrugged and rolled his eyes back. They both seemed to be thinking, “Oh dear what’s this?”

  After a couple of minutes, John got up and walked inside. As he was going past Dr Smith’s office he caught a snippet of the conversation with Audry.

  “Dr Rush has agreed to let him go home, but he needs rest and a stress free environment.”

  He found his suitcase had already been packed for him and his bed had been stripped. It hit him that he really was going home and a sense of sadness came over him. For the first time in his life, he had actually been relaxed here and he was now free from a lot of the things, that had sent him over the edge. He picked up his suitcase and walked down the corridor, past room C and knocked on Dr Rush’s door. There was a woman at her desk with dark hair. She had her head down and was writing something. She looked up. God that's not Dr Rush, its Alice. No, it can’t be, what could she possibly be doing here? Then he realized it wasn’t Alice, but it certainly looked like her, her hair looked exactly the same as Alice wore hers.

  “I’m sorry, I must have the wrong office.” The woman got up and started to walk around the desk.

  “John,” she said. He stopped in his tracks. It was a very familiar voice. My god, its Dr Rush, Janet!

  She could see that he had got a shock.

  “You said when you first met me I should wear contact lenses,” she said, teasing him.

  In fact it was not because of anything John had said. She had attended a conference recently and met someone. She was dating again.

  As she walked around her desk, she picked up a piece of paper.

  “This is the name of a sex therapist, she’s very good. Mind you I think your wife probably needs it more than you.”

  She handed John the piece of paper and he stuffed it in his back pocket.

  “What about Sandra he asked? You can’t send her home.”

  Don’t worry John; she has been through a terrible experience. It’s going to take her a long while to get over it. I am arranging for her to go to a halfway house. It’s run by a friend of mine and I will be visiting her at least twice a week.”

  “That's good,“ said John with a sigh of relief.

  It’s most important that you take it easy and look after yourself John, stay out of stressful situations and be careful of having flash backs.”

  He looked puzzled.

  “Flashbacks are when your mind suddenly goes back to its old way of thinking. You have come a long way over a very short period John. You need to give your mind time to digest it all.”

  “How will I know when I am having a flashback?”

  “Don’t worry, you will know. When it happens just take a deep breath and count to 10.”

  “I want to thank you so much for all you have done for me. I gave you a terrible time when I first arrived,” said John

  “Just think of it as my lot in life,” she responded. “Its all part of my job, although I will say, that you were initially one of the hardest patients I have ever had to deal with.”

  “Look after yourself John, you are going to be fine.”

  “As I discussed with you the other day, I want us to keep doing our sessions once a week. How would 10:30 am on Tuesday suit you?”

  “Fine,” said John

  He picked up his suitcase and as he was walking out, she put her hand on the back of his shoulder,

  “I’ll see you Tuesday then.”

  Out onto the front veranda, where Sandra was waiting for him. They gave each other a big hug and stood there facing each other.

  “I’m going to miss you....,” she hesitated; she had nearly called him Dad.

  “I’ll miss you too,” said John, as he leaned over and kissed her gently on the forehead.

  “Dr Rush is a very good woman. Trust her, she will look after you.”

  With that, Audry came out, marching through the door with an angry look on her face and they both sprang apart.

  “Get in the car John.”

  “I’ll drive,” said John.

  “No you won’t,” snapped Audry, “You’ve already done quite enough damage.”

  They got in the car.

  “Nice job on the car,” said John

  “ Never mind about that, what were you doing hugging that young tart, John? Really, the types they get in places like this. What have you been doing with her?” Audry ranted.

  “You wouldn’t understand Audry.”

  “I understand perfectly well John. Now I am going to say something to you that’s extremely important and I want your full attention and co-operation.”

  She looked over, to make sure John was listening,

  “I’ve told the neighbours that you had a car accident and had a bad case of whiplash.”

  “Why did you tell them that?” asked John.

  “I could hardly tell them you have been in a mental hospital John. Do you have any idea at all, what you have done to MY family? You’re a disgrace. You had better do what I tell you, I’ve had quite enough of all this.”

  MY family, thought John. Not OUR family? He had been to hell and back, been arrested by two policeman, sedated, put in a padded cell and all she could worry about was, what the neighbours were thinking and what he had done to HER family. He had finally come to a point in his life, where for the first time, he was being totally honest with himself and now here was Audry telling him, no she was ordering him, to tell lies. Something was not right. He thought of the Bob Dylan song “The Times they are a Changing.”

  They drove the rest of the way home in silence. Out of the car and John picked up his suitcase from the back seat. He looked over at the lawn. The grass looked perfect. No sign of the damage he had done to it, in his drunken rage that night.

  “The grass is looking good Audry.”

  “No thanks to you,” muttered Audry. “Come inside there’s something I want you to sign.”

  On the coffee table in the lounge room wa
s an official looking form and a pen next to it. At the top it was headed,

  “Power of Attorney.”

  “I want you to sign this form John.”

  He knew perfectly well what a Power of Attorney was. He had seen them a number of times in his business, when he had been selling a deceased estate, or when a family had been selling the family home, in order to put an elderly relative into a nursing home. It would give Audry control over their finances.

  She could see John hesitating.

  “Its for the best John, its just for a short time while you are recuperating. There are all sorts of bills I need to pay. There are gas and electricity bills on the fridge right now that I haven’t been able to pay.”

  “You don’t need this,” pleaded John. “I’m perfectly capable of paying the bills.”

  “Dr Smith says you need to rest. He also told me John....,” Her voice was becoming threatening. “He told me that if you give me any trouble whatsoever, whatsoever John, I could ring him and he will have you scheduled. You know what that means don’t you John?”

  He could see she meant business, what the heck. He signed the form.

  In fact Audry was lying. Dr Smith had never told her to ring him. He had only said to her that John had shown very good improvement, considering that at one time they had actually thought they might have had to schedule him.

  Just as he was bending over to sign the form, a slip of paper dropped out of his back pocket. Audry bent down and picked it up.

  “What’s this John?”

  “Its the name of a sex therapist we should see Audry.”

  “A sex therapist. What on earth have they been doing to you in there John? If you think I am going to talk to some total stranger, about the intricate details of our sex life, you must be madder than I thought you were. There’s nothing wrong with our sex life, it’s perfectly fine.”

  And with that she ripped up the piece of paper.

  “Sit down and I’ll make a cup of tea.”

  With that she strode out of the room, picking up his suitcase near the door in the process, as she turned back to him and said,

  “Don’t bother looking for your scotch John, Dr Smith said you were not to drink. There isn’t a drop of alcohol in the house.”

  This was also a lie. Dr Smith had said nothing of the sort.

  After a while she came back with a cup of tea and handed it to him.

  “Audry, I should go back to work soon.”

  “You don’t need to worry about that John. Dad and I have taken total control of it, while you have been in that nut house.” And with that she left the room again.

  John sat there sipping his tea and thinking. “Total control of it,“ what could she mean by that? She could have said, “Dad and I have been looking after it “ or even, “We have been managing it, while you were away,” but no, she said “Total CONTROL of it.”

  Then it hit him. About a year ago John had got into some cash flow problems and Audry had asked George to lend him $20,000, to tide the business over.

  “No need to pay me back,” George had said at the time, “Just give me a small share in the business, say 5% and if you ever come to sell it you can pay me back then.”

  At the time John had thought that was quite generous, for a pompous ass like George. Perhaps he was doing it mainly to help out his daughter. A 5% share was nothing. But now he realized, it was far from nothing.

  Originally in order to income split for taxation purposes, he had set the business up with 50% ownership shared equally, between him and Audry. However when he had given the 5% to George, his share had gone down to 45%. That left George and Audry with a combined controlling interest of 55%, between them. They now had total control of the business. They could do whatever they liked, sell the business, fire him, anything..... How could he have not seen this before?

  What John didn’t realize was that in becoming honest with himself he was starting to see things clearly, as they really were, not like the ego trip that he used to be on, where he thought he was such a big man and was in charge of everything around him.

  What else was there that he had been too busy to notice in the past? His thoughts went to George. Every time George came to the house he strutted around like he owned the place. Shit, who really owned the house? Sure he and Audry had their names on the title deeds as the owners, but there were other documents he had not given much thought to in the past. George had lent them the money to buy the house and had a mortgage and caveat over it. In effect George really owned the house and had the title deeds in his possession. Just like a bank has control over a house, until the mortgage is paid off, George had control of his house.

  So George and Audry between them had control of everything, the house, the business and now with the Power of Attorney, even the bank accounts. John owned nothing. The anger started to build up inside him. But then something happened in his thought process. “This must be it, I’m having a flashback.” He held his breath and counted to 10. A feeling of relief came over him. He had never felt so good as he had in the last week at Sunnydale. He had been free from worrying about all these material things and for the first time had felt a sense of peace and contentment, like never before in his life. What was more important, peace of mind or control? Having control didn’t seem to be making Audry happy. In fact she looked more miserable, than he could ever remember seeing her.

  He sat back on the couch. Well he might as well relax and enjoy his new way of thinking. No point in doing anything else.

  Chapter 21 Home Recovery

  The days drifted into weeks. John’s only commitment was his weekly sessions with Dr Rush. Audry insisted in driving him to these, waiting in the car, then driving him home. He had come a long way and had finally realized there were a lot of similarities between him and the dreaded George. It also seemed likely, that Audry had married him because of some of these similarities. In the past, being in control of everything, in terms of how the house and car were kept, was certainly a similarity. However there was one important difference. George had controlled Audry’s upbringing, even as far as dominating the way she thought. John had not tried to do this with his kids, Sam and Claire. In fact due to his business commitments in the past, he was hardly ever home. Audry had had a far bigger influence over them, than him. In fact when he thought about it, even the way they talked was like Audry.

  His days had developed into a similar pattern. He would get out of bed after the kids had gone to school, shower and have breakfast. After that he would see to the pool by putting in chlorine and running the filter as required. The rest of the day was free and he spent it mostly reading. He had joined the local Library and was systematically going through their non-fiction section, borrowing up to five books at a time. Audry insisted in driving him there, due to his “condition”. He had started reading about the great philosophers and unlike in the past, was reading to learn about them, rather than to just gain a cursory knowledge, so he could relate to rich clients.

  He found that Socrates is renowned for his contribution to the field of ethics and is regarded as one of the founders of Western Philosophy. He is known mostly through the accounts of his student, Plato, rather than his direct writings.

  Socrates application of logic to examine key moral concepts such as “the Good and justice,” fascinated him. He particularly liked that Socrates was quoted as saying, “The highest form of Human Excellence is to question oneself and others”. This from a man who lived some 450 years BC. Socrates also claimed that “Few climb out of the cave of ignorance and those that do, not only have a terrible struggle, but when they go back to help other people up, find themselves the object of scorn and ridicule”.

  He went on to learn that Socrates had been at odds with his fellow Athenians and had eventually been tried for heresy. John found it difficult to fathom, how Socrates could have fallen foul of the Athens establishment, by philosophising about justice and the pursuit of goodness. However, it seems his attempts to impr
ove the Athenians' sense of justice, may have been the source of his execution. Socrates had not believed that “might makes right” as his fellow countrymen did and had even praised some of the philosophies of Sparta, Athens arch rival. This was not appreciated and the authorities thought he was a traitor.

  Plato, argues that Socrates had an opportunity to escape, as his followers were able to bribe the prison guards. However he chose to stay for several reasons:

  Firstly Socrates believed that to escape would indicate a fear of death. No true philosopher should have a fear of death.