“I used to. When I was growing up. Now I know that he was just really struggling with my mother’s death.”
“That’s the fact of it,” she agrees. “But when you were a boy, you didn’t know that. You felt rejected, did you not? You felt like you couldn’t trust your own father to want you. Correct?”
I think on that, and then I nod. “Yeah. I guess I did.”
“And your mother left you. She couldn’t help it, but she did. And you felt extreme guilt because you knew that it was your hand that killed her. You felt so much guilt about that that you suppressed all memories of it.”
I nod. “Yes.”
“So, you were a very troubled little boy, and no one knew it.”
“I’ve got baggage,” I agree. “We know that. That’s why I’m here.”
“You expressed that baggage in your early twenties by using drugs and being sexually promiscuous. You went through women like water, using them and tossing them aside.”
That makes me cringe. It feels like someone else, not me, who did that. But it’s true. I did it. I nod.
“Where are you going with this?”
“You felt like you didn’t deserve something real,” she finally points out. “It was never about those women. It was about you, and how you felt about yourself.”
I think about that. “I always gravitated to the drug users,” I tell her. “I guess because they didn’t expect much from me. They wanted to use. I was able to give them that.”
“And in return, they slept with you,” she says, and it sounds so ugly out loud. “They gave you the façade of intimacy, the barest amount. Just enough to keep you functioning, pretending that your life was just how you wanted it.”
“It was how I wanted it at the time,” I argue.
“You only thought that, I think,” she says thoughtfully, chewing at her lip. “You couldn’t bear rejection of someone real. Like you felt your father had rejected you.”
I’m stunned by that.
All along, I felt that my issues were caused by my mother dying, which didn’t make a lot of sense because she couldn’t help that. She didn’t choose death.
But my father… he chose to draw away from me. He paid for my school, he paid for everything I needed, he bailed me out of trouble time and again. But he was never able to give me what I needed the most.
He was never able to be vulnerable and show that he loved me.
“He does now,” I tell her, almost defensively. “He’s a good father.”
“Yes,” she agrees. “I can tell. But when he was younger, and he was in mourning, he couldn’t manage himself, let alone his relationship with you. And you were so small. It was a formative time for you. And now you have a deep-seeded fear of rejection.”
That’s why I always chose bar whores for years. They wouldn’t reject me.
The revelation is huge.
“That’s enough for today,” she decides, standing up and stretching. “We’ll meet again in the morning.”
I nod. “Okay. Thank you.”
When she’s gone, I curl up in my bed, and I stare at the wall.
I miss my wife. I miss my daughter.
I reach for the phone in a moment of weakness. The receiver is in my hand before I gain control of myself and put it back down.
No.
I’m strong enough to do this alone.
I won’t drag them into my shit.
I fall sleep, and the oblivion of sleep swirls around me like a drug.
33
Chapter Thirty-Two
When I wake, a stamped letter is sitting on my nightstand.
The mail cart must’ve gone by.
I recognize Mila’s handwriting on the envelope, feminine and swirly.
I swallow hard, and open it.
There is no note. Only a ring drops out. Her mother’s ring.
LOVE NEVER FAILS. Those words are inscribed on the inside, and my heart pounds. God, I miss my wife.
“What’s that?” the therapist breezes through the door, her eye on my hand. I hold up the ring.
“Mila’s parents had a rough marriage, tumultuous. But her mother believed that Love never fails, and had her ring inscribed. Mila wears it. She sent it to me. As a message.”
“That her love for you hasn’t failed,” the therapist says slowly.
I nod. “Yeah.” My throat feels tight.
“Your wife is pregnant, isn’t she?” she asks gently. I nod again.
“Yeah.”
“You don’t seem like the kind of man to walk out on his family,” she says. Just hearing it put like that sends a shiver up my spine and angers me.
“I’m not running out on my family” I say through my teeth. “I’m protecting them. I’m not balanced right now. I might not ever be. At any moment, I could slip and use again. If I’m not strong enough to stay sober.”
“How long were you sober this last time?” she asks curiously.
“Over five years.”
“And why did you start using again?” She knows why. But I humor her.
“I took pills for my knee. It needed surgery. And then, well, Leroy Ellison arranged to make me use drugs. He wanted revenge.”
It sounds so ridiculous out loud. Like something from a movie.
She stares at me. “You just said, he made you.”
“He did.”
“So you wouldn’t have chosen it,” she points out.
“But I chose to take the muscle relaxers for my knee,” I tell her and I’m angry now. I want her to stop trying to make me seem better than I am.
“But those were laced with methamphetamines,” she reminds me.
“Yes, but…”
“No buts,” she says gently, yet firmly. “They were laced with the most addictive substance known to man.”
“Yes,” I admit. “But…”
“No buts,” she says, getting up. “We’ll resume this session after dinner.”
She leaves, and I’m not hungry. I slip Mila’s ring on my pinkie.
It makes me feel close to her. Like I’m close, but still far enough away not to hurt her. It rips my heart out. I close my eyes and rest until the therapist comes back.
* * *
The therapist is relentless.
“Do you see the parallels?” she asks me after an hour. “Between the way you are behaving right now, and how your father behaved when you were small?”
I’m silent.
She smiles. “You see it. He checked out. He felt that distance between the two of you would protect you from his grief. He felt that he would hurt you with words that he couldn’t seem to control. That he might accidentally blame you for killing your mother. He knew it wasn’t your fault, but his heart was still healing. So he put distance between you.
And here you are. You know in your head that your addiction right now isn’t something you chose. But your heart is telling you to protect your family from harm.”
“The harm is me,” I tell her. “I’m the danger.”
“Life is dangerous,” she points out. “There is a risk in everything. But you are a good man. You are strong and loyal and true. That’s all we can ask of you, Pax. That’s all anyone can ask.”
“You don’t understand,” I tell her helplessly.
“But I do,” she argues. “More than you know.”
For some reason that lump is back in my throat, the one that I can’t swallow.
“You feel that you aren’t valuable enough to take a risk for,” she says ever so gently. “That Mila is better off without you, even though she loves you more than her own life. She has told you that numerous times, you said. And your daughter, and your unborn child, they need their father. Just like you needed yours.”
“But I could hurt them,” I tell her hotly.
She nods. “Yes, you could. And you will hurt them if you don’t go back home. That will do more damage than anything else you could do.”
We sit in silence for a few minutes as I soak that in, as
I consider it.
Could she possibly be right?
Could my absence truly be worse than anything else?
It’s hard for me to comprehend.
“I took the liberty of getting something for you,” she finally says, and she pulls out an envelope. “I called the detective in charge of the investigation, and he sent this to me. It arrived yesterday.”
She hands the last journal page, the one I’d told her about. The one with the bottom torn off.
It’s hard to look at it, because when I do, I remember sitting on the floor with a gun pressed to my chin, ready to take my own life.
“Read it aloud to me,” she says. “I know it’s hard, because saying the words gives them power. But please. Read them aloud.”
I stare at the words, and reluctantly give them my voice.
I’ve thought a lot over the years about why Susanna had acted like she did that night.
She rejected me, and refused to go with me, and I have to admit, that was a surprise. It took the wind out of my sails.
I know now, though, why she did it.
She must’ve felt that I would kill her son.
She didn’t trust me when I said I wouldn’t.
If it had only been her and I, I know she would have gone with me in a split second. I would’ve saved her from that life. But her son came in, and she had to put on a show for him. She had to act like she didn’t love me like I loved her. I know it was a show. I saw how she’d looked at me every time I delivered their mail, day in and day out. She watched me, and she was lustful and she wanted me. I know it now, and I knew it then.
But some women, their instincts to be mothers overtakes everything else.
That’s what happened that night.
I’m sure of it.
She fought for that snot-nosed kid. And in the end, I asked her why. Right before he rushed in and killed her, I asked her why she was fighting so hard for him.
She looked up at me, and her eyes were so wide and full of tears. And she said-
I stop, because that’s the end.
The therapist looks at m, and I swear her eyes are moist with unshed tears.
“What do you think she said?”
I shake my head, and put the page down. “I don’t know.”
“Don’t you?” she asks.
“No, I don’t. Maybe she said that she loved me.”
That thought constricts every one of my muscles, and I feel like a snake is trying to squeeze the life out of my body, a giant vise grip and my ribs… they can’t breathe.
I suck in a breath.
The therapist lays a piece of paper in my lap.
I look down.
It’s a small torn piece. It matches the journal page.
The missing piece.
My heart pounds. “Turn it over and read it,” she says softly.
With shaking fingers, I do.
“He’s worth it.”
34
Chapter Thirty-Three
“And she said… he’s worth it,” I repeat, and my heart. God, it feels like it’s going to explode with an emotion I don’t recognize.
“You’re worth it,” the therapist tells me simply. “Your mother knew it. She knew that you were so valuable, and so loved by her, that she would willingly give her life for you. She wanted you to live. She wanted you to thrive and be healthy. Because you’re worth it.”
“I’m worth it,” I say aloud, and the words feel foreign. I’m almost thirty years old, and I never once have felt like I’m worth it. I realize that now, in this very heavy moment.
“You’re worth it.”
I stare at the therapist, and she stares back.
“Do you believe it?”
“I don’t know.”
“That is your task,” she says finally. “To get to a place where you believe you’re worth it. Until you do, you won’t have peace.”
“My name means peace,” I tell her, off-hand. “My mother always said I was her peace.”
She nods. “I know.”
I don’t remember telling her that, but I don’t say it.
“I know your wife feels like you’re worth it,” she says. “And your daughter. And your unborn baby will someday feel it, too. You are a good man, Pax Tate. I knew you would be, and you are.”
I stare at the floor, and tears threaten to fall. I don’t know why. Hearing someone say that I have value… it has power.
“Give your wife the chance to love you,” she suggests. “She loves you more than anything, and you love her, too. That is what life is all about.”
She stands up.
“Our sessions are over,” she says. “You’ll continue with the group sessions for the rest of your stay here. It’s been very nice to speak with you. Can I hug you?”
I nod, and she bends, pulling me into a warm hug.
She feels soft and familiar, and when she turns to leave, I realize something.
She smells like honeysuckle.
“You never told me your name,” I point out as she leaves.
She pauses, staring over her shoulder.
“No, I guess I didn’t.”
She’s gone but the scent of honeysuckle remains, and I’m stunned, and it’s a coincidence.
“It’s a coincidence,” I say aloud. “I’m losing it.”