Page 83 of To Save Him

 

 

 

Chapter Twenty-seven

 

AS THE DAYS passed, I continued just like things had always been, but I tried to distance myself.  I knew if Brandon’s sexual appetite had continued uncurbed, his lovemaking might have erased all the doubt.  But his interest in sex was waning as he gave in to whatever darkness was exploding in his head…and whether or not his name was Brandon or something else, he was a suffering human being who needed help.  I really started to worry when he started taking time off from work on occasion and even withdrawing from my family—not spending time with JR, sleeping a lot, giving me one-word answers—so I knew he needed help.

I sensed it one dreary Monday morning.  The clouds were gray and the air was cool, and I wondered if we were going to get a cold rain or if it would be our first snow of the fall.  The kids had just left for school and Brandon sat at the table, his breakfast untouched, staring into a cup of dark brown coffee.

I sat next to him and stirred the creamer in my own mug.  “Brandon, I know you seemed averse to it when we talked about it before, but have you ever thought that therapy mighthelpyou?”

He was quiet for a bit and I started questioning if he’d even heard me.  Finally, he said, “Like my brain’s not messed up enough?”

“I see you struggling.  Sometimes just talking to someone can help.”  Now that daily meditation and yoga weren’t helping—whether he’d admit it or not—I wanted him to at least consider this option.  If we had jarred something loose in his head, a psychologist could maybe help him kind of put it all back together.

It was the first time that morning he’d actually looked at me.   His eyes were dark but the circles underneath them were darker.  It was as if the gray skies outside were barometers for his mood.  “Did you ever stop to think that maybe head shrinks have been part of my problem this whole time?”

I swallowed.  “Really?”

He let out a long breath, returning his eyes to the liquid in his cup that was losing heat moment by moment.  “Kimberly, I don’t know how much I’ve told you about the goddamned experiment—theprogram—but I’m pretty sure I didn’t tell you anything about the hospital afterward.  Gabe’s death…that was my breaking point.”  His voice had quieted so much, I had to strain to hear—and then my son’s name caused my heart to constrict.  “It wasn’t long after that that I completely lost it and they shipped me off.  Gave me discharge papers.  Said I was no longer mentally fit to serve.  They’d broken me.  And this fucking hospital.  So it’s supposed to be a place where guys like me can heal, can figure out how to live again, but when you’re shattered into a million pieces, there’s no fix to be had.  When the glue is bigger than the bits meant to be put back together, it’s impossible.  And they tried…but there were just too many of us and our problems were just too huge.  Eventually, they had to kick some of us out to make room for fresh survivors.”

His words were chilling me to the marrow.

“These people who were helping us?  They were trained to helpusspecifically—the shit we’d gone through, the shit we’d seen.  So iftheycouldn’t help me, how could someone else?”

Hearing him speak, I too had my doubts.  But I also had a glimmer of hope.  I touched the back of his hand with my fingertips until he looked first at them and then my face.  “We’ve tried so many other things—and they’ve all helped some, right?”

“I used to think so but—”

“Can we at least try?”

I could see his lips starting to form an argument but then his eyes softened.  “I guess.”

That was good enough.  And, if a psychologist could help Brandon, maybe I could solve the mystery around everything that was going o

 

* * *

 

IT WAS JUST like an ordinary doctor’s office.  Well, mostly.  It was in a nondescript group of buildings that took up half a block—three cream-colored brick structures forming an irregular triangle and, in between them, was a parking lot with a tree and a bush here and there to serve as shade and boundaries between the lot and the sidewalk.

Before we walked through the huge wooden double doors, Brandon grabbed my hand.  He was squeezing it like he might a rope saving him from falling off a cliff.  We entered through the doors, and the first thing I noticed was that it was darker than most office buildings.  There was some fluorescent light inside but it was muted.  There were a few paintings in the waiting area and, of course, a table with magazines but it was, overall, kind of stark.  My first thought was that if I was struggling mentally, I’d need my therapist’s office to feel a little more relaxed.

That wasn’t to say it didn’t feel professional—because it did.  And the receptionist helped there as well.  She gave Brandon a clipboard after collecting his money and told him the psychologist would see him after the paperwork was complete.

One page into the forms and he whispered to me, “Would you come back in the office with me?”

My eyes had been drawn to a southwestern painting of a yucca plant, but I turned my head and saw that his face was ashen.  He was struggling with all of this, and I hadn’t expected it.  “Yes, if you need me to.”

He blinked his deep brown eyes and then some of the anxiety seemed to drain from them as he nodded.  He returned to the forms then, and I let my eyes drift around the room.  On one chair sat a woman who was sixty if not older.  Her hair was dyed a bright yellow and she wore vibrant red lipstick—but she fidgeted like a ten-year old.  Across the room from her sat a girl who seemed to be about Annabel’s age, but her dark makeup and the scowl she wore made it hard to determine exactly how old she was.  Then there was a man, maybe ten years my junior—he seemed withdrawn and antisocial.  All of these people felt like they needed the help of one of the therapists in this practice—and even I began to grow nervous, wondering if we’d brought Brandon to the right place.

Shortly after the teenager was called back by an older female, Brandon delivered his paperwork to the receptionist sitting behind the glass partition.  It was only after another minute or two that an elderly gentleman, a man who seemed close to retirement, said, “Brandon?”

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