Page 80 of Deliver Me

“The anxiety,” Gabriel said immediately. “The guilt.”

“Anxiety about being out of prison?”

“Some of it,” Gabriel agreed. “But also about Mia.”

“Are you two still struggling?”

“Not as much now.”

“That’s encouraging,” Dr. Lucas said, his head tipping to the side as he made a short note in Gabriel’s file. “What about the guilt?”

Gabriel pushed a hand through his hair and puffed out a harsh breath. “What if I’m not good enough for her? I might be a bad husband, or a bad father and she wants a family. She says she can wait, that she’s happy, but I can tell she wants it more than she’s willing to even admit to herself. I might ruin her life and I’ve done enough of that.”

“How so?” Dr. Lucas was patient, eyes on the pad and his face impassive. No judgment here, no condemnation for the things Gabriel had done.

“I failed so many people,” Gabriel admitted. “People I left behind at Richard’s, at Seth’s, they suffered because I couldn’t figure out how to get them out and then, somehow, I’m the one who gets out of prison? Better people than me are still in there. I couldn’t even stop what was happening to me, to the others. They got away with it.”

“Who did?”

“Richard, Seth, everyone who helped them or covered up for them.”

“And you think you should have prevented them from getting away with it?”

Gabriel stared at Dr. Lucas, at the trim gray beard and unflinching eyes. It made him restless and itchy under the skin, like there was some conclusion that he was meant to reach that remained just out of touch. “Someone should have,” he said. “Someone should have done something, and they didn’t.”

“Yes, but should their failures put the burden on you? You had no power in those situations, and the fault there does not belong to you.”

“It doesn’t change the need to do something,” Gabriel insisted. He wanted to get up and run out of the office. To escape to somewhere far away and never think about any of this ever again. It was the image of Mia crying on the floor of their apartment that kept him in his seat. “I can’t live with this helplessness and the anger.”

“I understand that you feel helpless and frustrated about what you couldn’t change from the past, but you have power now,” Dr. Lucas said. “You have power to take care of the people you care about and even the power to help others the way you should have been helped. It’s something to think about.”

Gabriel nodded stiffly but his mind was already hard at work figuring out what that meant for him. What it might mean for his future and for Mia’s.

“Are you still struggling with your faith?” Dr. Lucas continued. He sipped from a can of diet Coke and peered at Gabriel over the rim as he waited for an answer.

“There’s no struggle with my faith,” Gabriel said. “Mia believes and I don’t but it’s not a problem for us.”

“You don’t have any challenges supporting her in her beliefs?”

“Not anymore,” Gabriel said. “It used to but now I’m able to go to church with her for events and special occasions.”

“Her father being a pastor doesn’t bother you?”

“I don’t think about it much anymore.” Gabriel was a bit stunned at the realization that it was true. “He’s nothing like Richard—he doesn’t weaponize his authority and he stands up for the vulnerable people in his community, so we get along.”

“That all sounds like significant progress for you.”

“Yes,” Gabriel agreed. “It does.”

“Have you talked to any of the others?” Dr. Lucas asked.

“The others?”

“The people that were with you at Richard and Seth’s?”

“They’ve reached out to me,” Gabriel admitted, “but I never responded.”

“Why is that?”

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