Page 11 of Misery and Ecstasy

“At … life? I don’t know!” I pause for a moment as several reasons why I’m upset flash through my head. I speak as though I’m enraged with the doc, when really I just feel like screaming to give my wrath a place to go. “At the fact that I just watched my mother die slowly over the past three years. The fact that I couldn’t do anything to stop it. The fact that I don’t have anyone to take it out on or to hurt in retribution.”

She doesn’t appear fazed by my desire to cause harm to someone, but she does write something down on her pad of paper before speaking again.

“So you’re grieving.”

“I don’t fucking know. Maybe? I guess.” The end of my sentence is cut off by another yawn.

Fuck, despite this coffee’s best efforts to wake me the fuck up, my eyes are getting heavy.

“I take it you and your mother were close?”

“Yeah.” Nodding, I stare at the floor in a daze.

“What about your dad?”

I groan internally. I don’t know why I thought we’d only be tapping into what is going on in my life currently. This is a deep dive I’m not prepared for. Pinching the bridge of my nose slightly, I take another deep breath, followed by a gulp of coffee.

“We used to be close.” If she wants details, she’ll have to work for them. To pull them out of me because I don’t open up to anyone. I’ve never needed to before. I’ve always dealt with my shit on my own.

Yeah, and look what happened to Lillian.

Therapy wasn’t a huge thing growing up. My parents believed any problems we had could be resolved through prayer. But imagine if I would have had a professional to talk to after dad died? What that could have meant forher.

Fuck.

My mom pops back into my head trying to help find a resolution between the warring feelings and emotions in my mind.

I don’t want to be here.

But it could be good for you.

I don’t want to let this doc in, allowing myself to feel raw and exposed to her.

But it could help to heal decades of hurt you’re holding on to.

I don’t want to let her seeme. I’m afraid she isn’t going to like what she finds.

“Used to be?”The doc pulls me from my internal battle.

“What?”

“You said you and your father used to be close…”

Oh.

“He died when I was sixteen.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” She makes another scribble on her notepad as she speaks. “What happened?”

A flash of my father’s pale, cold, lifeless corpse lying on the table in the morgue as I stood by my mother’s side, her hand closed tightly around mine as she identified his body, absolutely defeats me. It feels like there is a clamp around my lungs, growing tighter every second that passes, threatening to let up only if I spill my guts to her.

“He was murdered.”

She freezes, her pen still pressed to the paper as her eyes flick to mine again.

Blinking, I try to wet my dry eyes as I wait for her to ask for details. To pull more information surrounding his death from me.

“How did you cope with that at the time?”

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