Page 56 of Inferno
Chapter 14
“When are you going to tell your wife about us?”
Stan was lying on his back with his eyes closed, hands folded over his stomach, long legs stretched out on the plush leather sofa. He’d been so deep in thought that he didn’t hear the question at first. When the words gradually registered, he opened his eyes and glanced over at the woman who’d spoken.
She sat across from him in a comfy armchair, a yellow notepad resting on her lap. Her dark hair was secured into a bun, and she wore gold-rimmed eyeglasses that made her appear studious without detracting from her good looks.
Stan eyed her quizzically.“Us?”
Dr. Gilliard cleared her throat, uncrossing and recrossing her long, shapely legs.
Is it just me, Stan wondered,or are her skirts getting shorter?
Frowning at the thought, he shifted his gaze to theorientalrug that covered the polished wooden floor of the cozy office.
“Let me rephrase the question. When are you going to tell your wife that you’ve been seeing a therapist about your nightmares?”
Stan’s frown deepened, guilt gnawing at his insides as he turned his head to stare up at the ceiling. “I haven’t decided.”
“Well, how much longer do you think you can keep our sessions a secret from her?” the doctor pressed.
Stan sighed heavily. “I don’t know.”
When the nightmares first began, he’d had no intention of telling anyone. But late one night at the firehouse, he’d surfaced from a dream shouting for his parents, which had awakened the other firefighters on duty. He’d apologized for the commotion and assured them that he was okay, then jokingly told them to go back to sleep so they could resume dreaming aboutPlayboycenterfolds. After the men’s drowsy laughter died down and they rolled over on their cots, Stan had gotten up and crept downstairs to the kitchen. He was soon joined by his concerned captain, Fisher Sullivan, who’d asked him about the nightmare.
Over steaming cups of strong black coffee, Stan had opened up to Sullivan, who’d encouraged him to make an appointment with the department psychologist. Stan had resisted the idea for another two months, hoping the nightmares would simply go away. But they hadn’t.
So there he was stretched out on the proverbial shrink’s couch, counting down the minutes until the hourlong session ended.
“I know how difficult it is for men to seek mental health counseling,” Dr. Gilliard spoke in that calm, soothing tone that lulled her patients into confiding their deepest, darkest secrets. “As you know, many of my clients are firefighters and cops. And all of them, without exception, have admitted to me that they think seeing a therapist is a sign of weakness, like it’s somehow unmanly to seek professional help.Youhad that misconception when you first started coming to me, remember? You were worried about what your comrades would think if they found out you were in therapy, and you were concerned that it would hurt your chances at being promoted to captain.”
“Yeah, I remember,” Stan grunted.
“It took two full sessions before you felt comfortable enough to open up to me about the nightmares you’d been having. But that was three months ago. I think we’ve made a lot of progress since then, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Sure.” Stan knew that the sooner Dr. Gilliard gave him a clean bill of health, the sooner he could appease his captain and end the counseling sessions.
It wasn’t that he didn’t appreciate the good doctor’s efforts to probe his psyche in order to diagnose what ailed him. Hewasappreciative, because he knew how important it was for him to talk to someone about the nightmares that plagued him. But after three months under Dr. Gilliard’s care, the bad dreams hadn’t gone away or lessened in frequency. So it was only natural that he’d begun to question whether he was wasting his time, and hers.
Dr. Gilliard flipped to a clean sheet on her notepad. Somehow she always managed to fill several pages during their sessions, although she seemed to do more talking than Stan. “I’d like to explore your reasons for not divulging to your wife that you’re in therapy. I know you’ve told me that you don’t want to worry or upset her, but I think it goes much deeper than that.”
Stan exhaled a deep, ragged breath. “Believeme,I’m not proud of keeping this from Prissy. I hate lying to her aboutanything.”
“Then why do it?” Dr. Gilliard paused for a moment. “It’s not as if you’re having an affair.”
Stan grimaced as Prissy’s angry words echoed through his mind.Who paged you...I know you’re lying to me…I don’t know what’s going on with you…
Until that night, it hadn’t occurred to him that she might think he was cheating on her. But even now that he knew of her suspicions, hestillwasn’t ready to confide the truth to her. Because he honestly didn’t knowwhich would be worse for her: believing that he was unfaithful, or facing the very real possibility that his days with her were numbered.
“Stan?” Dr. Gilliard prompted gently. “Why are you so reluctant to tell your wife about the nightmares?”
Stan stared at the ceiling for several moments before answering, “When Prissy was ten years old,herfather was killed in a machinery accident at the textile factory where he worked. The family was devastated, especially Prissy’s mother. She fell into such a deep depression that Prissy and her older brother more or less became the adults, having to look after her and themselves. Being forced to grow up so fast changed them in ways they never could have imagined.
“About six months after Prissy and I got married, I told her that I wanted to become a firefighter because of what had happened to my parents. We’d talked about it when we were dating, but she’d always thought—maybe hoped—that I wasn’t serious. She wasn’t crazy about the idea. Given the dangerous nature of firefighting, she was understandably worried for my safety.”
“Because of what happened to her father,” Dr. Gilliard surmised.
Stan nodded, his mind traveling back to the early years of his marriage. He’d often come home from the firehouse to find his young wife waiting at the front door with Montana perched on her hip and Manning huddled at her side, his small hand tightly clutching hers. Prissy’s eyes would be filled with anxiety because she’d heard about the blaze that Stan and his unit had put down during their shift. She’d ask him a bunch of questions about the fire until, sensing her distress, Manning or Montana—or both—would start crying. As Prissy tended to Manny, Stan would take Monty from her arms and gently rock the baby to sleep, giving his wife a chance to calm her overwrought nerves.
