Page 86 of Hidden in Memories
66
The investigation is so intense right now that Daniel shouldn’t be setting aside time to see Jovanka, but Hanna’s words are ringing in his ears. He wouldn’t be able to look her in the eye if he turned down the opportunity to speak to his therapist now she’s found a slot for him.
His reaction earlier in the day frightens him. He didn’t think that stress would affect him so strongly. Somewhere deep down he was convinced that he had finally learned to control his temper, but that persistent reporter had almost made him lose it completely.
He can’t go on like this.
He doesn’t want to.
Jovanka smiles warmly at Daniel when he walks into her consulting room at six o’clock in the evening. She is already seated in a gray wing-back armchair, looking relaxed. Opposite her there is an identical chair upholstered in blue, which is where Daniel usually sits.
There is a box of paper tissues on the small table between them. Daniel hopes he won’t need them during the next hour.
“How are you feeling today?”
Daniel has learned that this is her standard opening phrase. Progress is always slow at the beginning of each session; it takes a few minutes for the conversation to start flowing.
The first time he came here he said virtually nothing for half an hour.
“Thanks for seeing me at such short notice,” he mumbles, then takes a deep breath. “I’m working on the hotel homicide—I’m sure you’ve read about it. It’s very intense. Today another murdered woman was found at Copperhill. My colleague and I had just visited the crime scene when ...”
He pauses, gathering strength before he gets to the tricky part.
“Something happened. Something I should have handled much better, but it really got to me, and I’d slept very badly. I lay awake for far too long, brooding over childhood memories.”
“So what happened?” Jovanka asks in her normal gentle tone.
It goes against the grain to put the incident into words, but eventually he manages to explain how the aggressive journalist, who reminded him so strongly of his father, triggered a wave of rage. How he reached a point where he was on the verge of resorting to violence, even though such a reaction goes against everything he stands for.
He dare not even think what it would have done to his career if he’d crossed the line.
“I understand. How did you feel?”
“It was tough. If my colleague hadn’t stepped in, I don’t know what I would have done. She was the one who insisted I should contact you.”
He can’t meet Jovanka’s gaze. “I was so ashamed afterward.”
There is a brief silence, but it feels okay, as if Jovanka is giving him the chance to come to terms with what he has just told her.
“On Monday we talked about your anger toward your father,” she says after a moment. “Your perception that he chose his new family over you. You said he didn’t take care of you properly when you went to visit him in Umeå, that you were often mad but didn’t dare say anything. You had to hold back your anger.”
Daniel doesn’t remember exactly what he said, just that it was a challenging hour and that he felt exhausted when he drove away.
“Is there a particular memory you can tell me about, something that’s stayed with you?”
Daniel can barely sit still. He feels increasingly ill at ease, he doesn’t want to stir up those emotions, it’s too painful, too hard to talk about.
The bitterness wakes up, like a writhing snake in the pit of his stomach.
“Try to tell me,” Jovanka prompts him. “I think it will help.”
He closes his eyes, remembers how unwelcome he felt in Umeå. How relieved he always was when it was time to return home to his mom in Sundsvall, a place where he was secure and loved.
He still has a problem when people talk in glowing terms about stepparents, as if it’s a positive.
He has never regarded his stepmother as anything other than his father’s wife.
The stepmother from hell.
