Someone I Loved

7 November 2018

           I met my first client today. It was a complete disaster—she almost refused to let me into her home. Under different circumstances, I think she can be a lovely old woman. She wears a shawl the size of Texas and owns enough tea to serve at least six armies. But apparently, there’s something about me which she despises.

           “You’re a psychologist?”

           Elaine posed this question with distaste.

           “Yes, I like to think so.” The joke fell flat. I attempted to rescue the conversation and simultaneously hide my burning cheeks. “Anyway, um, why don’t you tell me about yourself?”

           God, just writing it down makes me cringe.

           “Elaine Dixon, 82, married at 19 but recently widowed.” She folded her hands in her lap and glanced at me over her half-moon spectacles. “Are you getting all this? Should I slow down?”

           I think I might have winced, but I don’t know if she saw it. “No, no, please keep going.” I scratched a few lines down on my notepad, mostly for her benefit.

           The rest of our conversation was much of the same. Her spewing out facts about herself, her house, her career; me scribbling down what I thought was important.

           Somehow, I’m still at square one. She wouldn’t tell me anything about her husband, let alone how her life has gotten to the state it’s in now.

           She did tell me that the last time she left her house was three weeks ago, to get a checkup for her cat. I think she said its name is Mittens—something generic. I’d have to check my notes if I wanted to be sure.

           I’m considering giving Scott a call tomorrow. Maybe he’ll have some advice.

*

At seventeen, Morgan Pickett sits in the passenger seat of her parents’ station wagon, nodding her head to some country son her brother has playing on the radio. The rain comes down in relentless torrents; the time on the dashboard reads 1:02 AM.

“Do you think Mom and Dad will find out?” she asks.

Jamie laughs. “Nah, we’ll sneak in the back door. I’ve been doing this since I was sixteen, so far they haven’t caught on. You should be fine.”

Morgan can’t help grinning. The party had been nuts, and not really her thing, but she thinks she’d do it again just for the thrill she got from sneaking out at night. And besides, she liked going out with Jamie. He wasn’t embarrassed to have her around—he’d introduce her to his friends, most of whom she got along with pretty well.

“Thanks for taking me.” She says.

Jamie throws her a sideways grin. “Thanks for coming.”

           Outside, the rain starts turning to sleet, and Morgan wraps her sweater tighter around her shoulders.

*

           “Hey Scott, it’s Morgan.”

           “Morgan!” Scott’s voice crackles on the phone, bright and cheerful. Sometimes Morgan forgets that he’s in his fifties and not just another university student. “What can I do for you?”

           “Listen, I’ve got this client, I think I gave you her name—Elaine Dixon? I don’t know what to do with her, Scott. She’s only seeing me cause her kids convinced her to; her husband died about a year ago and she hardly leaves her house now, but she won’t talk about him.”

           “Won’t even mention his name?”

           “I think I’ve heard it once, maybe twice.”

           “Tough luck, kiddo. What have you told her about yourself?”

           Morgan pauses, taken by surprise. It seems like an eternity before she lets out a nervous laugh. “I thought I was the psychologist here.”

           His tone grows serious. “You sure are, but here’s the thing: conversations aren’t a one-way exchange. As much as we all wish it, believe me, clients aren’t going to start spilling their guts to you the second you sit down on that couch. That takes trust, and especially trust that they’ll be understood.” There’s a pause on the phone. “Have you told her about Jamie?”

           Morgan has to stop herself from yanking her cell away from her ear. “No, Scott, I haven’t told her about Jamie. Are you crazy?” Her words come out sharper than she meant them to. “I’m not the client here. Stop doing that.”

           “I’m not trying to make the you client, kid.” Morgan can almost see him shaking his head and smiling. “Just trying to give you some sage advice. Take it or leave it, that’s completely up to you. But I’m putting the idea out there: she’s got to trust you. Sometimes it helps to be the first to open up.”

           There’s silence on the line for a few seconds, and then Morgan lets out a sigh. “Alright, thanks. I’ll call you back if I have any more questions.”

           “You got it, kiddo. Any time.”

*

21 November 2018

           Three sessions in, and I’ve had no luck. Elaine won’t tell me anything she wouldn’t tell a stranger the first day they meet. It’s infuriating. The amount of tea I’ve consumed and the number of black cat hairs my pants have collected would shock you. About half way through our session today, I wanted nothing more than to get up and walk out. And, to be honest, I’m sure that’s what she would’ve wanted too.

           What she has told me is that she’s doing this for her kids (four of them), so they’ll stop pestering her. The only form of contact she’s been accepting is phone calls. They chat for ten minutes or so, and Elaine says she usually hangs up when they start telling her she needs help.

           She has grandchildren, but she hasn’t seen them since her husband died. How does someone get to that point? I’m trying to understand her, but nothing is working.

*

           Thursday nights, Morgan has dinner at her parents’ house. It was her idea. When she moved out after her third year at university, she came up with the plan, and hassled them until they promised to have a real dinner prepared every week. She considered inviting them to her apartment, but then she worried that they might not show up.

           Tonight, Randy and Alice Pickett have thrown together spaghetti with sauce from a jar. No meatballs. They sit at a table built for four, one seat missing, her parents positioned across from each other and Morgan sitting between them. The overhead light flickers and causes shadows to dance across their untouched plates.

           “We should replace that bulb tonight.” Morgan points her chin upwards. “Dad?”

           Randy looks up, his eyes bleary, as if registering for the first time that his daughter is at the table. “How was work, honey?”

           Morgan resists the urge to repeat her original question and instead jumps to the new topic willingly. “Oh, it was alright. Lots of notes to go over. I have a client who’s, ah, being difficult.”

           “I see.” Randy nudges the spaghetti around on his plate, and Morgan wonders if he’s making swirls in the sauce on purpose.

           Silence fills up the space around them, and the light continues to flicker. Morgan twists a lump of spaghetti on to her fork and takes her time chewing. The air seems to hang dead in front of her, weighing on her shoulders, pressing into her lungs. Her gaze shifts back and forth between her parents.

           “Your spaghetti will get cold if you keep staring at it like that.”

           No response.

           Something boils over in her stomach and Morgan slams her fork onto the table. “Oh for God’s sake, could you at least act like I exist?”

Alice jumps in her seat and lets out something halfway between a gasp and a shriek.

“It’s like we can’t even have a conversation without him.” Morgan waves her hand at the empty space across from her, her voice a bit louder than she meant it to be.

“Morgan!” Randy snaps. Then, quieter, “You know you don’t have to be here.”

“Yeah, but I’d appreciate it if my parents at least tried to love me.”

As soon as the words are out of her mouth, cold guilt seeps into Morgan’s bones, and she slumps back into her chair. “I didn’t mean that.”

After a moment, Alice reaches for her daughter’s hand. It’s cold against Morgan’s skin, but she accepts it—she can’t remember the last time her mother held her hand. “We know that, love. This has been hard on all of us.”

But it’s been hard for ten years.

She bites back the words, instead eating the rest of her meal in frigid silence.

*

1 January 2019

           I’m supposed to have today off, but I gave Elaine a call and asked her if I could drop by. She had no plans for the day, which I expected.

           What compelled me to do this? I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it that much, in fact I think I’ve intentionally been avoiding the idea all day. What I do remember is that I couldn’t sit still in my apartment. I was pacing back and forth for what felt like hours, Jamie’s face flashing behind my eyes over and over again. It was brutal. I’ve tried to forget the story for so many years now, I think I forgot what that day felt like.

           Elaine welcomed me in and served me a cup of tea, according to our usual custom, but I don’t remember touching it.

           “I need to tell you about something.” I said. She narrowed her eyes at me. “I know you don’t trust me, but I think I understand why you’ve been feeling like this for so long.”

           I paused there. My throat closed up. Elaine was leaning back in her chair, and I couldn’t tell if she was interested or not. I knew she was watching me carefully.

           “What makes you think that?” she grunted after I had stayed silent for too long.

           “I lost someone too. Someone I loved.”

*

           Morgan’s head is pounding. There’s a ringing in her left ear, and everything is dark. She can taste something metallic on her tongue.

           Something tells her not to open her eyes, to go back to sleep, to fade away. She considers the thought for a moment. It may be longer than a moment, she’s having a difficulty counting the minutes. Instead, she counts her heartbeats, soothed by the steady rhythm. One, two, three…she loses track somewhere in the twenties.

           Little by little, her sense of sound begins to return. Her breath coming out shallow but steady. Rain hitting the pavement. Sirens wailing in the distance.

           Morgan forces her eyes open, and struggles to lift her head. Everything feels heavy and slow; it takes twice as much effort to move. She has to blink a few times for her eyes to focus.

           The first thing she notices is that she’s still in the car, and it’s the side of the vehicle pressing against her ribs. Her gaze drifts upward, and she takes in the spiderweb-cracked windshield, folded in on itself and snapped at odd angles. A gaping hole yawns wide and reveals the slick pavement outside.

           The sirens are getting closer.

           Dazed, Morgan turns her head from side to side, trying to shake off the cloud of confusion and remember how she got here. There was a party…yeah, she had been at a party. Had she been drinking? Maybe that’s why she felt so disoriented. Mom’s going to kill her if she finds out Morgan’s been drinking, and she’ll definitely kill Jamie for taking her to the party in the first place.

           Jamie.

           Suddenly Morgan snaps to attention, eyes wide; the searing pain in her head fades to a dull, incessant thudding, one that melds with her heartbeat. “Jamie?”

           She squirms in her seat and forces her body to turn toward the driver’s seat—it’s empty. The black hole in the windshield looms in the corner of her vision. “Jamie, oh my God, Jamie!”

           Morgan throws the rest of her strength into trying to escape the car, fumbling with the buckle of her seatbelt, throwing her body against the misshapen door. Sirens screech in her ears and red and blue lights dance across the cracked windshield. Someone outside is yelling, but she knows it’s not Jamie.

           “Let me out, please let me out!” she slams her fist against the window and suddenly a sob tears out of her throat. There’s men and women outside in uniform, flashlight beams cutting through the darkness, yelling instructions at each other and maybe someone is talking to Morgan but she can’t tell because her head is pounding again and she’s screaming and she can’t see past the tears in her eyes.

           The driver’s seat remains cold and empty beside her as the officers get to work at cutting her out of the car.

*

1 January 2019 (cont.)

           She reached across the table and held my hand when I got choked up. It took longer than I expected to tell her the whole story. It felt like swallowing glass when I was talking, but when I had finished, I had a strange feeling that everything was going to be okay.

           I don’t need to tell you that Mom and Dad have been struggling with this for years. I thought I was the only one who had moved on, and they were dragging me down. But I think I’ve been right there with them ever since the crash.

           I liked it when I could pretend nothing had ever happened.

           I lost track of time after that—I’m not sure how long Elaine and I talked. I’ve realized I like the sound of her voice. It’s comforting, like Mom’s voice when I was a kid.

           She told me about Max and how young they were when they fell in love. She told me about their wonderful life of travelling, their four children, and the grandchildren she hasn’t seen in a year. She told me how she refused to go to Max’s funeral because she wouldn’t accept the fact that he was gone.

           When she had finished, I shared an idea with her.

           “Let’s write a list. Together.” I said. I ripped two sheets from my notepad and lay my pencil down on the table.

           The date must have popped into her head then. “Like a list of New Year’s resolutions?”

           I shook my head. “Not exactly—people don’t keep their resolutions. Let’s make a list of promises. They’ll be promises to Max and to Jamie, to pick ourselves up and start living again. How does that sound?”

           After a moment, Elaine nodded. “I like that idea.”

*

The two women take turns, passing the pencil from Morgan’s thin, awkward hands to Elaine’s worn and wrinkled ones. It’s slow going at first. Morgan chews on the eraser when it’s her turn. Elaine puts pencil to paper, then pulls back, thinking it over. Her cursive writing contrasts Morgan’s sharp chicken scratches.

This is what they write.

           Morgan:

-        Arrive early on Thursdays to help Mom and Dad with dinner

-        Change the light bulb above the kitchen table

-        Stop keeping my story a secret

Elaine:

-        Go grocery shopping once a week

-        Call the kids, make plans to see the grandchildren

-        Visit Morgan’s office for appointments and tea

-        Have a funeral for my love

When the lists are complete, they let the silence hang in the air, and watch each other. Morgan realizes that Elaine must have been crying as she wrote. She does not comment on it.

When it is time to leave, Elaine walks Morgan to her car. They embrace, Morgan’s body hunched slightly to reach Elaine, and they hold each other tight.

“See you next Wednesday.” Elaine says.

Morgan can hear the hope in her voice.