Chapter 11 #2
Brody finished with, “It was only after Jacob left that I realized how much he sounded like my dad. This was the first time he’s revealed that hidden edge. But I’ve seen hints for years. Everybody who works for Jacob knows it’s part of him.”
“You came face-to-face with the man’s dark side.”
“Yes, but that’s not …” Brody took a breath.
Stared out the side window. Going over what had just taken place.
“I feel like I’ve spent years running from my father.
All this time, all this effort, trying to carve out a different life.
A better world to call my own. And what happens?
There, in my boss, I discover the same things I’ve been determined to leave behind.
” Brody traced a palm’s shadows on his side window, like he was reading a hidden script.
“You know that saying, You can’t go home again ?
What a joke. I can’t leave home behind.”
“May I say something?”
“Absolutely. I’m done.”
“Your sister and Rae both called this morning and said I should accept that you are genuinely ready for therapy. They think I should take you at your word and accept you as a bona fide patient.”
Brody was glad the woman’s voice came through the car’s speakers, and he wasn’t seated where she could see how the news stabbed him. Despite years filled with countless mistakes, look how they responded.
As if they were his friends. And cared about him. Despite everything.
“Tell me something about your father,” Cameron said. “The first thing that comes to mind.”
He cleared his throat best he could and launched in.
“There was a sign on the wall by the front door that read, ‘My roof, my rules.’ That pretty much says everything you need to know about our home. Memories of my father … I could never measure up. Everything he said, the way he watched me, it all came down to how I was a walking disgrace. A constant disappointment. Pop was permanently angry with me. He was certain I’d never amount to anything. ”
Brody heard the flat tone, the utterly calm way he spoke, like he was listening to someone else.
He never talked about his father. And yet, here he was, revealing the hurts that had defined his early years.
But all he could think of was how his former boss had glared at him.
The same cold fury. The same bitter disdain.
Cameron said, “I am going to speak with you as a clinician. It’s important you pay careful attention. What I have to tell you will frame the coming sessions. And this should assist you in confronting the tumult of emotions that are bound to arise.”
But he didn’t feel any tumult. Brody could not have been any calmer if he stopped breathing. Just the same, he said, “I understand.”
“It makes perfect sense that you have found yourself close to someone so similar to your father. We seek familiarity and consistency in our relationships.”
Jacob Whitinger might as well have been seated there beside him, shaped by sunlight and the rage he had revealed. Brody replied, “Whatever consistency there was in my relationship with my father was bad. Awful. I thought I’d fled in every possible way.”
“That changes nothing. Your childhood state, this fundamental anxiety, resulted from a desperate need to connect. You sought a means to accommodate your father’s demands and expectations.
” Cameron’s voice was a calm anchor holding him steady against the invasion.
She spoke in a detached manner, but to Brody’s mind she might as well have sung the words.
“This concept forms a core tenet of what is known as the attachment theory. Tell me something, Brody. Thinking of your father, what is the first emotion that comes to your mind?”
The two men, his father and Jacob Whitinger, formed luminous impressions inside Brody’s ride. He replied, “I feel guilty. I couldn’t be the son he wanted. It was all my fault.”
“This is a very normal response. At the time, in your childhood era, feelings of guilt validated the defenses you developed to survive life with your father.”
Brody shifted in his seat, inspecting the rage that had formed the common denominator to any wrong move. “And now? I’m talking about coming full circle, and meeting the same awful situation with my boss.”
Cameron hesitated, then replied, “These issues define you because until this point you have never been ready to confront them. Your shame arises naturally from this fractured relationship with your father. You were left feeling inherently flawed. So, you hid yourself. You tried to remain invisible so you could avoid feeling further shame, so he would not hurt and denigrate you even more than he already did.”
Brody recalled the hours and days he had spent doing his best for Jacob’s company and the man’s sailing crew. Holding to a quietly cheerful tone, utterly disconnected from the wrath that was occasionally unleashed. His job was to remain the quiet observer. Hiding in plain sight. For years.
Cameron continued, “When fight or flight doesn’t work or isn’t possible, a child hunkers down and does their best to go unnoticed.
” She paused, but to Brody it was as though the day carried a drumbeat of soft confrontation.
“This has a secondary effect, one that has defined another part of your life and world. It has rendered you unable to have genuine feelings in a relationship.”
Other half-seen faces gradually took shape, a crowd of women whose names he could not recall, as Cameron continued, “Your father was not emotionally accessible. He was not there for you. So, you developed a shield against this constant threat of more pain and disappointment.”
He coughed because it was the only way to force out the air necessary to ask, “Why am I only seeing this now?”
“Because now you are ready. You now have the strength and maturity to accept why you hurt so many women in your life.” She paused then, just long enough for the car to echo with what she did not say.
Then she went on, “This shield kept you intact so that you and I could arrive at this point. Preparing to redefine a new perspective on life.”
He said the words because he needed to. Though they bit like acid. “And love.”
“Exactly. So let me leave you now with one question. It still comes back to the issue of defining real change. But as you said, the concept is too large. So, tell me this. What one element of personal change do you want to consider next?”
His crowd of past pressures and errors vanished. In their place, a few words became shaped by the daylight and the now empty vehicle.
Brody replied, “I want to understand the meaning of one word. Home .”