Chapter Eight
Melissa
December 22, 2024, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
“Good morning, Danika!” Greeting the little girl cheerfully, I hesitated before addressing Dante. “Go ahead and pick something to play with, Dani.”
The little girl ran off. She was comfortable here. After three weeks, she no longer hesitated when it came to choosing something in the room. Turning back to face Dante, I wasn’t surprised to see his frown. As soon as he walked in, I knew something was wrong.
“Let’s sit.”
Leaving him to make his own choice, I walked to the chair I regularly used and waited. With a deep breath, Dante made his way over to join me, but he stayed standing.
“You’re upset,” I stated. Dante’s shoulders were tight. His hands, while not fisted, stretched continuously as though he wanted to reach out for something but couldn’t.
“I haven’t heard from Danny since he left,” he admitted.
“And how does that make you feel?”
Dante paced through my office, rubbing the back of his neck. Frustration rolled off him in waves. His anger was palpable, and this was a version of Dante I hadn’t experienced. Danny, when he was here, had shown he could be quick to anger, especially when it involved Dante or Danika.
Dante was more sedate. He regulated his emotions with ease. Almost as though he just accepted his lot in life, believing he didn’t possess the means to change it. His current state was something he wasn’t comfortable with.
“I can see you warring with your words, Dante. Bottling them up won’t help. Just say whatever comes to your mind.”
“I’m pissed, okay!”
“And why are you pissed?”
“Because he won’t fucking pick up the phone!”
“Has Danny ever gone silent on you like this before?”
“No,” he groaned, rounding on me. “That’s why I’m hesitant to say anything. If anything, I’m the silent one. Danny loves to talk. He’s got no problem voicing or showing how he feels. Me? I keep everything bottled up, so this silence is confusing for me.”
“Let’s take a step back for a second. Why don’t you tell me how Danika’s been handling Danny’s absence?”
When he finally sat on the sofa, he looked at Danika, who was sitting on the floor, flipping through a sensory book. His smile helped him to relax. Children of loving parents acted as a drug. One look at the most important person in your life, seeing them at peace and happy, was like a shot of dopamine. It helped to regulate your own feelings of inadequacy.
My brother used to be that for me. When he was around, he made me feel safe. Loved. Peaceful. I envied what Dani had in Dante.
Focus, Mellie!
“She seems to be okay. I mean, I think she’s accepted that I’m not going anywhere. Maybe that’s because I take her everywhere with me. She’s never out of my sight. But she still points to Danny’s picture when I put her to bed at night. I think she feels I’m lying to her.”
My laugh was involuntary. I didn’t mean to do it, but Dante’s assessment of Dani’s feelings was a mirror of what he was feeling in himself.
“I don’t think so. If anything, she’s asking for your reassurance that nothing’s changed. Kids feel the turmoil and tension around them. Like right now, you are agitated, and Dani can sense that. It’s why she’s sitting quietly with a sensory book while you and I talk. Kids are smarter than adults give them credit for. They hear and see everything. Trust me, Dante. Danika knows you are telling her the truth. Like you, she misses him, and her pointing at Danny’s picture is her way of telling you she misses him too.”
Leaning forward, he grabbed his head and groaned. “God, I’m messing this all up.”
“No, you’re not. What you are feeling is perfectly valid. There is no wrong emotion here, Dante. Right now, both of you are learning to navigate life without a significant piece of your family. It’s understandable that you feel frustrated, angry even. We never discussed how you met Danny. Why don’t you tell me?”
Dante leaned back on the sofa and a grin spread across his face.
“I just knew. From the first moment I saw him. It was like getting hit by lightning, Doc. I know it sounds stupid, but it’s the truth. My world shifted, turned upside down, and flew sideways until all that mattered was Danny.”
“Was it the same for him?”
Dante laughed at my question. I smiled back at him, knowing that his laugh was from a memory. Something he kept in his heart about the man he loved.
Shaking his head, he sobered and said, “No. If anything, Danny didn’t know what to make of me at first. You see, he grew up in the mountains of Tennessee, with three brothers and lots of male cousins. No girls in the Franks family. Only boys, and he was the youngest. When I first met Danny, he was like every other young male in college, and he had no problems moving through the female population on campus.”
“So, what changed?”
Shrugging, he looked at Danika. “I don’t know. When we first met, we just hit it off and became instant friends. I never hid who I was from Danny. Even when he messed around with every skanky bitch on campus and I voiced my displeasure, he just accepted me for who I was.”
“How did it make you feel to see him with the opposite sex?”
“Jealous. Enraged. Vindictive. I hated it and he knew it, but I never stopped him. You gotta understand something, Doc. Danny is smart. Like wicked smart, and everyone in school knew it. Everyone wanted to be his friend. Teachers envied what Danny could do, and some even tried to manipulate him into furthering their own careers, but I wouldn’t let them.”
“What do you mean by that?”
Dante looked into my eyes with an expression that held something I had never seen in him and bluntly explained, “I stopped them. Danny lived in his binary world, oblivious to everything and everyone around him. Unless they composed of some undiscovered binary code, Danny really didn’t care. That’s where I came in. I became the buffer between Danny and the real world. While everyone wanted a piece of him, I kept him safe. But no matter what I did, I couldn’t get Danny to read the damn code in front of him.”
“That you were in love with him.”
He nodded. “I knew Danny was comfortable around me. He never shied away from my touches, looks, anything. He just accepted me. Hell, Doc, do you know how many times I sat on the toilet and watched him shower? Nothing fazed him, and that’s when I realized he didn’t know his own nature. After that, I kind of relaxed around him, let my guard down, and just accepted that in time, Danny would figure it out.”
“But you didn’t wait, did you?”
Smirking, he looked at me and whispered, “Nope. I seduced him. It was easy too. I started with simple things, like a hug or a gentle touch at first. If he were anyone else, he would have punched me in the face, but not Danny. He absorbed any attention I gave him. Soaked it up, almost as if he were starved for it. One night in particular, he was up late, studying for a test. I knew he hadn’t eaten, so I brought him food. The second I showed up, I could see the frustration in his eyes. Closing his laptop, I took his hands and made him stand in front of me. The second he did, he hugged me. It was the first time he touched me first. That night, I held him for the first time all night as we forgot about the outside world and watched movies. He fell asleep in my arms and actually slept.”
“How did that make you feel?”
“Like the fucking king of the world. Danny was my world. Everything to me. I never wanted anyone more until Danika. Sometimes, I still can’t believe he’s with me.”
Frowning, I asked. “Why would you think that?”
Before Dante could respond, Danika walked over and climbed into his lap, yawning. I smiled as he held his daughter in his arms. “I think that’s enough for today. Same time tomorrow?”
He nodded and packed up Dani’s things and left.
I sat in my office, thinking about Dante’s last statement. It was evident that Dante’s sense of self-worth was flawed, for lack of a better word, though not surprising.
While he had led a charmed life, as he put it, up until college, his experiences at the Trick Pony, along with feelings of abandonment in not knowing who his family was, left him believing he wasn’t worthy of what Danny offered him.
I had to admit, I was angry with Danny myself. When the two of them first brought Dani to me, they both assured me that she was their number one priority. Nothing would get in the way of their desire to help her.
Less than two weeks later and Danny was gone. And now, knowing he hadn’t contacted Dante since he left, led me to believe that everything he’d said in my office was bullshit.
I tried not to project my own feelings onto my patients, but it wasn’t always easy. The look in Dante’s eyes when he talked about Danny broke my heart. His love for his partner was unconditional.
Unconditional love could be toxic if not kept in check.
The trouble with couples like Danny and Dante was they often appeared one-sided. Dante was giving everything he had, while Danny just took what he was given.
In the short time I had known Danny, it appeared as though he was always preoccupied. Never fully present, despite his lip service to the contrary.
I was concerned for the hearts and well-being of both Dante and Danika. I wasn’t convinced that a relationship with Danny was beneficial for either of them.
Standing from my chair, I walked over to look out the windows of my office. Oklahoma City wasn’t large compared to New York; however, it was huge compared to Little Rock.
With almost four times the population, it was an adjustment when I moved here. Looking out over the city from the fifteenth floor of my office building, I thought about how best I could help Dante and Danika.
I wasn’t a couple’s therapist. My training dealt with trauma in children. But my heart broke for Dante. He reminded me of myself. He wanted to love and be loved.
He wanted the effort and enthusiasm he brought to his relationship to be returned. I wasn’t convinced he would receive that with Danny. I tried to remind myself that my time with Danny was short. That only fueled my distaste for his disregard for Dante and Danika’s feelings.
He had to know that his silence was hurting them. He had to understand that walking away after offering someone the world had the capability to destroy them.
Did he just not care?
Was he so self-absorbed that he didn’t spare them a thought while he was off helping others?
I shook my head at my reflection in the window. I knew I was projecting my own trauma, but without Danny here to convince me he loved his family the way they loved him, how would I come to any other conclusion?
A knock on my door brought me out of my head. I turned just as Mindy walked in.
“Dr. Jefferson, you have a visitor.”
“Who is it?”
“There is a gentleman who has asked to speak with you.”
“Did he give you his name?”
“Detective Andrew Henderson.”
“Ok, send him in.”
It wasn’t unheard of in my line of work to cooperate with law enforcement. I often worked with police and prosecutors. Even defense attorneys of parents wrongly accused of child endangerment or abuse and neglect. Social workers often needed an expert to work with children through the Child Welfare System. As well as expert witnesses to prove or disprove a situation that had the propensity to change a child’s life forever.
“Miss. Jefferson—”
“It’s Dr. Jefferson.”
“Please excuse me, Dr. Jefferson.”
I didn’t have an ego like many in my field. It wasn’t necessary to make myself feel better by announcing to the world that I was a doctor and somehow that made me better than everyone else.
But when you walk into my office, that clearly says Dr. on the door and call me Miss. Well, that sets me off. It was disrespectful to the work I had put in to achieve my title. And when you come to me in an official capacity, you damn well better show me the respect I deserve.
“What can I do for you?”