Chapter 17
MAC
“Do you think perhaps, Mac, that your mother abandoning you after you were born might be the source of your feelings of worthlessness?”
I swallowed hard at the question. Session two of therapy, and while I’d found it easier to open up about the past this time, I still grappled with Iona’s probing questions. “Possibly.”
Iona leaned forward slightly. “You’ve developed what we call a negative thought pattern.
Part of the work I do here is cognitive behavioral therapy.
An element of that is learning to recognize negative thought patterns and then help you turn them into positive thoughts.
You see, your brain is wired to turn a problem or incident in your life into ‘your fault.’ And surely you know, Mac, that your mother leaving you was not your fault. You were a baby.”
“She didn’t love me enough to stay,” I answered gruffly.
“Not your fault,” Iona repeated. “And her loss. As for your dad, from what I can tell, you had a fairly close relationship with him, despite his addiction.”
“That’s true. We tried our best to help him kick his heroin habit, but nothing ever worked with any permanence. He couldn’t stand the withdrawals. Even so young, I woke up every morning prepared to find him dead. And that’s exactly what eventually happened.”
“And how do you feel about his addiction?”
“What do you mean?”
“What were your feelings toward him?”
Confused, I shrugged. “I loved him. I was sad for him.”
“And? Remember, you can say anything here, Mac.”
“I … what does it matter? He’s dead.”
“It matters.”
Heart beating a little too hard, I glanced out the window toward the river.
“Be honest with yourself.”
“Honest?” I clenched my teeth and then looked at her, irritated she was forcing me to say it. “Honestly? I was raging at him.” The words echoed around the room and came back to smack me in the face with guilt.
Iona nodded in understanding. “Can you tell me why?”
“B-because …” I heaved a sigh. “This … och, it isn’t rational, and I know it.”
“Doesn’t matter. Feelings don’t always need to be rational, Mac, and rarely are in my experience. Why were you furious at him?”
“Because I wasn’t enough,” I bit out, tears after all these bloody years burning my fucking eyeballs. “I wasn’t enough to make him kick the habit. To stay. He left me just like she left me. But I know that isn’t fair. I know he couldn’t help himself.”
“Hold on to that.” She leaned in again. “Because that last part is the truth. As much as you feel abandoned by him, addiction is a disease, and he didn’t leave you because he wanted to. Did he tell you he loved you, Mac?”
I nodded, the tears falling before I could stop them. Embarrassed, I wiped swiftly at them. “All the time,” I choked out. “He said it all the time.”
“Then believe him over his addiction. He loved you. He didn’t want to leave you.”
He didn’t want to leave me.
He didn’t want to leave me.
He. Didn’t. Want. To. Leave. Me.
“From the moment your friends assaulted Craig, you tried to stop them?”
After all these years, I could still hear the pounding of feet and fists, of grunts, aggressive taunts and the egging each other on. Cutting through it all was the sound of Craig begging them to stop. “Tried and failed.”
Iona tilted her head and studied me in that way I’d grown accustomed to. “Did you want to kill Craig?”
My head jerked back like she’d punched me. “Of course not.”
She held up a calming hand. “Did you hit him?”
“No. Like I said, Billy and I tried to get them off. We even fought our own lads, but with our backs turned, Nairn stabbed Craig. Then we ran like fucking cowards.”
“But you and Billy found a phone box and called the emergency services?”
“Aye, but we ran. We should’ve stayed to help him. Maybe if we had, he’d still be alive.”
“You were only fifteen, yes?”
I nodded. “Barely.”
“So you were a child.”
“Nobody was a child on the streets of Govan that year.”
“Well, that may have been how you felt, Mac, but physically, mentally, and emotionally, you were barely a teenager. Did you have first aid training?”
Frowning, I shook my head. “Not then.”
“So how did you expect to help Craig? You would have impeded the efforts of the paramedics and then found yourself arrested for something you tried to stop.”
“I shouldn’t have been there in the first place. We’d spent that entire year acting like thugs.”
“A mistake. A boyish mistake. I know this because you’ve proved it by how you’ve lived your life from that point on, leaving Glasgow to start over and making a living protecting people.
That says a lot about who you truly are, Mac, so why are you so focused on using this one incident to determine your identity? ”
“I …” I was stumped for an answer because, when she put it like that, it sounded irrational. “I just can’t let go of the guilt over not helping him.”
“But you did help him. Instead of focusing on not staying behind with him, focus on the fact that you put your life in jeopardy by fighting your own friends to protect a stranger. Then, when you couldn’t, you made sure the right people got to him. His death is not on you.”
“Whoever is coming after our group doesn’t believe that.”
“If there is someone focused on revenge, Mac, they’re mentally unwell, blinded by their grief. You cannot allow those kinds of feelings to manipulate the truth. And the truth is that you tried to do the right thing, and that’s all any of us can do.”
“I shouldn’t have stayed with her. When Stacey fell pregnant with Robyn, I should have been there for her without being with her.”
“Again, Mac, what age were you?”
“Sixteen.”
“Say that again and really think about it. Think about how you see a sixteen-year-old now that you are a grown man.”
“I was sixteen,” I repeated slowly, and a surprising sadness fell over me as I thought about how young a sixteen-year-old is. Still a bairn, really. “I was only sixteen.”
Iona nodded slowly. “You weren’t even an adult yet, Mac. You might have been very mature for your age, but in other ways, there’s no way you could be. You stayed with Stacey because you thought it was the right thing to do.”
“But I hurt her so badly that she stood in my way with Robyn. And I let her. Out of guilt.”
“Perhaps staying with Stacey was the wrong thing to do. You made a mistake in a relationship, which most of us have done. But you cannot blame yourself for not loving Stacey the way she loved you. We aren’t responsible for other people’s emotions or actions, Mac.
We’re only responsible for our own actions, our own responses to their actions, and how we treat them.
Were you ever cruel to Stacey? Did you cheat on her?
Were you an inadequate father to Robyn when she was a child? ”
I shook my head, feeling my chest tighten as the weight of how fucking wrong I’d gotten it came over me. “No. I was a good dad, despite how young I was. And I never betrayed Stacey. I’m not that man. I … I only ever hurt her by not loving her back in the same way she loved me.”
“And that’s not a crime. We can’t control who we fall in love with any more than Stacey could control falling in love with you. What she could control was her reaction, and placing blame on you, using Robyn as a weapon in your relationship, was wrong, Mac. You need to know she was wrong.”
“But do you not understand how I feel?” I asked impatiently. “We’ve sat here talking about my feelings of abandonment, and I fucking did it to my own kid. It doesn’t matter what Stacey did.”
“Well, the situation is not so black-and-white as that. But okay, should you have tried harder to see Robyn? Yes.”
I blanched but relaxed back into my seat at Iona’s confirmation of what I already knew to be true.
“However,” Iona continued, “we cannot ignore the causality in this situation, Mac. The causality being that by the time you and Stacey entered this tug-of-war for Robyn, you were already hardwired to believe you didn’t deserve good things.
Your parents, Craig’s death, and your guilt over not returning Stacey’s feelings—these all contributed to your negative thought patterns.
Now you tell me you and Robyn are in a wonderful place, that you gave her away at her wedding, and she’s been very supportive of you coming here to talk with me. ”
The thought of Robyn filled me with unending pride. I could bloody burst with it. “She’s tremendous. I don’t know what I did to des—” I cut off.
Iona gave me a small smile. “To deserve her, you were going to say.”
I nodded.
“We need to work on this idea that you’re deserving or you’re not, Mac. We’ll get there.” She leaned back on the sofa and continued, “My point is, Robyn has offered you forgiveness and understanding.”
“Aye, she has.”
“Does that forgiveness mean anything to you?”
I frowned, irritated. “Of course it does.”
“But you still feel undeserving of her love?”
Sudden intense emotion made it difficult for me to draw breath.
Iona tilted her head to the other side, studying me for a few seconds. “Is Robyn someone who offers third and fourth and infinite chances to most people? Does she see the good in everyone? Too trusting?”
I smirked at the thought, my airways opening up again. “Robyn is a detective at heart, even if she lost the passion for the job.”
“Meaning?”
“She’s slow to trust, but perceptive as hell. If she accepts someone in her life, then there’s little doubt that person is trustworthy and kind. Robyn wouldn’t stand for anything else.”
Iona offered me a smug smile I didn’t quite understand. “Listen to what you just said, Mac. Repeat the words to yourself.”
I did, and understanding dawned. “It’s different,” I was quick to answer. “I’m her father. There’s a familial pull that can blind you.”
“Blind her to what? Were you cruel when she came to Scotland to find you?”
“Of course not.”
“You refused to make yourself vulnerable to her in order to make headway in mending your relationship?”