Clay #2
“But you don’t stop being a parent, do you?
Not when they’re grown and old enough to take care of themselves,” I said, feeling a lump grow in my throat as I realized Mikael was never going to get that chance.
“And not…when they’re dead and gone. I’m still his father.
Except I’m never going to see him grow up, I’m never going to find out if he would have been some weird theatre kid like his mother, or a soccer player, or a ballet dancer, or.
..or anything. All I get is a stuffed lion, and a cold headstone with his name on it, with dates that remind me I’m getting older but he. ..he’s not going to.”
The thought felt like it was given form and weight, descending into my throat to strangle me as I sat there, staring at my fingers and wishing I had their picture with me.
Without realizing it, a laugh tore through the blockade, sharp and harsh.
“It’s funny. I think of Stephen King at a time like this. ”
“Not surprising, a great deal of his horror is focused on the human element, the human...condition, I suppose you could say,” he said, surprising me.
I blinked. “Really? I didn’t take you for a King fan.”
Dr. Ramirez smiled. “Well, it might surprise you, but it is possible to be focused on helping others grow and learn as people but still be open to the dark side of humanity. And as I said, not all his horror is about monsters and murderers, but sometimes grief and sorrow.”
My eyes drifted to the desk and frowned at the picture. “You’re married...and have kids.”
“Twins,” he said with a chuckle. “A boy and girl, some days I don’t know which one drives me the craziest. I wouldn’t give them up for anything.”
“Yeah,” I rasped. “You, uh, read Pet Sematary?”
“I have,” he said with a deep sigh.
“I was fourteen, trying to impress some girl because I was willing to read and, well, you know,” I said with a snort. “The things you do when you’re young, dumb, and full of cum.”
For the first time, the doctor’s smile felt genuine, if only because it was rueful in its understanding. “Oh yes, I recall quite well. There are some memories I will deny to my dying day, but I will remember them late at night when all I want is to fall asleep.”
The first real laugh of the session bubbled out of my throat, dispelling some of the choking that filled it. “Yeah, okay. Well, everyone knows that’s when your most embarrassing moments find you.”
“Would you mind if I made a guess...as to why you brought up King?” he wondered.
“Uh, sure, yeah, okay.”
“Pet Sematary?”
I swallowed hard. “Yeah. I read it again when I was with Gina before...before Mikael. And I remembered liking it better, but still, I looked at Louis and was like...what the hell, man? Did you not pay attention to what happened for like the entire book? What did you expect, you know?”
“I do,” he said solemnly. “I read the book and had the same frustration.”
“What?” I asked with a snort. “You didn’t have some flash of compassion and give him...I don’t know, I guess the word is grace?”
“Nope,” he said with a grin. “Even therapists aren’t immune to the human experience of not understanding something, of being frustrated.
We get upset, we get frustrated, we argue with our wives and yell at our kids when they get on our nerves.
We think bad things about people who walk slowly when we’re trying to get our shopping done. We’re human, trust me.”
“Good to know,” I said with a chuckle and sobered up immediately. “Then I guess you already know what I’m going to say.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” he said with a chuckle. “But that’s the wonderful part of people. We might come to the same conclusion, or a different one. The only way to know is to say it aloud.”
“I couldn’t read the book again after Mikael was born,” I said quietly.
“I remembered it, and I remembered Gina watching it once, but...I couldn’t do it.
I couldn’t tell her that I couldn’t stand to watch it.
She was always better at separating things.
She used to describe it as a series of boxes and screens in her head.
She could watch something like that, and it wouldn’t pass through the mental screens she had, because movie stuff wasn’t supposed to bleed into the real stuff.
And if it did? She had boxes she could slap them into. ”
“Compartmentalization,” Dr. Ramirez said crisply. “A method for coping with trauma...but also a normal way for some people to handle the ins and outs of living. And don’t worry, there’s nothing wrong with people who can’t do that.”
“I can’t,” I affirmed. “I never realized how bad I was at it until then. I thought I understood, but I didn’t, not until...not until after her and Mikael...after they died. I thought it was bad enough, but—”
“What was bad enough?” he asked gently.
“I thought everything Louis did after a certain point was stupid,” I said in exasperation, not sure if it was at myself for my ignorance back then or because some part of me remembered how annoyed I’d been with a fictional character.
“But after being a dad and...losing Mikael and Gina...I understand. I would have done the same thing in his shoes. I don’t even know if I would have hesitated.
I wouldn’t have cared if it meant well, what happened in the story.
If it meant seeing them again, seeing them stand there and talk to me, to hear their laughter, to see their faces.
I wouldn’t have cared if it meant they were whatever fucked up thing was going on in that story. ”
Dr. Ramirez eyed me carefully. “You say that as if it’s wrong?”
“I mean, the whole point of the story was that it was the worst thing he could have done,” I said with a nervous laugh. “It was stupid, dangerous, and in the end, lethal. I don’t remember how it ended, it’s been a while.”
“His late wife comes back, and it’s inferred that she’s as mad and dangerous as their son had been when he’d been brought back,” Ramirez offered.
“So, a man so desperate from losing his son, uses a cursed burial ground to bring him back, and what comes back is murderous, killing two people, including his wife, and he turns around and buries her there too. Only for her to come back, and he’s probably going to end up dead,” I said miserably.
“And then there’s me. I didn’t get to bring my wife and son back from the grave through some evil place, but I’m just like him in the end. ”
“Mad and still grieving?”
“Yeah, and haunted by them. He’ll never escape the horror of what happened to them, mostly because they’re fucked up zombies that he helped create, but.
..he’ll never get away. And neither will I, and in a way, I have my own version of fucked up zombies, but they’re just pictures of them, a few videos, and my memories.
And just like Louis, I’m terrified they’re going to kill me one day. ”
Dr. Ramirez shifted in his chair, setting the notepad and pen aside. “How so?”
I opened my mouth and eyed him suspiciously. “Uh, I know that look, I know this trap.”
“Trap?”
“Uh-huh, the minute I even hint that I might be...what’s the wording again? ‘A danger to myself or others,’ whoop, there I go. Off to the funny place with padded rooms.”
He smiled. “Intake facilities have come a long way since the horror shows during the fifties to the eighties.”
I wrinkled my nose. “All the way to the eighties?”
“Yes, no matter how much we grow and learn as individuals, humanity still has a way to go before it can be considered whole,” he said with a sad smile.
“But it starts with the individual. And for the record, having you admitted to a facility is within my power; you are correct. At the same time, any reasonable therapist knows that thoughts of suicide are not an immediate sign that you need to be put into one of those facilities. Now, if you were to attempt it, or if you were being very clear that you were planning to do so in the near future, yes, then I would consider it. But...are you okay with hearing how I see things as they stand?”
I snorted derisively. “Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do? Tell me?”
“You can tell anyone any number of things in any number of different ways, but it means little if they don’t believe it.
So...no, I am not here to tell you what to do.
I am here to listen, to understand as best I can, to provide you with the means and methods to find help and support, and to guide you on the path that you think will ultimately bring you to a better place.
So right now, I’m offering an outsider’s perspective. ”
“A therapist’s perspective.”
“And a man’s. A husband’s. A father’s. I am all those things,” he said with a smile, two of his fingers tapping his knee in a steady rhythm.
“I am also a son, a brother, both a little and a big one. To some, I’m a Virgo, to others I’m a Snake.
I am a gamer and a reader. I’m a horror fan, but I avoid any that result in the death of children or pets.
I love all animals, but I’m quietly terrified of snakes, and if you can believe it, chipmunks make me nervous.
So yes, perspective from a therapist, but also from a man who has life experience, who has perspective. ”
It hurt to be reminded that he had his family while mine had been dead and gone for over three years, and yet hadn’t I just said it had taken being a father to be unable to cope with stories of the loss of children?
Maybe he didn’t understand what it was like to stand by as your family was taken, without answers and without comfort.
He would know the terror, though, that crept into the heart of every parent, the first tendril finding my heart when I held Mikael in the hospital, and I looked around, realizing how hard the floor was and gripping him tighter, in case I dropped him.
Yeah, he probably knew the terror, so he could understand.
“Go ahead,” I said softly, once again wondering when the pain would ever stop or if I even wanted it to.