Chapter 23
Murphy
Sitting in Dr. Rold’s office while he opened his notebook and got his pen used to fill me with such a sense of dread, but now I felt oddly content and at peace.
I’d originally found him because I had been so confident, cocky that Odette would forgive me that I had found a therapist to help us with our issues.
I was so blinded to the fact that I was the one with the issues.
“It’s been a while since we’ve had to book you in for an appointment outside your normal schedule, Murphy.”
Dr. Rold was an older gentleman, who, when I first met him, reminded me of Santa. His hair and beard were completely white, but well kept; he was shorter and a bit overweight. But there was always something about him that put me completely at ease.
“It has been.”
He looked at me over the rims of his glasses, waiting patiently for me to continue as to why I had requested this session.
“Things have been…outside their normal.”
“Please elaborate.” He looked down at his notepad, made a small scribble, and then put his pen down and kept his focus totally trained on me.
“Lux got sick. I mean, she’d been sick before, but this time the school was unable to get a hold of Odette. They called me, I went to get her, and Odette came over to pick her up. She saw the backyard...”
“Ah.” His eyes held that glint I was familiar with, knowing he wanted me to continue.
“She found out about the house, and now she has questions.”
“I bet she does.” He picked up his pen to make more notes. “You’ve waited a long time for this.”
“I know,” I whispered, a bit choked up. “I saw her on a date last night, and I had a panic attack.”
This caused his gaze to go from his notebook to me almost immediately. “You haven’t had one of those in years. Talk me through it.”
“I saw her with a man, and…all I could think about was how much it hurt seeing her eat dinner with someone else. I hated myself .”
“Why the self-hatred, Murphy?”
“Because, if I felt that amount of pain when we aren’t even together, it hit me all over again at how much pain she must have felt when she saw what I had done.
” I hung my head in shame and could no longer keep the tears at bay, so I just let them fall freely.
Dr. Rold had seen them many times before, and I was sure this wouldn’t be the last.
“I can’t help but hate myself. And if all I feel for myself is hatred, how could anyone else feel any differently? I’m unworthy...I’ll always be unworthy.”
“We’ve talked about this,” he half-scolded, but I could hear the sympathy that laced his voice—and it always set me on edge when I did. I didn’t deserve anyone’s sympathy, not now, not ever.
“I know, Doc, but it doesn’t mean I feel any differently.”
“Why don’t we go back to the time when you were having panic attacks often? Three years ago, wasn’t it?” he questioned me.
“You know it was, and I’d really rather not.”
Instead of saying anything, he just looked at me over his half-moon glasses—which only added to my Santa Clause theory—waiting for me to say something, anything.
Doc was good at silence, and sometimes, the silence was exactly what I needed.
When I first started coming here, I think we used to sit in silence at least twice a month.
I sighed, knowing I wasn’t going to win this one.
“After I signed the divorce papers…well, you know.”
“I do, but I’d like you to explain it to me. Again.”
I looked at him wearily. “I don’t want to.”
“I know.” His reply was short, yet comforting in a way I’d grown to know and trust.
My mind went back to the morning I signed the divorce papers, the morning after my first panic attack in the car.
I’d woken up in my childhood bedroom, my mouth was bone-dry and quite frankly tasted like ass, and Jim Beam. The unrelenting pounding in my head reminded me of a woodpecker. I reached beside me, hoping like hell I’d find Odette there and this would all be a dream.
It wasn’t.
I stumbled out of bed and made my way to the bathroom, first rinsing my mouth out and letting the events of last night wash over me.
Odette, Wynn, my dad.
What had I become?
Who had I become?
Seeing the disgust and outright hatred that was shown in their eyes sent me down a path of self-loathing.
What had I done?
Why had I done this?
I felt the bile rise and coat my tongue before promptly tossing everything I had drunk in the last twenty-four hours. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and studied myself in the mirror.
My eyes were bloodshot and somewhat sunken in, my normally tanned skin had a pale and greenish tint. My cheeks looked hollow.
I looked exactly how I felt, like a man who lost it all.
I couldn’t breathe. I gripped the granite countertop in a panicked gesture, trying to control my breathing, but that only knocked over the hand soap and other trinkets my mother had used to decorate the bathroom since her boys had moved out.
I couldn’t breathe, and even though I didn’t have much awareness, I felt my knees hit the floor.
“Murphy? Murphy!”
I heard a muted voice call for me.
Odette? My mind reached out, hoping it was her.
“Murphy, look at me son.”
The rough shaking of my shoulders brought me back to the bathroom floor, and I was looking into my dad’s disappointed eyes. I wanted to disappear; he should have just left me to parish on the floor.
“Not an option.”
I must have said that out loud, and my dad’s disappointed look turned into one of pity, and I’m unsure which one was worse.
“I lost her.”
“Yes,” he said sadly. I couldn’t help the tears that flowed—not that I had the strength to try, anyway—so my dad sat on the bathroom floor, holding his grown son as I cried.
“You signed the papers after that.” Dr. Rold’s voice brought me back to the present.
“Yes.” My voice sounded far away, even to me.
“Why?”
Why? Now that was the million-dollar question.
“You know why.”
“Yes, but I want to hear it from you.”
Dr. Rold really wanted to do a number on my self-preservation today, didn’t he?
“Because she deserved better than me, because I lost sight of her, and Lux. Because I had only thought about myself for the last year of our marriage. I held a grudge against my wife because I started this new fancy job, where people didn’t have kids or families at home, and if they did, who cared?
It was all about making money, living life in the fast lane, and I wanted that.
Or I thought I did. I resented my fucking wife and kid for preventing me from having that.
Is that what you wanted to hear?” My anger seeped in, but my anger was at myself for being so fucking stupid.
“I got lost, Doc. I got lost. ”
“And?”
“What do you mean, and ? You know what happened.”
“I know, but it’s best I hear it from you.”
“And the second Odette walked away from me for good, the rose-tinted glasses fell off. I walked into our home and realized the pictures that sat on the mantel weren’t of a family—they were missing me.
That I couldn’t tell you my daughter’s bedtime routine because I wasn’t there.
I couldn’t tell you what perfume my wife wore because I stopped giving a damn.
I only cared about me... me, me, me. And what made me better?
Nothing, absolutely nothing. I only cared about the fact that I was working sixty to seventy hours a week to provide for them.
I thought they owed me; I thought the world owed me for being this great, strong provider.
I thought it was what I deserved; I thought I could go get my fucking rocks off with someone who wasn’t my wife because she meant nothing to me.
I thought I could separate the two. I thought… ”
“You thought?”
“I thought it was just sex, so what did it matter?”
“And what changed?”
“I lost everything.”
“Do you think you’ve changed? Really changed?”
“That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it, Doc? Why don’t you tell me?”
I wanted to believe I’d changed; I realized I was chasing after a life I already had.
It wasn’t easy, I held a lot of resentment for myself, my job, and the people I’d met.
At first, I wanted to blame everyone but myself, but in the thick of it, I was the only one to blame.
I let myself stop caring, I let myself be greedy and unemotional, detached and unfeeling.
I cared more about things and status than my family.
I became a shell of a man, and I would work every single day to never be that person again.
“I can’t answer that for you, Murphy.”
The buzz that sounded from his desk meant we were out of time.