4. #2
“I still think it’s a good idea.” Dr. Lark didn’t make eye contact when she was in advice-giving mode; it was saved only for listening mode. It made the advice seem more like a suggestion and less like a diagnosis, which was probably the point.
But when Dr. Lark continued, she was looking straight into Claire’s eyes.
“You have been through immense trauma, Claire,” she said softly.
“And your barometer for what counts as healthy emotional attachment didn’t develop normally.
I’ve told you before, and I’ll keep telling you: A relationship where you are constantly held at arm’s length isn’t going to be good for you in the long run.
I’m not saying that Elias can’t change, and that this can’t be a good marriage.
But I am telling you it will take work and communication.
From what you’ve told me of Elias, I think you’d both benefit from taking the time to resolve some things and make sure you are on the same page. ”
Elias couldn’t change, never again. Elias was way past changing.
Claire kept her mouth shut.
Dr. Lark sighed and tapped her pen again. “I know I’ve asked you before, but do you think he would be open to attending a session with you? It could be beneficial.”
A direct question, so Claire couldn’t just stay quiet and slowly choke the throw pillow. She had to answer.
Her voice was so calm. So even. “Maybe,” she said. “I forgot to ask. But I will.”
Lies. No one could ask Elias anything.
With another long sigh, Dr. Lark took off her glasses, folded them neatly on her desk.
“You know you don’t have to go looking for security, Claire,” she said.
“You know you can find it in yourself. That your life has meaning, just by virtue of being. It doesn’t have to be given weight by someone else. ”
But it did. Claire felt like she could fly away at any moment, insubstantial as a trash bag caught in a wind gust, tangled in sharp branches. Her anchor was gone, so what did she do now?
“You are worthy of deep connection,” Dr. Lark continued. “You are worth someone committing to you fully, exactly how you need.”
Nah. But Claire summoned a smile. “I know, don’t worry.”
Dr. Lark nodded, lips pulled flat. She checked her clipboard again.
“You’re good on meds,” she said, like subconsciously she knew why Claire was really here.
“So that isn’t the issue, as far as the feelings of being followed go.
We’ll keep an eye on that; call me if you think you need a special session, or if anything changes.
In the meantime, try to get more sleep, OK?
And maybe see about getting out of town. It would probably do you good.”
Her mouth was dry, her teeth like ice picks in the dusty cavern between roof and tongue. “Get out of town,” she repeated. “Good idea.”
She stood to go, placing the throw pillow carefully back on the couch.
“Oh, Claire?”
Turning, braced for another piece of advice about Elias that she’d pretend to take.
But Dr. Lark just smiled, slightly sad. “Happy birthday.”
It was an invitation to talk more. Claire was her last client of the day, on purpose, so that their sessions could run over without issue.
Dr. Lark’s idea, not hers. Dr. Lark always tried to push around her birthday, the anniversary, tried to get her to talk more about the boat, her family, the storm. Claire never did.
Her mouth stretched. It felt like a mask, some horrible Halloween latex affair, too wide and straining. “Thanks.”
○ ○ 2. ○ ○
A black car idled outside Dr. Lark’s office, all tinted windows and mean grille. Claire didn’t look at it. Claire climbed into the Mercedes and drove away.
The black car drove in the opposite direction.
○ ○ 3. ○ ○
She’d first seen the black car on her way out of class, a day after her nineteenth birthday.
It hadn’t been that remarkable, other than the fact that it was nicer than anything else in the student lot. A BMW, recently washed, gleaming. It idled by the sidewalk, and she’d paid little attention to it as she passed by. The windows were tinted, probably illegally, impossible to see inside.
Claire had seen it again the next day—or, with the benefit of hindsight, one that looked like it.
Outside her dorm, idling again, the smell of exhaust as she walked with Annie to go get a pizza from the student center.
Then three days after that, as she left her part-time job at Bed Bath & Beyond.
Idling, once again, like whoever was driving wanted to be able to leave at a moment’s notice.
“I think someone is following me,” she said to Annie when she got back to the dorm. Quiet, embarrassed. She was not someone who would be picked for stalking, she thought. It felt almost like she was trying to brag.
Annie raised a brow. “Do you want to go to campus police?”
“No.” Claire shook her head. “It’s not that serious.”
But she kept seeing the car. She expected things to ramp up, once she started reading Reddit threads about stalking—mysterious flower deliveries, hang-up phone calls. But it never did. Whoever was in the black BMW, apparently, just wanted to watch.
Claire mentioned it to Dr. Lark. She got involved, more than Claire really wanted her to.
When weeks went on with no escalation, Dr. Lark came to a conclusion that felt comforting, if not entirely true.
It was all in her head. She was just seeing similar cars and creating a scenario, letting the anxiety fumes in her brain cook up malice where there was only coincidence.
Eventually, she stopped seeing it at all.
Though sometimes she still felt like someone was watching. A harpoon pointed at her back.
Until that weekend in the city.
○ ○ 4. ○ ○
When Claire arrived back home, the answering machine was blinking.
She’d never understood why Elias insisted on having a landline.
They never got anything but robocalls and requests for political surveys.
Now that she’d seen his mother’s Hotmail email address, it made a bit more sense.
Clearly, Elias hadn’t been raised in a family that moved on with the times.
Odd, for a bunch of sea floor scientists.
The date of the message scrolled across the screen. April 28, two days before Elias died. She must not have noticed the blinking light before, lost in a fugue of grief and alcohol. There was no name attached to the number, though it had a Portland, Maine, area code.
Claire pressed the button.
“You’ve gotta do something, man.” A voice she didn’t recognize, that didn’t bother to identify itself. “It’s gonna happen soon. Things are getting bad.”
That was it. The machine asked if she wanted to save the message or delete it.
Wrong number. They got plenty of those, too. Elias had never bothered to set an away message, leaving it on the automated voice that said they were unavailable and nothing else.
She pressed one, prompting a deletion. The blinking light went dark.