I tried to sit up but he held fast to me. “Sean, what is the hurry? Why does it have to go down the aisle?”
“Why not? Can you tell me that?”
I couldn’t. I had no idea on this green earth, why I was terrified to get married. It was enough in my mind to admit that I loved him, even if I had only admitted it to myself. As I drifted off to sleep, a wee small voice in my head asked me how long I was going to hold onto the past I was so desperate to let go of. Something else to think about.
Time passed in its usual pace of highs and lows over the next few weeks, the lows happening with increasing frequency. Sean and I had been arguing for two days and now were not even speaking to one another. He wanted more of a commitment from me and I was not prepared to give it to him. His vast store of patience had already run out. I was perfectly happy with the way things were. I did not understand why a damn piece of legal paper was so important to him.
“It’s important to me. It means we have a commitment to each other.”
“Is it not enough that I’m here with you?” I asked, wanting to pound my head against the wall.
“No, it isn’t. You will not let go of your past. Put it to rest.”
“That’s easy for you to say! You don’t … ” I could not bring myself to talk about it.
“I don’t what? I don’t still jump at unknown noises or freeze every time my cell phone rings? I don’t get up every night to make sure the doors are locked?”
I grabbed my coat and put it on, not looking at him. He turned me around to look at him, “You didn’t think I noticed those things did you? You’re still waiting for James to jump out of the closet aren’t you?”
I stood at the front door.
“Running away is not the answer. He may come back tomorrow or never. You don’t know when or if. I don’t know when or if, either. You don’t think it was hard to go back to the job knowing that I lost a client? That I don’t feel fear run through me when I remember how helpless I was to stop what happened to me! I feel it every day, and every day I tell myself that I can get beyond it — and every day I do. Every damn day, I get beyond it knowing that I am stronger than the fear! Ask for help, Laney. Help is there waiting but you have to want it.”
I didn’t want it. I walked out the door without looking back.
The next day was Halloween and my birthday. Of course no one but Chase knew that. He only knew it because it was on my employment application. I hadn’t celebrated in years. The last birthday I remembered celebrating was my fifth birthday. After that, Aunt Katherine would only say that it was appropriate that I was born on Halloween. I didn’t understand what she meant for the longest time. Then it didn’t matter. I lived up to the “Little Monster” tag they had put on me.
Maybe Sean was right. I would not let go of my past. I used it as a shield to keep people away from me or as a crutch.
Tommy nudged me away from the pint I was pouring. “You going to think about serving that pint? Or just look at it?” He asked with concern.
“Sorry. I was thinking.” Muldoon’s was packed to the gills with costumed revelers. I hadn’t been in the mood to dress up and wore my usual jeans and T-shirt. Tommy and I were busy pouring drinks at the bar and keeping up with the customer’s orders. Even Molly was out on the floor waiting tables. Ryan had come home for the weekend and I had finally met one of their two daughters, Fiona, a lovely spitting image of Molly with just as much fire. She and Ryan were busing tables and doing dishes. Through it all I kept looking for Sean. I figured he’d show up some time, but by two in the morning, he had not shown. After much internal debate with myself, I called his apartment and cell phone. I got voicemail on both, but didn’t leave a message.
It was half past three when I decided to go to his place. I was just putting on my coat when Tommy laid a hand on my arm. “Lass, he isn’t going to be there.”
“What?”
“Sean is not going to be home.”
“Well, where is he?”
Tommy looked at Molly who had come into the bar from the kitchen. “What?” I asked again, anxiety starting to build up in my stomach. “What’s going on?”
“He’s gone to LA,” Molly said.
“LA? Why? For how long?” LA? What the hell did Sean need to go to LA for?
“Laney. The Woo facility in LA is being expanded. Chase offered Sean the job of getting the expansion on track down there two days ago. He left this morning.” Tommy laid his hand on my arm. “I’m sorry, Laney. I thought you knew.”
I stood there stunned. Gone. Just like that, he was gone. No word. Nothing. I shook off Tommy’s hand and shrugged off my jacket.
“Fine.” I pushed past Tommy and went up to my room. “Fine. Just bloody fine!” I yelled and kicked over the chair. I stood there in the middle of my room and wanted to scream. How could he just leave and not say anything? My new cell phone rang and my heart leapt into my throat. I knew who it was so I didn’t even bother answering it. James was still calling. I turned my phone off and the lights as well, got out my new knife, setting it on my bedside table, then lay down on my bed.
I had already changed my cell phone number twice and James had found it twice. I could not leave my past because my past would not leave me. We were bound together with iron chains. I knew as I lay there and waited for the sun to rise that I would never be able to move forward as long as I was linked to James. I understood why Sean had left. He had been right. I was going to have to ask for help on this. It was not so hard to know I finally needed help. It was going to be, by far, the hardest thing I would ever have to do. I’d have to ask for help.
I had improved so many areas of my life since coming to San Francisco. I had a much better sense of who I was, but I still wasn’t sure of my place in this world. I had thought that joining Woo would be that place, but something was still missing. Something besides Sean, that is.
Two more weeks passed. I still hadn’t found help. I thought about it though. I thought about it a lot, but I didn’t know how to ask, or who to ask. I had never been one to take my problems to anyone else. If I had a problem then I dealt with it. But that had become not entirely true. I had not dealt with them. I had often shoved them into the deepest recesses of my mind and ignored them. Then after a time the memories would seep out and I would shove them back in again with Herculean force. Over the years it got harder and harder to fit the problems into those deep recesses.
My mind was tired of trying to find a hole to put them in. I did know that I could not move on or even attempt to make a future with Sean as long as I ignored it, this monster that threatened to swallow me up whole. The monster in the closet was real and it lived in my mind and I was the one responsible for giving it food and life. Now I had to find the means to destroy it.
I tried to ask for help, but the words would stick in my throat and not be said. Finally, one day I came back to my desk and found a business card with the name of a shrink on it, a trauma specialist. Someone had written on the back, “try it, I did.” I didn’t recognize the handwriting. I sat there at my desk turning the card over and over in my hand. Finally, two hours later, I picked up the phone and called, Dr. Robert Gordon.
Of course I hung up three times before I finally left a message. He called back fifteen minutes later and scheduled my first appointment for that evening. His office was two blocks away from Woo. I guess I wasn’t the first employee to be a patient and probably would not be the last.
His office was in his home, an old Victorian with lovely curved windows and gingerbread shingles. I loved those houses. I walked past it a dozen times before he came out and asked me if I wanted to sit outside and talk or come in where it was warm. I sighed and took one giant step forward.
The inside of the house was all dark mahogany and antiques, Aubusson rugs on the floor, Louis XIV in the hall. The only reason I knew this stuf
f was I had seen it all growing up. Aunt Katherine had been a huge antique collector and I was repeatedly told just how expensive the various items were that I was not allowed to touch. But this house smelled of pipe smoke and lemon oil and most of the antiques were covered with various magazines and books. He showed me into a cluttered room with the standard couch and desk in it as well as two leather chairs with ottomans in front of them. The chairs had been set near a fireplace that was burning low and smelled of apples. I didn’t even bother to remove my jacket as I sat down in one of the chairs and stretched my legs out on the ottoman.
Dr. Robert Gordon, or Dr. Bob as he asked to be called, was a short, crusty old man who reminded me of the absent-minded professor. He looked for his glasses twice, each time getting distracted and not realizing that they were on his head. This guy was going to help me? As I slouched more into my seat, he looked at me and smiled. “Yes, I can help you. But only if you let me.”
“Great, a psychic shrink. You’ll make my job easier,” I said not bothering to hide the sarcasm. He just chuckled and got his notebook out and finally sat down in the worn leather chair next to mine. He perched his glasses on the end of his nose and looked at me. For fifteen minutes we just looked at each other.
I rolled my eyes and took a deep breath. “Aren’t you supposed to ask me questions?”
“Do you want me to?”
“I don’t know. I thought that was how it went. You asked me questions and I tell you about how I hate my parents blah, blah, blah.”
“Do you?”
“Do I what?” This was staring to bug me.
“Hate your parents?”
“No! Why would I? I hardly knew them.”
He pursed his lips and wrote something down. “Okay.”
“Okay? That’s it?”
“No.”
“Well what then?”
“I don’t know, you tell me.”
“Tell you what?” I was about ready to grab the notebook out of his hands and fling it out the window. I hadn’t even told him anything and he was writing stuff down like I was telling my life story.
“Whatever it is that you want to tell me.”
“You’re kidding me right? You don’t care what I tell you?”
“You tell me whatever it is you want to talk about.”
Fine, I had his number. I spent the next half hour talking about the rise and fall of the Industrial Revolution.
He sat there and made notes about God knows what. Maybe he hadn’t studied the Industrial Revolution. Maybe it had been so long ago, and he was so old, that he had forgotten about it. Who knows? When we had nearly reached an hour, I stood up.
“Well, the hour’s up, thanks doctor. That was informative.”
“Sit down, Laney.” He continued writing in his book but his voice was strong and direct. Gone was the bumbling professor. I stood there looking at him.
“I said sit down.”
“The hour is up.”
“Who said anything about stopping after an hour?”
“I thought that was how long I had.”
“Well, you used up your hour. The next hour is mine. Then we’ll see about the one after that and the one after that.”
I still stood there like a bump on a log.
“Laney, I deal with people like you who use the cock-of-the-walk attitude to hide behind. You don’t scare me or fool me. Now sit down and let’s see if somehow we can get you down off that walk and into some real emotions other than anger.”
I came within a hairsbreadth of flipping him off and he knew it. I could tell by the arching of his eyebrow he knew it. But he only continued to stare at me until I sat down. “Laney, tell me why you are here.”
I sighed, removed my jacket, and looked at him. “I don’t know where to start.”
“Let’s start with what finally prompted you to call me and then we’ll see what road opens up.”
I spent four hours there. I felt as dried up as a cornhusk by the time Dr. Bob called an end to the session. He just nodded and then wrote down a time for me to show up again in two days. He didn’t ask me when I’d like to come back, probably because he knew that if it were left up to me, I wouldn’t come back. The four hours had been hard enough and we hadn’t even scratched the surface of just who Laney Murphy was, and why she is the way she is, and if there is any hope of helping her. The session had been incredibly draining and I had nothing left at the current moment to give. But each visit would be different.
During the next weeks, I saw Dr. Bob every few days. Some sessions felt like pulling painfully abscessed teeth. Other sessions it flowed out of me like a river. All the emotions that I had locked away in dark little alcoves came out. It had finally sunk in that in order for me to get to the future I had to clear up the past.
I was finally off of desk duty as well. This was a big indication that I was being weighed and measured again. This time I didn’t feel resentment toward it. I would have done the same thing.
Through it all though, Mike was around to listen or hold the punching bag when the rage threatened to boil over. And yet, still no word from Sean. I didn’t call him and I didn’t ask about him, either. This received some sideways looks from people who didn’t know what to make of it. Sean wasn’t going to call me either, I knew. I had been the one to walk away. I was going to have to be the one to ask him back. What if he didn’t come back? I tried not to think about that, but I knew it was possible. Who could blame him either? I just hoped and prayed — yes, prayed — that he would still love me.
Thanksgiving was a big event for the Muldoon family. I think every holiday was a big event for them. Ryan and Fiona came home, as well as the remaining daughter, Megan. She was an aspiring actress in Los Angeles and a combination of Tommy and Molly but without the tact. By several comments I had overheard, she had also seen Sean. This explained the looks she was giving me throughout the whole day. I tried to ignore it but by the time dessert was being served I was done with being inspected and biding my time until I could talk with her privately.
The old Laney would have just said something then and there but for the most part I was enjoying the whole family experience. There was laughter, teasing, and love. I was included in all three aspects. I also noticed the looks I got when the phone rang. I kept hoping it would be Sean. I am sure that hope showed on my face, and I really did think he would come home for Thanksgiving. This was his family. Maybe it was because of me that he didn’t come home? I just didn’t know and was afraid to ask.
Mason and Chase also came to dinner. Now this was something fun to watch. I watched Mason give Chase glances when she thought he wasn’t looking. He was looking but now he was playing hard to get. The hunter had set the bait and was watching and waiting. This thrilled me to no end and I could not help smiling when I saw it.
I was taking out the trash and enjoying some fresh air when Chase came up behind me. “You find something funny?”
“Oh yeah.” I looked at him and saw some peace in his eyes. I knew nothing of Chase and his past but I had always figured it had been rough. “It just makes me happy to see the possibilities opening up for you.”
“And what about you, Laney? What about your possibilities?”
I took a deep breath and expelled it slowly. “I don’t know yet.”
“He would have been home for Thanksgiving but he had a job to do. I know he wanted to come home.”
“I know he would have wanted to be with his family.”
Chase took my chin in his hand and turned me to look at him. “He would have come home to see you, too.”
I shrugged, and then looked over at Megan who had come to the back yard. “Will you excuse us, Chase? I think Megan has something to say to me.” He looked at her and me, nodded, and left.
It had been warm outside but th
e rain that had been predicted was now hinted at on the breeze. I sat down on one of Molly’s benches and looked up at Megan. “You got something to say to me, say it.”
Much to my surprise she sat down next to me. “I was really prepared to dislike you.”
“And?”
“Well, I still want to dislike you but I can’t.”
This was not the way I figured this conversation would go. “Okay. I’ll bite. Why not?”
“Because after hearing Sean talk about you and meeting you firsthand I’d be doing you a disservice.”
“Come again?”
She laughed. “When Da told me about you showing up and then moving in I was afraid for him again. But Mom wasn’t and if she wasn’t then I figured you might be okay.”
“Gee thanks.”
“Well now, wait. I wanted to dislike you because Da was so happy to have found you. I know that sounds strange but I was jealous because every time he and I talked, which is not often, all he did was talk about you. Then Ryan did that and then Fiona. I was getting tired of hearing about how cool you were.”
“Huh?”
“It wasn’t until Sean came down to LA that I got the whole story about his kidnapping and you saving him and what you risked to do so. But he was also hurting. You hurt him and that got me mad all over again.”
I really was having trouble following this. “So let’s cut to the chase. Am I going to have to put up with you glaring at me like Sean does all night, or can we find some sort of truce?”
“Oh, we found some sort of truce hours ago,” she said smugly. “He still loves you, you know.”
I nodded. “I … I like him too, but that wasn’t enough. It still isn’t enough. I’m getting closer to what would be enough. If that makes any sense.” I looked at Megan.
“It does make sense. I know you grew up without the benefit of having siblings or a real family. I am glad that has changed for you.”
“You have no idea. Did you really dye Ryan and Sean’s hair purple?”
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