by Claire Adams
“I don’t know where you think I’m going to come up with that kind of—how much exactly did you get in my student loans?” I ask.
She looks down and away from me, almost shielding her eyes with her hand. “It was a substantial amount,” she answers.
“How much?” I ask. “You’re trying to get me to cover for you with what I’m assuming would be some sort of a money laundering scheme—which, by the way, we are not doing—and I want to know how much you got using my name? In real student loans, I’ve gotten a grand total of about twenty thousand dollars so far. I actually had to write and sign a paper stating that I was completely financially independent and use that to appeal the initial decision to reject any financial aid due to all the cash the two of you have raked in over however long. How did you even get approved?”
“Oh, it’s not difficult when you have the proper paperwork and know what a bank is looking for in an application,” she says. Ironically, it may be the most forthright thing I’ve ever heard come out of her mouth.
“How much did you get?” I ask.
“I don’t have the exact figure,” mom says, looking away again. “Your father would know. He always knows that sort of thing. I’ve never been good with numbers the way your father has. You know, your father is really very sick over how this is going to affect you.”
“I know what you’re doing, mom,” I tell her. “Stop trying to pawn this all off on dad and just tell me.”
She says the number and I ask her to leave.
On her way out the door, mom says, “I know you’ll do the right thing, dear.”
She’s asking me to take the fall for them; maybe not on everything, but on a lot of it. If I hadn’t immediately kicked her out of my apartment, I’m sure she would have gone on to tell me how she and dad were going to make sure that I was taken care of with a good lawyer.
They’ve had close brushes with the law before, and this isn’t the first time one of them has come to me with a similar request. That kind of stuff is why I don’t talk to my parents if I can avoid it as it is.
Now, one way or another, this is coming out and she’s put me in the position where any choice I make is going to be a bad one. Either I can snitch on my parents and definitely send two people to prison who would never make it past the first meal, or I do what my mom wants and probably end up in prison myself.
It was an easy enough choice to make. She says she knows I’ll make the right decision, meaning her decision, but I’ve already made it. They did this to themselves and I’m not going to go down for it.
How stupid do they think I am?
I don’t even want to think about that number.
Mason’s still in the bedroom. I haven’t heard him at all, but there hasn’t been a moment where I wasn’t very aware of the fact that he’s been right there in my room with the door closed this whole time.
I open the door, saying, “I know you must have some questions, and I’m sure you heard at least some of the conversation—”
“All of it,” he says. “I tried to stay as far away from the door as I could, but the two of you weren’t exactly quiet.”
He’s just sitting there on my bed, calmly looking up at me.
“Mason,” I start, but he interrupts.
He says, “I think I’m ready to hear your explanation now.”
Now I get to explain why I didn’t say anything after I got that phone call. Now I get to explain how I knew upon seeing my mom that this sort of thing was going to happen.
Thanks, mom. Thanks, dad.
Oh, and thanks for the nearly $1.5 million in student loans you took out through fraud and forgery. $1.5 million with my name and information all over the paperwork...
Chapter Seventeen
Quagmire and Clarity
Mason
I’m sitting in the waiting room of Dr. Sadler, Psy.D, going over what I want to talk about in my head as I’m waiting for the session to begin.
I got here early. Despite my general lack of respect for the profession, in all the years I went to therapists as a kid, I don’t think I ever showed up late to a session. There’s always been that part of me that holds onto some tiny piece of hope that I might actually get some good advice.
I’m not going to hold my breath, though.
Ash explained what I didn’t already know from overhearing her and her mother that day. Being brothers with someone like Chris, I can’t judge Ash for her parents’ mistakes. What I’m not so happy with is that she never told me.
With everything I’ve been through with Chris since Ash and I have been together, it doesn’t make sense that she would withhold that sort of thing. We might have even been able to bond over how screwed up our families are.
Now, though, the last few times we’ve gotten together, neither one of us wants to say anything that might upset the other. I know the last time we had a problem like this, it was because of things I was doing. Maybe I’m just holding onto some sort of hope that eventually, things won’t be the way they’ve always been. I don’t know.
Right now, though, that’s little more than a pipe dream.
The door to the therapist’s office opens and an older man walks out, carrying his hat in his hands and waving to the receptionist as he goes. It’s a couple more minutes, but finally, Dr. Sadler comes to her open office door and says, “Mason, you can come on in.”
I’d like to say I had some kind of sophisticated screening process when I was looking for a therapist, but really, my insurance chose for me. Dr. Sadler is the only psychiatrist in town I can afford to visit.
Walking into Dr. Sadler’s office, I’m starting to think I’ve made a huge mistake. There are motivational posters covering nearly every square inch of the walls, with the exception of the space dedicated to her degrees.
They’re not even clever ones, either. If I had to guess, I’d say the posters are homemade.
“Come on in and have a seat,” Dr. Sadler says. “So, what brings you to my office today?”
“Well, I don’t really know where to start,” I tell her.
“Oh, I can help with that,” she says, scratching her forehead.
“What do you mean?” I ask. “I know I filled out that intake form and everything, but…”
As Dr. Sadler is scratching her forehead, her hair moves—I mean all of her hair. Underneath what’s obviously a blonde wig, a little bit of red hair comes into view for just a moment. She stops and smiles at me.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she says, taking her wig off and setting it on her desk, revealing a full head of short red hair. “It can be such a hassle getting ready in the morning. If you’ll excuse me for just one moment…”
I sit and watch as she opens the bottom drawer of her desk. Inside, I can see four different wigs atop four different mannequin heads. She picks the mid-length black one and pulls it out, setting it haphazardly onto her head before putting the blonde wig in the black wig’s place.
“That’s better,” she says. “Now, I think the biggest problem is that you’re not willing to simply accept yourself and the people in your life for the unique challenges you and they face. When we have faulty expectations, our whole world gets thrown off.”
“You got that from my intake sheet?” I ask.
“No,” she says. “I got that from your posture. Please, tell me what’s on your mind.”
I glance past the grainy, nonsensical poster of a duck swimming in a lake with the caption, “Get to it!” to the doctor’s credentials, but I can’t quite make out the schools she went to from where I’m sitting.
“Where did you get your degree?” I ask.
“I did my undergraduate work at Harvard,” she says. “I got my doctorate from the University of Guam.”
“Guam?” I ask. “Why not Harvard for your doctorate?”
“I had a falling out with the dean,” she says. “That’s really not the issue here, though.”
“You know,” I say, standing back up, “I think this was a
mistake. I’m sure you’re a fine doctor, but I just don’t think it’s going to—”
“How old were you when your dad left?” she asks.
I stop, halfway between standing and sitting and I look at her.
“I didn’t put anything about my dad on the intake,” I tell her. “How did you—”
“Mom, she was around, at least for the first part of your childhood, but she was never really there, was she?” the doctor asks.
I sit back down.
“Let me guess: you got that from my posture, too?” I ask.
“No,” she smiles. “That, I got from your eyes. Listen, Mason, I understand that you’re not the type to easily trust people, and I’m sure all the time you spent visiting court-appointed therapists has left you feeling like we just don’t know what we’re talking about, isn’t that right?”
My mouth is gaping. “Seriously, how are you—”
She smirks, saying, “That part I got from your intake sheet.”
“What do you think I should do?” I ask.
“How should I know?” she responds, reaching into her purse and pulling out a handful of unwrapped gummy worms. She stuffs about half that handful into her mouth and continues. “You haven’t told me anything yet. What’s on your mind?”
“Uh…” I say, trying to remember why I came here in the first place.
“Girl trouble?” she asks. “That one, I ask most men,” she whispers.
“I guess that’s there a little bit,” I tell her, “but what made me decide to seek help happened a while ago.”
I go on to explain my involvement with underground MMA and the fight where everything just kind of went away. She sits, listening, nodding. I keep trying to focus on her eyes, but mine keep moving upward.
Finally, I come to the argument Ash and I had where she basically laid down the ultimatum and the good doctor is finally ready to offer her response.
“That sucks,” she says.
“How much am I paying you per hour?” I ask.
“Not much, but if you stay with me for about a year or so, I bet I can buy a new car off of what your insurance throws at me,” she answers. I don’t know if she’s joking or not. “Listen,” she says, “the troubles we tend to focus on are often not the problem at all. They’re often the symptom.”
“I get that,” I tell her, “but what’s the cause?”
“Keep talking,” she says. “You’ve got a soothing voice. It’s doing killer work on this raging headache I’ve got.”
“It’s too tight,” I tell her.
“Excuse me?” she asks.
“Your, uh…” I motion toward my own hair with my index finger and she lifts the front of the wig just a little. “Huh,” she says. “I guess I can cancel that MRI. I thought I had some sort of berry aneurism or something.”
I glance back toward the medical degrees on her wall. “…and you’re a doctor?” I ask.
“You get so used to things sometimes, you don’t even realize they’re what’s hurting you,” she says.
It’s strange, but I find myself chuckling. “Did you really put on that wig just so you could make that point and have it seem super insightful?” I ask.
She smiles at me, “While being ‘super insightful’ is, indeed my goal, I’m really quite serious. What things from your past do you still hold onto?” she asks. “Yours was a difficult childhood from the sound of things. What haven’t you been able to let go?”
“Chris?” I ask. “I don’t know. Am I just supposed to abandon my brother?”
“You didn’t mention a brother,” she says. “Let’s talk about that.”
“That’s not why I’m here,” I lie.
“From the sound of it, it’s exactly why you’re here,” she says. “That fight you got into—the match where you say you ‘lost your head,’ what happened during the week leading up to that night?”
“I don’t know,” I tell her. “I mean, Chris got arrested and everything, but that can’t be the only thing that went into what happened. I’ve been expecting that my entire life.”
“Maybe you should go,” she says out of nowhere. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe therapy isn’t something that’s going to be a positive for you. Thanks for coming in,” she says. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help.”
“What are you talking about?” I almost yell. “We’re just starting to get into this and now you’re telling me that therapy isn’t going to work? What kind of doctor are you?”
“I’m saying this won’t work if you’re not going to be honest with me,” she says. “A lot of people would be happy to have you waste their time. I suppose I can understand the draw of sitting back and collecting a couple hundred dollars to hear someone cover everything, but I got into this because I actually wanted to help people. If you’re not ready to fit into that kind of category, there’s really nothing I can do for you. The only ethical thing for me to do at this point is to say ‘thanks, but no thanks.’ If we can’t be honest with each other, it’s best that you go.”
“In what way am I not being honest?” I ask.
She shakes her head a little, saying, “You’re not being honest with me, but you’re also not being honest with yourself. You’re not here because you want to change. You’re here because your girlfriend might break up with you if you weren’t. Isn’t that true?”
“No,” I answer. “She laid down the law, sure, but I’m here because I realized she was right. I do need something. What happened in that fight—”
“So you’re here because you want to be here?” she asks.
“I don’t know if ‘want’ is the right word right now, but yeah,” I answer.
She nods. “Okay,” she says. “Continue, but this time, let’s focus on the feelings.”
“Oh god,” I groan.
“Hey, finally a real reaction from you,” she says. “I thought the stuff with the wig was the only bit of that I was going to see this hour.”
“Do you have some kind of problem with me I don’t know about?” I ask. “Did I sleep with a relative of yours and not call or something?”
“There’s no need to be hostile,” Dr. Sadler says. “I’m just assessing your mental state.”
“My mental state?” I ask. “What are you even talking about?”
“We’ll come back to that,” she says. “Now, if you had to pick the top three emotions, the three emotions that you felt more than anything else during those minutes or seconds when you said you weren’t in control, what would they be?”
“I don’t know,” I tell her. “I wasn’t feeling anything.”
“I don’t believe you,” she says.
“You know,” I scoff, “at this point, I don’t really care whether you believe me or not.”
Now, it’s just a matter of waiting a moment for her to collect herself and kick me out of the office and I can go back to Ash, telling her that I tried. I tried, it just didn’t work.
“Good,” she says. “I’m glad you’re finally recognizing your emotions instead of just reacting to them. Now, if you could tell me the three emotions—”
“Annoyance, frustration and irritation,” I tell her.
“Three near synonyms,” she says. “Linguistically, that’s mildly impressive, but you’re not talking about what you were feeling that night. You’re talking about how you’re feeling right now.”
“Gee, how’d you guess?” I ask sarcastically.
She actually bothers answering, “You’ve said a couple of times in this conversation that you don’t recall feeling any particular emotion immediately before or at any time during the fight,” she says. “If you were talking about that, I doubt your emotions would be quite so clear. That’s probably why you felt emotionally anesthetized. Do you frequently feel anhedonic?”
I think a beat, but nope. “I don’t know what that is,” I tell Dr. Sadler.
“Anhedonia is the inability to experience pleasure,” she says.
“Oh, that’s not it then,
” I say quickly.
“So the things in your life that used to bring you pleasure still do?” she asks.
I think about it for a minute. “Well, I guess maybe not as much, but I still experience pleasure,” I answer.
“Okay,” she says. “There are many different ways in which a person’s body and mind can react to depression. If you’d be willing, I’d like to try something that might help us find out what the best—”
“I’m sorry,” I say, stopping her. “I’m not depressed.”
“Okay,” she says.
I’m waiting for more, but there doesn’t seem to be any.
“Okay?” I ask. “You just sat there telling me that’s what’s going on. Are you really a doctor or do you just like messing with people?”
She snickers. “Why can’t it be both?” she asks. “No, I’ve simply found that it does no good trying to talk a person into believing something they don’t think they have, especially when they don’t think they could have it.”
“I’ve been depressed before,” I tell her. “Growing up in my house, I would have been out of my mind not to go a little out of my mind.”
“Well, let’s try to get you back in,” she says. “Have you given any more thought to what you were feeling that night?”
“I don’t know,” I tell her. “I was feeling detached.”
“Okay,” she says, picking up a pen from her desk and writing something on a yellow legal note pad, slowly pronouncing the word “detachment” while she does.
“That’s not really an emotion, though, is it?” I ask.
“Oh, absolutely it is,” she says. “What else?”
I’m not sure if I trust her, but I’m already paying to be here. The least I can do is get my money’s worth.
“I don’t know,” I answer. “I just felt really numb.”
“What about just before the fight, before you started feeling this sort of disconnect. Was there anything that triggered your response immediately beforehand, or had it been building for a while?” she asks.