She was different from the girls the parents sent, not understating the glib mouths and mean eyes, the dope and the drinking. Those girls were filled with disdain toward the parents who sent them. Well placed, he often thought.
When he sat trying to concentrate on the women who came with their frightened faces and the men considering face lifts and the children who laughed at him and almost everyone else, he often thought about Debbie and when she would be back sitting in the chair across from him.
“I want the fear to go away,” she told him each visit. “I want it to go away and not come back.”
“It will,” he promised.
“When?”
“When you no longer need it.”
The next question came slowly, after thought.
“Why do I need it?”
“I think it’s a way of warning yourself, of telling yourself what you’re doing is wrong for you and you need to change or move away from it. It’s like your instinct talking and when you don’t listen, it starts yelling.”
She watched him.
“It could be that you needed to come home and this was the only way you would let yourself. Is that possible?”
Her eyes were wide on his.
“When will the fear go away?” That was the answer she wanted, the only answer.
It took her three months to find a job, the beginning of the self-worth he wanted for her. He watched as she faced the rejection from the jobs she didn’t get and as she exercised the instinct against the jobs that were not right for her. Finally, she made the connection, at a radio station and everything seemed to change.
“It’s great,” she laughed with excitement. “Really great. I guess it’s something I wanted to do, this news, you know?”
He nodded.
“I mean, I can write. I love to write. I did in college and they said I might get a chance at the station, to write news. That’s something, isn’t it?”
“It’s more than something,” he told her.
“I know I’ll only be typing for them and answering phones but I could get a chance to do other things, you know? Couldn’t I?”
“Of course. Why not? And you really like this news idea?”
“Yes, I do,” she said, sitting straight up. It’s honest, that’s what it is. All you’re supposed to do is find the truth and report it. That’s what the news is, the truth. It’s the only place you get paid for telling the truth.”
She fell back in the chair.
“Gosh, I am happy.” She laughed.
“I didn’t know you liked to write, Debbie. You’ve never said anything about it. Do you write a lot?”
“Not now, but I worked on my high school paper and on the college paper my first year. The second year I didn’t and then I left. With Michael.”
She picked up the tiny blue glass bird on the table next to the chair. It was something she did every session.
“I like this bird,” she said.
“Tell me more about the writing.”
“Oh, it’s not so much. I wrote some short stories and poems. I think you have to be real sad to write poems.”
He nodded. “Ever try to get your poems or the stories published?”
“No.” She put the bird back on the table.
“Why not?”
“They aren’t very good.”
“How do you know?”
“I know,” she sighed. The sadness was back. “I know.”
Finding a job was the task he set for her. Finding out what led her to a psychotic episode was the one he set for himself.
*
“Tell me about your mother. What do you remember about her?”
“I don’t remember too much. I was only five when she died. I do remember lots of people in the house and Dad hugging me. That’s all, really.”
Her mother died on her way to the grocery store, hit at a stoplight. The death seemed to have been handled as well as it could be. There had been housekeepers, not too many over the years, to care for the girl when her father was at work. He was a lawyer and able to come home almost every day for lunch. Later, when he became a judge, he still made time for his daughter.
“She is better.” It was almost a question asked by the tall man with the tired blue eyes who made a few of his own visits to the office.
“Is she much like her mother?”
Kurt Hanson smiled, apparently without fear or suspicion of what the question might mean or what the answer could expose.
“No. Her mother was out-going, gregarious. She had something going on all the time.” He smiled with the memory.
“Debbie was a happy child, but she was different from her mother, not that same exuberance, passion.” He paused.
“I think she’s more like me,” he said. “We’re both rather low-keyed.” He covered the glass bird with one hand.
“My feeling is that this thing, this thing going on now, started with that man.”
“Michael?”
“Yes. He was too damn old for her. Not a bad fellow. I didn’t dislike him. I didn’t know him. I did know he wasn’t right for her. My God, he was more my contemporary than hers.” He shook his head.
“I talked to her about it, about the age difference. She didn’t have much experience with men or boys and I was worried about her. Then she drops out of school and takes off with him. He was her adviser or teacher, maybe both. I’m not quite sure but it wasn’t right. I know that. He was in a position of authority.”
The doctor gave a non-committal nod.
“He was going to be a lumberjack or fisherman. That type, you know. In the end, never doing much of anything. I am surprised he was able to teach, if that’s what he did. I got to the point where I stopped talking to her about it, about him. But, she knew
