Darkness My Old Friend

What if I don’t need help?

A sad smile, a hand on his arm. What if you do?

“Since you have the time and the freedom, maybe you could think about taking a class,” said Dr. Dahl. “It might open a doorway for you.”

“Maybe,” said Jones.

Something about the idea of signing up for a class made him uncomfortable. He threw the doc a bone and said as much.

“Why do you think that is?” Poor Dr. Dahl was practically on the edge of his seat.

Jones looked out the large window to a parking lot edged by woods. The trees in the valley were a firestorm of orange, gold, yellow, and brown in the light of the waning afternoon. The truth: because he didn’t want to be part of a group that was looking for something, people who were seeking. He didn’t want to be lumped in with people who were looking to one individual for answers to a question. Come to think of it, it was the same problem he had with therapy. What qualifies you to teach me anything? he often found himself thinking.

But he didn’t have the words to say this. He knew it sounded angry and arrogant. And maybe it was that. But it made him feel weak and vulnerable to think about signing up for class, sitting in a room with a bunch of other sad, middle-aged losers adrift in their lives. Because that’s who it would be-the retiree, the empty-nester, the newly divorced.

“It seems like a waste of time,” he said.

He saw something flash across his doctor’s face-disappointment, concern, something. Then the doctor bowed his head slightly. Dr. Dahl put the notebook he’d been holding in his lap on the small table beside him and leaned back in his chair, crossed his legs. Jones recognized it as the body language of resignation, surrender. Then there it was: the headache that started in the base of Jones’s neck and would reach its clawing fingers over his crown, then start pressing on his eyes without mercy.

“Look, Jones,” the doctor said. His voice was soft, and Jones noticed, not for the first time, how young the guy was. Maybe he was in his early thirties. “Before our next session, you might want to give some thought to why you keep coming here.”

“I don’t understand.” But Jones did understand, and he felt some kind of dark victory, as if he’d won a game he hadn’t even realized he’d been playing.

The doctor rubbed his eyes with his right thumb and forefinger. “I mean that I think you’re resisting here, purposely not allowing yourself to find a path forward, a way to deal with the traumas of your past, even learn from them to forge a better future.”

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

The doctor seemed to force a smile, tilted his head a bit.

“Physically, yes, you are consistently here in my office. And you’ve been quite articulate about the things that have happened to you-your relationship with your mother, the abandonment by your father, the loss of your career. And that’s great. That’s progress. But now that you need to find a way forward into the next phase of your life, I feel like you’re shutting down.”

Jones found his shoulders relaxing as he sat forward, preparing to get up and leave. It sounded like the good doctor was getting ready to break up with him; the thought flooded him with relief.

“I don’t know what to say, Doctor. I’m doing my best.” The lie hung between them, bounced off the walls. “If you don’t think you can help me…” He let the sentence trail, giving Dr. Dahl the opportunity to fill in the blank and hand Jones his get-out-of-jail-free card. To say something like, Maybe you’d do better with someone else, or Maybe you should take some time off from therapy.

But he didn’t say anything like that. Instead he looked at Jones for a moment. Jones saw what he already knew, that Dr. Dahl was a good man, a kind and compassionate doctor, excited about his work-a lot like Maggie. And Jones felt like a heel, but he stayed silent.

“I’ll just ask you to consider one thing before our next session,” said Dr. Dahl. “I’m not here to give you answers, to tell you what road to take or what you should do. I am here to help you find those answers within yourself. When you walk in here, I don’t want you to give power away to me. I want you to find it right here.” He stopped a second and tapped on his chest. “And use it to make your life what you want it to be.”

Jones looked away, embarrassed by the other man’s obvious passion. He felt heat in his cheeks, a strong desire to leave and not come back.

“Okay,” Jones said. He knew that his voice sounded cold and professional, nearly sarcastic for its lack of feeling. “I’ll think about that.”

A beat passed where Jones looked longingly at his coat on the rack by the door, but where he couldn’t seem to lift himself from his chair.

“Fair enough,” said Dr. Dahl. But the other man couldn’t keep the disappointment out of his voice. Jones didn’t look him in the face again as he muttered good-bye, grabbed his jacket, and left.

A few miles away from the office, he drove through at Burger King and ordered a mountain of food-a Whopper with cheese, a large soda, onion rings, french fries, a chocolate shake. The kid who handed him his sack had black-painted fingernails and a face full of piercings-nose, ears, eyebrows, and tongue. Jones dropped his change in the scratched plastic tip cup.

“Hey, thanks so much,” the kid said. For some reason his friendly smile and chipper attitude left Jones unsettled, as if he were being subtly mocked. As he pulled out onto the street, the familiar salty-savory smell, that engineered delight, filled the car, and he felt a palpable relief of tension as he unwrapped and bit into the burger. He ate it all mindlessly as he drove, not really tasting it, then sank into the fat-absorption stupor that inevitably followed a large fast-food meal. By the time he got home, he felt vaguely sick but mercifully blank.

chapter five

The cat was missing, and that wasn’t really like him. He was fat and lazy, rarely moving at more than a snail’s pace from couch to food bowl, food bowl to bed, bed to window seat. Even when he could be bothered to heft his frame through the kitty door, he did not, once outside, chase birds or rodents. He observed squirrels and finches, mice and robins with studied indifference. Eloise had never even bothered to put a little bell on his collar, knowing that it was the sun alone that drew him outside. He did not have a hunter’s heart. He was a creature designed for, and dedicated to, luxuriating. He cared only to lie on the stone bench by the sundial and let his ginger fur soak up the heat. Then, having reached some unknown limit, he’d trundle back inside and replant himself.

“Oliver,” she called. She stood on the back stoop. The wind made the various chimes, hanging from the eaves and trees, sing. Eloise hated the cooling air of autumn. It heralded the arrival of snow and black branches, the death of everything green.

“Oliver.”

Eloise felt an anxious flutter as she gazed about the yard and then shut the door. The cat could be under one of the beds or down in the basement. He’d come back when he was hungry, she told herself. Lord knew he couldn’t survive in the wild.

Back inside, she heard her cell phone ringing. She walked over to the kitchen table and dug the phone out of her purse, even though she had no intention of answering it. Ray Muldune, the blinking screen informed her. Again. She put the phone down on the table and watched it skitter a bit with its vibrating.

Ray wanted her to tell him things that she couldn’t tell him. She was cold, stone cold, except for her dreams of Jones Cooper. This happened sometimes, a mental loop excluding all other signals. That’s why she’d gone to see him, knowing full well how he would react to her. She figured she’d get it out, deliver the message. And maybe that’s all she was supposed to do. Maybe. She never knew.

Eloise was about to open a can of food for Oliver. Doing so, she knew, would cause him to lumber from wherever he was, near or far. But as she pulled open the cupboard, she heard the crunching of gravel on her driveway. She walked over to the bay window and looked out to see Ray Muldune’s ancient Caddy in the driveway.