Off the Deep End (2)
I hold myself back from shaking my head at him. What a rookie mistake. His attempt at connection and intimacy takes away the tiny power differential he had, and he needed the credibility of doctor in front of his name. A doctorate in forensic psychology trumps my master’s degree in marriage and family therapy, but he just stepped himself down to my equal. That’s not a position he wants to be in if he wants to get anywhere with me. But what can you expect? He’s clearly fresh out of college. A “try-hard,” like Gabe and his friends used to say. I almost burst out laughing because it’s exactly what Gabe would say if he saw him sitting there in front of me right now, and I know exactly how he’d look when he said it too—giant blue eyes sparkling with mischief and a lopsided grin. The image quickly flashes through me, leaving me shattered and on the edge of tears. Grief’s like that. Months ago, I would’ve crumbled into tears, inconsolable, interview officially over.
But time marches on, right? Another one of those stupid sayings I hate.
At least Dr. Stephens—there’s no way I’m calling him Ryan—is better than the psychiatrists on the locked unit at the state security hospital in Willmar. Those doctors didn’t even look at you while they rapid-fired their questions at you. Their eyes stayed glued on the charts in front of them the entire time, quickly checking off their required boxes so they could move on to the next patient on their list. They only cared about whether you’d managed to smuggle in or create a weapon to hurt yourself or someone else with. At first, I thought they were being a bit melodramatic about the whole thing, but it happened on the regular. Someone was always slicing open their inner thigh with a paper clip they’d managed to snag from the nurse’s station when nobody was looking or attacking someone else with a piece of a broken chair leg.
Dr. Stephens sits closer to me than any of those other doctors ever got. They rarely sat when they visited your room during rounds. They usually just stood in the doorways with their arms crossed, doing their best to keep you in front of them at all times while someone else watched their backs. They had to be on alert constantly since certain patients had a disgusting habit of throwing feces at them if they got a chance. You had to be really out of your mind to throw feces, and I almost gagged the first time I saw someone do it. Most of the time, the people on the ward that were that crazy were easy to spot, but I’d been fooled more than once. It makes sense that those doctors had given up hope and stopped seeing anyone in front of them as anything other than a number on a chart. But not Dr. Stephens—crazy people haven’t hardened him yet.
“How long has it been since the accident?” he asks, breaking into my thoughts. It’s a stupid question. He already knows everything about me. I’m sure he spent all night studying my charts like he was getting ready to take a final exam. He’s got type A personality written all over him.
“Which one?” I joke, but he doesn’t laugh or look like he thinks it’s funny at all despite his boyish, playful face. This is going to be hard to do if he doesn’t have a sense of humor.
“Since you lost your son,” he clarifies.
The air tightens in the room like it does every time someone brings it up. “Ten months.”
“That must be so hard.” His face shifts into sadness, attempting to mirror my feelings.
“Hard?” I nod my head at him dramatically. “Yeah, you could say it’s been hard. Kinda like being gutted while you’re still alive, you know? Like you didn’t get the proper anesthetic for surgery and you can feel it all happening. That’s—”
He holds his hand up, interrupting me. “I’m sorry. I get it. That was insensitive.” He moves his hand into a peaceful gesture and slowly brings it back down to rest on the table. “I’m just trying to get to know you.”
“We both know that’s not what you’re doing.”
He cocks his head to the side. “Fair enough.”
“Can we get to what you’re really doing here?” It’s not like I don’t already know. The entire town is crawling with law enforcement personnel and volunteer search teams looking for Isaac. People from all over the state have joined the search for him. He disappeared six days ago while he was taking their family dog out for a walk. It was only a matter of time before someone showed up to ask me questions about it.
Ruth Ann, one of the resident staff members at Samaritan House, pulled me out of group therapy twenty minutes ago. “There’s some kind of detective here about the missing boy, and he’d like to speak with you. Would you mind?” She said it like I had a say in the matter, but we both knew that wasn’t true. I forfeited having a say in my life a long time ago. I happily agreed to meet with him, but my attitude was as fake as her request. I was compliant for the same reason I agreed to do everything around here—it was required of me if I wanted to stay out of the security hospital, and I do. More than anything. I’m never going back to that terrible place.
“I want to talk to you about Isaac,” Dr. Stephens breaks in, interrupting my thoughts again. All anyone ever wanted to talk about was Gabe. It might be a nice change of pace to talk about Isaac. “We’re hoping you might have information that could be helpful to the case.”
“I’m not sure how helpful I can be, but I’ll do my best.” I stretch across the small table separating us. “What do you want to know?”