“I suppose you didn’t.”
“I do, though...feel guilty. But I don’t know if it’s because of the guilt or because...because moving on feels like leaving thembehind. Like I’d be spitting on their memories and trying to forget them.”
“That happens a lot in grieving,” Dr. Ramirez said, clasping his hands together and leaning forward. “Except that finding a way to process the pain, to get through the grief and sorrow, is not leaving those you loved behind. Do you think that a year from now, if you were on your path to healing, you would forget them? Do you think five years from now, if someone asked you about Gina or Mikael, you would forget the way she laughed, or how much Mikael loved to?—”
“Climb,” I said with a rueful smile. “Once he got to crawling, he was climbing on everything, and once he walked, it was hell to keep him from getting to even higher places. The older he got, the more he wanted to climb.”
“And just like that, you remembered one of his joys in life,” he said with a chuckle. “I won’t tell you that you should move on, or that it’s time, because only you can determine those things. What I will say is that you will not forget them, that moving on from that chapter in your life does not mean leaving them in the ground or wherever, forgotten and unloved. That love will stick with you, and while you might have a hard time remembering their voices, or the exact look of their faces, you’ll remember far more than you dread.”
“Did you lose a spouse too?” I asked bluntly, thinking of Reggie.
“No, but I have lost. A parent, a younger brother, and my best friend of almost twenty years died a few years ago.”
“Oh shit, I’m...that was a shitty way to ask that question, sorry.”
“What’s important,” he said with a slow smile, and I couldn’t tell if he was forgiving me or amused by my panic. “Is that I haven’t forgotten them. I remember my brother had a birthmark on his jaw that looked like a worm, but I don’t remember theshape of his nose. I can’t remember what my best friend sounded like, but I remember his laugh sounded like a deranged donkey. Sometimes I can’t remember if my father had a flat chin or a pointed one, but I remember sitting beside him while he worked, fascinated by the way his hands moved, and I can still remember the songs he hummed.”
I stared at him for what felt like forever, swallowing the lump in my throat. “It doesn’t...it doesn’t stop, does it?”
“The grief and pain? No,” he said with a shake of his head. “You find a place for it in your heart, though, because it’s going to be a part of you forever, and it should have a home. And while you’re carving out that place, as it gets comfortable and starts to feel more like love than pain, you’ll find days where you can think of them, and it doesn’t hurt as much. Sometimes it does. The other day, while I was trying to help my boy fix his bike, I found myself wanting to cry because I missed my father so damned much, and he’s been gone almost a decade and a half. The pain becomes an old friend, and eventually, it becomes gentler...but it doesn’t stop. But that’s because you never forget them, that the love you have for them never fades.”
It sounded, well, I wouldn’t say wonderful, but better than my life at the moment, and definitely better than what I’d feared most. Yet even then, there was a note of horror, because I was never truly going to be free of it. Even as much as I wanted to hold it all close to my heart, there was still that part of me that wanted to be free.
“Do you know what might have brought on this change?” he asked softly. “I ask because you have never shown any interest in this part of the process before. And while there have been a few more...incidents over the past few weeks, I was pleasantly surprised to hear you had signed on for this session.”
“You heard about that shit, huh?” I asked with a sigh. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, it’s not like Reggie would keep you inthe dark. Just surprised you paid attention, is all. As you said, I’ve never bothered to come here before or even do much in the group sessions.”
“Even for those who avoid coming to my office, or in your case, doing very little in group sessions, I’m given updates if I choose to look…and I do. It’s impossible to predict when someone will come to see me,” he said.
“The honest answer?”
“Those are usually the best if you want to get anywhere.”
I laughed. “It’s Isaac.”
“Isaac made you come here?”
“Oh, uh, no. I mean, he got me to agree to try and participate in the group sessions, but more to calm Reggie down, who was having a fit over the incident with the chair. He, uh, didn’t know I was coming. I didn’t tell him.”
“I see. Why didn’t you tell him?”
That stumped me for a minute, and I had to give an honest answer. “I actually don’t know.”
“That’s alright,” he chuckled, leaning back in his seat and taking up the pad and pen again, jotting a few things as he spoke. “We don’t always know why we do the things we do, and we can’t always predict where it will lead. But still, you said it was because of Isaac?”
Now this was the part I was struggling with the most. I didn’t know how to put it into words because I hadn’t quite figured out how I felt about it. At the same time, I knew enough to say that yes, this was because of Isaac. Notjustbecause of him, of course, I couldn’t put the full weight of responsibility for something I was doing on someone else’s shoulders. Even as fucked up as I was, I knew personal responsibility had to be taken at some point.
“Yes...and no,” I said with a wince. “I think...I always wanted a chance to do better, tobebetter, but I was...I guess willing tohold off. So long as I had my life going the way I...well, I don’t know if it’s how I wanted, but it was familiar.”
“It was something you could choose,” he said, watching me. “A large part of your life over the past few years has been outside your control. Yet here, isolated from the rest of the world, you could create something, you could make your own choices.”
“Right,” I said, knowing that sounded right even if it sounded awful at the same time. “I guess I was using this place as an escape, well, there’s no guessing about it. I treated this place like a vacation with a buffet of hot guys to choose from.”
Ramirez chuckled. “There’s no shame in that. We all find ways to cope with the realities of life, even the harsh and brutal realities that threaten to tear us apart at times. But you seem to be expressing that changed with Isaac.”
“Yeah,” I said softly, unable to look at him while I talked and chose the floor instead. Huh, there was a tear in my shoe. “He’s different. I wish I could be all romantic and say I knew he was different the moment I laid eyes on him, but, uh, no. I mean, I was definitely into him, you know? He’s good-looking, and at first all I could think about was what he looked like under those clothes, and wondering what kind of tricks he’d learned as an escort. God, that’s such a?—”
“Obviously, you no longer think of him in such a one-dimensional fashion.”
