The Good Listener (7 page)

Suicide?

Why would she commit suicide?

I’ve never lost a patient…until now.

It just didn’t make sense.

She was supposed to be better.

“Did you speak to her? At all?”

“No. The last time I saw her, she seemed fine. She decided to stop coming to therapy because she thought that she was better. Where was her husband?”

“He was at work. He came home and found her dead. He said that she had been acting strangely. He said that he suggested that she go back to therapy but she never did. Apparently, he’d seen her talking to the doll, calling the doll by their deceased child’s name. At that point, he knew that she still needed help.”

That was the start of her depression.

She had taken her eye off of their five-year-old for only a second at the park to search her purse for a tissue and just that fast, someone had snatched up her child and carried her off.

That was the last time she saw her.

They never found her child and Mrs. Whiteside never forgave herself. She had been depressed ever since but after two years of therapy, I thought that she was okay.

I thought that she was just fine.

“Do you know why she would have been calling you?”

I shook my head.

“She never called the office. And if she was the person who had called me just hours ago, the number was private. The calls were always unavailable, which doesn’t make sense. I’ve been getting the calls for a while now, but no one ever said anything. If it was her, the whole time, why wouldn’t she have said something? Why wouldn’t she have told me that she was in trouble?”

For the life of me, I couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t have said anything.

Maybe she was in denial.

Maybe she didn’t want to admit to herself that she still needed help.

Maybe she assumed that I wouldn’t be able to fit her back in and was unsure if I would give her off the clock help, but I would.

I enjoyed being recognized for my work, but my patients were more important than any award or achievement that I could ever receive.

I cared about them.

And after treating Mrs. Whiteside for the past two years, I definitely cared about her.

I headed to retrieve my phone to show them that I’d just had a private call only a few hours before.

She must’ve called me just before killing herself.

She must’ve thought at that moment I could change her mind, but she hadn't allowed me to. I was so heartbroken, disappointed and angry, all at the same time, that I was finding it hard to stand.

“Thank you. Sorry to have been the bearer of bad news. Please, try to have a good night ma’am.”

I closed the door and just stood there.

As soon as I turned the lock, I fell to my knees and cried. I’d failed. All of my hard work, all of my hours of talking, listening, coaching, and mentoring, hadn't worked.

None of it had fixed her.

I’d tried everything that I could on her. Every exercise, every approach. For months she hadn't shown even one symptom of being depressed, but she kept coming, and I always allowed her to come in, even if we talked about everything other than her feelings.

But I guess it was all an act because in the end, she had done the very thing that she had been considering doing the first time that she’d walked into my office.

I sat there; doubting everything that I had ever said to any of my patients.

I was supposed to be the best.

How could something like this happen?

The doorbell chimed again, in a hurry, I wiped my face and stood up.

I was wondering if it was the police had forgotten to tell me something.

But it wasn’t them.

It was Blake…and Joel.

What was Blake doing with my husband?

Immediately an eerie feeling entered the atmosphere. It reminded me of why my husband needed to find another job, even if I had to take some time out of my busy schedule to do a few applications for him myself.

I would do anything to get him away from Blake.

“What is this?”

“We went out for a few drinks, and Joel had one too many.”

I was surprised to see Joel drunk, and leaning up against Blake.

Joel rarely ever had a drink and when he did he never had enough to get drunk.

What was that all about?

And how did he end up going for drinks with Blake?

Last I’d heard from him was that he was working late.

“I didn’t want him to drive home, so I got his address off of his license and brought him myself.”

I moved to the side and allowed Blake to help Joel inside. Joel mumbled a few drunken words as Blake secured him on the couch. He seemed to be talking about something that maybe I didn’t need to hear because Blake kept telling him to be quiet.

Blake managed to show an act of kindness by pulling off Joel’s shoes and placing a pillow behind his head.

See, he had a heart in there somewhere.

It was just going to take a hell of a lot of convincing him to use it.

Seconds later, Joel started to snore, and Blake turned in my direction.

“He’s going to be out for a while. You might want to put a trash can beside him.”

“What did he drink?”

“A little bit of everything.”

“Why aren’t you drunk?”

“I don’t really drink.”

“But you said that you both went out for drinks.”

“I’ll have a drink, socially. But I’m far from an alcoholic. That stuff is bad for you.”

“I’m surprised that he’s drunk. He rarely has over two drinks himself when he goes out.”

“Well, maybe tonight he wanted to celebrate a little.”

“For what?”

Blake didn’t answer me.

Instead, he smiled and headed out the door.

He stopped just before going down the first step.

“Are you okay?”

“Never better,” I lied.

He bent down.

“You dropped a rose.”

He reached the rose towards me, but I shook my head, closed the door, and locked it in a hurry.

That rose hadn't been there when I’d come home; which meant that someone was still watching me, and they were still leaving them for me to find for whatever reason.

And they were leaving them more frequently, so it was only a matter of time before they showed their face.

And I was scared just at the thought of what the truth was behind their actions.

But something told me that soon I was going to find out why. I peeped through the blinds as Blake kept the rose and headed towards his car.

In just a few seconds, Blake pulled off.

My gut told me that something just wasn’t right.

There was something that I wasn’t seeing.

There was something that was getting past me, and I hadn't exactly noticed it.

And it was driving me crazy!

I looked over at Joel.

The last time he had been drunk was the night that he had been let go from his job.

He had drunk so much that he’d scared himself half to death the next day as he vomited for hours and felt as though he was near death for three days straight. He swore that he would never drink that much again, and he hadn't had more than two drinks since.

So I was confused.

Why would he have gone out and gotten drunk?

What was going on with him?

That was red flag number two.

And he’d gone out with Blake.

I definitely didn’t have a good feeling about that.

Of course, he was unaware of how big of a mental case Blake actually was, but I didn’t trust him; especially not around my husband.

I wasn’t sure of everything that he was capable of just yet but knowing that he was capable of taking someone’s life was more than enough.

But Blake continued to show me just how smart he was.

He’d read me and known that something was wrong with me in just a matter of minutes.

I could see him analyzing me with his eyes as he looked at me to inspect my body language.

I was sure that there was plenty about him that he wasn’t telling me, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d had some kind of training in the field of psychology or something.

Which was only going to make my job harder if he had.

But Blake was the last person that I wanted to know about my failure and Mrs. Whiteside’s death.

He still believed that I was the best, and I wanted to keep it that way.

If I had any chance of saving him, he couldn’t find out that my therapy hadn't worked.

I became overwhelmed as I stared at Joel as he began to talk in his sleep.

Of all nights, this was the night that I needed him.

I needed him to comfort me, and to hold me.

Anything.

I couldn’t explain what I was feeling inside, but I knew that a drunk, passed out husband was useless.

I didn’t bother to try to wake him or question him.

Instead, I covered him with a blanket and curled up on the couch across from him.

I silently cried myself to sleep that night as I recalled sessions with Mrs. Whiteside and the conversation that we’d had the last time that I’d seen her.

What did I miss?

Where did I go wrong?

“Since when do you get drunk?” I asked Joel the next morning.

“Honestly, I only remember having one drink,” Joel managed to say as he puked.

“That must have been a hell of a drink.”

“I’m serious Hannah. I remember having one drink, and the next thing I remember was waking up, running to the toilet.”

“Why didn’t you let me know you were going out for drinks?”

“It was last minute.”

“Always let me know okay?”

I didn’t trust Blake.

Joel looked at me.

“Okay.”

“So, Blake said that you have something to celebrate. What was it?”

“Oh, well, someone resigned yesterday, from a top position. And Blake offered it to me.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“And you took it?”

“Of course, I did.”

“Don’t you think you we should have discussed it first?”

“For what?”

“Nothing. Congratulations.”

“Um huh, congratulate me tonight why don’t you,” Joel came on to me and threw me for a loop.

He laughed, and he headed to clean himself up.

I guess he was in one of his better moods, so I was just going to go with it.

Things hadn't been all bad, but they hadn't been all good either. And if he was going to be flirty and in the mood to fool around, I guess I could get in the mood too.

I cooked breakfast just as I did every Saturday morning, and I tried to be normal, but the death was still heavy on my mind and heart.

I wondered if I should mention the suicide to my husband but I had a feeling that it was going to lead to negativity.

He would criticize and say that all of my long hours at work were a waste and make the situation about our marriage and me working less, versus trying to console me.

I wasn’t in the mood for all of that, and I definitely didn’t feel like arguing with him.

I already felt bad enough.

I doubted my abilities. I was hurt because she was someone that I’d really come to know, and not to mention that I was also a little embarrassed.

I’d tooted my own horn loud enough for the whole world to hear, and I was concerned about what was going to happen to my reputation.

Maybe it was the wrong thing to be concerned about, but I would be lying if I said that it hadn't crossed my mind.

Being a psychologist was my passion, but it was also my job.

If patients stop believing me and my words, I would no longer have a job, and I just couldn’t imagine being anything else.

I wasn’t sure if her history of therapy was going to be announced whenever a story was provided on her death, whether on TV or in the paper but I was waiting to see what would be said and if my history of working with her would be mentioned.

I was already beating myself up about it, and I didn’t need anyone else to get in on the action, especially not the media.

I didn’t need the news to spread to my current patients.

What would happen to them if it did?

Shaking away my thoughts, I decided that I wasn’t going to mention it to Joel.

I would just figure out how to get through it on my own.

I briefly entertained my thoughts of Joel’s promotion and wondered what Blake was up to.