The Patient Read online

  She carried so much already. I couldn’t add one more thing.

  “Nothing,” I said. I hugged her again so she couldn’t see the lie on my face. “It just means a lot that you would do this for me.”

  She measured me then. Measured my words, my voice, the look on my face.

  I must have passed, because she looked at her watch and frowned.

  “Why are you up? I thought maybe you’d fallen asleep on the couch again and that’s why your kitchen light was on.”

  “I couldn’t sleep. Rather than toss and turn, I tried to make that cheesecake I promised.”

  Her eyes lit up.

  “Don’t get too excited. I should have tossed and turned.” I told her about the salt replacing the sugar and cottage cheese instead of sour cream, which had her laughing.

  “Laugh all you want. But my kitchen was a mess, and I’m done making cheesecake.”

  “You seriously need to go to bed. Didn’t you take anything to help you sleep?” She led me to the door and opened it.

  “You know I don’t like pills.” I stifled a yawn behind my hand as I walked in.

  “So you prefer to not sleep? Come on, Dee. Suck it up. Your body needs rest—you know that. The bags under your eyes are ridiculous, and you’ll be no good to your patients soon.”

  She rummaged around in her purse and pulled out a small box.

  “Listen, I bought these. It’s an over-the-counter sleeping pill, full of melatonin.” She tossed me the box before she pulled out a cup and filled it with water.

  “You’re supposed to open it,” she said.

  I tore the box open, pulled out the bottle, and looked it over. She was probably right, and one wouldn’t hurt. Savannah wasn’t due to come in until the afternoon, so if I went to sleep right away, maybe I’d be able to sleep in.

  “I’m not leaving until you’re in bed.” She watched me swallow the pill and then marched me into my bedroom.

  She waited until I was in bed, covers tucked around me, before she sat down.

  “Can you reschedule your session tomorrow?”

  I shook my head. “It’s Savannah. Her uncle is supposed to join us tomorrow, so I’d rather not. But she’s not in until two in the afternoon, so I promise I’ll get a lot of sleep.”

  “Turn your phone off.” She reminded me of my mom when she’d catch me reading late into the night.

  “Why don’t I text you when I’m awake, okay?” I suggested, the smile in my voice contagious.

  “I’m just worried about you, Dee. Someone needs to take care of the caretaker, you know.” She rubbed my leg.

  “Thank you for taking care of me. I really appreciate it.” I stifled another yawn and closed my eyes as she turned off the light and shut my bedroom door.

  It felt good to be looked after, to be taken care of.

  For the first time in days, I actually felt safe enough to fall asleep.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 21

  PATIENT SESSION: SAVANNAH

  Tick. Tick. Tick.

  Savannah had been in my office for fifteen minutes, and we’d hardly said two words to each other.

  Her uncle was supposed to show up, and he was late.

  She’d called, texted, left messages, but gotten no response.

  We both looked at the clock at the same time.

  “He’s going to be here.”

  I looked down at the notes I’d written after Savannah arrived.

  She was full goth today. Black ripped jeans. Black tank top. Wide black cuff on her left wrist. Black lipstick, thick eyeliner, mascara, and nail polish.

  Such a dramatic change in just one week.

  “Have you heard from your parents?”

  The scowl on her face deepened as she leaned against the couch, her feet up on the coffee table. She knew I hated her boots on my furniture.

  She picked at the threads of the holes in her jeans and didn’t answer.

  “Savannah?” I asked, my tone sharp as barbed wire. I wasn’t in the mood for nonsense today. Despite sleeping until around one in the afternoon, I had woken up groggy and irritable.

  “They’ve called. Talked to my uncle. Not me.” Sullen. Hostile. Brooding. Everything I didn’t want to deal with today.

  “Your choice? Your uncle’s or your parents’?”

  “Mine.”

  Avoiding her parents, I wrote.

  “I didn’t want to talk to them, okay? I don’t care if they’re having the best vacation ever or that they saw dolphins and had sex in the sand.”

  I smothered a laugh as best I could. “I doubt they said they’d had sex in the sand.”

  “I have no idea. I didn’t talk to them.”

  “It sounds like you might be a little upset they didn’t take you on their trip.”

  “I wouldn’t want to go on a shitty trip to some shitty beach where there’s nothing to do but snorkel with the shitty fish.” She slouched even more on my couch.

  I raised one brow at her choice of words.

  “Sure sounds like a shitty trip to me,” I said, tongue in cheek.

  I caught the slight turn of her lips before she noticed I was looking.

  “I wish my uncle would hurry up.” She continued to play with the threads on her knee, picking away at them little by little until the hole grew in size.

  “How are things going with him? Has it been as awesome as you expected?” By her attire, I would say no.

  She shrugged.

  “Have you done any exciting things yet?” They must have had their pizza party and movie night at least.

  She shrugged again.

  “Savannah? How about we use our words. I’m not that great at shrug reading.”

  “We’ve done stuff.” Her voice was soft. “We’ve watched a few movies.”

  “Anything planned coming up?”

  She shook her head. “He said we would go camping, but it seems like he just wants to stay home and play house.”

  I perked up at that, not liking what I heard.

  Play house? That was an odd choice of words to use.

  “How do you feel about that?” I kept my words steady, slow, but my tone light.

  “Whatever. It’s fine. Like I said, we watch a lot of movies, and he doesn’t bug me about sleeping in like my mom does.”

  I pushed away my initial concerns for the time being and snickered. I couldn’t help it. “It must be a mom thing, because mine used to do the same thing. She used to get up at the crack of dawn, and sleeping in was eight a.m. to her.”

  Her eyes lit up in surprise.

  “Having a hard time thinking of me as a teenager?” I moved my pen on the paper as if I were writing something down.

  “It’s hard to think of any grown-up as a teenager, you know?” Savannah planted her feet on the floor and sat up a little straighter. “My uncle, he treats me like an adult. Like you do, but different.”

  “Different, how?”

  She played with her bangs, twirling a piece in her fingers until it was a tight coil. “Like I’m a grown-up, can handle things that grown-ups do. Doesn’t treat me like a kid who doesn’t understand things. He asks for my opinion and talks to me like I’m not a little kid.”

  “That must feel nice.” I tried to remain positive, to not allow my thoughts to twist to the darker side of what her words suggested.

  “It is. He . . . he says he loves me and sees me for who I am inside, that he isn’t trying to mold me into someone I’m not, because he sees the real me.”

  My body stilled, like a rabbit caught in the glare of headlights. My heart raced, but I only nodded. I didn’t like what I heard.

  “Is he respecting you?” I had to ask. It was my duty as her therapist, as a friend.

  “Isn’t respect the same as showing love?” She sounded like a little girl, a small child, her voice quiet, soft, and uncertain.

  This was a pivotal moment between us, and I had only one chance at saying what she needed to hear before
her defenses rose higher than the Berlin Wall.

  “Savannah, I’ll be as plain as I can. If he is touching you in a way that is inappropriate, that is not love or respect. That’s abuse because, for one, he’s your uncle—let alone the fact that you are underage, and he knows better.” I gripped the pen in my hand tighter.

  Sexual abuse by uncle? The tip of my pen left indents in the paper. If she’d been hurt . . .

  “Underage? I’m seventeen.”

  “You’re still a minor. And he is your uncle.” I tried to place every single emotion in how I gripped my pen.

  “He’s the only one who truly loves me. He wouldn’t hurt me or disrespect me like that. I thought . . . I thought you meant something else.” She rubbed her hands down her legs before replacing them in her lap.

  Something else? She was a smart girl. She knew exactly what I meant.

  “Savannah. I’m worried about you.”

  “Why?”

  I motioned to her clothes. “On the scale, your clothing tells me something’s wrong. You’re distant, evasive, and everything you’re saying via your body and your words tells me that something’s off. I’ve got a soft spot in my heart for you, and I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

  The obvious tension in her eyes eased, her shoulders relaxed, and it took a moment or two, but a gentle smile appeared on her face.

  “Thank you,” she said, her voice a sweet whisper. “I’m okay, though. I promise.”

  If she expected me to believe her, she was going to be disappointed. I wasn’t about to be played.

  “I think you’re as far from okay as you’ve been in a long time.”

  I was trying to figure out what was going on with her.

  Was she disappointed about not speaking to her parents?

  Was life with her uncle not as amazing as she’d thought it would be?

  Was he hurting her?

  Was it something else?

  “I wish he’d hurry up.” She looked at her phone. “He promised he would. He just had to run an errand first. Then we were going to go to the library.”

  It was now half past the hour.

  “You are still spending a lot of time at the library?”

  She blinked—once, twice, three times. A mask settled over her face each time she lowered her lashes. It was fascinating to watch. Disturbing at the same time. Why the need to hide?

  “Did you know there are books detailing how to kill people? Not just about the mind-set of serial killers, but step-by-step instructions on how to re-create their murders. It’s fascinating. I’ve made a list even.”

  “I’m s-sorry,” I sputtered. “You’ve made a list of ways to kill people?”

  “Yeah? It’s just research. It’s not as easy as you’d think it would be.”

  “I’m sorry?” Research?

  Her face was a clean whiteboard, every emotional tick gone.

  “Savannah.”

  “What?” The venom wrapped in that one word settled into the open sore of worry that grew larger each minute we sat there. “God, you’re so dense. Fine. Would it make you feel better if I said it’s research for a horror novel I’m thinking of writing?”

  I rubbed at the wrinkle lines on my forehead. “It would make me feel better if it was the truth.”

  “Fine. It’s the truth.”

  I wanted to believe her. I really did. But this was the first I’d ever heard her speak about what she’d like to do in the future and the first she’d spoken of the future without adding her parents to the discussion.

  If it was true, it was a good sign. And being a writer, well, who wouldn’t want to be able to write books?

  “If that’s your reason for all this research, I think that’s great.”

  “Oh, that’s not the only reason. But you know that already.” She held the sly look of a teenager who carried secrets she thought adults too stupid to understand. “My uncle is interested in all this too. He thinks the recent murders in Cheshire are fascinating.”

  Fascinating? More like deranged and despicable. Foul. Not fascinating.

  “I can’t wait to meet this uncle of yours.”

  Her eyes shifted from me to the door, then to the floor.

  “Is he even coming, Savannah?”

  She refused to look me in the eyes, which basically answered my question.

  Mentally I counted to five. Measuring each number with a slow breath. One. My chest expanded. Two. My fingers relaxed. Three. My muscles unwound. Four. I slowly let out the breath, releasing the frustration along with it. Five. I felt a little . . . calmer.

  “I’m sure he’s coming.” She cleared her throat. “He said he just had an errand to run and would be back in time . . .” Her cheeks bloomed with a pink blush.

  “In time to pick you up after our session—is that what you were going to say?” I didn’t hide my disappointment. “If he didn’t want to come, being up-front about it would have been appreciated.”

  I was keener now on meeting this man than before. If he loved Savannah so much, if he was concerned about her well-being, why wouldn’t he be here?

  The thought of her being hurt in any way had my toes flexing and my nostrils flaring.

  “You’re upset.” Savannah sounded surprised.

  I decided to be honest about it and nodded.

  “Why?”

  “Why?” She really didn’t understand, did she? “Savannah, I could say it’s about disrespect, I could say that I don’t see the love you speak of coming from him, especially if he wasn’t willing to come, something both your parents have done time and time again.” I wanted to point out that difference. Her parents were here every time I requested their presence, no questions asked.

  “But if I were to be honest, I’m upset because him not showing up tells me something is going on, that something is off, and like I said before, I’m worried about you.”

  That wall I knew she’d throw up rose higher and higher. Nothing I said or did mattered now.

  I leaned forward and took her hand in mine.

  “I care about you, and I just want you to be okay.” It didn’t matter how many times I had to say this. I’d continue to repeat it until she believed me.

  “Not happy?” Sarcasm seemed to be her second language.

  No. Not happy. That wasn’t something I could help her be.

  “Happiness is a choice, Savannah. Whether you are happy or not depends on you. As much as I would wish you were happy, I’d rather you be safe, strong, secure. You alone are responsible for your own happiness, no one else.”

  I could see that surprised her. What had she expected me to say?

  “No one says they want me to be okay. Just that they want me to be happy. They’ll do anything to make me happy.” Her eyes shone bright with defiance. “What the fuck do they know about happy?”

  “Who says they want you to be happy?”

  “Everyone. My parents. My uncle. Every fucking person who says they love me.”

  This whole conversation reminded me of being on a crazy roller coaster with no end in sight.

  I needed to bring us back around to the different things that had been said and revealed today.

  “How does that make you feel?” Yes, this was a cop-out on my part, but I needed time to put it all together without there being any awkwardness.

  “God, you and your feeling crap.” The words burst out of Savannah with the same speed that had her jumping up from her seat and heading to the window.

  Why did my patients always go to that window?

  “Can I just leave now? I don’t even know why I came. I should have just called and said, Screw it, see you next week.” Her long and lean figure rested against the window ledge.

  “I’m not keeping you here, Savannah. You’re free to leave whenever you’d like.” I wasn’t surprised by her reaction. In previous sessions when we’d started to encroach upon subjects she wasn’t comfortable with, she’d had the same reaction.

  I’d offered the sam
e response.

  She’d never left. She’d remained sullen and broody, but in the end, she’d returned to the couch, and we’d picked up our conversation.

  I wasn’t worried.

  “Whatever.” Her eyelids shuttered, her focus turned downward, and she headed toward the couch.

  Then she walked straight past it to the door.

  “I don’t need this shit. I’ll wait for my uncle outside.”

  Before I could get a word out, she left.

  I wanted to shout for her to come back.

  I wanted to follow her and force her to stop.

  I wanted to make her stay and talk to me. Really talk to me.

  To make sure she was okay.

  To make sure her parents were okay. That her uncle was okay. That okay meant not being sexually abused or encouraged to murder family members.

  But everything I wanted to do cemented me to my seat, and in the end, I did nothing.

  All because when she opened the door, I noticed another note on the floor.

  A note with bright-red words.

  More people are going to die.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  MEMORY

  The silence in the kitchen kills me. It’s full of every hurtful, hateful, harmful emotion that’s circled our family for years. I want to throw my glass on the floor or, better yet, across the table at my father just so he will look at me, pay me some attention.

  God, I’m pitiful.

  But it would serve him right if it hit him in the eye.

  I twist the cup in my hand, then tip it, first one way, then the other, seeing how far I can go before the water spills out onto the table.

  “Oh for God’s sake, child, stop playing with your cup. You’ll make a mess.” Mom, her voice laced with exhaustion and frustration, grabs the cup from my hand. The glass tumbles to the floor, spilling water every which way.

  “Clean it up,” my father dictates from his seat. He’s the benevolent head of the table, imparting his orders with a cold voice.

  Where has the warmth gone? What about the love? I can’t remember the last time he kissed me hello or good night. Tucked me into bed or even opened my door to make sure I was in bed. Before Uncle moved in, probably.