Page 8 of For Her Own Good

It wasn’t. I mean, I do have a patient who I think could benefit immensely from Starla’s particular services, that wasn’t a lie. I wouldn’t do that to Starla. She sounded so innocently pleased that I would refer someone to her, but honestly, how could I not? I looked around her website, read the testimonials, and it surprises me not at all that she’s excellent at what she’s chosen to do. There was never any doubt in my mind about her intelligence or drive, only whether she could manage her depression well enough to let the rest of her shine. And it seems she’s been able to. I couldn’t be prouder.

I’d been pacing my office while talking to her, and now I drop into one of my office chairs. My desk looks odd from this angle since I never sit over here. Mostly my patients don’t either. We’re usually in the sitting area, which is more comfortable. It’s a different office than the one I had before, when Starla was my patient, but the things I have in here—my books, my diplomas, the photographs I took on a trip to the Isle of Skye—they’re all the same.

My office phone rests in my hand and I fiddle with it.

If she hung up on me, does that mean she doesn’t want to talk to me? Or does she want to talk to me but doesn’t think she should? You’d think spending ten years studying psychiatry and figuring out how the human mind works would prepare one for dealing with real people. That’s less true than I would’ve hoped.

When she was a girl, on her good days, Starla wasn’t great about hiding how she felt about me. I’d known she had a bit of a crush. Which, honestly, was to be expected. I was young, she trusted me, I talked to her like she was a responsible and intelligent person—because she was—and I like to think I helped her. It’s not at all unusual for patients to develop crushes on their therapists.

These days, getting a read on her is more complicated. She seems to want to gouge my eyes out with whatever might be handy, but I could swear there’s something else there as well. Maybe nothing more than a residual curiosity or fondness from all those years ago. But if I’m not completely deluding myself that she could be interested in a man eighteen years her senior—my God, I’m a fossil—then possibly more than that. Of course, for all I know, she could be in a serious relationship. Although anyone she might be dating wasn’t mentioned in the press recently, and I’d guess she would’ve volunteered that on the plane and didn’t. Maybe not, though, in her fury.

What do I care if she’s got a boyfriend, anyhow? Or a girlfriend? Or whomever? It’s not as though I’d be asking her on a date. Any romantic interest I may or may not have in her is not why I’d like to have dinner with her. Entirely. But I would like to know that she’s safe. Happy. Satisfied. Is that really so bad?

Yes, Lowry, you git. That is bad. She was your patient. You shouldn’t be asking her to dinner, even fifteen years later. She has every right to want your head on a stake, your balls on a platter, and your entrails roasting over an open flame.

Given that, I shouldn’t be doing anything with the phone in my hand other than returning it to its cradle on my desk. And yet, my fingers seem to be connected to a far more animal part of my brain, the part that would like to talk more to the beautiful, sharp, and challenging woman. The part that had been stewing in the back of my mind, putting these ideas in my head about, how, perhaps after I’d been in town for a bit, I could casually ask one of my former colleagues about her. And…I don’t know. Is there a good way to run into your former patient on purpose? I’m fairly certain that’s called stalking. So, though the urge is there, I won’t act on it. I’ll give her an opportunity to turn me down and then that will be that. One more phone call and then I’ll force myself to stop, because if anyone deserves peace, it’s Starla.

Before I can think better of it, I press redial because even having to press each of the digits would give me time to think better of this. Even though I know it’s a terrible idea and anyone would tell me so, I don’twantto be talked out of it. Because I’m terrible. Or human. Perhaps there’s more overlap in that Venn diagram than I’d like to think, particularly when it comes to myself. Saint Lowry, my brothers used to call me. If they could see me now…

“Hi, this is Starla.”

“Starla, this is—”

“Did you forget something, Doctor Campbell?”

Ach, the archness in her tone makes my balls ache.Not good, Campbell. Not good at all.

“Ah, no.”

Forget? No. Not exactly. Wasn’t given a chance to make any kind of chitchat that might’ve more naturally led up to this invitation? Yes.

“Then you’re calling because…?”

“Because that last call was purely professional.”

There’s a pause, and I check my phone screen to make sure she hasn’t hung up on me again. But no, the connection is still live.

“And what’s this one?”

“Well, I…I’m new in town, and—”

“You’re not new. You went to med school and did your residency and fellowship here, in addition to practicing here for four years after that. That’s sixteen years, if I'm not mistaken. You’ve been gone a long time, but you’re not new. I’m sure you’ve kept in touch with friends and colleagues and old classmates who are happy you’re back and would like to spend time with you, so don’t give me that.”

I hadn’t realized she’d paid any attention to where I’d gone to school or done my residency, though all that’s true. I ought to have come up with a better excuse. Though given that much time, I might’ve come to my senses and decided not to call her at all, and I like the sound of her voice in my ear—rimy though it may be. So, continued fumbling will have to do. “Okay, that’s true, but I don’t know the hot spots these days. Half my haunts are probably closed.”

“And that’s my problem because?”

Ice cold. Well, I do deserve an icicle through the heart for having left when and how I did. I saw her through the acute, inpatient time after that unfortunate episode but when I wasn’t tending to her and my other patients during her stay, I was doing my utmost to find other employ and it didn’t take long to succeed. Then I was gone, without a word of warning to Starla because I couldn’t stomach it. Left Lacey to do it, which was a—what do the kids say, a dick move? That, definitely that. Since dissembling isn’t going to work, perhaps I could try honesty? Churns my gut, but what have I got to lose? Nothing, as far as I can tell, since that’s what I have right now.

“It’s not, at all. I am in no way your responsibility and you are in no way, shape, or form obligated to me. If you say so, I will never have any communications with you outside of a professional context if this referral works out, and I swear to keep those to a minimum. But…”

But what? What am I doing? Why am I rebelling against every professional bone in my body to speak with her? What do I have to offer?

“But I’ve thought of you often since I left. And I would like it very much if you would have dinner or coffee with me and tell me about your life now. From what I’ve seen, you’re flourishing, and I’m so glad for it. Selfishly, I’d like to know more. And this is wildly unprofessional to say, but I always enjoyed talking to you. So, what do you say?”

It’s done then. I have shot my shot and it’s no longer up to me. It’s been a while since I asked a woman on a date and despite not being a date, this—whatever “this” is—is even more fraught than that ever was. I don’t remember being breathless after I’d asked Maeve out after the cocktail party where we’d been introduced. But this isn’t the same as that at all, now is it? This wouldn’t be a date, nor would it be a therapy session. Uncharted territory for both of us. I don’t actually have a word for what Starla Patrick is to me, nor do I have a word for what she ever was to me, which quickly became more than an average patient.

Which is perhaps why I feel like I’ve had an artery severed when she says no and hangs up. Again.

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