Page 25 of The Therapist
I push the bell again, hating that I’m here and that I feel the need to do this. I should never have agreed to take on Sandy as a client. I’ve never really worried so much about a client like this before. My concern over her is taking up way more than my regulation fifteen minutes every day after work.
I’ve had a few patients who were in domestic violence situations before but those were emotional and financial abuse situations and I managed to help those women build up enough strength to leave their marriages or to confront their husbands. And I was also absolutely certain those patients were telling the truth. Most of my patients are people just struggling with being in the world and those around them. Someone in actual physical danger is not something I have dealt with, even during my training.
The door opens, startling me from my thoughts.
‘Lana,’ says Mike.
‘Mike, I’m…’ Now that he is standing in front of me, I realise how silly this is. I have no idea who this man is or what he may be capable of. I should have just sent the police. ‘Sandy missed her appointment.’
‘Do you know where she is?’ he asks.
‘I was going to ask…’ I say, confused.
‘I don’t know where she is. She won’t answer her phone. Do you know where she is?’ he demands again.
Fear ripples through me. The man in front of me looks angry, and worried. Is it an act? Does he actually know where his wife is, and if so, what does that mean?
‘I don’t—’ I start to say and there is a huge clap of thunder.
‘Come in,’ says Mike, grabbing my arm and pulling me inside before I can move away, slamming the door behind me. My heart rate speeds up at the aggressive contact. I catch my breath. What on earth have I gotten myself into?
ELEVEN
Mike
The minute he has touched the woman, Mike regrets it. As the thunder booms across the sky and the hailstones hit his house, he and Lana stand in silence. He can read naked fear on her face. He should not have grabbed her but he only wanted her in and out of the weather. An urge to smack his own head rises up inside him. Why does he do things like this?
‘I don’t…’ she starts to say, clutching her black handbag tightly against her body as though it might be able to protect her.
‘Daddy, Daddy,’ shouts Lila, running towards him but stopping abruptly as soon as she sees Lana, her thumb automatically going into her mouth. She is carrying her teddy.
‘Who are you?’ she asks, removing her thumb from her mouth to ask the question.
‘I’m a friend of your mother’s,’ says Lana, and Mike can hear, in her voice, that seeing Lila has disarmed her a little. She smiles and Mike knows that she’s relieved a child is here because surely a man won’t hurt her with a child here. The world is filled with messed-up people, Mike wants to tell her.
‘Mummy’s having a day off and me and Felix is not allowed to go because she needs a rest,’ says Lila, parroting what he told them when he picked them up.
Lana looks from Lila to Mike, scepticism on her face.Yeah, I can’t believe it either,he would like to say.
Only hours ago, his whole world imploded.
At ten this morning, what was left of the company he worked for was given the news that it was over. Paul, his boss and someone he considered a friend, hadn’t given them any warning. He just called a staff meeting with everyone, including the factory staff, and told them that it was done.
‘I’ve been trying to renegotiate the bank loan for a couple of weeks now,’ he said, rubbing his eyes under his black-rimmed glasses so he didn’t have to look at his staff, ‘but they’ve told me that they can’t let it go on. They want their money and they’re calling in the auditors. I’m very sorry and I will use what I have left to pay all of you as much of your entitlements as I can. You can leave for the rest of the day, start getting your résumés in order. I will, of course, be giving you all excellent references. The factory will stop production immediately but the office staff need to stay for when the auditors come in.’ He had nodded his head as he spoke and Mike had felt his grief but beneath that he knew there was something else. It was relief. Paul was tired of trying to hold his company together in a dying market. Rising interest rates, rising grocery prices, a world in chaos – it was amazing that they managed to hang in as long as they did against cheaper, quicker competition. Once, the mattresses the company made had been in high demand from all the best stores. But for the past six months, Mike knows that people have been avoiding his calls – the mattresses are not worth buying because their retail price has to be so high.
When he was finished speaking, Paul looked around at all of them and then shrugged and turned and walked away. Therewas a moment of silence as the staff digested the news and then Paul’s office door closed and they all began speaking at once. Jeremy, who was in charge of everything IT, immediately pulled up as many jobseeker apps as he could and began applying. The factory staff left quickly to go to the pub and Mike went to Paul’s office and tried knocking on the door, wanting to offer some comfort, but Paul didn’t answer. Mike could imagine him sitting behind his large desk asking himself exactly what it was all for. He had sacrificed family time for decades, worked as many hours as he could to build up a business and just like that – it was gone.
Mike had known it was coming, but he had hoped, really hoped, that it wouldn’t happen. And his first thought had been about Sandy. She was going to be angry. He knew others in the office would be on their phones, speaking to their partners, gathering support and comfort, but he wouldn’t dare phone Sandy. He would get no comfort from her. He would get anger and aggression, blame and hysteria. And he couldn’t deal with it.
He had stared out of his small office window at the heavy grey sky and thought about when things were different, about meeting his wife for the first time.
Eight and a half years ago, he met Sandy at a sales seminar Paul sent him to. Sandy had just begun working in a department store and she was there with a few other young salespeople. Mike arrived late and took the first seat he could find, next to Sandy, only looking at her when the guy giving the talk told them to turn to the person sitting next to them and sum up their jobs in a few words that didn’t include ‘sales’.
‘Making women beautiful,’ said Sandy to him, and he grinned, suppressing the urge to tell the petite woman that she was beautiful, absolutely beautiful. His whole body wanted to touch her immediately.
‘The best night’s sleep,’ he replied and she smiled, her perfect teeth and soft bronze lips making his heart flip.
‘Can I take you for a drink?’ he asked as the talk resumed.
