Page 26 of The Therapist
Sandy smiled again and touched him lightly on his leg. It was that fast, that instant, for him at least. They got married six months later when they found out she was pregnant, and had Felix eight months after that. They should have dated longer, should have seen each other through good and bad, but they didn’t and now they are here, where most discussions, regardless of how simple they are, degenerate into vicious arguments. He wanted a baby and she didn’t. But it didn’t take much to convince her that they would be amazing parents and that they would have an amazing life. Mike wanted a family where violence wasn’t the way of life, and creating his own family seemed like a way to do that. At the time he told her that working in the mattress factory was a stepping stone, that he had ambitions to own the company one day and that Paul was likely to sell to him sooner rather than later. Things were good then and the world was a different place. Mike is a salesman and he used to be good at selling himself. All the things he promised Sandy, like a big house and an expensive car and trips overseas, have not eventuated. He knows she has buyer’s remorse in the worst way but somehow, they are still together.
Things between them have been so tense since the appointment with the therapist. Although tense is probably an understatement. Something shimmers in the air between him and Sandy now, something…dangerous.
This morning, looking at his résumé, Mike knew that it was going to be difficult to get another job that paid him what he needed. He’s only worked in two companies and both of them have gone bankrupt – both due to circumstances beyond Mike’s control but any employer would have to question hissales ability. He had assumed that there was no way his day or, indeed, his life could get any worse.
Looking at the woman standing in his hallway, the whole debacle of an appointment comes rushing back to him. He thought that the appointment would be a neutral chat, just the three of them figuring out a plan to help Sandy feel better and to help the two of them do better at being married. Sandy had called them dysfunctional and he knew they were, but he also knew that a lot of their dysfunction came from her disappointment at how her life had turned out. He wasn’t blameless but mostly, he only wanted a quiet life. In his mind, once he agreed to go despite really hating the idea, he hoped that he could find a way to address this in front of the therapist. He could never have imagined that Sandy would talk about the violence between them, about what happens when they argue and things get out of control. That was supposed to be a secret they both kept from the world. But after Sandy’s accusations, his whole life feels like a lie because she lied.
He’s not the one who hurts her.
The night after the appointment, he remembers getting as drunk as he possibly could and falling asleep on the sofa. And then, some time after midnight, he woke up and dragged himself to the bedroom, standing next to the bed and staring down at his wife.
‘What do you want?’ she asked him.
He doesn’t remember much after that. Only that he woke up feeling like shit the next day. And things have only gotten worse from there.
They have barely spoken over the last week. It’s been easier to avoid her so that an argument can’t even begin. Two nights ago, he had walked into the bathroom, not knowing she was getting out of the shower, and she had been startled, jumping and wrapping the towel tightly around herself.
‘Sorry,’ he said.
‘You’re not sorry; you did that on purpose,’ she snapped, grasping the peach-coloured towel closer to her body.
‘I didn’t– I was looking for…’ Words failed him as he actually forgot why he had come into the bathroom. They have been married for close to eight years but he can still remember when him walking into the bathroom when she was showering was a prelude to sex, when she couldn’t stop touching him and he thought about her all day.
‘You’re pathetic,’ she spat at him, disgust on her face, and he felt his fists clench. ‘Go on, hit me,’ she taunted and he had raised his hand but then deliberately lowered it.
‘I don’t know what’s wrong with you,’ he said, turning and leaving.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ she shouted after him. She hates him. It’s obvious she hates him. Does he hate her? Maybe.
The two of them are so toxic now, so bad for each other and for the kids. But he still went along to the appointment hoping that something, that anything could change.
In his office this morning, he had scrolled through job ads as phones began to ring – customers who had, somehow, already heard the news. He had given up on looking for a job quite quickly, knowing that he had a long road ahead of him. He knew Paul was obviously waiting for everyone to leave and he saw no point in waiting so he grabbed his suit jacket and decided on a few drinks in the pub before he went home to confront his wife with the news.
But at 2.30 p.m. his phone rang, and he answered when he saw it was a call from the kids’ school.
‘Mr Burkhart?’ enquired a woman’s voice.
‘Yes.’
‘This is Janet from the front office. Your wife hasn’t picked the children up from school and she’s not answering her phone.’
‘What?’
‘School ended for Felix and Lila at two today because we have some staff training. An email was sent along with text messages to all carers’ phones.’
‘I don’t know anything about that.’
He never reads the messages from the school. That is Sandy’s job. Her only job, despite how much they need the money that her working would add to their lives.
‘I understand, sir, but the children need to be picked up.’ The woman’s voice was smooth and clipped and he could hear her judgement over the phone. She was calling him and Sandy shitty parents without calling them shitty parents.
Mike wanted to fling the phone across the bar. ‘I’ll call her and make sure she comes to get them,’ he said and he hung up before the woman could say anything else and called his wife. Sandy didn’t answer her phone.
He paid for his last beer and went to his car, calling Sandy over and again, leaving voice messages about the kids needing to be picked up.
‘What the hell is wrong with you?’ he yelled into the phone as he arrived at the school and it started to rain.
And now they are home and his wife has still not picked up.
