Page 27 of The Therapist
‘That looks like a lovely teddy,’ says Lana, dragging him back to the here and now as thunder rumbles across the sky and the rain falls.
‘Lila, your snack is in the kitchen. Can you go and eat it please?’
His daughter looks him up and down and he can see she senses that he wants her away from this conversation.
‘Can I watchBlueyon my iPad?’ she asks, knowing now is a good time to push for what she wants.
Mike sighs. ‘Clear boundaries and rules,’ Sandy likes to say but there are no rules for this situation.
‘Yes, and tell Felix he can use his iPad as well.’ Lila runs off shouting the joyous news to her brother. He had already said no to this in the car because the iPads are supposed to be for later when he needs them to calm down and get ready for bed. No wonder the kids don’t listen to him.
‘Come into the living room,’ Mike says to Lana, but she remains at the front door.
‘I think it would be best if I left.’ Now that Lila is gone, she’s jittery again. Mike hates the way she is looking at him.
‘I’m not going to hurt you,’ he says through gritted teeth. ‘Just come into the living room and I can explain. My kids are here. What am I going to do to you with my kids here?’
Lana nods slowly and he turns and walks down the passage and into the living room, where he is momentarily embarrassed by the chaos of dirty plates and toys on the floor, a basket full of clean laundry on the coffee table and a heap of coloured blankets draped over a chair from where Felix was making a fort last night.
After mostly avoiding each other, he and Sandy really got into it yesterday. Things got ugly enough for her to storm upstairs and slam their bedroom door, leaving the chaos of the living room for him to sort out. He opened a couple of beers instead.
Usually, Sandy cleans up. She’s home all day, and she likes things to be neat. He dropped the kids off this morning and she was here but she obviously left the house before tidying up. How long has she been gone?
‘Sorry,’ he says, waving his hand to indicate the mess, ‘I’ve been at work, the company’s gone bankrupt and it’s been…’ He stops speaking, aware that Lana is still hugging her handbag to her chest. He doesn’t know why he has shared this information with the therapist. Sandy doesn’t even know. Where the hell isSandy? He needs to check the garage, see if her car’s in there, but first he needs to deal with Lana.
‘I shouldn’t have come here, it’s very… I was just worried about Sandy because she missed her appointment,’ she says, speaking fast. ‘I’ll go and leave you.’ She starts to walk towards the front door, and for the second time, he grabs her arm.
‘Look,’ he says urgently as she shakes him off, shocked at the contact. ‘I don’t know where she is. She didn’t pick the kids up from school. They were supposed to be fetched early today and she didn’t get them and she wouldn’t answer her phone when the school called or when I called.’
Lana stares at him and Mike can see the woman’s mind turning. ‘I tried to call her as well.’
‘She may be…taking some time for herself,’ he says, the memory of the terrible argument they had yesterday making him feel slightly sick.
When the kids were babies, he and Sandy had an agreement that each of them got to sleep in one day of the weekend. On Saturday morning he got up and took the kids to the park because for once, it wasn’t raining. It was cold and unpleasant and boring but he had consoled himself with the idea that he would get to sleep in on Sunday. But on Saturday night, Sandy went to meet some girlfriends for drinks and left him with the kids, coming home after 1 a.m. Mike had consumed a fair few beers himself so when Felix burst into their bedroom on Sunday morning, he simply turned over and ignored him, knowing it was Sandy’s turn to get up.
But Sandy also ignored the kid and so Lila and Felix set themselves up in their bedroom, playing some nonsense Lego game, their voices loud and piercing until Mike roared at them to go downstairs. Sandy got up and stomped downstairs and Mike stayed in bed, wide awake. And then he got up and got dressed and left, staying away for the whole day. He only came home tochange clothes and tell her he was meeting Ron for a drink. And that’s when she exploded.
It was the first time they had really spoken since the therapist appointment and he would hardly call it a conversation.
The kids were, mercifully, upstairs. Sandy went nuts, throwing everything he had ever screwed up on throughout their entire relationship at him. And he replied in kind and then everything got crazy.
Mike knows, from looking at the therapist, that there is no way he will share any of this with her.
‘Have you reported her missing to the police?’ asks Lana, and Mike can hear her scepticism.
‘Not yet. Don’t you need someone to be missing for twenty-four hours before you do that?’
‘Um…no, but I do know you have to do it in person.’
‘Well, I can’t do that now. I have to feed the kids and get them to sleep. I can’t go now.’ Mike folds his arms, wondering exactly what the therapist hoped to achieve by turning up here. It’s a strange thing to do. Therapists don’t make house calls. Maybe Sandy told her to come? Does she know something about where Sandy is?
‘Have you heard from her at all since last week?’ he tries, in case the therapist is lying to him.
‘No…not at all. I can go and report her missing. I have to get my son but I can go afterwards.’
Mike had not expected this but then he hadn’t expected his whole awful day. Why is she so keen to involve the police already?
‘No,’ he says. ‘I’ll do it tomorrow. We had… Things haven’t been easy since our appointment with you. Maybe she just needed some time away.’ He can imagine Sandy doing something like checking herself into a hotel for the night, ordering room service and leaving him to deal with everything.After last week, he can see that’s probably exactly what she has done. He will check the banking app after the therapist leaves, after he checks to see if her car is here, and then he has to figure out dinner and… His mind whirls.
