Page 48 of The Therapist
‘Mum,’ he interrupts, ‘you said Sandy called you on Monday?’ He can only assume that since the therapy appointment with Lana was in the morning, it was after the debacle of a session where he walked out.
‘Yes, and you know I was very surprised, sweetheart, but I was even more bothered by what she had to say.’ His mother does this when there is something she is afraid of saying. He knows this from his childhood, when she had to give his father bad news about a plumbing bill or about something he’d done wrong at school or anything else that might set the man off. She dances around uncomfortable subjects, afraid to put a foot wrong because she knows what happens if she does.
She takes a deep breath. ‘I’ve thought about this for days, Mike. And I never wanted to say anything.’
‘Mum, please,’ Mike pleads.
‘Well, she said that she wanted me to talk to you because you were starting to behave like your father and she was worried that the kids were going to get hurt and I asked her… I mean I hardly knew what to say but I had to ask her so I did, I asked her if she ever got hurt and she told me that?—’
‘Mum…Mum.’ Mike is not going to listen to this. ‘Anything she said is a lie. You know me. I wouldn’t hurt her or the kids,you know that.’ He raises his voice as he picks up the half-full bottle of beer and paces around the kitchen, feeling its weight in his hand. He thinks he can actually see red, actually see the colour red in front of his eyes as rage fills him up, and he lifts the bottle to chuck it against the wall, only stopping because he knows the noise will bring the kids downstairs.That lying, lying bitch.
Why include his mother? Why upset his mother?
‘Please don’t be angry at me, Mike. I didn’t want to say anything but I can’t stop thinking about it and I had to know. But I do know you and I know you wouldn’t hurt those babies, or her.’ His mother’s voice is filled with desperation. She cannot have a son who is abusing his family and Mike knows that.
Taking a deep breath, he speaks slowly and carefully so that he does not give in to the rage. It’s rapidly being replaced with shame anyway, shame that anyone, especially his mother, could believe this about him. But she’s not the only one, of course. Lana and probably the guy who treated Sandy before that and now the police believe the same thing and there is nothing Mike can do about it because even his picture evidence means nothing. ‘I have never and would never hurt my family. I promise you that. Sandy is…I don’t think she’s right in the head at the moment. She’s behaving very strangely and I am trying to get her help, but you can’t believe anything she says.’
‘Oh, darling,’ says his mother and he can hear the relief in her voice, ‘why didn’t you tell me? I would have come to stay and help– you know you can call me. Shall I come? I could set off tomorrow.’
Mike finds his eyes filling with tears and his shame intensifies at his weakness. ‘No…no, it’s fine, really, everything is fine. Everything will be fine, don’t worry.’ Things would be easier with his mother here, but would he be able to tell her to leave his father at home? Would she agree to that? And doeshe want her to see what’s going on here, to know that Sandy is actually missing, or that the police and her therapist think she’s missing because he did something to her? No, he doesn’t want that. He can’t deal with having to explain this to anyone else right now. ‘Things are all right, I promise,’ he says.
‘Okay…okay, you call me anytime, anytime at all, and tell Sandy she can do the same.’
‘I will, but I need to go now, Felix is calling me.’
‘Of course, of course, you kiss those babies for me and I’m here for whatever you need.’
‘Thanks, Mum, love you.’
‘Love you too.’
Mike ends the call and sits down in the silent kitchen in the silent house. Sandy must hate him very much. Her hatred is gorge-deep and filled with anger. Why would she have done that to his mother? How could she have done that? Sandy would have known how devastated his mother would be to hear that about her son. It was an incredibly callous and cruel thing to do. But it shouldn’t surprise him.
He finishes the beer, opens another one, drinks half of that and then he listens to the message from the detective again.
Screw it, he thinks, tapping on his phone to return the call. The man won’t be at work but it doesn’t matter.
‘You’ve reached the message bank of Detective Nathan Franks. If this is an emergency, please hang up and call triple zero, otherwise leave a message at the beep.’
‘Yeah hi, I mean, hello, this is Mike Burkhart, my wife is… You called me about my wife, Sandy. I’m just returning your call.’
There are a thousand other things he could say but he hangs up and then he goes upstairs and checks on his sleeping children before he puts himself to sleep with beer. He dreams of hishands around his wife’s neck, of strangling the breath out of her pretty body.
He thinks about her forgetting the insurance policies and about the lies she told her therapist and he wonders if, perhaps, Sandy is, as he told his mother, not right in the head, if something is actually going on with her. Has she had a breakdown and disappeared or has she disappeared on purpose to drive him crazy and to make his life miserable? If something is wrong with her, he would be able to find some sympathy for her, but if she is doing this with intent, if she knows what’s going to happen to him because of it, then he needs to know why she has done it. And he also needs to know what else she has planned. What exactly is Sandy hoping to achieve by disappearing, and what does that mean for him?
TWENTY
TUESDAY NIGHT
Lana
It’s after 4.30 p.m. and I find myself too wired to sit down. Dinner just needs to be warmed up and I’ve already put on a load of laundry, and I contemplate a glass of wine but I know that’s a bad idea. I pace around my small kitchen, opening the fridge and searching in the pantry for something that will make me feel better. But there’s nothing I want. My hand goes to the wrist where Mike grabbed me and I touch it, still feeling some sensation of his hand around it, of the strength the man has.
But Sandy is fine, that’s what the detective said. So how come Mike didn’t know that? How come Sandy hadn’t contacted him to tell him she was fine? Why would he come to my office if she had? The questions keep coming up as I try to understand exactly what’s going on here.
And suddenly I cannot stay in the house any longer.
‘Iggy,’ I call.
