Page 45 of Between Here and the Horizon
I grabbed my jacket and headed for the door.
“Hey, Lang?”
I turned around.
“Are they…you know. Are they okay? Ronan’s kids?”
I pondered on the question for a second, and then answered. “No. No, they’re not okay. Their dad just died.”
******
“If you could see your father again, Connor, what would you say to him?”
Connor looked down at his hands, and then out of the window, where a small crane had been erected on the beach to haul the twisted and battered remains of the Sea King up onto the back of a flatbed truck.
“Connor?” Dr. Fielding’s voice was crystal clear and perfectly loud through the speakers of the laptop, sitting on the table in front of the little boy, though Connor was diligently pretending not to have heard him.
“Connor, sweetheart. Why don’t you answer Dr. Fielding?” I was tired. Beyond tired. I’d already decided the children weren’t going to suffer because of the fact that I’d been out all night, tending to their sick, as of yet unknown uncle, however, so I was now on my fourth cup of coffee for the day.
Connor coughed, picking at his fingernails. “I wouldn’t say anything to him. He’s dead,” he said quietly.
“Connor—”
“That’s okay, Miss Lang. Perhaps Connor is right. Sometimes, in the early stages of grief, it can be helpful to imagine these dialogues, last words if you will, to bring closure and allow the children to say their goodbyes. In other cases, it can sometimes serve to confuse the situation. Connor, how do you feel about your life on the island? Do you like it there?” With Ophelia?”
Connor looked at me out of the corner of his eye.
“It’s okay,” I told him. “You can say whatever you like. I’m not going to be mad, I promise.”
“I hate it,” he blurted. “I hate the island. I hate not going to school. I hate Amie sometimes. She’s always too happy.”
“And Ophelia? Do you mind that your father left her in charge of looking after you?”
He was quiet for a very long time. I could tell he wanted to look at me again, but he wouldn’t let himself. And then, after a few more moments of indecision, he said, “I don’t hate Ophelia. I did at first, but now…she’s okay. I don’t mind that she’s in charge. Being here with her is better than being in an orphanage.”
“Why do you think Amie is too happy, Connor?”
“Because. She never seems sad. She’s always playing and laughing all the time. It’s like she doesn’t even care.”
“Doesn’t care that your father is gone?”
Connor looked away again, eyes narrowing out the window.
“You see, the difference between you and Amie, Connor, is that she’s much younger than you. While she’s very sad that your father is gone, her mind works differently to yours. She doesn’t feel the absence of your father quite as much as you do. That doesn’t mean that she doesn’t care, okay? It just means that she copes a little better with the sadness she feels inside. Does that make any sense?”
“I suppose so.”
“So when you see Amie laughing and playing next time, think about this. You’re her big brother and she looks up to you and loves you very much. She definitely feels a bit scared sometimes, so maybe it would be nice for you to sit and play with her. Let her know she can count on you to be there if she needs you. Do you think that’s a good idea?”
Connor lifted his head, looking directly at Dr. Fielding on the screen for the first time since the session began forty minutes ago. He looked like he had finally heard something that made sense to him. “I guess,” he said, his tone changed altogether. “I mean, maybe. If she’s not being too annoying.”
“That’s very kind of you, Connor. That’s exactly what a good big brother would do.” Fielding was sometimes a little toosoftly softlyin his approach for my liking, but then again he was the trained and lauded child psychologist, and I was the out-of-work schoolteacher. He probably had twenty years of experience on me, and the way he’d just handled the situation with Amie actually sounded like it might make a difference around the house. If Connor started interacting with his sister more, instead of snapping at her whenever she was giddy, he might end up lifting himself out of his grief, too. If there was hope of that, then there was hope in general.
“Connor, thank you for spending some time with me today. I’ve really enjoyed talking to you. I think we’ve made great progress,” Fielding said.
Connor seemed less sure of what might or might not have been accomplished during the session. He arranged his mouth into the tiniest suggestion of a smile, though there was no hint of it anywhere else on his face. He picked up his book and his rainbow striped beanie, and carried both out of the room, closing the door silently behind him. I hated this part. Now was the time when Fielding and I completed our reviews and discussed how best I might handle things with the children over the next week, though most of the time it felt like Fielding was taking the opportunity to poke and prod at the insides of my head, too.
“Well, Ophelia. I have to say, I really do see some progress,” he said, as I sat down in the chair Connor just vacated.
