Requite

It was forty eight minutes into his final, court ordered session with Doctor Fay Rettenburg. Tom sat across from her in a black button stitched leather chair—his fingers tapped at the chair’s armrests. In a little over ten minutes, the shrink would sign off that he completed his treatment.

The doctor’s shoulder length brown hair rested on a white blouse under a black blazer. She wore matching black slacks. Her leg rested on her knee, providing a base for the notepad she wrote in. She took her eyes from the paper and flicked her hair back over her ear. She observed her patient’s finger tapping. “You seem anxious, Tom.”

“What do you mean anxious?”

She took off her glasses and sat them on the table next to her chair. “Distracted perhaps?”

His fingers stopped, and he glanced at the wall clock—it was ten to six in the evening. He needed to go back to his shop, prepare, and be on the opposite side of town in just a few short hours. “Sorry, just a lot of things to take care of before I leave on Thursday.”

She folded her fist under her chin. “I understand. It’s a big move you are making. Are you experiencing second thoughts?”

Tom shook his head. There were no second thoughts about what he planned to do. “I’ve never been more sure of anything.”

“Some could say that you are choosing to run away from your problems. How does that make you feel?”

“I assure you that I am not running away from my problems.”

The doctor nodded and made a note. “How are the last minute details coming along? Did you close on the sale of your home?”

“I turned over the keys to the new owners on Friday. I’m officially homeless.”

“So where are you staying?”

He pushed himself back in the chair. “I’ve been staying in the office at my shop. It’s fine for a few days.”

“Sure, sure. Did you decide what to do with the business?” she asked.

“I closed it. An auction house is going to liquidate the remaining inventory for me.”

She closed her notepad and sat it on the small table beside her. She walked to the window and stood with her hands clasped behind her back. “Tom, I have to say that I am concerned.”

His mind had gone into double checking that he had all his bases covered.

“Tom?”

He looked up from his feet. “I’m sorry. What?”

“I said that I am concerned?”

“Concerned about what?”

“I’m concerned that you are running. You’re selling everything you own and moving out of the country. It’s not normal behavior for a responsible adult. Avoiding your troubles does not make them disappear.”

“I just need a change.”

“Change is fine, but this is extreme.”

He remained quiet.

“When you were referred to me after the accident, I figured it would take us additional time due to the severity of your injuries. What’s bothering me is that you are the only patient I’ve had that I truly believe I haven’t helped in any way.”

Tom sat quiet for a moment before speaking. He ran his hand through his light red hair. “Referred? Let’s call it what it was. I attacked two policemen at the hospital and got sent to you to avoid criminal charges.”

She turned, faced him, and sat on the window sill.

“We’ll just call it started. When we started, we spent the first two months discussing Psychological projection. We spoke at length about why you were experiencing those feelings. We discussed the details of the accident over and over. Yet, today when we touched on the subject, you still became agitated and refused to accept it for what it was—an accident.”

She now had his full attention. Tom did his best to keep his anger at bay. “It was more than an accident.”

She wouldn’t tell Tom for the umpteenth time that no other vehicles were involved—that the police found no evidence to suggest it happened any other way.

“I’d feel better if there were signs that you were coming to terms with the events that took place?”

“I’ll never come to terms with what happened,” he said.

She interlocked her fingers in her lap. “Sorry, maybe come to terms wasn’t the proper way to state it. If you accepted what happened.”

His fists clenched. The anger built inside him. He’d never accept what happened. The shrink would refuse to sign off if he had an outburst. His rage needed to be concealed. He let his hands go slack and took five breaths in through his nose. The air was let out through his mouth. He calmed himself and answered. “I’m working on it, but what happened was unacceptable.”

She shook her head. “It was an accident, Tom. We’ve been over this countless times. Have you not gained anything from our sessions?” Doubt clung to her voice.

“Gained?” Tom shook his head. “I’ve learned how to control my anger and that’s why I was sent here. As far as the accident, I’ve heard everything you had to say, but I was there. I know what happened. The best head doctor in the world isn’t going to make me believe something that isn’t true.”

“It’s going to be hard for me to sign off on your treatment when I don’t believe our sessions have helped. I could request additional time.”

“My requirement was for twenty four sessions. Six months of coming here every damn week. Nowhere in the court order did it say anything about whether my shrink could request additional time if she wasn’t satisfied with her work.”

She observed her patient.

Tom continued. “I’ve sold all my things. I’ve sold my house. My business is gone. There’s nothing left for me here. Do you want me to tell you I’m responsible for something that I’m not? Do you want me to lie to get a signature?”

“No Tom, I’d prefer you didn’t lie.”

“Did I attack anyone else? Have I gotten into any trouble? No.”

There was quietness over the room as she stared at him. Tom returned her gaze. The timer beeped signaling the hour long session had concluded. She ignored it and continued staring at him.

He held his palms up in question. “Well? Looks like I’m done. Are you signing off or what?”

Doctor Rettenburg walked back to her desk and took a seat. She slid the bottom rolling drawer of her desk open and removed Tom’s file. “I’d like to schedule a few phone sessions when you get settled into your new place in Argentina.”

He shook his head and pointed to the file on her desk. “That doesn’t say anything about follow up sessions. I’ve completed my requirement. When I leave, this is all getting left behind.”

She closed the folder and laid the pen she held on top. “If you don’t agree to the follow up phone sessions, I won’t release you from treatment.”

Tom crossed his arms over his chest. “Whatever. Schedule them.”

She nodded. “I have a few final questions that I need to ask you. These are tailored to you from our sessions. I want you to respond to these statements with how you feel today as opposed to when you started therapy.”

“Fine.”

She removed a questionnaire from the file and held the pen over the paper. “Just answer true or false to these statements.”

Tom nodded.

“I am a harm to myself.”

Tom, annoyed, took in a loud breath. “False.”

She checked it off and continued. “I am a harm to others.”

“False.”

“I often think of people who wronged me in the past.”

Tom scratched at the back of his head. “False.”

“I lose control of my temper easily.”

“I’ve learned my lesson from that. False.”

“I’m unable to forgive someone who has done me wrong. True or false?”

“False.” Tom looked over at the clock. “How many questions are there going to be?”

“Just a couple more.” She found her place on the list. “I’ve turned to drugs or alcohol to deal with my anger.”

He thought about the bottle of whiskey he drank the night before. “False.”

“Recently, my anger has caused me to become physically violent.”

“False.”

“OK, just two more here, Tom.”

He sat quiet.

“I sometimes want to get even with people who have angered me.”

Tom smirked. “False.”

She wrote it down. “OK, last one. I’ve felt angry enough to kill.” She looked up and waited for his response.

He thought of his plan to even the scales—to spill the blood of those who deserved it. Tom had spent months following those involved until he found each one. He knew where they lived, what they drove, and where they went daily. Tom shook his head. “Never.”

I put the key in the door of my condo and flipped the lock. I cracked the door, ready to catch Butch as he tried to escape. Normally, there was a jingle of a bell, followed by a ball of leopard spotted cat fur thrashing my foot. Today he didn’t come. The distinct smell of peppers wafted through the cracked door into the hall. The aroma of food being cooked coming from my condo wasn’t common place. I pushed the door open and walked inside.

“Hey. I hope you don’t mind that I stuck around. Jamie needed to switch shifts for tonight, so I had the day off. I have to go in in a few hours though,” Callie said.

“Why would I mind?” I closed the door and looked around the condo. It had been cleaned and vacuumed. A laundry basket filled with my clothes, all folded, sat on the couch. My eyes shot back to her at the kitchen. She stood in front of a cutting board on the breakfast bar. Butch sat on a bar stool a few feet away observing the food preparation. Steam rose from a pan on the stove. The interior oven light let me know something was inside. Callie’s black hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She wore a black tank top and a pair of small green shorts. She looked great.

I walked over behind her and gave her a kiss on the side of the cheek. She leaned in for it. “What are you cooking?” I asked.

“Stuffed peppers. Remember we talked about them the other day?”

“Yup. Smells good.”

I held her by the top of her shoulders—my left hand over a tattoo of butterflies, my right over tattoos of angels that covered most of her arm. While I didn’t have any tattoos and wouldn’t say I cared for them, Callie’s somehow fit her. Her tattoos weren’t the kind a college student would get during spring break. They weren’t the standard hip tattoo or lower back tattoo that women got just to have. They were all planned as a piece of art—very expensive art, or so she’d said. The woman tattoo artist that did them had a reality television show Callie made me watch once or twice.

“Go take that off.” She tapped at the gun in my shoulder holster under my suit jacket. “Food is almost ready.”

With another peck on the cheek, I left the kitchen. I gave Butch a pat on the head as I passed. He ignored me. His little cat brain was focused on the food and there was no time to acknowledge his master. I put my service weapon and badge in the standing gun safe in my closet, and then changed out of my suit into a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. Plates clacked together from out in the kitchen. I headed back.

“You want wine, beer, something else?”

I flashed her a confused look. My refrigerator spent most of the time keeping a single bottle of mustard cool. “I have wine and beer?”

Callie smiled. “I grabbed a couple things at the store. You really need to go shopping though.”

“Thanks. Beer, I guess. Let me know what I owe you.”

She pulled a beer from the fridge and walked it over. “You don’t owe me anything, Dummy.” She gave me a kiss and walked back into the kitchen to get the food.

She piled my plate high and sat across from me. “Hey, we need to talk about something later.”

From experience, the comment worried me, but I said
OK
and continued eating.

A beer and ten minutes later, my plate sat clean. I could tell something was on her mind. We barely spoke during dinner. It wasn’t normal.