Chapter Two
QUINN
“Thanks, Ms. Rodgers. I feel better already,” my patient said. I held the door open for him and gave him a smile.
“I’m glad,” I said. “Can I count on seeing you back next week?”
“Yeah, same time next week,” he said. Then he went off, and I closed the door.
That was my last appointment of the week. I sat down on the couch that my patients usually sat on and pressed my fingers to my temples. This had been a particularly exhausting week, and my weeks were already exhausting. Being a psychiatrist meant listening to a lot of people’s problems, and while I mostly didn’t mind, there were some days that it did tend to grate on me.
Someone knocked on my office door. “Quinn?”
I looked up and furrowed my brow. It sounded like my aunt, and I had been meaning to talk to her anyway. “It’s unlocked,” I called, and sat up a little. It seemed my unwinding would have to wait. I glanced at the automatic kettle sitting on the table across from the couch. Sometimes after work, I would stay in my office for a little while, have a cup of tea, and listen to some of the relaxing music I had on hand for clients. I didn’t have a psychiatrist, didn’t need one, but I did need to unwind.
My aunt, Janet, opened the door. She looked around the corner to see me sitting on the couch. “Is the psychiatrist late?” she joked.
I rolled my eyes a little and sat up. “Ugh. It was a long week.”
“Have you been doing well?”
“Of course, of course.” Overall, things were fine. One rough week didn’t mean a bad life, that was for sure. I wasn’t prone to making the sorts of mistakes that might land me in a position to say otherwise. “How have you been?”
“Oh, I’ve been alright,” Janet said. “I wanted to stop by and check on you here since you’re on my way home.” Janet worked as a secretary at a local bank and had been for years. Austin was hardly a small town, but she came from a small town and brought that sense of job loyalty with her.
“I appreciate it,” I said. It was a little bit of a lie. I would rather have been alone. But I didn’t mind Janet, and I knew that she had troubles of her own, especially dealing with my cousin Stacy like she had to. It couldn’t be easy on her. I thought sometimes of asking if she wanted to see me, but it was a terrible idea to see therapists that were in your family. Conflicts of interest came up.
“You know, I read an article on the internet this morning,” Janet said. She was always talking about some article she’d read on the front page of the default page on her internet browser. She was terribly sweet with how she used the internet and how little she filtered through information. “It said that more and more women are becoming psychiatrists now.”
I gestured around me. “Well, wouldn’t you know it.” It was a huge point of pride for me that I’d managed to get a job doing the one thing I loved the most. It took a lot of hard work and tedious hours at university, and sometimes I wondered if I would have been better off marrying rich. But coming into my office every day and making a difference in the life of at least one person was enough to convince me that I’d made the right decision.
“I think that a lot of them get into it for the money,” Janet said, as though telling me a horrible secret. She glanced over her shoulder. The only other people in this building were a shitty real estate agent and some travel agency that barely paid rent every month.
“A lot of them do,” I agreed. “And then they realize that it sucks when you don’t want to do it, and then they quit. And you can’t really get any other kind of job with a psychology degree.”
“Is that what you got? A psychology degree?”
“Yeah. Texas has it set up so you can be a psychologist and write prescriptions. So I’m technically a psychiatrist,” I said. “Or at least, I get paid as a psychiatrist. And I don’t have to try and worm my way into any of these psychiatry offices. They’re so selective.”
“Oh, I bet you could get into them,” Janet said, waving her hand to emphasize how smart she thought I was. Compared to her daughter, maybe, but not compared to some of the people in Austin.
“Thanks,” I offered. “I like doing what I do now, though. I help people, or, I try to. I feel like I am. That’s what I want to do first: help people. If they need medication after that, then I’ll prescribe it, but it’s a last resort for me.” Some people who had life-threatening disorders needed medication without much question, but most people could get away with lifestyle changes and someone to talk to.
“Oh, you know, I think Stacy could really use someone like that,” Janet spoke and then tilted her head down, as if ashamed that she’d even brought her daughter up. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have a daughter and have what had happened, happen.
I didn’t say anything, unsure of what exactly to say that wouldn’t be out of line or inappropriate. I wished I had made that cup of tea so I could sip. Anything to divert my attention from the awkwardness that hung in the air—or rather, that had been hanging in the air for ages whenever the name ‘Stacy’ came up.
“She won’t, um, she won’t, though,” Janet clarified. I knew that she was doing it as a reassurance. I wouldn’t have to deal with Stacy and her set of issues. Janet wouldn’t have to face me knowing that I knew the extent of the problem. I liked to help people, though, and Stacy could be reconciled with in my opinion. Still, she didn’t say why she definitively stated that Stacy wouldn’t be getting help. I knew better than to pry.
“Do you have any plans for this weekend?” I asked instead, hoping to change the topic.
The effect was immediate. Janet’s face lit up like she was relieved at the change of pace. “Oh, yes! Actually, tomorrow, Saturday, we were thinking about having a little welcome home party for Sawyer. It’s kind of a surprise. We know he’s coming, but I don’t think he knows there’s going to be a party. Just a little thing in the backyard.”
I raised my eyebrows a little. “You’re not upset with him?”
“Upset?” Janet shook her head. “Maybe we were once. For a little bit there we were angry with everybody. Stacy, Sawyer… after everything that happened, it seemed everyone was a little bit to blame. But Sawyer got his head on straight. He joined the military and served well. From what I can tell, he’s back to being himself. Me and your uncle, we never could hate him. Especially not with his dad being the way he is…”
I should have expected Janet to talk on and on. I loved her dearly, but she wasn’t the best possible person to have stop by my office before leaving work on a Friday. I wanted nothing more than to go home, although I was glad to hear that Sawyer was doing well. I’d only heard about him, bits and pieces from Janet and my Uncle Jesse. They spoke highly of him until shit had hit the fan with Stacy. But they stayed in touch with him and bragged about his accomplishments like they were their own. His dad, though, was a meaner person from what I understood.
Part of me wanted to sit him down on the psychologist’s bench. There was always a part of me that wanted to do that with people I met. Now that I had the means to probe the inner workings of a person’s brain, I wanted to do it with everyone. Not everyone wanted to be psychoanalyzed. My best friend said so all the time. We’d have a conversation, and she’d proclaim, ‘Stop psychoanalyzing me!’
“You can come if you want,” Janet said. I perked up, realizing that I’d tuned out of the conversation a little bit to drift into my own mind. It was something I tended to do: turn over the situation again and again. Sometimes I came to conclusions that made no sense because I decontextualized conversations from their happening.
“Oh, I wouldn’t want to impose,” I said.
“You wouldn’t be! It’s a family event; you’re family.” I got the feeling from her tone that Stacy wasn’t going to be there and Janet was once again reaching towards me to fill the role of ‘daughter.’ If she were my patient, I would have asked her about the implications of that.
As it stood, I only nodded. “Yeah, sure. I have nothing to do tomorrow. How long do you think it’ll last?”
“Not too long,” Janet said. “A few hours, probably. If you could bring a side or a dessert, that’d be lovely. Have you met Sawyer?”
I twisted my mouth to the side in thought. I’d certainly heard of him. “I don’t know. Maybe in passing at some point, or on Stacy’s social media. Face doesn’t come to the name, though.”
“Well, in any case, you can meet him tomorrow. I’m sure he’ll be happy to see a friendly face after being gone so long. Can you believe it’s been six years?” Janet shook her head.
“Yeah, that is a while.” When Sawyer had left, I was merely dreaming of becoming a psychologist. Or, at least, I’d only just signed up to take the classes required. Now I had a degree, a license, and a business. I wondered what had changed about him; I wouldn’t know, I supposed, since I didn’t know him very well to begin with.
“Usually they come home on shore leave, and he stayed,” Janet mused. She shook her head. “Well, no matter. He’s coming home tomorrow, and that’s good enough for me.”
“I’ll be there,” I assured her. With that, we said our goodbyes, and she made her way out of my office. I decided to stay a moment, not really ready to go back to the loudness of my house and face the rest of the evening.
I didn’t know what to expect when I saw Sawyer. Now that I’d been thinking about it for a while, I could remember something. I silhouette, sort of, a muscly figure with dark hair and bright eyes. I could remember a smile. Mostly I associated him with Stacy, though I was certain that they’d broken up. How they hadn’t broken up before was beyond me. From what little I could glean of a memory from Sawyer—and I wasn’t honestly sure that I wasn’t imagining things because I didn’t remember—he didn’t seem the sort to get involved with the nonsense Stacy got herself involved with.
So I couldn’t remember him, but I had the opportunity to get to know him better. I leaned back in my chair a bit and turned on the automatic tea kettle. I looked forward to the opportunity.