Mollie
She picked at the hem of her shirt and looked around the waiting room at all the crazy people sitting in chairs around her. Mollie wasn’t thrilled with the idea of talking to a shrink, but her mother had insisted after their meeting with the detective. When Mollie realized it was pointless to argue, Kitty had called her own psychiatrist, Dr. Hannah Fischer, and she’d managed to squeeze Mollie in only half an hour later.
Now, Mollie looked at the other patients and wondered why on earth she had agreed to be seen by a shrink. One man was standing by the window quoting lines from The Godfather. Another one, closer to her, stunk to the highest heaven and was rocking back and forth while he muttered, “I’m so sorry, Mama,” over and over again. A lady near the door was scratching her arms repeatedly, leaving long, red nail marks on her skin.
“This was a mistake,” Mollie said to Kitty.
“I know it’s intimidating,” Kitty responded. “But you’ll really like Dr. Fischer. She’s nice and so easy to talk to. I’ve been seeing her for years.”
“I had no idea.” Mollie looked at her mother curiously. “Why do you need to see a shrink?”
Kitty flipped her wrist and rolled her eyes. “Nothing major. Just maintenance, that’s all.”
Mollie wasn’t sure what “maintenance” meant. She assumed people only went to shrinks if they were depressed or crazy. And as far as she knew, her mother was neither. She wondered what else she didn’t know about her mother.
Bored, Mollie picked up the closest magazine from the top of a long glass coffee table. It was a People from November 2014. Katie Holmes graced the cover in a white scoop neck t-shirt. Her luxurious black hair spilled over her shoulders, and a wry smile spread across her beautiful face. She flipped to the article and read about how Katie had finally gotten away from her eccentric husband, Tom Cruise.
“Mollie?” A nurse in maroon scrubs held the door open with a file folder in her hand.
“That’s us,” Kitty said as she picked up her purse and pulled it over her shoulder.
“Great,” the nurse said. “Follow me.”
Mollie stood and followed her mother, who followed the nurse, whose large rear end swung from side to side as she walked down the hallway.
She stopped about halfway down and extended her arm toward an open doorway. “Please have a seat. The doctor will be with you momentarily.”
Mollie sat on the couch, assuming that was where she should sit, and Kitty sat next to her and set her purse down at her feet. The nurse smiled at them before closing the door, leaving Mollie to feel claustrophobic in the tiny office.
Besides the cream-colored leather couch that took up half the room, there was a small mahogany desk with a large matching wingback chair. The wallpaper was a neutral tan with a white embossed border, and a fake ficus tree sat in a gold pot in the corner. With no magazines to read in this room, Mollie pulled out her cell phone and looked at her Instagram account. She hadn’t posted, or even looked at it, since before Collin McAllister had shoved her into the back seat of her car.
“Do you have to do that now?” Kitty asked.
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. Can’t we just…talk?”
She knew her mother had missed her like crazy and had worried about her while she was gone, and part of Mollie felt guilty that she hadn’t spent much time with her since returning home. But the other part of her wanted to withdraw from everyone and everything around her. She wasn’t ready to talk about what had happened, but it meant a lot to Kitty, and so for her, Mollie would tell this doctor what had happened and how that made her feel. She lowered her phone and slid it back into the pocket of her jeans.
“Thank you,” Kitty said. “So. Did you and Laurel have fun last night?”
Mollie shrugged. “I guess.”
“What did you two do?”
“Nothing, really. Just talked. And we painted our nails.” Mollie looked down at the nail polish she’d already mostly picked off.
“It’s a pretty color.” Her mother was trying, bless her heart. Mollie just wasn’t interested in small talk. It felt so…pointless.
Then she remembered something she’d been meaning to ask her mother since this morning. She’d forgotten with the whole debacle at the police station. “Hey, Mom?”
Kitty looked at her with raised eyebrows.
“Have you seen my journal?”
“What journal?”
“Never mind.”
The door opened, and in walked a tall woman with blonde hair pulled back in a tight French twist. She wore thin-rimmed glasses low on her nose and a navy blue skirt suit with a white silk blouse. Her makeup was done perfectly, and her fingernails were pink with white tips. Mollie guessed this must be the shrink.
“Hello, there,” the woman said as she closed the door behind her and took a seat at the desk. “My name is Doctor Hannah Fischer. I assume you are Mollie Cartwright?”
Mollie nodded and raised her hand and wiggled her fingers.
Dr. Fischer turned to Kitty. “And how have you been lately, Katherine?”
“I’m doing much better now that Mollie’s home.”
“I’m sure that’s true. Now, Mollie, your mother filled me in on what happened to you recently. I want you to know, I’m not going to pressure you to tell me anything you’re not prepared to tell me. I’m simply here to listen today. We’ll take everything one step at a time and talk about things when it feels right to you.”
“Thanks,” Mollie said with a wary smile.
“Great. Now, would you like your mother to stay or would you like to talk to me alone? It’s completely up to you.”
She looked at her mother, hoping she would give her a sign as to what she wanted to do. It really didn’t matter to Mollie. When her mother continued to look at her with wide, hopeful eyes, she shrugged and said, “She can stay.”
“Okay. Why don’t you just tell me what you want me to know about what happened to you? You say as much or as little as you feel comfortable saying.”
Mollie drew in a deep breath, let it out, and began. She told the doctor everything that had happened, just as she’d recounted it to Detective Jamison. Slowly, mechanically, as if she were reciting a monologue from a Shakespearean play. She, of course, left out any references to her pops and his relationship to what happened. But she stopped right before she was about to let slip that he had saved her.
There were a few seconds of silence where the shrink just looked at her compassionately. Mollie felt her stomach twisting, and she fidgeted in her seat.
“Mollie,” Dr. Fischer said, “is there something else you want to tell me?”
“No,” Mollie whispered.
“You do know that everything you say to me stays in this room. I can’t tell anyone anything you say, unless you tell me you’re going to hurt yourself or someone else. And again, if you’d rather speak to me alone…”
“It’s not that,” Mollie interrupted.
The doctor leaned back in her seat. “Okay, then. What is it?”
She looked at her mother. Kitty’s eyes were wet, and Mollie could tell she was trying not to cry. It must have been hard on her to hear what Collin McAllister had done to her daughter. But she was hoping her mother would give her an indication one way or another whether she should tell the doctor the whole story. Kitty nodded as if to say it was fine to tell Dr. Fischer everything.
Mollie sighed again and decided to let it all out. She needed to unburden herself and tell someone the truth. It was eating away at her.
“My grandfather saved me,” she said. And when she did, she felt like the weight of the world had been lifted off her shoulders.
“How is that? Do you mean he saved you metaphorically? Or do you mean he actually saved you from this…”
“The Vault,” Mollie finished.
“Yes, The Vault. So, which was it?”
“Just when the man was about to hurt me, the door at the top opened, and my grandfather came rushing down the steps. The man—”
“His name is Collin McAllister. It’s okay. You can say his name,” Kitty instructed.
“Collin had his arm around my throat and was squeezing so tightly. But my grandfather shot him in the shoulder. I thought he killed him. But he was just injured. He and his friends carried me out of The Vault and saved me.”
“That’s quite a story, Mollie,” Dr. Fischer said. “You’re a very lucky girl to have your grandfather find you and save you like that. How on earth did he accomplish this?”
Mollie looked at her mother again. This time, Kitty’s head was down, and she was staring at her hands which were laid neatly in her lap. What should she do? Should she tell Dr. Fischer the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Her mother wasn’t giving any indication as to what she wanted Mollie to do. The decision was solely hers.
“Mollie?” Dr. Fischer said. “Is something wrong?”
“No. Nothing’s wrong. It’s just…you see…my grandfather, he…he kind of figured out who had kidnapped me, and he…he just found me. My pops, he’s kind of, well…”
Dr. Fischer nodded solemnly. “Yes, Mollie, I know who your grandfather is. Remember, your mother has been coming to me for many years. I know he has certain…resources at his disposal.” She picked up a pen and tapped it on her desk. “What I want to know is, how does this make you feel?”
“How does what make me feel?”
“How do you feel about your grandfather’s chosen lifestyle? That he may have used, shall we say, less than legal resources to find you?”
Mollie shrugged again. “I don’t know. I mean, I guess I don’t care how he found me. I’m just glad he found me when he did.”
Dr. Fischer leaned back in her big chair and crossed her right leg over her left. She twitched her foot ever so slightly. “That makes sense. What happened after he found you?”
“I…I don’t remember.”
The doctor tilted her head, and one corner of her mouth drew up in a half-smile. “Really? You don’t remember? That’s interesting.”
“Go ahead,” Kitty said, laying her hand gently on Mollie’s shoulder. “It’s okay. You can tell Dr. Fischer anything. If you need to talk about it, it’s really okay.”
Mollie looked down at her lap and thought for a few seconds. She was still torn regarding her feelings toward her grandfather. He was her savior, true. But nothing bad would have happened to her if he hadn’t killed Collin McAllister’s father all those years ago. Even though this doctor couldn’t repeat what Mollie told her, she still felt like she would be betraying Pops if she told her what she knew.
“All I know is he had one of his bodyguards take me home.”
Dr. Fischer nodded once, her lips pursed. She clearly didn’t believe that was the end of the story, but she didn’t push Mollie to say anything further. “Well, Mollie. Let me ask you this. Are you experiencing any anxiety since returning home? Any night terrors?”
“Not really.”
“That’s good. That’s really good. But I should warn you. It’s only been a couple of days. You may still be in shock. You may find that after a few more days, you begin to experience some mild depression or anxiety. If that happens, I want you to call me immediately and we’ll discuss the appropriate course of action. But for now, I think some counseling is in order. How do you feel about coming to see me once a week?”
Mollie thought about this momentarily. She’d never been a big fan of counseling. Her mother had tried to send her to see a counselor several times over the years because she thought Mollie had “issues” related to the fact that she didn’t know her father, among other things. But Mollie never really relished the idea of talking to a stranger about her feelings, even if it might wind up benefiting her.
Kitty spoke up before Mollie could decide how to answer.
“I’ve wanted her to see a counselor since she was about ten.”
“Oh, really? Why is that?” Dr. Fischer inquired with obvious interest.
Her mother looked a tad uncomfortable. She shifted in her seat and tucked her hair behind her ear before responding. “Mollie has had a tough life.”
Mollie sank lower into the couch and crossed her arms over her chest. She really didn’t want all her personal problems laid bare, even to a psychiatrist who couldn’t repeat anything she heard. If she could have, she would have covered her ears with her hands and hummed like she had when she was a little girl and didn’t want to hear something.
“What made her life so tough? You’ve never talked much about Mollie’s childhood.”
“Well, as you know, Mollie’s father is not in the picture. I think that has always been an issue for her. On top of that, she’s lost several pets over the years. They just…ran away, I guess. But the absolute worst thing she’s had to deal with was the sudden suicide of her boyfriend her senior year.”
Dr. Fischer furiously scribbled notes in Mollie’s file. Mollie wished the couch would open up and swallow her whole. She felt like an outsider listening to her mother describe someone else’s tragic past. These were things Mollie didn’t like to think about often, and now it was as if her deepest, darkest secrets had been uncovered. She felt exposed. Her ears were ringing, and the room spun around her. Mollie took in quick, shallow breaths.
Dr. Fischer looked at her over the top of her glasses. “Mollie? Are you all right?”
Mollie sprang to her feet and threw herself at the office door. She swung it open, ran down the hallway, past the receptionist, and out into the parking lot. Standing there facing the main road, Mollie put her hands on top of her head and tried to steady her breathing. The cold November air was a knife in her lungs, but the openness of the outdoors helped ease the dizziness and panic.
This was exactly why she never talked about her past. This happened every time she allowed herself to think about these things, let alone hear them spoken out loud.
Suddenly, Mollie knew exactly what she needed to do. She needed to talk to her pops. If anyone could understand her, it was him. And she knew exactly where to find him.