Off the Deep End (19)
His body shook with sobs. My insides twisted with pain for him as I rubbed his back, and I was so glad when he didn’t flinch or shove my hand off but just let me comfort him instead. We sat like that for over an hour before he finally cried himself to sleep.
I had shared what happened with Theresa like I shared everything going on with him back then. They assigned her to us when we left the hospital. Jules had been in the hospital for almost a week, but Isaac was only in overnight for observation. He came back miraculously unflawed. His skin as porcelain smooth as it’d been before the icy plunge.
“Isaac has a lot of survivor guilt.” That’s how she’d explained his behavior when I’d told her about the first incident and all the ones that came next. I found him curled in the fetal position on his bed like that many times over the next few months, and it broke my heart to pieces every time. It was always the same desperate cry: “It should’ve been me, Mom.”
Theresa kept reassuring me over the following months how common survivor guilt was among people who had experienced a traumatic event, especially one where other people had died. Things like 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. Wars. Accidents. Cancer. Basically, all the really bad things. You’d expect people to be happy to have made it out alive, but oftentimes that’s not what happens, and it certainly wasn’t Isaac’s experience.
“His is the worst case I’ve ever seen. I’m having a hard time getting through that,” she’d said at their final session. It wasn’t supposed to be their final session, but that’s when Isaac quit therapy. He flat-out refused to go the following week, and I couldn’t exactly carry a six-foot man-child into the car. Mark and I talked about forcing him to go. We discussed lots of ways we might want to intervene, but we just kept telling ourselves time would take care of it and that he’d grow out of the survivor guilt.
We couldn’t have been more wrong.
CASE #72946
PATIENT: JULIET (JULES) HART
I can’t believe I have to do this again so early. I had no idea when Dr. Stephens and I said goodbye last night that he was going to drag me back in here first thing in the morning. But I understand. It’s not like they can wait. They’re on a fourteen-day time clock. Every hour matters.
I’ve never been so grateful to be living in a house with people with severe mental illness. As bizarre and strange as it is, everyone is so wrapped up in their own problems and issues that they don’t have time to worry about anyone else’s. Some of them aren’t even aware that another boy has gone missing. I feel so sorry for those boys.
Dr. Stephens pushes open the door, carrying two cups of coffee. “Sorry I’m late, but I stopped to get these,” he says, setting one down on the coffee table and handing the other one to me.
None of the other doctors ever brought me coffee, and I’m so touched. I give him a huge smile. “Thanks so much.”
He smiles back. “Don’t worry about it. It was the least I could do after keeping you up so late last night.” He smiles again. Twice in less than a minute. Today is going to be a good day. He shifts into the same position he was in before—legs crossed, head cocked to the side, ambiguous-but-slightly-caring face. “I say we just jump right back into where we left off yesterday. What do you say?”
I nod my consent like I actually have a choice in all this.
“Great.” His voice is peppy. He must be excited, or maybe this is just really good coffee. “You said before that you and Isaac grew close after the train incident. Can you tell me a little bit more about that?”
Did I sound that cheesy when I worked with clients? Like I was reading a therapy script I got from school? I shove my feelings down. They don’t matter. Focus. Get this done and get out of here.
I take a sip of my coffee. Dr. Stephens is glued to his chair, hanging on my every word. These are the parts he’s been waiting for. Everyone has. “He came to see me in the hospital after, well, you know . . .” I never know how to refer to this part. It makes people so uncomfortable when you say things like that out loud, but then I quickly remember he’s a forensic psychologist and thrives on hearing this awful stuff. The more hideous, the better, probably, so I don’t bother sugarcoating it. “He came to see me in the hospital after I tried to kill myself on the tracks.”
“He did?” His usual blank expression shifts, and for just a split second, he looks surprised. He should be. I’ve never told anyone that before. Nobody knows about our relationship even though they think they do, and despite how they’ve painted me in the media—I never went after Isaac. He came to me first.
Nobody visited except my parents and husband, even though I was finally on the level in the hospital program where I could have visitors. Before I turned around, I assumed it was Shane standing in my doorway. After my transfer from Falcon Lake Hospital to the inpatient psychiatric unit at the state security hospital, he never came to see me. Every time we spoke on the phone, he said it was because the place was too depressing and he was trying his best to surround himself with positive things in a world that had gotten so dark. I couldn’t blame him. That place was about as depressing as it got.
I was as shocked as anyone to see Isaac in my doorway. I hadn’t seen him since Gabe’s funeral, and even then, we’d barely said more than two words to each other. Most of that day was a blur. The entire service was recorded, but I’ve never been able to make myself watch it.