Someone Else's Shoes(64)

“Yes, yes,” says Phil, nodding.

“Family is clearly very important to you. And crucial to your sense of well-being. So if you feel like you’ve lost one key member, and your mother has changed her role in the family to being someone unexpectedly rather independent, and your wife is no longer seeming to get her happiness from being with you, that’s all going to feel quite . . . destabilizing? Would that be a fair summation?”

It is strange hearing it spelled out like that. “Well. Yeah. I guess.”

“But I’d still like to understand what it is about your father you find so difficult to discuss.”

“He died, didn’t he? He died while I was there. Isn’t that difficult enough?”

“It can be. But some people consider it a privilege to be at their bedside, to help a person they love enter . . . the next realm.”

Phil feels the familiar knot in his stomach. He can’t speak. He wants to leave. He glances around him, wondering if he might just get up and go.

“Phil?”

“It wasn’t . . . it wasn’t like that for me.”

“Perhaps if you were very reliant on your father’s good opinion it felt like there was nothing to aim for when he was gone.”

“No . . . no, it’s not that.”

“But he loved you. You’ve told me in other sessions that he and your mother were very close, and as the only son you were the focus of a lot of attention. That much undiluted attention can be both a good and a bad thing.”

Phil puts his head into his hands. He stays there for a long time, so long that, briefly, he forgets Dr. Kovitz is in the room. When he finally speaks, his voice is small, almost unrecognizable to himself.

“He wanted me to end it.”

“What?”

“He wanted me to kill him. To end it. Near the end, day after day, he would lie there in his bed gasping for breath but as soon as my mother left the room he would grab my wrist and tell me to put a pillow over his head. He was in too much pain. He couldn’t stand it. He hated being weak in front of my mother, hated her seeing him like that. He didn’t want to be there.”

Dr. Kovitz is watching him. The intent way he is gazing reminds Phil suddenly of his father’s unflinching gaze, the weight of his bony hand on Phil’s wrist.

Do IT.

DO IT, PHIL.

“And what happened, Phil?”

“It was . . . awful. I used to dread going. Really dread it. Once I was actually sick before I went in.”

The smell of that little room, disinfectant and something sweet and rotting, the imminence of decay, the hours of stasis with no sound bar his father’s rasping breaths, the quiet shuffle of hospital staff’s shoes outside the door. “I would get Mum to take a break, to go downstairs and get a cup of tea. She was there all the time, you see. She wore herself out.”

“So your mother would leave you in the room alone?”

Phil nods. Wipes at his face. “Sometimes tears would come from his eyes. And that made him angry. Really angry. I don’t think I ever saw him cry in his whole life. He was a strong man, you see. Head of the family. A rock. He didn’t want to be . . . weak.”

“How many times did he ask you to do . . . end it?”

“By the last days, every time I turned up. So maybe every day for three weeks? And I lost my job—they said it was ‘restructuring’ but I know it was because I had to keep taking time off. I didn’t feel I could leave my mum to deal with it alone.”

Another long silence. Outside a car revs noisily and repeatedly as if someone is no longer convinced by the engine.

“Phil . . . did your father die while you were alone with him?”

Phil nods slowly, not looking at Dr. Kovitz.

Dr. Kovitz waits before he speaks. When he does, his voice is gentle. “Phil, if you’re going to tell me you helped your father along that pathway I can tell you now I am not obliged legally to report that as a crime, as long as you don’t feel you’re a threat to others. That’s not something you need to be concerned about.”

Phil says nothing.

“Is this . . . is this what has been hanging over you?” Dr. Kovitz puts his notepad down. “I am bound by confidentiality, Phil. You are free to tell me everything. If this is what you’re telling me, you have been placed under a huge burden and it may help you to let it out.”

“No.”

Phil looks up. When the words come now, they tumble out of him, unstoppable.

“Mum went for a cup of tea. It was a quarter past five. He told me . . . he told me again to do it. And again. And I—I couldn’t. I started to cry. I was so worn down by then, you see. Every day turning up and knowing what was going to happen. The way he would look at me. The sound of him, the way his face was . . . I cried. And then he told me I was useless. He told me I was a worthless piece of shit because I wouldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it. I know it would have been easier for him if I did but I couldn’t. I couldn’t kill someone. I’m too weak. He was dying and he was telling me all the ways in which I had disappointed him. That he had always known I was no good. His voice was . . . raspy and so . . . angry. And his hand was gripping my wrist and it was so strong in spite of everything, like I couldn’t move. I couldn’t move. And he was staring at me with his eyes wide open and just . . . just hatred in them telling me I was useless and that he despised me and I was a stupid, weak little boy and that he had never loved me. I was too weak. Too weak.” Phil is sobbing now. “And then, suddenly, the machines went and there was all this noise and the nurses came in and he was gone. He was gone.”