The Golden Couple(6)
Cameron came to see me because he was having panic attacks. His first-session confession was clear, even though he didn’t explicitly state it: he was miserable in his marriage. His wife, Skylar, was a controlling, narcissistic woman who wanted to completely dominate Cameron.
Cameron’s life changed radically as a result of our work together. So did mine.
The last time I heard from him, he’d moved out and was enjoying life on his own in an apartment.
After I slip off my boots and hang up my coat, I call him. He picks up before the first ring ends.
“Avery?” His voice is frantic. “Skylar found out I was dating someone and tried to kill herself! She took a bunch of pills and called me to say goodbye!”
I’m not all that surprised, but I don’t mention this to Cameron. “Where are you now?” I ask as I climb the stairs and enter my bedroom.
“Sibley Hospital.”
I peer into the mirror over my bureau and frown, wiping smeared mascara from beneath my eyes. I’m exhausted and it’s after midnight, but I pull a sweater and jeans out of a drawer. “I’ll be right there.”
Other people’s issues are so much easier to fix than my own.
* * *
Cameron sits on a bench just outside the hospital entrance, his shock of red hair and familiar army-green puffer jacket—the one that’s a size too big—making him immediately recognizable. Keeping my pace steady and unhurried, I walk toward him, my exhalations forming little white puffs in the frigid night air. As I draw closer, I notice one of his shoelaces is untied. I resist the urge to lace it up for him. With tears streaking his open, innocent face and a smattering of freckles across his nose and cheeks, he looks young enough to still be in high school.
“It’s going to be fine.” I put my hand on his shoulder. “C’mon, let’s go inside.”
He rises and follows me as I step onto a mat that triggers the automatic doors, and we enter the ER. Only one other person—a middle-aged man sitting in a plastic bucket seat, staring at his phone—is in the waiting area.
As I lead Cameron toward a sofa, I think about how I’m going to manage this temporary setback. A meek man with an oppressive, manipulative ex is a toxic mix.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have told her I started dating someone.” Cameron collapses onto the couch.
“Let’s take a step back. You’re still helping Skylar out financially, right?”
“Yes, I’m paying half the mortgage until the house sells. And sometimes I go by if she needs help with stuff.”
“Stuff?”
“Yeah, like if something goes wrong around the house. I told her to call me instead of dealing with it herself because once she got up on a chair to open this window that was stuck and she fell. She only got a few bruises, but it could have been worse.”
Convenient, I refrain from saying.
“Maybe it was all too abrupt.” Cameron’s lower lip trembles.
“That’s exactly what Skylar wants you to believe. She didn’t intend to kill herself.”
Cameron flinches. “How do you know that?”
“Look, if Skylar really wanted to die, she wouldn’t have phoned you.” While a suicide attempt is usually a cry for help, in Skylar’s case I can say with near certainty it’s an attempt to regain some control over Cameron.
Right now, my former client is more of a danger to himself than Skylar is to herself, and I need to shock him straight. “So, what do you think the solution is, Cameron? Give up your new life and move back in with Skylar?”
Exhilaration courses through my veins; casting aside the filters that constrained me when I was a therapist is so deliciously freeing.
I lean in closer to him. I’m fond of Cameron; he has as tender and pure a heart as anyone I’ve ever met. “There will always be something with her. And if you give in now, in another few months, you’ll be right back where you were before.”
I’m reaching him; I can see it in his slower breathing and in his increased eye contact. “What should I do?”
A traditional therapist would gently help Cameron find his own solution, even if it took years. Even if it was the wrong one.
“You need to tell Skylar you’re sorry she’s hurting, but it isn’t going to change anything.”
“I-I want to, but…”
“The longer you wait, the harder it’s going to be.” Cameron’s ex-wife is a powerful force in his life; I need to be stronger. I stand up and stretch out my hand. “Let’s go. You’re not doing this alone.”
He hesitates, then rises and follows me to the security guard manning the desk. I tell the guard we’re here to see Skylar Sullivan, and we present our driver’s licenses and sign in. A nurse appears a few moments later and leads us to Skylar, who lies on a gurney with curtain walls separating her from the patients on either side. Her dark hair is spread out over the white pillowcase, and I notice she’s wearing an awful lot of makeup.
“Skylar,” Cameron says softly.
Her eyelids flutter open. “Cameron,” she whispers. “I knew you’d come.”
She stretches out a hand, leaving her manicured fingers dangling midair, until he moves closer and takes them. She doesn’t notice me; her sole focus is on Cameron.