Paradise Valley (Virgin River #7)(91)

“You can always ask him,” Dan said.

“How do you ask that question?”

“You say, ‘Hey, Rick, I can’t help but notice you’re in terrible shape. Are you having any suicidal thoughts? I have to know.’ About half the time if you ask the straight question, you get the straight answer.”

Jack pondered this for a long moment. “You know, Brady, you ended up surprising me. I gotta say, I never thought I’d be having a conversation like this with you. All touchy-feely and honest.”

Dan grinned. “I love you, too, Jack,” he said.

Rick wouldn’t even admit to himself that the counseling appointments being crammed down his throat had a payoff. There wasn’t any sane reason for it, either. First of all, Jerry Powell was certifiable. Second, Rick didn’t feel like talking about his issues. Third, he dreaded every one and he left exhausted—wrung dry and shaky.

But, these hour-long sessions seemed to have a bizarre calming effect about two hours after they were over. Once he started opening up about his feelings a little bit, it came easier. Every time he walked in Jerry Powell’s door he’d say to himself, “I’m not telling him anything personal today.” And then that whack job would ask exactly the right question.

“How are you sleeping?” Jerry asked.

“I don’t know. Not so good.”

“What’s disturbing your sleep?” he asked.

“Lots of things,” Rick said. “Iraq. Leg pain. Stuff.”

“Okay, let’s start at the beginning. We’ve talked about Iraq—want to go over some of that for me again? As it pertains to sleep?”

“How do you mean?” Rick asked.

“Are you having nightmares? PTSD stuff—pictures in your head you can’t turn off? How’s it affecting you?”

“Sometimes I have nightmares, yeah. I guess I’m going to have them forever.”

“Tell me about the nightmares.”

“What if I don’t want to?”

“Well, that’s your prerogative, but here’s how counseling usually works. If you can bring it out in the light of day, take a good look at it, sometimes your mind helps you deal with it on a conscious, rational level as opposed to subconscious level, and the nightmares fade. So, my specific question is—what nightmares are you having? Iraq in general? A specific incident? Your injury?”

Rick shook his head to try to shake the question away, but it didn’t work. When he looked at Powell, the therapist was waiting. Expectant. “There was a thing that happened that I can’t get rid of. The squad in front of us blew up. Eleven of them died with one survivor. Sometimes I dream I’m the survivor. I’d rather blow up than be the survivor. You know?”

“You saw them die?”

“They were blown apart everywhere, right in front of us. It was a wide-awake nightmare.”

Rick saw Jerry wince and it gave him perverse pleasure. Yeah, it was about the ugliest sight a guy could witness.

“Is that what you see in your nightmares?” Jerry asked.

“Sometimes.”

“Other things?”

“Sometimes. I killed a guy in Iraq, and I saw his face. It was really too far away for this to be possible, but I swear I saw the expression on his face. It was like he saw me shoot him. Sometimes I dream about that.”

“Is that something you worry about? Regret or lose sleep over? How does it work on your head?”

Rick thought for a minute. “I don’t worry,” he said. “I’m not sorry. But I wonder how it wasn’t me who was shot. Killed. We were aiming at each other and I was the lucky one. We didn’t find his body—there’s a chance he lived through it. But I don’t see how.”

“How about the incident in which you were wounded?”

“I can’t remember that.”

“Maybe that’s lucky,” Jerry said. “Unless you’re kept awake by it, haunted by it, like it’s trying to surface….”

“Nothing like that. It’s a blank. One minute I was walking down a street, the next minute I was waking up in Germany.”

“How about the pain? Shouldn’t you be ahead of the pain now? It’s been a while. And you have medication.”

“Yeah. I’m getting there.”

“Okay, let’s jump right ahead to ‘stuff.’”

“Huh?”

“You said, Iraq, pain, stuff.”

Rick smiled. “For someone who doesn’t take notes, you have a dangerous memory.”

“What kind of stuff?” he asked again without missing a beat.

“Okay. I think about my old girlfriend a lot.”

“Think about her how?”

“It’s complicated….”

“I’m pretty smart, actually. I can probably get through this,” Jerry said.

“She’s giving me a hard time.”

“Oh?”

“She hates me.”

Jerry waited patiently, irritating Rick.

“I knew it was going to be hard on her, telling her we couldn’t be a couple anymore. I figured there’d be tears and stuff. But then she’d get over it. I knew it would take a while, but then some guy would ask her out or something. Eventually she’s going to be all right.”