Chapter 40

#Chapter 40 – Therapy call That night, I’m not surprised to hear the phone ring in my closet. It’s another unscheduled call – Victor is used to getting what he wants, when he wants it – but he’s starting to develop a pattern with when he needs his therapist.

Checking to ensure that the boys are asleep, I tuck Archie into my lap on the closet floor and pick up the phone.

“Hello?”

“Hello,” Victor’s voice is brusk, unsettled, and – as usual – robotic. “Is this a bad time?”

“No, I can talk. The…usual overages, will apply, of course.”

“Yes.” Victor hurries on, dismissing this. “I’m having trouble,” he says, “balancing…well, balancing my life. My responsibilities to the people who I love, who love me.”

“I see,” I say gently. “Did something…happen? To bring about your unsettled state?”

He pauses. “Yes, it did. It’s amazing that you can intuit that.”

I press my hand to my forehead, warning myself to be careful. “Comes with experience,” I say, pushing forward. “Please continue.”

“We had…an incident tonight, I guess that’s the right word for it. My son tripped my fiancé – I don’t think he meant to hurt her, but she was hurt. Everyone was very upset.”

“I am sorry to hear that,” I murmur.

“Thank you. The issue becomes that I took your advice, although it is perhaps also…instinct, knowing that my son was in the wrong. But I backed Amelia, and we left.”

I note, silently, that Victor has – for the first time – accidentally dropped a hint about his identity. “How do you feel about this?”

“Honestly? I feel horribly guilty. The boys were crying so hard when we left, and they accused me –

falsely, of course – of not loving them. I know that they’re just kids, and they’re overreacting, and that they will, of course, not think that I don’t love them forever. But I have to admit – it’s just killing me that they think that. Even for one night.”

“That sounds really hard,” I say, my heart in my throat. “As a mom…I can definitely emote with how difficult it is when your sons challenge you like this.” Little does he know that I know precisely what he means, as his sons are, in fact, my sons.

“I just don’t know what to do.” I can almost imagine him, leaning against the kitchen island, his forehead in his hand. “Amelia needed me in that moment – I’m glad I stood by her…but how do I balance this?

How do I meet everyone’s needs at once?”

“You don’t,” I say, sighing. “That’s an impossible task, unfortunately. You just have to do the best you can, when you can.”

“What does that mean,” Victor says, and I can hear his frustration. He wants fast, direct solutions. “How does that help?”

“It means,” I continue, patient, “That sometimes helping your fiancé means you have to let your sons wait for a minute. Sometimes being there for then means you have to let her wait. You have to weigh everything in the balance and perhaps think about it like a house on fire.”

“What?”

“Just listen,” I say, chuckling a little at his impatience. “When the house is on fire, you put out the most dangerous flame first.” Silently, I thank Mark for the knowledge and the metaphor. “You let the other, less dangerous flames wait until you deal with the big one. Then you move to the rest.”

I wait, letting him process the idea.

“Balance,” he says, murmuring it. “Going where I’m needed most first.”

“Yes,” I say. “It sounds like, tonight, you made the right choice. Your fiancé really needed you – or so it sounds – and it was good that you went with her. It sounds like your son can wait, and perhaps need to sit with the guilt of what he did for a little bit.”

Victor hums pensively, thinking over what I’ve said. He stays silent on the other line and I wait for a few minutes, seeing if he’ll take the conversation up again. When he doesn’t, I press on.

“I’m curious if this feeling of imbalance is new for you,” I say. “It seems to be something that throws you off more than anything else. That’s typically when I get these unscheduled calls, when you’re feeling unbalanced, torn by your allegiances.”

“I suppose not,” Victor says, sighing. “It’s rather a…pattern in my life. Well, an old pattern. One I haven’t visited in a while.”

“Would you like to tell me more?”

He hesitates, and then sighs again, giving in. “Well, this is therapy, I suppose. I frequently felt this way as a child – torn between my allegiance to both my father and my mother. They didn’t…have a happy marriage.”

“Really,” I say, surprised. “You’re so eager to wed and have a family – I assumed, as is usually the case, that you were eager to reproduce something you experienced when you were young. Children from unhappy unions tend, more frequently, to be more hesitant about getting married.”

“Really. Is that what you usually see.”

“Nine out of ten times,” I say, confirming.

“And in the tenth time?”

“In the extraordinary cases,” I say slowly, “I usually find that…the patient is eager to be married in order to fix their childhood trauma. To demonstrate that they can hold it all together, that it is possible, even where their parents failed.”

Victor is silent so, again, I push. “Do you feel that that applies to you?”

“Yes, unfortunately,” he says, begrudgingly. “I felt a lot of pressure, as a child, to hold my parents together – or to be…perfect. So that I didn’t give them a reason to fight over me.”

“Is that a way that you’d like your sons to feel?”

“God, no.” Anger begins to enter his voice. “I’d…I’d feel horrible, if I was giving them that message.”

“Then perhaps,” I say gently, “you need to find some ways to let them know that it’s okay to mess up, and make mistakes. That you being mad at them doesn’t mean you don’t love them, it doesn’t mean the end of the world.”

“Well isn’t that exactly what I’ve failed to do tonight, when I took Amelias side!?” He nearly shouts with frustration.

I don’t cow to it, though, and laugh lightly – a reaction I’m sure he’s not used to when he raises his voice. “I think you need to embrace a little of the chaos. This is you, again, seeking the balance, wanting to be everywhere fixing everything at once. You’re that little boy again, wanting to fix it. But, it can’t always be your job.”

He hums again, letting me continue. “Your boys also need to learn that it’s okay for them to sit with their frustration. That just because you don’t attend to them immediately, it doesn’t mean you don’t love them. They have to learn to trust that, in your hearts, you’re always going to come back, and always going to forgive them. You don’t need to constantly reassure them.”

“I see,” he says. “That makes sense. It’s…well, it’s something I wish I had had, as a child.”

“I can understand that,” I say, seeking to reassure him. “In giving it to them, you will also give it to yourself.

“Listen,” I continue. “Is there anyone in your life who you remember being good at the kind of balance that we’re talking about here? Who can embrace the chaos, have a bit of faith, and still show love?

Anyone from your childhood?”

“From my childhood? No. It was fairly…rigid. But…” he considers, thinking. I let him take his time.

“Well, there’s someone now. Her name is Evelyn.”

My body goes suddenly rigid, hearing my name come through the phone. I gasp.

“Hello?” he says. “Are you all right?”

I quickly turn my gasp into a cough. “Apologies,” I say, “a little…cold. Um. Please continue. Evelyn?”

“Yes, she’s the mother of my sons. She has a very unique capacity for taking things one day at a time, and she has a seemingly endless well of patience and love for the boys at her disposal. Perhaps there is more I can learn from her.”

I press my hand to my chest, to my heart, truly touched to have heard him say this. And then I feel sudden guilt, remembering that this paradigm of love and patience is also tricking him into telling his deepest darkest secrets by pretending to be his therapist.

“Yes,” I say, working to cover up my complicated emotions. “Perhaps you can.”

Before Victor can reply, I hear Archie scratching at my closet door. He lets out two little yelps and a whine, seeking to get close to me.

“Did you get a dog?” Victor asks. “I’ve never heard it before.”

“Um…no, always had it. Him. Very old dog, very…big. Sleeps a lot. I apologize, it must be his dinner time already.”

“Well then I’ll let you go,” Victor says smoothly. “Thank you for the call.” The line goes dead as Archie figures out how to push the door open with his nose, trotting over to curl up in my lap. I give him a snuggle, thinking.

Victor called me a well of patience, suggested he could learn from me. These are all really nice things to say but…is that all he thinks of me? I hesitate, but have to admit that deep down…I’m disappointed that he understands me as this wise matron.

I bite my lip at the thought wondering…how do I want him to see me?