Page 33 of The Fallen Man

“I talked to Dominique, and she said guys made her go see Evan’s therapist.”

“We didn’t make her. Evan got her an appointment, and I sent a car. She’s having panic attacks.”

“No, it’s great. I had Jenna pull a list of therapists last week, and I was going to talk to her on Sunday.”

“You could have mentioned,” said Jackson. “I didn’t even know she was having problems.”

“Uh, well, it wasn’t… It was just a couple of weird fucking conversations, and I wasn’t even sure what to say. I needed to go away and think about it. And now I’m not sure if I should say something to the therapist or if I should let stuff take its course.”

“Well, what kind of weird conversations?” asked Jackson, puzzled.

“Well, after Evan’s trip through the ghosts of Christmas past at the stupid storage unit last year, I thought I should probably go through our parent’s stuff and make sure I had all the documents, and you know… also that we didn’t have any more secret siblings or something.”

Jackson laughed.

“What? Apparently, the Deverauxes do that kind of thing. Anyway, I didn’t find anything. My parents were marvelous people whom I will forever bless for being boring as fuck. But I found a bunch of stuff like their wedding certificate and that kind of thing, and I called Dominique to see if she wanted to do anything with it. Their anniversary is coming up in January. They would have been married thirty years if they lived, and I thought that was nice. Anyway, I started talking about it, and Nika literally interrupted me in the middle of a sentence, started talking about Grandma, and then hung up on me. And then she did the same thing when I saw her later in the week.”

“What were you talking about then? Same thing?”

“I don’t know… Yeah. Maybe. I think I said I’d put all the paperwork in my office safe if she ever wanted it. It was just a passing comment, but the next thing I knew, she’d walked off. It was so not like her. And not even like she was mad at me. Just literally like she’d switched channels in her brain. I’ve never had her do anything like that. Kind of hurt my feelings to tell the truth. Ella’s probably tired of hearing me talk about it, but, I mean, it’s kind of trippy that we’re older now than they were when they died. I’m still trying to wrap my head around it. And I thought Dominique might get that.”

Jackson began to laugh.

“It’s not funny,” said Aiden.

“No, it really not. But yeah, you should tell the therapist. Maxhas been trying to get engaged and says she’s doing the same thing to him. I’m going to go out on a limb and make a very non-professional diagnosis that, yeah, something in that mess with your parents is fucking with her head. Which is good because that will give them something to target in therapy, but I’m not sure that will immediately fix it.”

“Oh,” said Aiden. “Well, then, I didn’t help her at all by bringing it up. Now I feel bad.”

“Nah. She’s going to have to talk about it in therapy anyway.”

“Good point. I wonder if I should talk about it in therapy?”

“Whatever you need,” said Jackson.

“Well, I feel like you should have to go if I go.”

“What? How do you figure?”

“Well, you’d be the only one not doing it, and all the Deverauxes do stuff together.”

Jackson laughed. “This is how we ended up wearing those stupid hats my first Christmas.”

“Yes, it was. I still have that picture on my wall. Makes me laugh. Can’t believe Evan won.”

“We’ll get him next Christmas.”

“Goddamn right. I don’t think I need therapy. I don’t feel like I’m avoiding anything. Maybe I’ll just go to a meeting and bring it up there.”

“I didn’t know you still went to those,” said Jackson, surprised.

“Oh, sure. About every six months or so. Or whenever I feel like I need a little tune-up. Keeps my feet on the ground. I figure it can’t hurt.”

“It really can’t,” said Jackson, reaching the veranda. Inside, he could see that the crowd had thinned out, and the party was winding down. Senator Griffeth and thegood guystaffer, Dennis Houge, were lingering close to the door and talking to Zoe. “Anyway,” Jackson said, pulling the door open, “I’m going to hang up so I can go inside and stop freezing.”

Aiden laughed. “Yeah, sure. I’ll ask Evan for contact info on the therapist and maybe send off an email or something. Thanks for talking to me.”

“Of course. See you when I get home.”