Page 15 of The Therapist

NINE

Lana

I arrive at the office at eight o’clock on Monday morning.

Iggy went with Oliver and Becky to visit her parents last night and it seemed easier to let him sleep over since Becky is taking him to school this morning.

I didn’t sleep very well because I never really do when Iggy sleeps out, and when I opened my eyes at six thirty this morning, I decided I might as well use the time to catch up on case notes at work.

When I walk into the office, Ben and Kirsty are standing at the desk, both looking at his phone.

‘You have to tell the police,’ I hear Kirsty say.

‘What’s up?’ I ask and Ben turns to me.

‘It’s um…look, can we talk in your office?’

I nod my head and walk in, putting my laptop down on my desk and stowing my bag in a filing cabinet.

Ben sits down in a chair near my desk so I take a seat opposite him, growing concerned about how pale he looks.

‘So, there’s something I haven’t told you,’ he says and I feel my heart flutter a little at what he might say. He looks so serious and his eyes seem dull, as though he hasn’t slept well.

‘Okay. Is it to do with a patient?’

‘Not exactly.’ He shows me his phone.

You don’t get to abandon me and survive it. You just don’t. I’ve found your number now, and soon, I’ll know where you work and then I’ll know where you live.

‘I don’t understand, who is this from?’

Ben locks his phone and puts it down on my desk, turning it upside down.

‘Back in the UK, there was a patient, a woman. I was treating her for depression and anxiety. She had recently gotten divorced and she was struggling. And she fell for me, told me she loved me and’ – Ben waves his hand – ‘the usual that we get.’

‘Right.’ I nod, agreeing with him.

‘When she told me, I gave her the information on transference and a list of other therapists and I told her that I couldn’t treat her anymore. I had zero interest in her, I want to say that right now, it was all her and none of it was me. I gave her a list of great therapists to contact.’

‘Which was the right thing to do,’ I say, sitting back and crossing my arms. I don’t like where this is going.

‘Absolutely, and she seemed to accept it at first but then things got very weird. She began turning up at my office every morning, begging to be taken back. She told me she didn’t love me and she’d just made it up.

Obviously, I still refused to treat her and then she began turning up at my house at odd hours of the night.

I don’t know how she got my address but she did.

She would ring the bell and wake me and demand to be treated, in the middle of the night.

’ He shakes his head at this absurd idea.

‘I can imagine that was a very frightening experience,’ I say softly. I can see how disturbed he is by the memory and I’m thankful something like that has never happened to me, especially since I am a single mother now.

‘It was and eventually I had to call in the police. It’s one of the reasons why I left the UK and came to Australia. That and the weather,’ he says with a dry laugh.

‘Oh Ben, I am so sorry, how awful for you.’

‘It wasn’t great…and now she seems to have found me.’

‘Kirsty’s right,’ I say, ‘you should report it to the police.’

‘She’s in the UK and I’m hoping it’s just an idle threat.’ He shrugs his shoulders, and I can see that while he is hoping that’s the case, he’s also worried that it might not be.

‘But what if it’s not? Please tell me you’ll go to the police.’

Ben takes his glasses off, squeezes his nose and rubs his eyes. ‘You’re right. I’m being stupid.’ His accent is stronger when he’s distressed, the words more clipped and pronounced.

‘It’s absolutely the right thing to do and I know how awful this is for you. I would be terrified if someone turned up at my house.’

‘Yeah,’ he agrees, ‘especially since you have Iggy.’

I bite down on my lip, feeling a shiver run through me at the idea of a patient coming to my house, seeing where I live, knowing I have a son.

‘I will contact someone today. Anyway…’ He stands. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I should have.’

‘It’s fine, Ben, it sounds like a horrible experience.’

‘It was,’ he says, standing by my office door, ‘and it’s part of why I really didn’t want to send Sandy off to another therapist. I needed someone I could trust taking care of her so I wouldn’t have to go through it again.

I think if this woman, Carla, if she had found the right person, a new therapist, immediately, it would have been fine.

But you can’t always trust a patient to find someone else or to do the right thing for themselves. ’

‘I understand,’ I tell him and I do. You can show a patient a path to take but you can never guarantee they will take the first step. I knew there was more to what he told me when he asked me to take on Sandy. And now that I know, I feel deeply for him. It would have been very traumatising.

‘I’m here for you if you need to talk,’ I tell Ben as he opens my office door.

‘Thank you,’ he says with a smile. ‘Working here has been kind of a blessing really. It feels safe and the patients are interesting and I’m just really grateful you took a chance on me, so thank you.’

‘No problem, Ben,’ I reply with a smile and I am suddenly glad that I did take a chance on him. He needed someone to give him some help and it feels good that I got to do that. I’m so glad he confided in me since it explains a lot about the Sandy situation.

Looking at the time, I see I have twenty minutes until she gets here so I power up my laptop and put all other thoughts aside as I get some work done.

At 8.55 a.m., I close down my computer and sit in my chair with my notebook, ready to speak to Sandy. Kirsty usually lets me know when a patient is in the office so I know Sandy hasn’t arrived yet but I’m sure she’ll be here soon.

She is not here at 9 a.m. and I find myself staring at the clock on the wall in my office. Sandy’s words haunt me with every minute that passes and she doesn’t appear.

I’ll be here next week unless he kills me. But she laughed after she said it, told me it was a joke, and then she sent me a text reassuring me everything was fine. But that text didn’t ring true.

I should have reported it, both the statement and the text that I didn’t quite believe.

It’s my duty as a therapist to talk to the police when someone is in immediate danger but all along, Sandy has asked me not to.

And all along, especially after what her husband said last week, I have been unsure about the truth.

I am still, even now, unsure about which of these two people, Sandy or Mike, is telling the truth.

Sandy is ten minutes late. Just caught in traffic, I try to reassure myself, but it’s an average Monday and I have scrolled through the latest news on my phone.

If there had been an accident big enough to cause traffic delays, it would have been reported.

Perhaps she’s not coming because she’s afraid that I’ll try and convince her to go to the police.

I shift in my chair, uncomfortable with that thought.

I’ve been suspicious of her but I should have made her feel more supported.

I should have told her that I was going to the police and she needed to come with me.

I shouldn’t have let her veiled threat get to me but should have seen it as what it was: a cry for help.

I should have forced the issue but even as I think this, I know that doing that could have been a terrible mistake.

Sandy is now fifteen minutes late.

I take out my phone and call her number.

‘Hey, it’s Sandy. You know what to do at the beep.’

‘Hi Sandy, this is Lana. You seem to be running late for our session. I just wanted to make sure everything was okay.’

When I end the call, I immediately regret making it. I’ve had plenty of patients not turn up for their sessions and it’s only irritating because it wastes my time. There is always an explanation and they are charged for the missed hour anyway. But something about this feels off, wrong.

I get up and go to my desk, press down on the intercom.

‘Yep,’ answers Kirsty.

‘Sandy didn’t happen to contact you and you’ve forgotten?’ I ask.

‘Have I ever forgotten?’ Kirsty replies and I can hear the edge in her voice. She thinks I’m questioning how she does her job.

‘No,’ I answer quickly, ‘of course not, I’m just a little worried.’

‘I promise if she calls, I will let you know immediately. I’m watching my email as well.’

Seventeen minutes late.

I leave my office, knock lightly on Ben’s door. We have sliding signs on our office doors to let each other know when we’re with a patient so I know he’s alone, probably doing paperwork.

‘Come in,’ he calls.

‘Hey, do you have a minute?’

‘Sure.’

Ben is at his desk, his computer open, and sunlight streaming through the window behind his chair. He smiles when he sees me, running his hands through his hair. ‘So many case notes,’ he says ruefully.

‘It does feel like more paperwork than anything else.’ I shrug and then I sit down on his sofa, identical to mine except his plump pillow is grey instead of blue. I furnished both offices when I got the lease.

Ben hasn’t added anything to his office and so the walls are bare, which I find quite jarring.

Angela took her two paintings of vases of flowers with her when she left, along with the knick-knacks she kept on her desk, including a Newton’s cradle and a whole lot of stress balls.

Ben’s desk is bare except for his computer and a notebook.

‘Did you contact the police?’ I ask and he nods.

Looking down at the notebook, he says, ‘After a bit of a runaround, I spoke to Detective Sergeant Peterson, who deals with online stalking, which I think is what this falls under because she is in the UK.’

‘And?’

‘He told me there’s not much they can do, but at least I’ve reported it.’

I bite down on my lip. Logically there is not much they can do to someone who is in a different country.