Page 36 of The Therapist

TWENTY-THREE

WEDNESDAY NIGHT

Mike

Mike hadn’t been able to believe who answered the phone, who he was speaking to. When the call was done, he sat in stunned silence, but bubbling inside him was an undercurrent of absolute fury.

‘You’re a prize idiot,’ he heard his father say and the man was right because that’s exactly what Mike is.

All day long, the macabre headlines from the articles have run through his head, making him feel sick.

Every article, no matter where it came from or who it was written by, was written so that the reader couldn’t help understanding that the man, the abusive monster, the arsehole who was hurting his wife, got exactly what he deserved. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

No one ever thinks the abused wife is lying because she never is. Women don’t do that.

But Sandy is not like any other woman he has ever known. In the beginning that made her interesting, exciting to be with, addicting. But now he understands she’s dangerous. And he’s the one in danger.

But he’s not going to accept that. This is not how the story ends for him. The call that made him so angry is how this ends, how he makes sure that he is not ‘the monster’ in one of those articles.

When the bell rings just after 9 p.m., a time when the police come to call, Mike hopes the kids stay asleep. ‘Here we go,’ he mutters as he makes his way to the door.

Standing on his front step are Lana and a guy. He wants to push the door closed. He doesn’t want to do this. He understood what he heard on the call and he knows he can’t trust anyone. That’s the only thing he knows for sure.

‘Please don’t shut the door,’ says Lana quickly, as though she has heard his thoughts. ‘I’m asking you to please let us in so we can talk. We just want to talk.’

Mike scrunches his eyes closed, a hangover headache beginning. He went to Lana’s office to talk to her, to get her to listen to him, to understand what she had told the police, and she wouldn’t talk to him then, but she’s here now.

‘This is Ben. He was originally Sandy’s therapist,’ says Lana before he can ask the question.

Both of these people believed everything Sandy told them. For a moment he’s grateful for the four beers he’s had, the alcohol dampening the rage he feels towards these two. Misplaced maybe, but he can’t help it.

Part of him wants to shut the door and go back to his next beer.

He has no desire to deal with this, especially after the phone call that he’s now thinking may have actually been all lies and a way to trap him into admitting something.

But he’s not going to admit anything, not one single thing.

That’s the thing about living with someone who lies the way Sandy does: he is questioning everything now, even himself.

‘Can we come in?’ asks Lana. ‘Please?’

Does he believe everything he was told on the phone only an hour ago? Maybe, maybe not, but the more he thinks about it, the more sense it makes. He has been back and forth over it with each sip of beer. Is he being lied to? Is he being told the truth?

He won’t find out unless he speaks to these two people. They seem to know more than he does but then everyone seems to know more than he does.

He steps back and lets them in and then he turns and walks to the living room, putting his beer down on a console as he goes.

He turns to face the therapists, raising his hands, feeling a tiny streak of relief that it is not the police.

He can handle two therapists. ‘Look, before you say anything, I want to apologise for yesterday. I didn’t mean to grab you and I hope I didn’t hurt you.

I really didn’t mean to scare you,’ he says to Lana, who has her handbag over her shoulder but one hand actually in the bag as though she’s looking for something. Ben stands quietly next to her.

‘It’s okay,’ says Lana, ‘I know you didn’t mean to.’ Her voice is soft, her tone even. ‘But we did want to ask you about Sandy because we are worried about her.’

Mike shrugs. ‘I am too but…hopefully, she’ll be back tomorrow.’

‘She sent me a message,’ says Lana, her chin lifting a little, and at the same time, Ben crosses his arms over his chest. The way he’s just standing there is unnerving.

Mike isn’t sure how to respond to this. Sandy’s phone is under their mattress. He knows it is.

‘Don’t you want to know what she said?’ asks Lana, her eyes narrowing.

‘Sure,’ he replies, wishing he had his beer in his hand, ‘what did she say?’ He makes sure to keep his arms hanging loosely by his sides.

Lana pulls her phone out of her bag and opens it to a screen, turns it around slowly and shows him the message.

Lana, help me. He’s going to kill me.

‘When did she send that?’ he demands.

Lana looks down at her phone. ‘Just before five last night.’

‘I don’t believe that’s from her,’ says Mike.

‘We just want to know what’s going on,’ says Lana with a quick sideways glance at Ben. Mike has never seen Ben before. There’s no picture of him on the clinic website. He’s a good-looking man and he looks so confident, so sure of himself standing in Mike’s home with his arms folded.

‘That’s not from her,’ he says.

‘How do you know?’ asks Lana and her hand goes back into her bag. ‘It’s from her number. I have it saved in my phone.’

Mike’s stomach churns from too much alcohol and too little food. This whole situation feels precarious, out of control.

He dredges up a part of himself with the ability to conceal his emotions, the part that never gets a chance because he usually, as the saying goes, wears his heart on his sleeve.

His heart, his anger, his love, his hate.

But he has to be a different Mike right now.

Someone is playing with his life. Of that he’s sure, but he’s just not sure how exactly or why. For now, he will play along.

‘You know, I’m not sure who you two think you are but you don’t really know Sandy. My wife has taken herself off for a few days, leaving me to deal with everything, and I don’t appreciate you getting involved in something that is essentially a private affair.’

‘We’re worried about Sandy.’

Mike chuckles at the words. They are worried about Sandy, who is collecting articles on how to get rid of her husband and get away with it. That’s who they’re worried about?

He’s so sick of this shit, of having to do everything himself, of being screwed over by his boss in a crappy market, of having to take care of his kids when he needs time to figure out what to do next, of feeling like he’s a failure as a husband and father. He’s sick of all of it.

‘Sandy,’ he says, gritting his teeth, ‘is a manipulative bitch who is probably really enjoying the fact that you’re worried and I’m worried and that I have to take care of the kids and the house while I’m in the middle of everything else.

’ He looks at Ben. ‘So you two can just get the hell out of my house, and when she gets back, I’m sure she’ll be happy to know how much you both cared. ’

‘Now, just a minute, Mike,’ says Lana and she glances at Ben again, who is staring at him like he knows something, like he really knows something and he’s just waiting for Mike to confess. ‘We just want to be sure that she’s okay,’ says Lana, holding up her hand.

Mike opens his mouth to ask them to leave again when a blood-curdling scream tears through the air from the back of the house.