Jonathan Kellerman - The Murderer's Daughter

She inhaled. “I’d sit in the canoe and watch him and... I’d want him. Right then and there. In the boat.” She blushed. “We never did anything like that. I never told him.”

Grace smiled. “You didn’t want to rock the boat. Literally and figuratively. Balance is important to you and right now you’re feeling off balance because life has taken a new turn.”

Bev gawked. Smiled. “You’re more than scary, Dr. Blades. I bless the God that brought me to you.”

The rest of the day rolled on with reassuring predictability. Grace knew that objectively she was young but sometimes felt as if she’d seen everything. That didn’t sour her on her job, nor did it bore her. On the contrary, she found it reassuring and invigorating.

This is what I’ve been created for.

Nevertheless, she needed to make sure confidence never slid into smugness. Nor would she ever allow the Haunted to enter a millimeter of her private world.

Friendly, yes. Friend, never.

Because friendship was a limited concept: Pals and chums and confidantes — what the textbooks sanitized as a social support system — were fine when you stubbed your emotional toe. With deep wounds, you needed a surgeon, not a barber.

To Grace, the concept of therapy as paid friendship was a horrid cliché. The last thing patients needed was some sloppy, mawkish do-gooder brimming with sickly-sweet smiles, contrived pauses, the phony gravity of by-the-book sympathy, the smarmy rote of catchphrases.

What I hear you saying...

Cram a patient’s throat with sugar and they’ll choke.

Phonies who practiced that way either were money-hungry quacks or just wanted to feel good about themselves. Which was why you saw so many fucked-up people seeking second careers as ahem counselors.

Some of the Haunted came to Grace seeking the eye-locking, intensely theatrical concern they’d seen on talk shows and movies of the week.

I’m not a shrink but I play one on TV.

When the expectation was for Dr. Soft Voice, Grace dispelled it gently by supplying constructive reality. For four hundred fifty bucks an hour you deserved more than an emotional adult diaper.

You deserved an actual adult.

Checking her desk clock, she brewed herself a strong shot of espresso, downed it just in time for the red light on the wall above her desk to illuminate.

Time for Roosevelt. Thoughtful, gracious, polite. Old enough to be her father.

If she’d had a real father...

Grace felt her breath catch. Her heart skipped a beat, obviously too much caffeine, she’d cut back.

Rising, she smoothed her hair, straightened her posture.

Onward.

As the end of the day approached, Grace felt uncharacteristically tired. Things had gone a little tougher than anticipated with Stan and Barb, the couple entering the therapy room outwardly hostile to each other in a way Grace had never seen.

No need to probe, they told her straight out: Both had a history of affairs and they were finally divorcing. The dual infidelity had been kept from Grace. They figured it didn’t matter, had begun years before Ian’s suicide.

A pair of fools truly believing Ian had never known, after all he was crazy, everyone told them so.

Now the marriage was coming apart and despite the mutual decision, Stan and Barb were angry.

At themselves for failing.

At embarking on an unsuitable marriage in the first place.

Then the inevitable segue: anger at Ian for walking into their bedroom and waking them up as he collapsed onto their duvet, spurting and leaking and seeping and dying.

Grace hadn’t spent much time wondering what had led a nineteen-year-old to nuclear self-destruction. Ian was gone, life was for the living, if she’d felt otherwise she’d have gone to mortician school.

But now, she wondered what else she’d missed.

Stan was saying, “So that’s it, we’re dividing everything in half and it’s done, we’re being mature and logical.” Grinding his jaws.

Barb snapped, “Over and done, put a fork in it.” Stan shot her a hard look.

Grace knew the answer to her next question but she asked it anyway.

“So you’re both in the same place with it?”

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

Lousy liars. So why the hell are you here?

Grace asked them.

Barb said, “We decided we needed it for closure. Your being such a big part of our family over the last few years and now there’ll be no family.”

Divorcing Grace first. She smiled internally.

Stan said, “We didn’t want you to think you failed us, this had nothing to do with Ian.”

“Definitely nothing,” said Barb.

“The two of us are still friends,” lied Stan. “Which I think is an accomplishment in itself.”

To prove it, he reached for Barb’s hand. She frowned but squeezed his fingers, let go quickly and positioned herself out of reach.

Grace said, “You’re moving on and were kind enough to think of me.”

“Yes, we are!” said Barb. “Perfect way to put it. Moving on.”

“You bet,” said Stan, with perhaps a bit less confidence.

Grace said, “Well, I appreciate the thought you’ve put into this and I wish you the best. I also want you to know that I’m always here for you.”

Trust me, guys, I’ll see both of you eventually. Separate sessions.

Papers would be filed, property divided, but these two would never lead totally separate lives.

Ian had seen to that.

By the time Grace had completed her sketchy case notes and the light went on announcing the last patient of the day, she was already planning her evening.

Quick stop at the casual fish place near Dog Beach for halibut and chips and a Sidecar, enjoyed in a vinyl booth well away from the bar. Concentrating on her food and flashing stay-away signals at any man who had designs.

Oh, yeah, a salad to start. And maybe not halibut, possibly Dover sole if they had it fresh. Or that scallops/soft-shell crab combo. Then zip home, change into shorts and a tee, take a run on the dark beach. After that, a long shower, masturbating under the spray. Followed by a quick review of the pile of psych journals that had climbed way too high and when her eyelids lost the battle with gravity, a nightcap of junk TV.

Maybe she’d think of the red room, maybe not.

Yawning, she checked the mirror in the closet, touched up her makeup, tugged her white blouse tight into black slacks, and reminded herself she was an authority figure and ready for Mr. Andrew Toner from San Antonio, who’d found her through an esoteric article in an obscure journal.

Written without Malcolm but aping Malcolm’s style because Grace, though adroit at psych-prose, hated it and refused to develop a style of her own. In the beginning, she’d looked forward to seeing her name in print, read every pub word for word, only to find them arid.

Malcolm, for all his virtues, was the typical professorial scribe, unable to scare excitement out of an asteroid strike.

For a layman to find Grace’s solo venture, he had to be motivated.

Of course Andrew Toner was, he’d come to see her all the way from the Great State of Texas.

When patients from out of town sought her help — not as rare as you might think — they were often perfectionistic, compulsive types. The kind of folk who’d google psychological treatment aftermath violence or something similar and scroll for hours.

Let’s see if she was right about Mr. Andrew Toner.

She walked down the bare hall that served as a decompression tunnel for her patients, smiled, and opened the door to the waiting room.

Found herself staring at the face of Roger, the man she’d fucked mindlessly last night and dismissed the moment it was over.