Craig Lancaster - Edward Adrift

I’ll be seeing Dr. Rex Helton tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. I got lucky there; the appointment desk said someone else canceled on him—a common occurrence around the holidays, according to the woman who answered my call—and I was able to slip into the open spot. Otherwise, I’d have had to wait a couple of weeks, the appointment clerk said.

I can’t imagine that I’ve lost much weight, as infrequent as my exercise has been, but I do want to fill him in on my injuries from the car wreck, as he is my primary care physician. I also want to tell him that he shouldn’t soft-peddle the significant effects of diabetic medicine on a patient’s urinary rate. Yes, Dr. Rex Helton told me that I would pee a lot, but he should know as well as anyone that “a lot” is an imprecise measurement that leaves far too much room for individual interpretation. He needs to give people the facts.

Now I’ve just come in from the grocery store with a few days’ rations. I bought two packages of chicken breasts for grilling, a pork loin that I can roast in my oven, a bag of carrots, two heads of iceberg lettuce, four cans of green beans, and a big tub of oatmeal for my regular morning dose.

In just a few hours of being awake, I’ve made positive steps toward a healthy mind and a healthy body. So far, my plan to reset my life is playing out the way I want. To celebrate, I treat myself to a Lean Cuisine lasagna.

Dr. Bryan Thomsen deserves credit, and I’m giving it to him.

At 12:59:45, he opens his door and beckons me to join him in his office. I walk down the hallway, stopping to shake hands with him, and then I settle into my regular chair. I look down at my watch, and it says 1:00:00.

This day just keeps getting better.

The first thing I do is give Dr. Bryan Thomsen a rundown on what happened on my trip. I know we have only an hour and a half—he was nice enough to block out a little extra time for me—so I try to tell my story in a straight line and without embellishments. This is harder than it seems. I make sure I bring in the major points: Kyle’s insolence, our adventure together in the car, meeting Sheila Renfro, Kyle’s revelation to me about how he’d been hurt by the bullies in his school, the car accident, the return to Cheyenne Wells, kissing Sheila Renfro (I leave out the part where she touched my boner; that’s none of Dr. Bryan Thomsen’s business), deciding to leave Sheila Renfro, my mother’s unexpected appearance.

It’s this last point that I wish to address in depth, and I put it to Dr. Bryan Thomsen.

“Did my mother take my sovereignty?”

Dr. Bryan Thomsen considers this for a while.

“You want my opinion?”

“Yes, I do.”

“I would say it’s a qualified yes. Yes, your mother overstepped. But she overstepped in the service of protecting you. I think you need to account for that in your decision about how severely to confront her.”

“But you’re saying I should confront her?”

“Edward, yes. It’s obvious how much this bothers you. She needs to know that. The question, for you, becomes what you want the message to be. Do you want her to be punished or do you want her to be informed?”

“Informed.”

I’m angry at my mother—as angry at her as I can ever remember being—but I do not want her to be hurt.

“Let that answer guide you. That’s my advice.”

Dr. Bryan Thomsen is making a good deal of sense.

“Edward, I’d like to ask you something.”

“Yes.”

“I would like for you to tell me about your thought processes when bad things happened on this trip. You’ve had a remarkable stretch in a short amount of time, and it’s covered quite a lot of the human spectrum.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you’ve dealt with a child’s hostility, violence, the emergence of secrets, romance. How did you cope with all of that? You certainly could have called me, but you didn’t. How did you get through it?”

I look down at the floor and rotate my ankles back and forth.

“You might not like the answer.”

“Try me.”

I sit up straight. My ribs still hurt.

“Sometimes I asked myself what Dr. Buckley would say if she were there with me,” I say. “Sometimes, I didn’t have to ask myself. It was like Dr. Buckley’s voice was right there with me, helping me see my path out of the situation. Dr. Buckley liked to talk to me about pathways.”

“Why did you think I wouldn’t like that answer?”

“Because I miss Dr. Buckley. I wish she were still my counselor. I think you’re a nice man, Dr. Bryan Thomsen, but you haven’t put in the work with me that she did. You don’t know me like she did. It’s been hard dealing with you since she’s been gone, and I wish I didn’t have to.”

He leans forward in his chair, cupping his hands together, and I’m afraid he’s going to yell at me.

“I’m going to tell you a secret, Edward. That doesn’t bother me at all.”

“It doesn’t?”

“No. Do you want to know why?”

“Yes.”

“Because it means Dr. Buckley and you were successful in your work together. This might surprise you, Edward, but I’ve read your notes dating to the first time you came here, in 2000. I’ve read every word. And the entire time, Dr. Buckley was imparting life skills to you. She was helping you find a way within yourself to live well and to live safely in a world that doesn’t always move the way you move. What you did out on the road simply proves that her approach worked. She didn’t try to change you. Instead, she helped you find the best way to live that works for you.”

I’m listening to what Dr. Bryan Thomsen is saying, and I’m regretting ever saying anything bad about him. All this time, I thought that he didn’t know me or care to know me, and it turns out that the opposite was true.

“So here is what I propose,” Dr. Bryan Thomsen says. “I propose that we go forward with you not expecting me to be Dr. Buckley, because I’m not and will never be, and I will go forward respecting what you need. If you want to keep coming every week, great. I will see you then. If you want to check in a few times a year, fine. If you want to move to Spain and do this on Skype, we can make that happen.”

“I’m not moving to Spain,” I say.

“Wherever,” he says. “The point is, it’s your life to live, and you have the skills to live it in the way you choose. When you talk to your mother, Edward, that’s what I suggest you tell her.”

I’m pretty smart sometimes.

Because my bills are paid by my lawyer, Jay L. Lamb, and because I don’t sign up for things that cause me to be put on mailing lists, I have only two pieces of mail waiting for me at the post office.

The first, postmarked December 14, is from the human resources department at the Billings Herald-Gleaner . I’m both flummoxed and excited. Although Mr. Withers called me personally and said there would be no returning to my job, this letter at least holds out the possibility that someone at the Herald-Gleaner has considered my request. There is only one way to find out, as they say, and that’s to open the letter. (And “they,” whoever they are, are wrong when they say that. For example, I could just call the Herald-Gleaner directly and ask someone in human resources to tell me my status. I’ll grant you that’s not an efficient way of finding out, as this letter is here in my hand, but at least it’s plausible. That means there is more than one way of finding out.)

I tear off the corner of the envelope, stick my index finger inside, and rip open one end.

December 14, 2011

Mr. Edward Stanton:

Thank you for your interest in the Herald-Gleaner. At this time, we have no job openings that fit your stated areas of interest, but we will keep your information on file and will contact you in the future if you’re a good match for an available position.