“Because you view any changes as trying to erase them.”
“Exactly.”
“But, at the same time you’re sitting in this environment where everything has a memory attached to it, and those memories are painful.” She muses.
“That’s not even the worst part.”
“You blame yourself don’t you?”
“Myself and, if I’m feeling sinister, I blame them as well. They came into my life and then left… just like my father.”
“They’re not him and you know that.”
“Of course I know that, but it’s the same principle.”
“No it isn’t, they were taken and he left. Yet, you equate them both as abandonment,” She removes her glasses and scoots her chair closer. She’s so close, our noses are almost touching. “First, it’s not your fault,” she says. “Second, they loved you as you did them, and you can’t let grief make you lose faith in the world.”
I glance down at my watch and realize our session has come to an end. I’m impressed with her demeanor and intuitiveness, knowing when to push and when to pull back. She even asked the same shit in a different way, and eventually got the answers she was looking for.
“So where do we go from here?”
“Well, I have you for four sessions. This counts as one of course, but I think we can use the other three to tackle underlying issues. First, we explore your childhood—what it was like, how it affected you. Then, we cover your children and what fatherhood was like for you, never having had your own around. Finally, I would like to explore your marriage and what you were like as a husband.”
“Sounds like a breeze.”
“It’s gonna be rough, and I’m gonna push you to take your mind to places you’ve long since abandoned or never cared to deal with. But, I promise you Miles, we’re on this journey together and I’ll be there through every step, but I need you to buy in and trust me. Can you do that?”
I feel like I’m at a crossroads. The idea of drudging up my past is unbearable, especially if we start connecting the dots to the man I am today. But, my current life is unsustainable and, somewhere down the line, I will breakdown again. Except next time…I’ll have the knowledge to finish the job. As I stare at Dr. Felt, I can feel her sincerity. If she’s willing to work through this with me, the least I can do is try.
“Alright,” I agree. “I’m in.”
Three
False Starts
The campus sits in the heart of the city, with enough space to not feel overwhelmed by the city but close enough to the action to keep tuition rates high. In a lot of ways, it feels like one of those zombie flicks where society has fallen and the only hope for recovery is to quarantine the only healthy people left. Except, in this case, the healthy people are replaced by college students with questionable fashion choices. The pace of the city isn’t lost here as the students move with purpose, their conversations muted by the urgency to get to the next class.
My mother gave me Lily’s class schedule. If I can find the right building, I should be able to catch Lily in between lectures. I stop a group of students and ask where I can find the right building, but they merely point giving me my first taste of the New York attitude I’ve heard about so much.
Very few things in life will remind you of your age, like visiting a college campus. I’m only thirty-one but, in this crowd, I feel like I’m at least twice that. However, the overall vibe of a college campuses stays frozen in time, and some of those memories come roaring back. The older you get, the more you pine for your college days. It’s the most carefree time of your life; the beautiful sliver of freedom just outside the overbearing reach of your parents, but without the responsibilities of adulthood that greet you the second you walk across the stage at graduation. I was a Communications major—which will forever be in the running for most overused major. Some majors speak for themselves, like Engineering or Nursing, but Communications—with its ambiguous meaning and ever branching tree of emphasis areas to choose from—felt like one of those cooking shows where contestants are given random ingredients and told to make a dish.
I didn’t realize how bullshit it was until my first date with Sara. We met in a chemistry class, which sounds romantic in hindsight, but we were just trying to get our science credits out of the way. She was an Early Childhood Development major, which paid dividends when we had children. I, on the other hand, was taking classes like Gender in Film and U.S. History after 1942—the latter in which I convinced the professor to let us watch Forrest Gump because it covered the same time period.
Our first date was at a place called Taste of Philly, the standard cheesesteak place you find in every city but Philadelphia. They’d been in business for over thirty years, the worn upholstery hosting first dates for students dating back to the Carter Administration. Sara talked of how she wanted to be a teacher, about the impact she hoped to make on inner city kids. I still remember the passion she spoke with and the statistics she cited relating poverty to success in public schools—which made me feel guilty because I thought my upbringing was fucked up.
“What do you want to do after college?” She had asked me.
“I honestly don’t know.”
This would become a central theme in our relationship—my freewheeling ways contrasting with her need for planning and organization.
I find the building where Lily should be and wade through the scores of students to find a surprisingly empty building. Ahead of me is a security checkpoint, the guard is seated at his post next to the metal detector. He’s a burly guy with thick shoulders and, judging by the magazine he’s reading, he seems disinterested in the job. A student ID is required to enter the building, so this will require some creativity. I remove my wedding band and place it in my pocket, and the metal detector goes off when I walk through. He waves me over and wands me down, the ring in my pocket setting the wand off.
“What’s in your pocket, sir?” he asks, tapping the wand against my leg, “I need your ID as well.”
“Look, I’m not a student here,” I pull the ring out of my pocket and place it on the table, “My girlfriend’s a graduate student here, and I’m gonna ask her to marry me.”
He looks at the ring and then back at me, unsure of what to do next. I can tell he wasn’t trained for a situation like this so I decide to capitalize.
“You a student here?” I ask. He nods in affirmation and I move in for the kill, “I was on work-study once, it doesn’t pay much. I just need ten minutes, so how about you hang out with Andrew Jackson while I do my thing?”
I open my wallet and show him the cash. He’s mulling the proposition over—and possibly assessing if I’m a threat or not.
He finally smiles, “Benjamin Franklin is much better company,” he says, noticing that I low balled him.
“Done.”
Cash is exchanged and I set off in search of Lily’s class, hoping it didn’t get out early. The building space is vast, every sound made carries an echo through the building. The walls are lined with plaques, celebrating the rich people that have made donations, each one bigger than the last. I’ve always wondered if the plaque was a condition when they wrote the check, or if the school thought to do it on their own. The varying sizes leads me to believe it’s the former. I’m always amazed by the fragile egos of rich people.