The waiting room door is open. Most likely, I will figure out why the door is left open in the next few minutes. The sessions always begin before we get inside my office.
I have honestly never thought of my waiting room as small. In the middle of the room stands Butcher, with aggressively spikedboot black hair, a huge trench coat and worn out combat boots. It’s like he feels the need to be as large as possible. That’s interesting.
He looks at me with anguish in his face. Heartbreaking.
I’m pretty clear that I need to be more contained than expressive with him. The need to maintain this powerful facademis how he contains how desperately fragile he is. And he’smgoing to need me to be as sturdy as his facade.
He sits as far away from me in the room as he can, facing at anmangle, so that he doesn’t have to look directly at me. Lookingmat the far wall, he says,“my wife. She’s not dead.”
Not the usual opener for a session. I will definitely wait anbit before I ask for any clarification. I really have no ideanwhere this is going.
“She was dead for 8 years. Told everyone I didn’t believe it.nBut I knew she was.” He fixes me with his eyes. “Saw her. Not dead.”
He is not used to feeling vulnerable. Because I’m a stranger? Or is it because I’m a woman? Maybe he usually feels vulnerable with women and so he has created the facade to handle meeting me. I hold his gaze and don’t say anything, neither challenging him nor acquiescing. I wait. The facade collapses.
Facing the far side of the room, he says, “Dropped into this picket fence shit heap and she walks out the front door.” Eyeballs me again. I’ve figured out the open waiting room door. He’s always waiting for the ambush. Metaphorical, yes. Actual? Probably.
“What happened?”
“Nothing. She just looked at me. Like she got found out. What bloody shite is that?” I shake my head. I feel like I’m witnessing a small boy, bewildered by something beyond comprehension.
“Fucking looked at me like I was going to hurt her. What the fucking shite? Sorry.” Clearly referring to his language, I shrugged, indicating I couldn’t care less.
“So she’s afraid of me, but she’s fine with that fucking c——......” “Nope, nope-nope-nope, there I draw the line.”
A nod of respect. “Fair enough.” I smile on the inside. Boundaries.
“So after 8 years of being missing, presumed dead, you discover your wife in a house in the suburbs.”
“With someone else’s kid. The dick that brought me there. Looks just like him.”
Ah. I wait.
“Look, I think we’re gonna have to pick this up later. Really need to go.”
“Are you sure?”
He looks me in the eye, and finally makes contact. “I’ll be back, Doc. Tomorrow, yeah?”
“Yeah.” I’m pretty sure he will come back.
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