I open my mouth to say yes, and then I recall Ian’s warning from last night. The tentative smile on her face signals that business is probably not what she intends to talk to me about. Suddenly I remember I have an appointment.
“Not right now. Just leave me a message.” Victoria has dyslexia and her hastily scribbled notes are a conglomeration of letters and little pictures that only Ian understands. Her partner writes the reports and Victoria leaves me voice messages. In my office, I grab my jacket, phone, and keys.
“It will only take a minute,” she says.
A highly uncomfortable minute, I think.
“Sorry, leave a message.” I brush by her, but she’s dogged and follows me out to the car.
“You can’t escape me this easily. I work with you. I know where you live.” She points upstairs.
“But I have a car so I can escape.”
“You’re going to have a bitch of a time parking.”
“Maybe so.” I move her to the side and unlock the black four-door Audi A8 that she eyes with undisguised interest. Ian had been teaching her how to drive and she’s developed a new interest in cars—a good replacement after she’d traded her cycling shoes in for a private investigator’s license.
I didn’t lie to Victoria, though, because I did have an appointment to see Dr. Crist. It occurred to me after the game that he might have some insight on Natalie. I worry that her doctor is doing her more harm than good. There are good therapists and then there are assholes. I served with assholes and I served with good people. No organization or group of people is devoid of the dreck of humanity, the ones who like to kill for shits and giggles or the ones who are so irresponsible, they’ll shoot themselves in the face by accident. Problem is that sometimes you have difficulty discerning who’s the good guy and who’s the fuckstick.
The tree-lined street where Isaiah’s office is located is already full of cars. Victoria was right. I probably should’ve taken a cab or a car service, but I prefer to drive. I don’t like to be dependent on anyone for anything, including my own transportation. I maneuver the car into a parking spot two blocks away, but halfway to Isaiah’s office, my leg begins to ache—part of the drawback of getting up early and staying out late with a prosthesis.
I climb the steps of the brownstone and press the buzzer, announcing myself.
His secretary releases the lock. Sylvia has been with Isaiah for as long as I’ve known him, and she never looks like she’s aged a day.
“Dr. Crist is running late. May I get you something to drink?”
“No, thank you, ma’am,” I answer. I take a seat to stretch out my leg and give my thigh and knee a quick rubdown. I’m still squeezing it when Dr. Crist comes out.
“Looks like you’re not taking care of yourself,” he says in his deep baritone. Crist is slightly under six feet, but his wide shoulders create an imposing presence.
I rise and give my leg a little shake. “Just spending a little too much time on my leg. Thanks for throwing me under the bus the other night.”
He grins. “I thought you’d enjoy that. Come on in. How’s business?”
“Good. I’ve got more clients than I have employees.” I decide against sitting. Sometimes the burning or ache goes away if I walk it off, other times I just have to live with it. It’s the price an amputee pays for being mobile. I don’t know of one person who is pain-free with their prosthetic. At some point during the day, it starts to ache, but if you embrace the pain, it can be a sweet reminder of what you survived. “I’m guessing it’s the same for you. Sylvia sighed a lot before she told me I could see you at ten.”
“Unfortunately,” he admits, “there is no end of customers. The demand for your type of services may always be high.”
Isaiah’s office takes up almost half of the floor, and one side is lined with books. There are fiction, nonfiction, academic texts, and popular self-help books that rest side by side on the shelves. Toward the end, by the French doors leading to a garden terrace where Isaiah sometimes holds his sessions, I even find a set of Natalie’s books. I pull the first one out. Don’t Sleep by M. Kannan.
I’d have to ask her some time how she came up with her pseudonym. I hold out the book. “You plan to see the movie?”
Isaiah settles behind his desk and puts his feet up as I wander. “Opening night with my wife, I hope. You?”
“Yeah. Opening night,” I echo.
I wonder if Natalie would go or if that was one more thing that she would miss due to her illness. On the other side of the room are pictures. Some are of Isaiah when he was in the army, some when he was in college, but many are pictures of his family—old, deceased, and new. Isaiah lives the life dreamed by every soldier. His wife is literally a supermodel. She doesn’t model anymore but hosts her own reality-TV show. They have three beautiful children. In their wedding picture, the one that he has chosen to showcase in the middle of the wall, his tux pants are rolled up and you can see the titanium leg and blade that served as his foot that day. His wife is holding his hand tightly, her dress pulled up to reveal her perfect ankles and toned calves.
Isaiah is the perfect doctor to talk to if you’re a soldier who thinks his life is over. He will tell you it has just begun.
“I have a friend.” I put the book back in its place and turn around to lean against the shelves. “She suffers from severe anxiety. To the extent that she is housebound. She has difficulty even opening her door at times for fear of what unknown may be on the other side.”
“Anxiety disorders can be seriously debilitating, as you already know.”
I nod slowly, trying to explain the situation as best I can without breaking a confidence. “It’s been going on for at least three years. Recently she had gotten the courage to leave her apartment and go to places close by. A couple weeks ago she was able to make it to the subway entrance but not down in the tunnel. A subway attack was the trigger to her current situation.”
“Then something happened to impair that?”
“She received a threatening note. It disturbed her to the extent that a lot of the advancements that she had made were eradicated.”
He rocks in his big leather chair, the ancient brass ball bearings squeaking with each rotation. “And you want to know what? How to help her? I’ll certainly see her, if that’s what you’re asking. Although my schedule is full, I would make the exception for you.”
“She already sees someone her family trusts, but I don’t have a good vibe about him.”
Isaiah sighs and sits up. He folds his hands on his desk and peers at me over his glasses. “A patient’s relationship with their doctor is a unique one. Particularly when you’re talking about psychotherapy. Many people believe the type of therapy I do for soldiers is inappropriate and that in the long term, even if I solve some of their problems, they will suffer. And I’m sure that some of them would rather go back to the front line than enter my office.”
“She wants to get better and he’s holding her back,” I state plainly.
“How so?”
“Yesterday she told me she wanted to try some of her aversion therapy again and slowly start the process of going outside, but her doctor refuses and has told her to take a bunch of drugs that numb her out. His advice to her is to avoid new people and stay inside.”
“New people like yourself?”
I make an impatient noise and push away from the bookcase to stand near Isaiah’s desk. “He doesn’t know I exist. But her circle of acquaintances and friends is otherwise quite small. It’s two people—one she works for and one who is a family member. He’s tightening the bonds around her, corralling her into a spot where she only has a few contacts vetted by him. I don’t like that.”
The good doctor replies with an evenhanded tone, “Being patient has always been difficult for you. You wanted to be walking before you had the prosthetic on.”