Ben’s sister was a self-described chain smoker, and she supported her claim easily. To me it seemed like an odd habit for a psychiatrist, but then, she was also human. We all had our vices-for instance, with me, it was cigars-so I was not about to make a judgment.
In the physical features department, Helen bore more than a passing family resemblance to her brother; the obvious exception being that she stood just shy of a foot shorter than he was. Other than that, they shared the same mysteriously dark eyes and characteristic profiles. Her thick, black hair hung in a straight fall that pleasantly contrasted her softly angular features. It was streaked here and there with strands of grey, which was the only visual indicator that she was the older of the two siblings.
I shrugged inside my coat, giving a slight shiver against a random gust of wind that managed to infiltrate its folds and then tugged the zipper up another pair of inches in self-defense.
Yellow-brown stands of decorative grasses ringed the inside of the yard, each clump angling upward in shallow arcs to peek just inches over the top of the privacy fence. Snow was now falling in heavy waves, drifting downward, slipstreaming sideways on the wind and then tumbling to rest on the dormant carpet of Zoysia.
“Nancy probably needs you more than me,” I said while looking down and absently inspecting the burning cigar I was twisting between my thumb and forefinger. “She’s the one who just lost her husband to a psychopath.”
Helen exhaled a stream of smoke and tapped the ash from the end of her cigarette before gesturing. “Look there, Rowan.”
I looked up then swiveled my head and followed her finger with my eyes. A sturdily-caged bird feeder sat atop a post in a nearby section of the yard with a pair of black-capped chickadees flitting in and out of it. A much larger bird, speckled along its brown back, hung from the side where a suet cake had been affixed.
“That is a northern flicker,” she announced.
“Avoiding my question?” I asked, looking back at her with a slight smile.
She shrugged as she spoke. “No, not really, Rowan. I am simply fascinated by birds. Besides, you did not ask a question. You made a comment.” She returned the smile as she paused and took a drag on her cigarette. “Now, if I were to treat your comment as a question, first I would point out that Eldon Porter is a sociopath not a psychopath.”
“Touche,” I answered.
“Secondly, I would tell you that Nancy has exactly what she needs, given the circumstances. Family. As she advances through the stages of grief, her family will be the most effective support system she could ever need. She will talk to me when and if she feels ready to do so. Perhaps she will never need me. I cannot say one way or the other at this stage. That is something that is peculiar to the individual. You can rest assured, however, that she is not yet ready.”
I returned to staring out into the yard as she spoke. The seasonally barren branches of trees twisted in the air, their grey-black bark collecting cottony traces of the falling precipitation. As I stared at them, they began to look as though they were spindly arms reaching out in some agonized death throe-all in all, a visual metaphor for my own tortured mood.
I took a hard drag on the end of my cigar. I normally reveled in the spicy taste of a good, Maduro-wrapped smoke, but at the moment it wasn’t bringing the pleasure I hoped. I allowed the blue-white smoke to stream out slowly between my teeth, making a futile grab for some modicum of enjoyment and finding none.
“Ben asked you to come here for my sake, didn’t he?” I asked.
My matter-of-fact tone didn’t faze her. “Of course, Rowan, but you knew that already.”
“Yeah, I guess I did.”
“I am certainly willing to be here for all of your friends as well,” she added.
“I’m sure they would appreciate that.”
“Under the circumstances, however, you are the primary concern.”
“I’m okay,” I told her.
“I am certain that you are,” she replied. “However, I sense that you have concerns of your own.”
“Don’t we all?” I asked the question in an easy, rhetorical sense. I wasn’t looking to be difficult, and I didn’t want to come across to her that way.
“Of course,” she answered in her own comfortable tone. “Your concerns, however, are far less… shall we say ‘mundane’, than most.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Guess so.”
“Benjamin told me you had some type of seizure earlier.”
“You could call it that.”
“Do you think that it was something else?”
I looked over at her. “What do you mean?”
“Your comment.” She shrugged. “It implies that you think of the episode as something other than a seizure.”
“Oh, that.” I nodded then shrugged. “I’m not really sure what it was. I know it wasn’t very pleasant, but other than that…” I allowed my voice to trail off as I pondered the event.
“Do you feel that it might have something to do with Eldon Porter?” she asked.
“Maybe.”
She shuffled for a moment and then looked up at the grey sky. “I love snow. It carries with it such a simple purity.”
“It’s frozen water crystallized around any number of impurities it picks up in our polluted atmosphere.” I stated the fact. “Not sure how that qualifies in the purity department.”
She regarded me with a slight chuckle. “I see that you are not in the mood for philosophical metaphors today, Rowan.”
“Guess not.”
She nodded as she fished out a fresh cigarette and lit it from the smoldering butt of the first. After discarding the spent smoke in the sand bucket, she cocked her head to the side and watched me for a moment.
“How has Felicity been holding up?” she finally asked, shedding her initially adopted clinical air.
“Okay I guess. But, you probably know more about that than me.”
I based my observation on the fact that my wife had recently taken advantage of Helen’s offer of therapy in the wake of the kidnapping and attempted rape she’d experienced.
She clarified the question. “I meant in light of what has happened today.”
“She’s frightened,” I offered with a shrug. “Natural reaction if you ask me.”
“I should think so.” She nodded. “Porter’s threats are coming on the heels of a very traumatic experience for her. She is feeling terribly vulnerable right now.”
“How deep does that vulnerability go is the question,” I said aloud.
“Meaning?”
“I don’t know,” I sighed. “I guess I’m lamenting my own feelings.”
“Would you like to share those feelings, Rowan?”
“Like? No. But, to be honest, standing here talking with you, I have to say that I feel compelled to, yes.”
She let out a small, musical laugh. “Compelled? Oh my, Rowan, I truly wish that all of my patients were as easy to work with as you.”
“You mean you don’t have this effect on everyone?” I smiled.
“Believe me, my life would be much easier if I did,” she returned.
“Probably be boring though,” I offered.
“Perhaps, however, you are certainly not boring in any sense of the word, Mister Gant.” She puffed on her cigarette and watched the large woodpecker as it continued drilling away at the suet cake. “So, you were saying?”
Her casual attitude had put me at ease as usual, and suddenly my emotional baggage seemed much easier to unpack in front of her.
“I can’t help but wonder if part of the vulnerability she is feeling might stem from a lack of confidence in my ability to protect her.” I offered the thought to her and waited patiently for her analysis. The wait was short.
“What is it that would lead you to believe such a thing?”
“I don’t know.” I shook my head. “Just a feeling.”
“Is it really a feeling, or is it something you have conjured in your imagination?”
“Full of questions today, aren’t you?”
“It is my job, Rowan,” she returned with a smile and cocked her head to the side. “Now, do you happen to have answers for my questions?”