Cold Counsel, Chapter 18, by Phyllis Mathis

Phyllis Mathis is a writer, a psychotherapist, and a life coach, living and working in Arvada, CO. Her novel is entitled Cold Counsel. Check out her website: Resonance: your life, in tune.

Read earlier chapters of Cold Counsel here
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Cold Counsel, Chapter 18

At 5:30 on Monday evening Susan started her car, waiting a few minutes for the engine to warm up before she headed back to the hospital for the evening. Rosie had pulled out of the shock of her condition and become quite cranky on Sunday. Liz had promised to be with her as much as she could, but she was working late tonight, so Susan volunteered to take the early shift.

Her day had gone surprisingly well. Susan arrived at the office in a fog, bleary and insecure, dreading the revolving door of her busy Monday. But by noon she was in her rhythm, alert and engaged, feeling whole for the first time in two days. She marveled again how her work seemed to ground her, energize her, and set the world right again.
The weekend had presented a tidal wave of mixed emotions, and Susan had ducked for cover, leaving her feeling vaporous. It was good to be back.

As she rode the elevator up to ICU, she took a deep breath, bracing herself against another wave of emotion. She stepped onto the floor and moved right toward the ward, just as a woman exited the restroom next to the elevator. Susan excused herself and stepped around her.

“Susan?” the woman said. “Oh my God, Susan? What are you doing here? I can’t believe it!”

Susan stopped and turned toward the woman. It was Tracy.

“Tracy! I’m so sorry. I guess I was caught up in my own thoughts. I didn’t expect to see anyone I knew here.” Tracy. What was Tracy doing here? Her stomach dropped to her knees, threatening her newly recovered confidence.

“I can’t believe this! I was just about to call you. Jeff is here.” Tracy’s eyes were round and bright with fear, wispy strands of hair framing her pale face, hands gripping Susan’s forearm like a vise.

“Jeff? Here?” Susan managed to reply. Her voice sounded far away.

“He’s in a coma. Somebody attacked him and he’s been here since early Saturday morning.”

A wave of tingling energy moved through Susan’s arms, shoulder to fingertips. Her stomach clenched and her vision shifted as if she was looking at Tracy through a tunnel. She wanted to vomit.

“Detective Olson asked me to come take a look, and maybe answer some questions. He’s waiting for me at the nurses’ station.”

Susan blanched as the room began a slow spin. She struggled to gain composure, digging for the confidence she must have left in the elevator.

“I’m so afraid to look at him. I don’t think I can face him, even in a coma. Oh God, you’re here! Would you come with me? Please?” begged Tracy, “I can’t do it alone.”

The moment seemed to stretch into eternity as Susan fought for composure. She gathered all her determination and stuffed her shock and dread into a special container inside. She willed herself to seal off her body’s sensations – the tingling, the nausea, the rubber-like limbs – as if sealing off the flooding compartments in a damaged submarine. She released her breath and took another, trying not to gasp. Her vision returned to normal. She took Tracy’s hand.

“Of course,” Susan said softly. Come on, Susan, fake it till you make it, she thought. They headed for the nurses’ station.

Detective Olson was leaning against the wall across from the nurses’ station with his hands in his pockets and a toothpick in his mouth. As the women approached he stood up and buttoned his navy blue sports jacket, ran his hands down the front of his coat to smooth his look, and deposited his toothpick in the trash can next to him. He was tall, over six feet, with dark wavy hair in need of a cut. Just about my age, Susan thought.

She felt his eyes fixed on her as he took a step forward and held out his hand for a shake.

“I’m Detective Olson of the Minneapolis Police Department. And you are…?” he said. Susan looked at her right hand, thinking she should make an effort to move it toward the man.

Tracy slipped her arm under Susan’s, linking elbows, and said in a rush, “This is Susan Nelson. She’s my therapist. She’s the one who’s been with me since I got out of rehab. She knows everything.” Tracy leaned forward and put her hand on Detective Olson’s forearm. “I was hoping she could be with me when we go in.”

His eyes became wider as his hands returned to his sides. He seemed suddenly self-conscious. “Pleased to meet you, ma’am,” he said with sudden deference.

Susan remembered that some people are still intimidated by psychotherapists, thinking, evidently, that they live a plane above, magically reading the thoughts of all the people around them. This always baffled her. As if, she thought. As if we’re totally sane. As if we never feel insecure. As if we don’t stumble around in hospitals wondering what the heck is wrong with us. As if we’re even capable of running our own lives. Still, it boosted her confidence a little, and shifted the power in her direction, helping her to focus.

“Nice meeting you too,” she said. “Can you tell me what happened here?” Her voice sounded like it came from somewhere else. Confident, serene. Whew.

Detective Olson reached inside his breast pocket to retrieve his notebook. He flipped it open.

“Three o’clock on Friday morning the department got a tip to check out a house in south Minneapolis. Turns out our boy Jeff here got himself whacked with a blunt instrument out in his front yard in the middle of the night. When the officers got there they searched the house and found a load of cocaine. They’ve been working the drug bust all weekend, rounding up the other guys in his little play group. Yesterday they ran his prints and that’s when we found out it was our old friend Jeff. A buddy of mine called to tell me he was here.”

Susan felt the sensations of dread again, but his time they were a faint disturbance on the other side of a deep, wide canyon. She easily dismissed them.

“So…are you investigating the attack?” asked Susan.

“Me? No,” he said. “I’m pretty sure no one gives a sh- uh, a darn about who attacked this guy. Whoever he is, he did us all a favor. Narc squad is anxious to talk to him about it because they think it might lead to more arrests, but I’ve been after this dirt bag for a long time. Ever since he tried to kill Tracy here.”

Tracy was standing slightly back, biting her fingernails.

“Couple weeks ago she called to tell me he might be stalking her, so we reopened the case. And now he’s here at Fairview – on a silver platter. It was a lucky break. This guy is in for some serious time when he comes to.” He looked at Tracy and then back to Susan. He smiled, chagrined.

“It’s never this easy,” he said. “Anyway I thought Tracy might wanna take a look at him before he wakes up, so…here we are.”

“So are they confident he’ll recover?” Susan asked. Tracy froze, fingers in midair.

He glanced at Tracy and then back to Susan.

“Yeah. The docs say they’re keeping him in a coma until the swelling goes down. After a day or two they’ll back off on the drugs and see if the lights come on. Narcotics will question him about the attack in case there are some dirtbags they missed in the bust.” Olson shifted his weight and flipped his notebook closed.

“So why is there an officer outside his room?” Susan asked.

“It’s just a precaution,” he said, waving it off. “In case whoever did it wanted to finish him off. More to protect the hospital staff than our boy here. We don’t want anyone to get caught in the middle of some kind of vendetta. Now that the story’s off the front page, we’ll pull the guard. Tonight’s his last night.”

“Have his parents been notified?” asked Tracy weakly. Her face was fading to pale.

“They tried. The number we had has been disconnected for some time. The hospital’s trying to track them down, but so far no luck.”

He flipped his notebook open again and asked, “You don’t have a current number for them do you?”

“No…” Tracy stared at her fingernails, remembering. “Uh, we were never close.”

“I figured,” he said, tucking the notebook away again. “OK. Well, are you ready? I got permission from the doc for you to be in the room. You can’t touch him or anything, but it’s ok for you to go in. And Ms. Nelson too, I guess. But I have to be at the door.”

Susan turned her attention to Tracy. She appeared to shrink before their eyes, shoulders slumped forward, eyes sunk back in their sockets, staring at nothing, immobilized. This must be what she was like when she was with him, thought Susan. Such a contrast from the the Tracy she knew now. It’s right that I’m with her. She’d never make it on her own.

Susan put her hand on Tracy’s arm.

“Tracy? This is why we’re here. I’m with you. You can do this, ok?”
Tracy looked up at Susan, struggling to return to the present.

“I…I don’t know…” She crumpled back into herself.

Susan gave Officer Olson a look. He stepped away, looking uncomfortable.

“Tracy, look at me. Look at my face.” Susan took her hand in both of hers. “Now, breathe with me. Ready? Breathe in like this, and then slowly out.”

Tracy tried to obey.

“Good. Again.” Susan exaggerated her breathing, blowing the air out in a slow narrow stream. Tracy followed her.

“Hold both of my hands. Can you feel me here with you?”

Tracy nodded.

“Now close your eyes and find your feet. Think about them, down there inside your boots. Holding you up. Competent as ever…Got them?”

Tracy nodded again.

“Don’t forget to breathe. One more, in and out. This time, find your knees, your hands, your shoulders. Are you with me?”

Once more Tracy nodded, eyes closed. The color seeped back into her face.

“Ok, one more breath…in and out, that’s it. Now, keep your eyes closed. I want you to remember that day in my office. You know what I’m talking about, right?”

The hint of a smile appeared on Tracy’s face. “Emancipation Proclamation,” she whispered.

“That’s right. What did you do that day?” Susan asked.

“Took away his weapon. Declared my independence.” Tracy voice was barely above a whisper, but gathering strength.

“Yes you did,” Susan replied, remembering the power and fury Tracy found that day. It was three years ago, the culmination of her trauma work. That day Susan brought Tracy into her office, where she had placed a baseball bat on an empty chair. As they progressed through the session, Tracy was able to take the bat from the imaginary Jeff, claiming it as her own. When Susan asked her what she wanted to do with it, Tracy said, “I want to beat the shit out of that son of a bitch!” Susan then replaced the real thing with a Nerf bat, and for the next five minutes Tracy attempted to beat the stuffing out of that empty chair. Next she raised the real bat over her head and made some remarkable declarations of personal power and independence. After that day Tracy spoke and moved with a confidence she didn’t know she had. She nicknamed that session her Emancipation Proclamation.

“What did you say to him?”

“You lose. I win. You don’t own me,” Tracy said softly.

“What was that? I didn’t hear you,” Susan said curtly.

Tracy inhaled, opened her eyes and said, “You lose. I win.”

“And how did you win?”

“I crawled out of the shit hole he put me in.”

“Yes you did.”
Tracy’s eyes were clear now, the fire returned. She stood up straight, feet planted firmly on the floor.

“I won. I’m the one standing here, sane and sober. He’s the one strapped to a hospital bed. He’s the one going to jail for drug dealing and attempted murder.” She cocked her head and looked at Susan. “It’s true. I feel it.” She smiled.

“All right then. What are we waiting for?”

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