Hellidays 3 – The Next Morning, Christmas, New Year's
Angela awoke the next morning depressed to the point of not even wanting to get out of bed. She clutched a pillow and replayed last night in her head. "I love you," Tony had said. She couldn't believe he had said those words. Couldn't believe he had the audacity to lie to her like that. For if there was one thing she knew; Tony couldn't have meant those words in their most pristine form. Even if he'd meant it at all, he'd only meant he loved her as a friend. A friend. Right about now Angela didn't even want to be his friend anymore. She just wanted him to graduate and get out of her house forever. A terrible thought seeped into her mind: maybe she should just fire him. He'd have to leave the house in that circumstance. She'd be free of him and his lies.
"Who are you kidding, Angela?" her thoughts prompted. She sighed. She could no sooner fire Tony than she could fly to the moon. She also had her beloved son to think about; she couldn't deprive him of his father figure any sooner than was necessary. Angela made the maternal sacrifice and decided against firing Tony; which had only been a flitting thought anyway. Besides, going on vacation with someone she'd recently fired would render the word awkward into obsolescence; the situation would be so weird she would have to invent a new word for it. Angela resigned herself to having to live with Tony for the next few months; if she steeled herself, she could do it. She was strong, she was woman; she didn't live through the 60's and claw her way through the New York City advertising world of the 70's just to be brought down by a man, even if she did happen to love him.
Angela resolved all of this, but it didn't help her depression. The words "manipulative bastard!" which somehow escaped her mouth did help her depression. They separated him from her; if she kept reminding herself of his worst traits, she would eventually snuff out any feelings of love she had for him (she hoped.) She self-righteously reminded herself that her feelings for him were true and real.
Angela reluctantly looked at the clock. She might as well get up; after all staying home would only mean she would be in close proximity to Tony all day as his classes had ended and his work was here. She threw the covers off quickly and mentally made a note to call Dr. Bellows today and see if she could work her in for an emergency appointment this afternoon. Angela had been working on disassociating herself from her emotions, after last night she felt like a failure. Her perceived failure only added to her depression.
She'd been working on this for the past few months as a way to combat her love for Tony, with little to no success. In an effort to divorce herself from her feelings, she decided to focus on business, the most successful business people were the ones who didn't let emotion cloud their thinking, and if there was one thing Angela was, it was a successful business person. Bringing that discipline over to her personal life was challenging, she thought she had been making progress, but last night showed her that she still had work to do. Angela was not the failure she thought she was in disassociating; in fact she was so good at it, she hadn't even noticed how adept she had become at it. Tony had said, "I love you," and she hadn't felt anything. No rush of love, no desire to run to his arms. It wasn't that she didn't love Tony anymore, she did, but she'd succeeded in closing herself off so well that she couldn't respond as expected. She was numb. She couldn't access her own deepest feelings anymore. It had hurt her too much to experience those feelings so she'd buried them and had successfully thrown away the key.
Angela got dressed and hurried downstairs to grab her coat and briefcase, she could hear the rest of the family talking over breakfast. Wanting to get out of the house before anyone could try to talk to her, she shouted toward the kitchen that she was taking an earlier train in today and was out the door before anyone could stop her.
In the kitchen conversation stopped as Tony, Mona and Jonathan heard Angela's announcement and the subsequent slam of the front door. They looked at each other, seeing weariness in each other's eyes. The Problem was out of control.
"It's my fault. I lost her," Tony's Catholic guilt kicked in.
"Tony, Angela is an adult, you are not responsible for her behavior," Mona stated emphatically, yet inwardly she was a little worried that not only had her daughter just effectively run away from them, she hadn't even harassed her into taking the earlier train as well. This alone was a red flag.
Tony's guilt wasn't going to go away that easily, "I hurt her," he said as he pulled up a chair and sank into it.
"You don't know that; you don't know what's bothering her any more than the rest of us do."
"So what do we do? Schedule an appointment with Dr. Bellows for the rest of us? That would be useless, she can't discuss Angela with us. I suggested we go for family therapy last night, and she...she said...I can't even..." This was extremely difficult for Tony to repeat.
"Spit it out, Tony," Mona demanded.
"She said we weren't a family," he whispered morosely.
This was worse than Mona thought. Angela couldn't really believe this, could she? "We should schedule an appointment for the rest of us to see if there is anything we can do to help Angela through whatever it is she is going through. I have lost patience with her. I'll call Dr. Bellows while Angela is in a client meeting today."
Jonathan was in disbelief. He knew things were bad in the household, but he didn't think they had deteriorated this far. It seemed like only yesterday that they sat near the fireplace drinking hot chocolate and burning marshmallows talking about how they were a family. If he remembered properly, and he did, his mother had been adamant that they were indeed a family. At the time he thought it strange that she would say they when she was dating Geoffrey, but he'd just brushed it off as one of those adult things that he couldn't understand. Even though he'd gained a few years, he still couldn't understand what was going on with his mother.
A plan had been created, but that still didn't console Tony. Mona noticed this and patted his hand, "she'll be all right, Tony, I know she will." Whether she said those words for the benefit of Tony and Jonathan or herself she wasn't really sure.
The subsequent multiple phone calls to Dr. Bellows' office made for a hectic day there; one which required tact and discretion. Dr. Bellows did find time to get Angela in later that day, but put off the rest of the family until the next day in order to be as up to date as possible on Angela's state of mind before seeing the situation from the point of view of the rest of the family. She didn't dare try to schedule everyone on the same day, if they happened to see each other in her office the results could be disastrous. Angela might see the situation as an ambush and she knew Angela's precarious state of mind would see an ambush as a betrayal, causing her to cut herself off even more from those she loved the most.
Angela paced. She'd been uneasy all day and now that she was in Dr. Bellows' office she couldn't find a way to say what she wanted to say. "Thank you for seeing me so quickly, doctor," Angela covered, still continuing to pace as Dr. Bellows acknowledged her with a nod while she sat calmly observing. "It's...it's...been a strange twenty-four hours. Work has been rough; I have an unhappy client, I can't seem to find my creativity, the office seems...glum and I don't know how to pull everyone out of the doldrums. I can't even pull myself out; how can I pull out anyone else?" Angela stopped walking for a moment and gave Dr. Bellows a plaintive look. "I feel like I am losing control of the office. My agency. I can't seem to motivate people anymore. My mother isn't even as carefree as she used to be. There have even been times I have caught her actually working. It scares me. If she is picking up my slack, then I must be slipping more than I thought. I don't know what I would do if I lost the agency." She shook her head, "I can't; I just can't lose the agency. I wouldn't be able to handle it."
Dr. Bellows had been allowing Angela to talk about work, even though she knew it was only a symptom, feeling that if she let Angela start on a more comfortable subject that eventually she would get to what she really needed to talk about. However, Angela's last statement alerted her that it was time to step in. "Angela," she said, quietly but firmly, "please, sit down." Not in any frame of mind to argue, Angela sat down, thinking that any advice from Dr. Bellows would help her through this.
"Does your agency have more money coming in than going out?"
"Yes."
"Then you are not at risk of losing the agency."
"Right; but what about the unhappy client and the staff..."
Dr. Bellows stepped in to stop Angela from blowing her work situation out of proportion, "you've dealt with unhappy clients before; it's a part of business. You've managed before, you will manage again. Take strength from you past successes. You've assembled and great staff who want to work with you, Angela, if they didn't they wouldn't be there."
"All except one staff member," Angela muttered.
Dr. Bellows raised an eyebrow, looking directly at Angela she silently invited her to expand on that comment.
Angela knew there was no point in trying to evade this; she had to say what she came here to say. She took a very deep breath and let it out. She tried to talk, but wound up taking another deep breath instead.
Dr. Bellows waited patiently.
Angela gripped the arm of the couch with one hand and took another deep breath, "Tony said, 'I love you' last night."
Dr. Bellows was intrigued but showed no sign of this on her face.
Angela looked at the doctor, hoping for any sign of encouragement. Seeing none, she knew she was on her own and had to expand on this. "He said the words that I have been aching to hear him say for years...and I felt...nothing. No, that isn't true. There was anger...I was angry. Who is he to fling that lie at me?" Angela jumped up from the couch and started pacing again. "I've known him for seven years; he's not the person I thought he was. How could I have not seen the truth? For so long I thought he was a tender man; loving, giving, thoughtful." Angela stared out a window and crossed her arms; there was nothing to see out the window, the sun having long departed for the night. Her eyes were unfocused as she shook her head, "All this time and I didn't see that he uses those words so indiscriminately. He loves baseball, he loves his car, he loves sausage and peppers." Reminded of the street fair Angela grinned through her pain, "at least he didn't love Frankie. That doesn't mean he didn't have a fun weekend with her though. I don't even want to think about what happened that weekend."
"Return to the present, Angela."
"What?" Angela turned around, having almost forgotten that Dr. Bellows was there, "sorry," she said sheepishly. She sat back down on the couch.
"No need to be sorry, just focus on what happened to bring you here today."
Angela pressed her lips together in an effort to hold back the emotion, but it didn't work and she burst into tears. Dr. Bellows brought a box a tissues over to her and sat next to her. Angela held the tissues on her lap as she desperately tore one after the other out of the box. "I don't know what to do anymore. I can't go on pretending he's not there. He lives there; just a few steps away from me. Always trying to be helpful; always looking so worried." She flung the box on the couch and stood up, "I can't stand his pity anymore. I won't."
"Might he not actually be worried about you?"
"Tony? He defines the term 'Mother Hen'. He's always clucking around, sticking his beak into everyone's business." Angela allowed herself a small laugh at the mental image of Tony with a beak.
"It's time to tell him to stop nagging me. I already have one mother; and she's the queen of nagging."
Dr. Bellows knew; they had devoted hours to Angela's relationship with her mother.
Angela's resolve was weakening, the couch welcomed her again, "do you think I should tell Tony leave me alone?"
"Only you can decide that Angela."
Of course. Angela visibly sagged. "I just want to be happy again. I don't even remember what that feels like. It's like I am in a cave, it's misty and I keep turning around looking for something...I don't even know what, but all I see is more mist. It's there; I know it is, but it's elusive, hiding from me."
Angela was depressed, Dr. Bellows knew that, but she felt Angela's case wasn't chronic, it had been triggered by one specific event and was tied to that. If she could get Angela and Tony back to the Angela and Tony they used to be, Angela's depression should be alleviated. Toward that end she prompted, "Angela, what action do you need to take to make yourself happy?"
"I don't know, doctor."
"Keep thinking."
Angela sat there, still idly pulling tissues from the box even though she didn't need them anymore.
"Christmas," Angela finally whispered, "I want to enjoy Christmas."
This was not the answer Dr. Bellows was hoping for, but she accepted it, hoping to use it to prompt Angela into exploring what she really needed to do to be happy. As a beginning she simply asked her,
"what do you need to do to make this Christmas happy?"
Angela looked everywhere but at Dr. Bellows, she knew the answer "I don't know" was not going to be accepted. The trouble was, she really didn't know. There didn't seem to be anything to actually do; it was more a question of being. Being happy. Being pulled together. Being part of the family unit instead of pulling herself away from it. That's when the truth came to Angela; if she wanted to be happy she had to change the way she had been interacting with those she loved most. She'd been the one to pull away; not them. She had one last chance for a happy Christmas with them and she wanted to make the most of it. "I have to take down some of the walls I've built."
"And how will you express that?"
"Not run from them, I guess. I'll try to find the Angela I used to be. I'll take pleasure in their company."
"You have a wonderful opportunity coming up, Angela. Christmas and then a week in sunny Florida."
Angela couldn't argue that point. If the family had any chance of being salvaged, she had to be the one to repair the cracks she had made, and there wouldn't be a better chance than the upcoming holidays. "Yes, of course, doctor." Angela was at once terrified and hopeful. She wasn't sure she could hold herself to her promise, but she knew that if she could the results would be beneficial for all.
The second wave of the Bower-Micelli clan arrived in Dr. Bellows' office the next evening. Tony, Mona, Sam and Jonathan took their seats in various states of distress. Everyone wanted answers, but they all knew they were not going to get them. Tony was wondering if there was some legal method to access Dr. Bellows' files concerning Angela. Subpoena? Court order? Pointing out a non-existent bird out a window and making the doctor look while he surreptitiously glanced at the paperwork? Tony's mind was full of ideas; absolutely none of which would work.
Dr. Bellows welcomed everyone then wasted no time in getting to what they were there for, "who would like to start?" she asked.
Tony jumped up to answer quickly and first; "why won't she talk to us?" he demanded.
"I can't share information," the doctor responded.
"I know, I know; privileged information, blah, blah, blah. Angela is too important to all of us to just let things go on the way they have been," Tony's exasperation came to the surface.
"Doctor," Mona started, after glaring at Tony over his outburst, "we are very worried about my little girl." Tony grudgingly sat down, letting Mona's rarely seen maternal side take the lead.
Dr. Bellows had to walk a very thin line; she couldn't betray the confidential status of the information Angela had shared with her; especially Tony's declaration of love, but if there was one moment in her career when she considered breaking that trust with her client, this was it. Instead she stayed true to her profession and focused on calming the anxiety she saw in the eyes of everyone who loved Angela. "Angela has been working through a rough patch. We all go through them, there is no need for undue concern." She looked at each family member in turn, letting them know that even though she couldn't go into details, she had the situation with Angela under control.
"So what do we do, doc?" Tony still wasn't completely appeased. "I can't stand not being able to help her. I really can't stand that she won't talk to me. And any time I try to talk to her she pushes me away – not physically, of course; she's not violent, she...just looks like she'd rather be anyplace else on the planet than near me." The heartbreak in Tony's voice was apparent to everyone in the room.
From all the times Angela had talked about Tony, which had been many, Doctor Bellows knew that he was an active, involved, take charge kind of man. Part of the trouble at the moment was that his innate ability to get things done was useless in this situation. Doctor Bellows knew she had to be tactful and keep Tony on an even keel at the same time. Ironically her advice to Tony was the opposite of her advice to Angela. She started serenely, "Tony, this may not be a question of doing; more of being. I know how difficult it is when someone we care for has retreated. We all ask ourselves what we can do to improve communication..."
Tony was having none of this "improving communication" talk; he'd been trying to improve communication for two months with no results. His staunch love for those closest to him drove him off the couch again, he pounced up and said, "but Doc, she said...she said," Tony could barely tolerate remembering this moment, let alone express it. He glanced around the room and saw everyone else looking at him with expectant expressions on their faces. Taking courage from them he sighed and barely choked out, "she said we weren't a family." Tony flopped back down onto the couch in defeat. The rest of the family that Angela had declared wasn't a family sat there in silence, too stunned to say much of anything. Even though her father had warned her about this, Sam felt her heart break; for so long she had considered Angela to be her second mother. Wasn't she the one who took in a little girl who'd lost her mother and needed the guidance of a woman? Wasn't she the one who showed her that she was more to her than just the housekeeper's daughter through her actions? Wasn't she the one she'd talked to through the years when she needed feminine help navigating puberty? She'd thought Angela held all those memories as close to her heart as she did. To be hit with these words shook Sam to her core; it was as if she'd lost her mother all over again.
Jonathan was just trying to absorb everything being said. He already had one distant parent in his father; his mother's sudden distance wasn't helping his self-esteem. The knowledge that in the not so distant future he would lose Tony as well was adding to his anxiety. The uncertainty of the future weighed heavily on him.
Mona had crossed over into angry. Her daughter had no right to declare this family non-existent. She was angry to the point of letting Angela go if she wanted to wrench herself away from the family, but the rest of them were going to stay together.
Doctor Bellows realized that this family was going to be more of a challenge than she had thought. She was going to have to get the complete family in for at least one appointment together, if not more; and bring in a colleague. The difficult part would be convincing Angela to come to therapy with her family; and they were still her family no matter how much she tried to distance herself from them; or at the very least, Tony. It was possible that it might take a screaming match to rip apart the walls that Angela had sheltered herself in. Once those walls were down, and a lot of honesty had been confronted, then they could rebuild the relationships.
"I need to do something, doc; I can't just sit around anymore hoping that she will talk to me."
"Support her."
Tony jumped up from the couch once again, "what the hell does that mean?" He started pacing, "I do nothing but support her; keep things calm at home, try to get her to talk to me, make her tea...get her chocolate. She's mad at me for something; but I have no idea what." His frustration spent, he sat down and pleaded, "I can't lose her, doc."
Doctor Bellows remembered Angela discussing Tony's declaration of love with her so she knew that Tony's outburst was at its heart an expression of this truth. "Tony," she looked around to include the rest of the family, "worry only complicates the situation."
"Easy for you to say," Tony muttered. He was very dissatisfied with the results of the appointment. Considering that his hopes hadn't been too high going in, having his low expectations crushed made his mood even worse. He expressed his anger, "maybe I should be like Angela and pretend there's nothing wrong."
"That might be a good option, Tony," Dr. Bellows answered to Tony's surprise. Mona was more than surprised, she was outraged, "denial? You want him to live in denial? If you ask me their biggest problem is that they have lived in denial for too long."
Privately Dr. Bellows agreed with Mona, but she certainly could not let anyone suspect that. "Not denial, so much as 'fake it 'til you make it'. Modeling the relationships you wish to see will go a long way in creating those relationships."
"Do you have any advice other than platitudes?" Tony demanded. Mona glared at him and he apologized to Dr. Bellows.
"I know that you have family plans for Christmas and New Year's," Dr. Bellows started. To Sam's relief she still referred to them as a family. Dr. Bellows continued, "start with the base you have already created for Christmas. You have long standing family traditions for the day, be sure you do all of them, bringing up good memories of the past as you do so. This will help Angela connect the joy of the past with the present. Then you can build on these memories when you are in Florida."
"I'll try anything," Jonathan said. Tony looked at him. Jonathan shrugged at him, silently saying, "we don't really have any other option." Tony rolled his eyes and shrugged back in grudging agreement. "Fine, we will go to Florida pretending we are the happiest family on Earth," Tony said.
"I can hear the sarcasm in your voice, Tony," Dr. Bellows called him out, "and if I can hear it, Angela will sense it."
Tony closed his eyes and sighed heavily. He took a deep breath and vowed, "I promise I will do my best to be a good family member over the holidays."
"Good," she accepted his pledge, "start with including Angela in your cooking, Tony. She'll want to be included in that no matter how much she protests."
"Fine, doc," Tony agreed, "anything else?" he asked, still a little dissatisfied.
"Yes, I expect this to be the first phase of reconciliation. The next phase will be to focus on the solution. I feel an integral part of the solution is to have everyone here together."
"You mean us with Mom?" Jonathan asked, shocked. Dr. Bellows nodded. "Mom won't go for that," Jonathan said in a voice full of resignation. Doctor Bellows obviously did not understand the full depth of the problem.
"Regardless of what she will or won't go for; I am going to recommend to her that everyone come in for an appointment."
"What if she says no?" Sam asked.
"I will keep recommending the idea until she says yes."
"What if she never agrees?" Mona asked a very valid question.
"I won't let it go for more than a couple of weeks. I will tell her that all her appointments will be scheduled for the whole family to be here. If she chooses not to participate in them, then that is her choice, but I will not see her alone."
The family nodded in agreement, there hadn't been much progress made today, but at least there was an action plan.