Chapter 10

The next morning, Tom and Doug went to go see the department psychiatrist. Fuller had called in the morning to say that there were meetings set up with a judge and that the assistant DA and Mabin were both pushing through the necessary approvals and paperwork for Tom to take custody of Jose. When they drove up to the medical center and got out of the car, Tom could feel his heart pounding in his chest. He did not want to be there. It made Amy's death far too real again and he dreaded having to go through another session.

Doug must have seen his hesitation. He walked around the car, put his arm around Tom's shoulders and marched him towards the building. "Come on. He already knows what's up and we're going together. We have to get through this before they can let Jose go. Don't worry. If Enlow gets out of line, we can just sic the McQuaids on him, 'kay?"

Tom let out the breath he was holding and told himself that the best thing to do was just answer Dr. Enlow's questions openly. Nothing really got by him anyway. Tom learned that the hard way when he started to withdraw from everyone after Amy's death and it earned him eight days in the hospital and daily sessions with an acute stress disorder specialist. Tom shuddered at the memory and Doug tightened his arm that was around Tom's shoulders.

Thankfully, having Doug there helped immensely and Tom pulled on Doug's strength. Doug had already gone through a couple of sessions with the doctor so he and Enlow talked for awhile while Tom listened. Doug's symptoms had pretty much gone away when Tom had gotten out of the detention center, probably because Doug had Tom to concentrate on. They then turned the discussion to Tom and talked about his concussion and how emotional he'd been during the last several days. Through the whole hour long session, Tom's eyes kept creeping back to his and Doug's files that were sitting on Dr. Enlow's desk. It disturbed him to see how thick his file was compared to Doug's.

After the first hour, Dr. Enlow asked to talk to Tom privately. Tom should have expected it but his heart still started pounding fiercely as his fight-or-flight reflex kicked into gear. He tried to calm himself down but, of course, Dr. Enlow brought up Doug's breakdown and asked Tom to talk through what happened. He and Doug had touched on the subject during the deposition but Tom had been avoiding the subject beyond that. He didn't know if he was ready to talk about it and after a few false starts, he found that he just couldn't do it and became angry with himself. If he couldn't talk about it, Dr. Enlow probably wouldn't approve Jose's release to him.

He drew in a deep breath and tried again. This time he choked on the lump in his throat and lowered his head into his hands, "I'm sorry. I know I need to be able to tell you what happened."

"Tom, take it in steps. Can you tell me what you were feeling when you just tried?"

Tom raised his head and looked at Enlow with his large eyes filled with fear, "I don't want to go back there… I didn't know what to do. You know what happened. I, I just sat there and listened to him scream."

"You didn't think you could do anything?"

Tom shook his head.

"Looking back, was there anything you could have done to stop it or help?"

Tom shook his head again, "If there was a way, I couldn't come up with it." He looked down at his hands.

"How does that make you feel?"

Tom shrugged his shoulders, "I don't know. Angry. Guilty. I felt so helpless… so, so useless. How could I let that happen to my partner? I wanted to scratch through the walls. He was so close but I couldn't get to him." Tom stopped. He blinked trying to hold back a memory.

Enlow noticed, "What is it, Tom?"

"Um, the next day I ended up back in solitaire pretty quickly again. Mattie, the kid who died, we fought and he was in solitaire too. He cried through most of the night. I don't know." Tom looked up, "I guess between Doug and Mattie, it started to really get to me."

"Listening to someone in pain and not being able to help would get to most people, Tom. You see that Doug is doing okay now, though, right? He wasn't doing so well when I first saw him but today I see he's doing much better. You've helped him and you probably don't even realize it."

Without being able to control it, Tom blurted out, "But Mattie's dead. I didn't help him. I'm the reason he died."

Enlow allowed a pause before asking, "Why do you say that?"

"I gave up the hammer and caused the riot that killed him."

"Did you start the fighting?"

"No."

"Did you participate in beating Mattie?"

"No, but I should have known what would happen."

Enlow sighed, "Tom, I don't have an easy answer for you and I'm not going to lie to you. Another action may have resulted in that young man not dying that night. But, you were not the one who chose to beat him. This is something you're going to have to work through and learn to live with."

Tom turned his eyes back to inspecting his hands, "I know"

"How are you going to do that?"

Tom creased his brows and stared at the corner of Enlow's desk while he thought. After a minute, he looked up, "I'm going to try to make something positive come out of it."

"Do you know what that is?"

Tom sat up straight and looked Enlow straight in the eyes, "Yes."

They spent the rest of the session talking about Tom's temporary reassignment to the center and about how he was trying to get custody of Jose. The more Tom talked about it, the more sure he was that he was doing the right thing. By the end of the session, Tom felt stronger and more positive and Dr. Enlow concluded that he would need follow-up sessions to work through some of the experiences he had had and to make sure he continued to recover but that he would be fine taking custody of Jose.

Tom walked out of Dr. Enlow's office and walked to where Doug was sitting leafing through a magazine. Doug closed the magazine and looked at him, "You good?"

Tom smiled, "Yeah."

As they walked out of the medical center together, Doug updated him on what was happening downtown. "I talked to Fuller. He said all the approvals are ready for Jose. They just need the phone call from Dr. Enlow and the judge will sign the release papers. Mabin also went to the center to talk to Jose. He's ready to get out of there."

"Did Fuller say when he'd be released?"

"4:00"

Tom stopped walking and looked at him, "Really? That's in three and a half hours from now."

Doug walked back and grabbed Tom's arm to make him start moving again, "No kidding. Come on, you need to fill out and sign a butt load of paperwork and work out details with Mabin's group so let's go."

Doug really hadn't been kidding. Tom's hand started cramping after he was only about half of the way through the mountain of paperwork that he had to fill out and he stopped and shook his hand to try to stop it from seizing up on him. He looked at Doug who was busy filling out Tom's name and address information on the forms to try to speed things up and Tom felt a pang in his chest, "Hey, man, thanks for everything."

Doug glanced up at him and smiled before resuming filling out Tom's address for the 20th time, "Don't get all mushy on me, Hanson. We don't have time for that."

Tom smiled and picked up his pen again and grabbed the next form to fill out. As he was entering his birthdate for what he estimated to be the 16th time, he heard Doug mumble, "Besides, you know I only do it because I love you too."

Tom finished all the paperwork and got Jose's parole and school schedule's set by 3:30pm leaving him a half an hour to rush over to the detention center to pick up Jose. Doug stayed downtown to help the social workers run the filled out paperwork around to the necessary departments. He then planned to meet up with Tom and Jose later for dinner. As Tom pulled up to the center, he felt a little trepidation about how he was going to handle taking care of a teenager. He took a deep breath and got out of the car. He reminded himself that he works with teenagers all the time. This was no big deal. He dug his hands deep into his jacket pockets to stave off the cold and leaned against the car to wait. After only a few minutes, he saw the door to the center open and Jose walk out with a small red duffel bag. Jose walked down the steps and stood at the bottom looking left and right, obviously not really knowing who he was looking for. Tom stood up and brushed his hair back with his hand before starting to walk towards Jose. This was the first step and he was going to make it count.

FINIS.

Thanks for reading! Hopefully, the ending isn't too ridiculously corny.