Chapter 38
Tamara kept glancing over at Levi. He had been strangely tense all evening and every time she'd asked him about it, he had very stealthily changed the subject.
They were walking along the lake in the evening when Levi suddenly stopped and looked out over the water.
"It's beautiful, Levi," Tamara said.
"Yeah, it is. You know, sometimes, I wonder where I would be if it hadn't been for... my parents coming to the U.S. What would my life have been like in Europe?"
He had moved into a more solemn mood which happened fairly frequently, but Tamara hadn't minded the serious conversations and she understood. He had told her about his family, as different from her own as possible.
She smiled and hooked her arm in his.
"Well, I wouldn't have met you if you were in Europe. I've never been out of the U.S. in my whole life."
He looked at her and smiled, his dark eyes twinkling.
"And would that be a bad thing?"
"You know it would be, Levi."
He turned to face her.
"Well, then, I was wondering something."
"What?"
Levi took a deep breath and knelt down.
"I was wondering if you would marry me."
He held up a ring box. Tamara was shocked. How had he kept this from her? How had she never realized that he was ready for this? She was so shocked that she forgot to say anything.
"Tamara?" Levi asked after a few seconds. "Can you at least answer one way or the other?"
Tamara laughed and leaned over to kiss him soundly.
"Yes, Levi! Of course, I will! Yes, yes, yes."
He kissed her back and put the ring on her finger. She looked at it giddily.
"I love you, Levi Carew."
"I'll always love you, Tamara. I'll never stop," he said.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x
"And now?"
There was a long, heavy pause.
"Levi, I'm not a mind reader," Dr. Hicks said. "I know this is still hard for you, but you need to try to communicate. At least a little bit."
Levi sighed. As he had recovered physically, he had felt less and less willing to actually talk about everything. He knew he needed to, but a big part of him still felt like he could just ignore it and it would eventually go away.
He pulled out the photograph that had survived the destruction of the cabin.
"Everything else was destroyed," he said. "But this survived. No other photographs. Nothing of us. Just this."
"That's not a sign, Levi," Dr. Hicks said. "All it means is that it was in a place that the fire didn't get to it."
Another silence. Levi refused to make eye contact.
"Levi, you know that this is necessary. You know that you'll struggle to heal without this. Stop dragging your feet and just talk."
"I'm still so afraid and I'm not used to being afraid," he said, finally. "I'm not used to...not being able to control myself, but I can't. It's like...everything I had before is gone, and when I can't see Tamara, she's gone, too. I'm trying to get back."
"Back to what?"
"Normal."
"But what normal, Levi? The normal where you wear a mask that keeps everyone away or the normal where you were a husband with a wife and children?"
"I don't know. Just not this."
"It's going to take time, and believe it or not, it'll take longer if you keep trying to pretend it's not there."
"I'm not pretending. I'm ignoring."
"That won't work, either. It just won't. By your own admission, they broke you and they did it so completely that you're not sure they aren't still in control. Tamara told me what you've been trying to do, and I understand why you'd want to, but you can lean on her for now."
"For how long?" Finally, Levi looked up and shook his head. "I am still broken and right now, as melodramatic as it sounds, I can't live without her, without knowing that she's alive. And when I can't see her, I don't know. I was ready to die. I almost made it, but Quinn stopped me."
"What do you mean you almost made it? Made it where?" Dr. Hicks asked.
Levi looked back down at the photo. He touched his father's image. For the first time, he felt that he could talk about part of what had happened, part of himself. It was something he'd never told anyone. An escape isn't effective if people know about it.
"When I was young, I fell off a bike or tripped or something and I scraped my knee. I don't remember exactly what the injury was. It hurt." He found he could laugh a little. "To me, it was the worst pain in the world and all I wanted was for it to stop. My father told me that there was a way to escape pain, but that I'd have to practice. My mother didn't want him to teach me, but he did. He told me that, if I could build a picture in my head of a place with a destination, I could be there and not where the pain was. It wasn't enough just to think of a place. It had to be real and I had to be able to move inside that image, toward that destination. The journey would become the replacement for the pain. For him, it was a path through the forest. For me, it was a farm, with a canal and a rutted road."
"What was the destination?"
Levi looked up. "Death. That was the end of the road. I don't know if that's what it was for my father. He never told me where he was going, but I knew what he was escaping."
"The Holocaust."
Levi nodded.
"Since Tamara was dead, I thought that she'd be there at the end of the road and that's what I looked for. When I reached the end, I'd be dead. I got very close, but then, I saw Quinn and he wouldn't let me keep going. Logically, I know he wasn't there, but..."
"Maybe he was in some way," Dr. Hicks said. "Are you still on the farm?"
"No. I left it," Levi said and let his head drop to the back of the couch. He stared up at the ceiling. "I'm still so tired."
"Whether it was because you were taking yourself there or just because of what they were doing to you, Levi, you did almost die. It's going to take time for you to recover. You're not young anymore. As a matter of fact, most people are considered over the hill by the time they reach your age. They're not going on missions or being tortured."
Levi smiled a little.
"I didn't feel old until now."
Dr. Hicks smiled, but he was still serious.
"That's probably the only reason you're not dead. You took good care of yourself and you were very fit. You can recover but it'll be a long process."
"I know."
Levi sat for a while in another silence. This time, Dr. Hicks didn't try to break it. He sat where he was, waiting. Levi didn't know what he was waiting for, but he was definitely waiting for something. Levi felt his mind start to wander which was fine. He was now aware enough to realize that his mind wasn't operating at its usual level but still needing enough recovery that he didn't care that it wasn't.
"Agent McGee is the one who found me," he said, finally.
"Yes. He talked to me about it both before and after."
"Why would he do it? What have I ever done for him to deserve it? He hates this world. I know he does. That's one of the reasons I knew I could use him. He wouldn't stay in that ambiguous space if he could avoid it. I wasn't creating a monster. So why would he move back there willingly, to save me? It would have been justice if they had killed me."
"Just because you've done things you regret doesn't make what was being done to you justice. As for Agent McGee? I think that's something you'll have to ask him, when you're ready."
"I'm afraid of the answer."
"I don't think you need to be," Dr. Hicks said.
"I don't need to be afraid of Tamara being dead, but I am," Levi said. "I'm still not in my right mind."
Dr. Hicks suddenly leaned forward, looking more earnest than Levi thought was necessary.
"I can hear it in your voice, Levi. Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Don't try to suppress all of this. Your tendency is going to be embracing the emotionless mask again because that's what you've lived with. You've struggled to let it drop, to express the emotions you feel. The mask is gone right now and you don't know how to deal with it. You can build something new, something real, but if you just run back to what you had and hated, all that will happen is that you miss out on the real chance you have to drop the mask completely."
"I still have it," Levi said. "It's still there."
"But you can't put it on. Not yet. You're trying to but you can't," Dr. Hicks said, smiling. "While I admit that this kind of shocking and painful, nearly-fatal event is not the ideal way to get you to let go, it's happened. Throw the mask away. Don't put it back on. Not even for a moment. You don't have to turn into some kind of blubbering fool, which is what I know your next question is. You're more reserved anyway, but you aren't hiding how you feel. At all. Keep it up until you learn how to control your emotions instead of suppress them."
Levi stared at the photograph in his hand once more.
"And if that photograph is a source of guilt, maybe it's time to set that aside as well."
"What would I have to feel guilty about?" Levi asked.
"I don't know, actually, but you hold onto that as if there's some kind of penance you owe."
"I'm not Catholic. No penance."
"Not in terms of the formal rites, but Jews have a need for atonement, as well from what I understand."
"I'm barely Jewish anymore. I haven't been to a synagogue since my mother died."
"I can't speak to that, but is there something you feel guilty about with that picture? Tamara told me that you carry it with you all the time."
Levi didn't want to answer that question. It was one thing to reveal it to Tamara. He trusted her. And even at that, it had been very hard to do it. Now, when he had absolutely no ability to hold back the things he'd always felt, when his whole being seemed constantly out of control, he didn't want to say anything that might lead to some embarrassing reaction. So he said nothing.
...and was mildly surprised when Dr. Hicks didn't push it.
"Last thing. Have you spoken to your daughter?"
"Not much."
"She's still here, isn't she?"
"Yes. I'm surprised. I figured she'd be long gone. She has a job and she's rarely taken any time off."
"Maybe you should try and talk to her."
"I'm not why she's here. She's here for her mother."
"While that is no doubt true, I think she's here for you, too. Even if it's just because she doesn't feel she can leave until you're more recovered."
"More sane."
"No. More recovered. You're far from insane, Levi."
"It would almost be easier if you were wrong."
"I can see you thinking that, but you'd hate it even more than you hate this."
"If I was completely insane, I wouldn't know the difference."
"True enough."
Levi was quiet for a few seconds.
"I forget about her because I can't think of anything else but Tamara. I try, but Tamara is the one I need."
"I understand that. Your world is pretty small right now, and that's mostly out of necessity as you deal with this. It'll get larger again."
"Whether I want it to or not."
"Yes. No matter what."
Levi nodded, but the thought tired him out again. He leaned back on the couch and stared up at the ceiling again. ...and suddenly, his eyes started to close.
"All right, Levi. That's enough for now."
He struggled to open his eyes again, but the effort he expended to interact normally sapped a lot of his energy and he just couldn't do it. So he let his eyes close all the way and barely heard Dr. Hicks leave. After a few seconds...maybe minutes, he wasn't sure, he felt someone sit beside him on the couch.
"Levi, are you awake?" The voice was so soft that he almost couldn't hear it, but he always heard this voice.
"Yes," he said almost as softly.
"Do you want to nap here?"
The thought of getting up and going anywhere made him even more tired, but he also felt like he was being too weak. He struggled to open his eyes and sit up. He caught a brief glimpse of Tamara, but then, he felt a hand on his shoulder.
"It's all right, Levi. Bri is out. All I'm doing is reading. You can sleep right here and not be in anyone's way."
He made one more attempt to sit up and then felt Tamara easing him down to lie on his side.
"I'm right here and I'll be here if you need me," Tamara said.
"I always need you," he whispered, almost inaudibly.
Whatever response Tamara made was lost to him. He felt her brush her hand over his head and vaguely he realized that he had that annoying fuzz growing back in.
I'll have to shave again, he thought as he finally allowed himself to sleep.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x
Tamara waited until Levi was truly asleep. Then, she got up and walked over to where Dr. Hicks was sitting in the hall.
"He went the whole session without asking for you," Dr. Hicks said. "That's a definite improvement."
"Is it enough, though?" Tamara asked, keeping her voice low. "I have to admit that it's really hard needing to be with him all the time."
"I know that and so does he. If you need the break, say so. He needs you, but he's at the stage now where he can be without you for some period of time, but I agree that he shouldn't be alone for any real length of time yet. While it would be awkward at best, I think you could let your daughter be the one here, even if neither of them would really enjoy it. I asked him about her and he's still having trouble thinking about anyone besides you."
"Is all this really just because he thought I was dead?"
"The physical pain and how close he came to dying contributed, but I don't think he was exaggerating when he said that thinking you were dead broke him. And that means that it happened all at once. When I was tortured, it lasted for a year and I was broken, both physically and mentally, but it happened gradually and by the end, I would have told them anything if I could have. I had nothing to tell, but if I could have, I would. In fact, I made things up, hoping that it would be what they wanted since I had no idea. For Levi, it wasn't gradual. They had planned on it being gradual I would guess, but they assumed that it would be something else that broke him and it happened in a second. Some of the things he's told me indicate that he was dying as much because of the emotional pain as because of the physical damage."
"How long will it take?"
"I don't know. That's why you need to be able to leave him occasionally, just not alone until he's more recovered. It'll happen, but it'll take time, and you need to keep your own needs in mind. You can't give up on yourself. He wouldn't want that, either."
Tamara took a deep breath and looked back at where Levi was sleeping.
"I never realized just how much he held back...until he didn't hold back anything. Dr. Hicks, I had never seen Levi cry before, not even when his mother died. He was upset but he didn't cry. When Quinn died, he didn't even go to the funeral. But when he saw me, when he realized I was alive, he almost couldn't breathe and he was sobbing. I've wanted him to let me in...or let himself out, but I'm almost afraid of it."
Dr. Hicks smiled. "That's simply because it's so extreme. You said it yourself that Levi has not cried, at least, not that you've ever seen. That means that when he's in this emotional extremity, what you see will be shocking, but the important thing is that you let him express it without making it seem wrong. Right now, he can't help but express himself, but as he grows stronger, the habits of the last 30 years will make him want to go back to expressing as little as possible and if he thinks that his emotions are strange or unwanted, it will only push him back to what is easiest. And that's not what you or I want for him."
"No," Tamara said. "Okay. When Brianna gets back, I'll have her stay with him while I go shopping."
"That sounds like a good idea. How is his physical therapy going?"
"He's still doing the things they would have done in the hospital before getting released. He just gets tired so easily, but they say he's getting better."
"I'm sure he is. Right now, Tamara, you're in this middle state where the healing is happening, but you can't see anything obvious to indicate it yet. That will change. Just keep up your hope."
"I'm working on it."
Dr. Hicks smiled and stood up. She could see his pain as he began to walk toward the front door.
"Thank you for making the trip here, Dr. Hicks. I know it's not easy for you."
Dr. Hicks paused and turned back. He had a smile on his lips that was not the same as he'd had before.
"This kind of work is why I wanted to become a psychiatrist, so that I could give back the same gift I was given. It's worth any pain if I can do that. I don't know if Levi ever told you, but he's the one who saved me from my own torture."
"I didn't know that."
"He was. If I can help save him, in some small way, it's worth the pain of walking."
Then, he turned back to the door and left. Tamara went back to the family room and watched Levi sleep.