Chapter Seventy-Nine

…the gold mine of childhood trauma.

Elizabeth

11:14 AM

"Well, that went well." Elizabeth flumped back onto the cushions of the couch. Her arms hung loose beside her, and her fingers plucked at the leather whilst she stared through the glass of the coffee table, her gaze as soft as the yellowed light that swam across the carpet beneath. The prickle and thrum of the rain filled the room and thickened the already fuggy air.

"Do you fight often?" Dr Sherman asked.

"We don't fight, we just…" Elizabeth trailed off, and then, as the memories of all their fights filtered through her mind in bursts and snatches, she shook her head. Shook the truth away. She looked up at Dr Sherman with an attempt at a smile. It was no more than a twinge of the lips. "Sometimes things get a little heated, that's all."

"And why do you think that is?" Dr Sherman settled back in the armchair, her elbows propped against the armrests whilst she held a ballpoint pen in a bridge between both hands.

Elizabeth shoulders shimmied in a shrug. "Henry says it's because we're too similar."

"I can see where he's coming from." At the arch in Elizabeth's eyebrows, Dr Sherman raised her own eyebrows in a question. "You disagree?"

"We're not even remotely similar. Will's just…" She shook her head again as she sought the appropriate adjective. There were too many that came to mind—none of them complimentary—yet none of them alone was quite enough to define him. "…Will. We wouldn't have a problem if he'd just act like a normal human being."

"Why do you think he acts the way that he does?"

"I'm guessing you're angling for me to say it's because of what happened to our parents. I mean, being orphaned is practically the gold mine of childhood trauma."

"You already said that's why you think he became a doctor."

Elizabeth's eyes widened and she fixed Dr Sherman with a firm stare whilst her hand swept through wild gestures. "It's also because he wants to soak up the glory of saving people. Play the hero. Feed his narcissistic ego by being the saviour of the helpless. I mean, for a self-proclaimed atheist, he sure has one hell of a god complex."

She paused, her hand poised in mid-air with fingers flared. Her pulse throbbed through her, each beat an echo against the silence. But no sooner had the words settled like a layer of silken ash after an eruption than a pang of remorse struck her chest.

Her fingers closed in on themselves as her hand withdrew to her lap. Her chin dipped, and her voice softened. "He couldn't save our mother. It's not his fault, but he feels guilty about that."

"And you couldn't protect him. Do you feel guilty about that?"

She bit down on the inside of her cheek. Hard. The thought of him in the mangled car, no longer sharp-tongued and reckless but terrified and helpless, Dad dead, Mom dying, not knowing what to do, using his jumper as a makeshift tourniquet, staining his nail beds rusty red with Mom's blood, wandering alone by the side of the road, begging for help, unable to comprehend that the loving God they'd been raised with could have allowed that to happen…

She shook her head. "He shouldn't have had to go through that."

The drumming of the rain against the windowpane deepened the lull that suspended the room. Normally the sound of the rain pressing in would soothe her, a reminder that she was safe inside, but now she found no comfort in it, not when the sound trapped her in her head with those thoughts.

Dr Sherman opened her mouth, and then paused. She stooped forward and clasped her hands atop the navy blue notebook balanced in her lap, her ballpoint pen jutting from between them. "It interests me that, in a way, you and your brother had opposite experiences of the same event. Him being in the car with your parents, witnessing what happened and being unable to help at the time; you not finding out what had happened until later, and feeling that you ought to have been there or that you should have in some way been able to protect your brother from that in hindsight."

"Two sides of the same coin," Elizabeth muttered.

"It also strikes me that neither of you want to be without the other, you just have very different ways of showing it."

Elizabeth snorted and her gaze shot up to Dr Sherman. "What? Like him showing a flagrant disregard for his own life because he doesn't care if he dies or how that'll affect me, so long as he doesn't have to be the last Adams standing? Or like him cutting me out of his life altogether?"

Dr Sherman's shoulders rose in a shrug that didn't fade. "Sometimes we cling to the people we fear we might lose, other times we distance ourselves from them." She paused with lips parted and then gave Elizabeth a tug of a smile. "He came here today, didn't he?"

"And then stormed out again."

"Has he gone back to his car?"

Elizabeth opened her mouth and then stopped. There had been no footsteps scrunching through the gravel, no slam of the car door, no engine sputtering into life, no tyres grinding as Will backed the car out of the bay and then raced off down the track. The steel blue hatchback still sat in its space at the far end, empty.

She dismissed it with the shake of the head and lowered her gaze to her knees. "Probably because the key code on the door in reception doesn't match his date of birth."

She sensed more than saw Dr Sherman's smile, though—of course—it wasn't a joke.

Dr Sherman's gaze remained steady on her. "Do you think this feeling you have about needing to put your brother first could stem from you not being in the car with him and your parents that day, and not being able to protect him from what happened?"

Elizabeth considered that. Though she had considered it before. But if it was that, it didn't strike a chord inside, it didn't resonate with that feeling, it didn't illuminate nor sever the black thread woven into what Henry might call her soul. "I don't know…maybe."

"I think it would be useful for us to consider how your guilt and grief around your parents' deaths has interacted with your guilt and grief around the poisoning and your brother's illness."

Thirty-five years of guilt and grief only spoken about when it bubbled up and she was unable to suppress it anymore? Elizabeth's lips quirked at one corner. "That could take a while."

"That's what our outpatient sessions are for."

The mention of outpatient appointments felt like another prod, just one of many she'd had over the past few days. You need to get back to the real world before it moves on without you. She'd already overstayed her welcome. Time to go home.

Yet—

Elizabeth took a breath. It ached in her chest. She clutched her knees and rubbed her thumbs over the rough rasp of denim, whilst the ends of her hair swayed around her jaw. "I just need things to be good between me and Will, but that's not going to happen if he's refusing to talk to me."

Dr Sherman gave her a smile that seemed designed to allay her concerns. "Give him time to cool off. I'm sure he'll come round."

"I don't know…" Elizabeth's eyebrows raised, and her lips tweaked at one corner. Will excelled when it came to holding a grudge, but even if with time he did manage to let this go…

The last ginger snap stared up at her from its perch on the wad of blue-green paper towel atop the coffee table. This was meant to be the end of the path, or the end of this stage of the journey at least, but it felt like a nothingness, as anticlimactic as '…and it was all just a dream.'.

She lifted her gaze to meet Dr Sherman's. "I guess I was looking for some kind of release, some kind of understanding, but maybe Russell's right, maybe there isn't any catharsis, maybe it's enough just to learn how to cope… Maybe I should go home."

The paperwork wouldn't take long, and the drive was only an hour or so, maybe more with all the rain. She would have most of the afternoon and all of the evening with Henry and the kids before she started at State again tomorrow. She'd welcome the mental stimulation, even if it came with the inevitable questions, awkward silences and wary glances at first. Maybe it was time.

She pressed her fists into the cushion and eased herself forward in the seat. The leather creaked beneath her. Her fingertips stretched for the biscuit, and—

The door swept open with a grating rush.

She startled, and spun around. Her heart thudded as hard as the rain that thrashed against the window. "Will. What the hell?"

"Why did you put me first?" Will stood just inside the door as it swung shut behind him. The half-wild look in his eyes that held all the intensity of teenage outrage and the way his voice cut through the room—a decibel shy of a shout—only disproved the theory that he might cool off. If anything, the anger had matured and festered like rancid wine. "You said you wanted to talk, so talk." He batted one hand towards her. "Why did you put me first?"

She gripped her thighs and rubbed the sweat from her palms against her jeans. "I wanted to talk about what happened to Mom and Dad, not have you storm in here and shout at me."

"This—" He motioned to her again. "—is nothing to do with Mom and Dad. They never told you to exhaust yourself trying to look after me."

"I promised them I'd look after you."

"They were dead, Lizzie." He chucked his scarf onto the arm of the couch, then stood at the opposite end to her and scowled down at her. "The only person you promised was yourself."

"They would've wanted me to look out for you. I'm your big—"

"They wouldn't have wanted you to get like this."

Her voice strained. "Will you stop saying that like I'm some kind of walking neurosis."

"Then stop acting like one." His voice shot up and resounded off the walls. He glared at her, the look so cold it burnt. "You know, Henry, your kids, they're terrified that something might happen to you, that they're going to lose you to this. I'd have thought that you of all people would appreciate what it's like to lose someone, especially a mother."

Guilt gripped her chest with its suffocative hold; a penance exacted with the weight of each breath. She pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head to herself. She tried to hold back the exasperation, but it wrenched at her tone. "I wasn't going to do anything."

"I've worked an ER, Lizzie. You have no idea how many people whose stomachs I've pumped and whose arms I've sutured who were never going to do anything. Then, before they know it, they're in the ER with me. And they've regretted it. That's if they're lucky."

"I wasn't going to…" Her head stilled, and she pinched her eyes shut. Tell me you haven't thought about it… Please tell me that I'm wrong. She tried to push away the fear that had swarmed in Henry's eyes, a panic so primal it hurt.

She let her hand drop, and she looked up at Will. "I know you're angry with me, and maybe you have the right to be, but I don't feel like that anymore."

"You shouldn't have let yourself get in that state in the first place." An echo of Henry's fear and hurt lurked in Will's eyes, beneath the currents of anger. "And it's not going to happen again." He strode along the channel between the coffee table and the couch, and then sank down onto the edge of the coffee table in front of her, so close that their knees almost touched. He stared at her. "So, why did you put me first?"

She didn't have an answer to that—if she did, they wouldn't be doing this now. But his gaze bored into her, so she fumbled for a response. "Because you were sick, you were in a coma."

"What about the other patients on the ward? Did their sisters camp out there?"

"No, but—"

"Why did you put me first?"

"Because I wanted to help you."

"And you couldn't help me after looking after yourself?"

"Well, in hindsight—" Her gaze drifted.

He tapped the side of her knee. "Why did you put me first?"

She dug for an answer, but it was like digging in dune sand; for each scoop she hauled out, another slipped down. Her chest tightened. Her mouth opened on nothing, and she had to wrench the words out. "Because you wouldn't have been in a coma if it weren't for me, for my job."

"Did you know someone was going to poison you?"

"No, of course not, but—"

"Did you know there was poison in the food?"

"No."

"So, why did you put me first?"

Her shoulders shimmied. "Because I felt guilty."

"Wrong answer."

Her eyes narrowed on him, and she drew her chin in. "You can't just say that's the wrong answer."

"I just did." He fixed her with a firm stare, and then wafted his hand at her. "This has nothing to do with guilt. You would have done exactly the same thing whether you felt responsible or not. Why did you put me first?"

She folded her arms across her chest and leant back. "Because you're my little brother."

"Wrong answer. Why did you put me first?"

"Because I love you, and it's my job to look after you."

"Wrong answer. Why did you put me first?"

"Because…I don't know." She tossed her hand up. "I don't know what you want me to say."

"I want you to tell me why you put me first."

Her eyes bugged. "And I'm telling you: I. Don't. Know."

"Why did you put me first?"

"Will, just stop—"

"No. Not until you tell me why."

"I don't know."

"Think." He tapped her knee.

Her jaw clenched. "I don't know."

"Why?"

"Will, I don't—"

"Why?"

"I don't—"

"Why?" He tapped her knee.

"I—"

"Why?" He tapped her knee.

"I—"

"Why?" He tapped her—

"Because you saved my life." The words burst out in a shout so harsh that it left her throat raw. Inside, a black thread snapped.

Will frowned and recoiled. "What?"

The black walnut tree loomed over his shoulder. Her heart lurched. "Oh God."

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