Part 45
Quinn and Paul were at Paul's house, cuddling up on the couch. He kissed her, and she kissed him. She felt his arms tighten around her.
But when she felt his arm tighten up, it reminded her of Zander Smith's arm tightening up when he saw both of his parents at once at the hospital, after not seeing either of them for years.
"Sorry," she said. "I just can't concentrate."
"Rough day," he said. "OK, just relax."
She felt worse. Paul was always upbeat and always nice. Didn't he ever get upset? Maybe psychiatrist training gets you to think it's not worth it, she thought.
"What happened?" he asked.
"I don't want to be a drag," she said, leaning back.
"Well, you are a drag, so you may as well make it interesting," he said, teasingly.
She sat forward. He massaged the back of her neck and then her upper back. She felt even worse.
She described the scene outside the lab after Smith's EKG, conscious that she exaggerated the stress on herself just a bit.
"I guess you get days like that," she said.
"Worse," Paul laughed. "People yelling right at me. Blaming me for their problems. It goes with the territory. Mostly, they get back on track. See, you can't take it to heart, or you go nuts. All their problems aren't your problems. It's not mean. You just can't."
"I know, I know. I have to learn that."
"Sure. You're still a little new. As luck would have it, you get this really stressful situation. You stick your neck out, too, that's your nature. Heck, now you've got his brother at your folks' house. You feel bad that you're so much luckier than other people, am I right?"
"Yeah, I think so."
"I think I see a good sign there," he said, helpfully.
Quinn looked at him.
"If Smith had a cold politeness, or even just acted like - hello, how nice to see you after all these years - then he'd be years away from resolving his unresolved anger. But if he was glowering angrily at them both as you describe, he's fairly close."
"Really?" she said, starting to sound hopeful.
"Yeah. It's doesn't sound, to me anyway, like it's repressed. So it'll get cleared. The mother's not avoiding him, the father doesn't avoid him by choice, and the younger brother's attitude will guilt the rest of them into making up."
"That makes sense. I didn't think of it like that. Thank you. Thanks for listening to this. You're really good, you know that?"
He laughed. "I'll send you my bill," he said.
She laughed, and leaned back against him.
