After that unconventional therapy session in Linda's car in the parking-lot of Doc's office, Danny slowly settled into a routine.
He saw Doc every Monday and Thursday, still in Linda's car. The goal was for him to walk into the building by the end of March. Every time he berated himself for being too weak to walk inside the building, Doc told him: "Knowing what you need to do to keep yourself safe from yourself—that's not weakness, Danny, that's strength."
And Padre Donovan, whom he saw once a week for confession and a good chat—which Padre called "spiritual direction," while clarifying it was in no way a substitute for therapy—concurred: "It's like avoiding the occasions of sin. If you're an alcoholic, you stay away from bars and from friends who tempt you to drink. If you have a temper—you stay away from the people who make you angry." Danny scoffed at that one. Staying away from people who made him angry would definitely mean leaving the NYPD.
Jack and Sean were delighted that he was home more—at breakfast before they left for school, and waiting for them when they came home. He forced himself to go to every game, play board games with them, and generally be there in a way he couldn't when he was working.
The days, in the familiar house in which he'd grown up, actually became easier. There was always someone around, with something to keep him busy.
It was the nights that he began to dread. He was exhausted by the time his head hit the pillow, but he couldn't sleep. Every time Linda asked him about it, he shut her down. He felt guilty about snapping at her, but there wasn't anything she could do so why did she bother?
After a week of this he brought it up to Padre, who told him to talk with his doctor—his medical doctor.
Instead, he talked to Dawson.
Danny woke up one Friday morning, looked at the calendar, and groaned. It had been one month. Thirty f-g days since he'd crashed the car in a (vain) attempt to kill himself.
He looked at his phone. 7 a.m. Great. He'd gotten a whopping three hours of sleep.
The melatonin Doc had recommended had done absolutely nothing. He really did not want to add any more drugs to the ones he was already taking, so he had decided to ride this out until he collapsed from sleep deprivation or something. At least he didn't have to worry about driving while sleep-deprived…
There was talk they'd have the car back in a week. He wondered what they'd do with it. He couldn't drive until he got the cast off.
Yesterday had been a decent day; he'd had a good session with Doc and he thought he'd made some progress reaching the shore.
After his sleepless night, though, today was going to be an underwater-can't breathe sort of day. He wanted to pull the covers up over his head.
Instead, he forced himself to get out of bed, get dressed, and go downstairs.
Linda was cooking breakfast, chatting easily with his grandfather. The boys were wrestling on the living room floor. Jack popped up. "Dad, we don't have school today! Teacher work-day!"
"Great," Danny sighed.
"Coffee's hot, eggs are almost ready," Linda said when he bent down to kiss her.
He nodded, made himself a piece of dry toast, and stayed far away from the mound of scrambled eggs.
No sleep, and no appetite. Great.
After breakfast he played a mindless game of chess with his grandfather. For the first time he could remember, he beat the old man. "Good game, Pops."
They shook hands. "You're not going to gloat?" Henry asked.
He shook his head. "Too tired."
His grandfather disappeared to do whatever it was he occupied his days with.
Danny jumped about a mile when a hand squeezed his good shoulder. "Easy, it's just me," Linda said, and he cursed himself for letting her sneak up on him. "Are you okay? You didn't sleep last night."
He shook his head. "Sorry I kept you up."
"It's okay. What's wrong?"
He shook his head. "I don't know. I need to go fix the hall bathroom for Dad."
Thankfully it was an easy fix, even one-handed.
When he had done that and two odd jobs for his grandfather, he wandered into the living room, stared into the yard.
Images…Fallujah, John Russell, Tommy Russell, the roof of Doc's office…flickered through his mind.
They disappeared against the image of headlights reflecting off the water right before he crashed into the concrete barrier.
He pinched himself to keep from having the mother of all flashbacks.
Someone was talking to him. The voice sounded like it was on the other side of the ocean.
A small hand slipped into his good hand. "Dad, are you okay? I asked you like 5 times if you wanted to play checkers," Sean said.
He blinked, turned to look at his younger son. "Yeah, yeah, just…thinking too hard. 'Course I'll play checkers with you."
He lost.
For the sake of something to do, he did a load of his own laundry.
When he turned to leave the laundry room, Linda was standing there staring at him. He jumped. "Sorry, didn't…didn't hear you there."
"You've been a million miles away since you got up. Boys are worried, Sean said he had to call you 5 times before you heard him; I've been standing here talking to you for 10 minutes and you didn't hear a word I said, did you?"
He shook his head. "How ticked would you be if I took a walk alone?"
"Not ticked, worried. Let me come with? I'll let you brood if that's what you need."
He nodded, got his coat and hat as the grandfather clock struck 10 a.m.
He walked a familiar path, not really paying attention to where he was going.
He stopped, hearing water, looked at where he was, and cursed.
His feet had led him—slowly, because the local church bells were chiming the half-hour—the one mile to the pier his father used to like to fish at.
He stopped a good 20 feet from the concrete barrier. "I thought there would be skid marks," he whispered.
But of course there weren't; it had been a month, and there had been so much snow…
He could, however, see broken glass.
That would be from the car window and the side mirror.
He tried to turn away but all of a sudden he couldn't take a breath and movement of any kind required actually being able to breathe.
He was surrounded by water and he couldn't breathe underwater and crap he was going to die.
Someone was rubbing his back. "Danny, breathe."
"Can't," he gasped.
"Yes, you can. It just feels like you can't."
Linda. Linda was there. Why was she there, why had she come back with him?
Hands led him and his rubbery legs over to a bench, turned him so he couldn't see the concrete barrier.
One hand was on his shoulder, another hand rubbing his chest.
"Can't breathe," he said again.
"Yes, you can, Danny. You're having a panic attack."
"No, can't…"
"Shhh, you can breathe, it just feels like you can't. Try to take a deep breath, Danny. With me, okay? In…through your nose, and out…through your mouth."
He took a wheezing, rattling breath. You sound like you're dying, Reagan.
"That's it, Danny, keep going. Easy."
Why was Linda still there?
She was saying something. It sounded vaguely comforting.
Another gasping breath.
Several more.
Then finally he could breathe normally and he pulled away from Linda, buried his face in his hands. He cursed vehemently. "Sorry."
"Shhh, it's okay, you're okay, Danny."
After a few minutes he sat up, cursing at the tears pricking his eyes. "I'm falling apart, Linda. What's happening to me?"
"You're not falling apart, Danny. You came back to the scene of a traumatic event, and you had a panic attack. I'm pretty sure Doc would say that's normal."
She rubbed his back.
After a few minutes, she said, carefully, "I think you should call Doc, tell him what just happened. I'll give you a minute."
She stood up, and he grabbed her hand. "Please don't leave!"
"I'm not leaving you, Danny. I'm just going to sit on that bench over there, so you can talk to Doc privately. Look at me, not the site of the crash. I'm right here, okay?"
He nodded.
He was shaking as he pulled out his phone. Doc answered on the fifth ring. "Hey, Danny, I'm with a patient right now. Where are you, are you safe?"
"I…I'm with Linda. At the scene of the car crash. I…yeah, I…I'm safe."
"Okay. Did you have a flashback or a panic attack? You sound wheezy."
He nodded, even though Doc couldn't see him.
"I want you to go home, take one of your anxiety pills, and do some of the relaxation exercises we talked about. I'll call you in 30 minutes, okay?"
He nodded. "Thanks, Doc."
He walked home with Linda, ate another piece of dry toast and a fried egg, took the pill with a glass of milk, and practiced deep breathing. That was the only one of the 'relaxation exercises' that didn't sound like total hogwash.
He was staring at his grandfather's crossword puzzle, and regretting the fact that he'd dropped the pencil on the floor and couldn't bend down to pick it up, when his phone rang. "Hey, Doc."
"Hey, Danny. Thanks for waiting for me. Tell me what happened, I'm listening."
"Went for a walk with Linda, didn't really pay attention to where I was going, wound up at the pier. Where I crashed the car…four weeks ago today. I saw the broken glass from the window and the side mirror; and…all of a sudden I couldn't breathe."
"Were you having a flashback to the crash, or a panic attack?"
"Panic attack. Linda talked me through it."
"Can you tell me what you were thinking when you saw the broken glass?"
"How…how close I came to leaving Linda a widow and my boys fatherless."
"And that thought scared you?"
He nodded.
"Use your words, Danny, I can't see your body language."
"Sorry." He sighed. "Yeah, it scared the crap out of me, Doc."
"Why'd you walk down to the pier, Danny?"
He sighed exasperatedly. "I don't know, Doc! I didn't do it on purpose; it's where I go whenever I'm at my dad's and take a walk."
"Okay, take a breath, Danny. You're okay. I'm not surprised you had that kind of reaction to being back there, though I'm going to ask you to find another route for your walks. Can you do that?"
"That's all, Doc? Find another path to walk so I don't have a panic attack?" He'd expected something more…
"Danny, I think you're stressing too much about this. I'd honestly be surprised if you hadn't reacted that way to unexpectedly being back at the scene of the crash. Go relax and spend time with your family, okay?"
He nodded. "Sure. Thanks, Doc."
He slogged his way through the rest of the day.
He refused dinner—"I think I'm coming down with something," he lied—and threw darts at the dartboard until his good arm ached.
Then, for good measure, he played for another 20 minutes.
He crawled into bed at 9 p.m.
He pretended to be asleep when Linda lay down next to him at 10.
Two hours later, he couldn't handle being alone with his thoughts anymore.
He scribbled a note for Linda, and went downstairs.
His father and grandfather sat at the kitchen table, each with a cup of warm milk. They jumped guiltily, so they'd been talking about him. "Hey, Danny."
He sat down, pleased that his ribs were no longer stabbing. His left arm was killing him, though, because he'd accidentally banged it into the wall earlier. "Hey, Dad, Gramps."
"What are you doing awake?"
He shrugged. "Just can't sleep. Didn't want to wake Linda."
His dad stood, got the milk out of the fridge, and heated a cup in the microwave. He handed it to Danny. "Careful, this mug gets hot. What's on your mind, son?"
He shook his head, blew on his milk. "I don't know, Dad."
"You and Linda still talking about going home this weekend?"
He shrugged. They'd only been talking about it because he was afraid he was being a burden and getting in his father's and grandfather's way. He didn't want to leave. Back home on Staten Island, when the kids were at school, it would just be him and Linda—since she was on leave until he returned to modified duty. He wanted—needed?—to have other people around.
"You know you can stay here as long as you want."
He nodded, sipped at his milk. "Yeah. Thanks, Dad. Eventually I have to get back to 'normal' life, or try to. Whatever the hell 'normal' is."
"'Normal' is overrated," his grandfather said.
"Not when 'normal' means not being depressed and not wanting to kill myself," Danny said bitterly.
"Danny!"
He shrugged. "What, Dad? I'm sick and tired of feeling like an outcast because I'm in therapy and because I'm on medication and because without those things I'd be dead!"
He pushed his chair back, grabbed his mug, and stalked out the kitchen door to sit on the porch. Never mind that it was midnight, 32˚, and snowy.
He wasn't surprised when the door opened, heavy footsteps came towards him, and a blanket was draped over him. "Danny, I know I've told you, and I think Pops has told you, that we don't think any less of you because you're in therapy and on medication. I for one am proud as hell of you."
He shook his head. "You won't be when I tell you what happened today. Went for a walk, ended up at the pier, and had a whopping panic attack. Thought I was gonna die right there."
"Danny…" His dad's voice cracked. "I can see several reasons to be proud of you. You faced your fear, you got through a panic attack, you didn't do anything rash. You're talking rather than bottling everything up. You're trying to get better, and that's all that matters to me, son. Can you trust me on that?"
He supposed he didn't have any choice.
"Yeah, yeah, I can do that," he whispered.