Page 32 of The Session

Over the past two weeks, he’d thrown himself into the athletic foundation when he wasn’t mopping up accidents at the elderly facility. Devon was still involved but felt distant. Mark understood: Had Devon remained in the ambulance a few minutes longer, they both would have responded to the shoot-out. They also both knew that Devon would have been the first one to say they should take the call.

They’d gotten together for late-night dinners at a sports bar twice since the incident. But the conversations felt awkward.

Mark checked his watch. “I don’t want to make you late.”

“I know sometimes I gave you a hard time, and my family has been, well, awful, but you’re one of the good ones,” said Holly.

“There are more of us out there,” Mark replied.

They embraced, and Mark gave her a long hug. She clutched the hair on the back of his head and pulled him in close for a kiss and whispered, “Thank you.”

Visitation

Vincent looked around the meeting room. There were a few new faces that night, which was typical. Sometimes it was easier to tell his story to new people than to repeat it to the same ones over and over, but tonight he decided to be a little more honest than he had been in the past.

“I used to try to convince myself that the drinking really only became a problem after Sonia decided to divorce me,” Vincent admitted. “But I finally realized I have to admit that it was the cause of the divorce. Sure, we were stressed out, and that exacerbated things, but I feel like I’ve been lying every time I come in here and claim otherwise, and hopefully taking ownership of that can help me out a bit. She and I haven’t exactly gotten along, and I think as long as I’ve been blaming her and her new husband, it hasn’t helped. It certainly hasn’t made it easier for me to spend more time with my kids.”

The only reason Vincent had started attending meetings was because HR insisted. While he hadn’t been drunk on the job, the late nights and erratic behavior were causing a problem. He had been moved to clerical work as a warning.

“Thank you, Vincent,” the meeting coordinator replied. “Do any of our new guests want to speak?”

No hands went up.

“Okay, well, I hope to see you all back next week,” the coordinator told them.

When Vincent went out to his car, he saw one of the strangers standing next to it. The man was bald, in his mid-fifties, wearing a blazer over blue jeans and a white collared shirt.

“Can I help you?” Vincent asked.

“My name is Michael Henley. Your little talk in there resonated with me.”

“Thanks,” Vincent replied, walking around Henley to get to his car door.

“It’s always the new husbands that are the problem. They get to step in and skip all the baggage and all the bullshit you had to deal with and look like the good guy, but God knows how attractive they’d be if they had to put up with it.”

“Those are the breaks,” Vincent deflected and pulled the door handle.

“It’s bad enough dealing with the image in your head of the guy fucking your wife and your kids deciding that maybe they want to call him ‘Daddy’ too,” Henley went on.

Vincent let go of the door and turned toward Henley.

“Who the fuck are you?” he snapped.

“I’m just a guy with a solution,” Henley replied with a shrug.

Vincent felt his temper flare and started clenching his fists. “Why don’t you get the fuck out of my face, or you’re gonna find I have a solution.”

Henley backed up. “I’m just offering you a way to help her see what an asshole he is. Maybe give you better standing with the kids, if that’s what you want.”

“What do you mean?”

“His name’s Bill Kaiser, right?”

“Yeah? How do you know that?” Vincent demanded.

“You’ll probably realize our meeting wasn’t an accident,” Henley replied. “Two months ago, Bill took a trip to Panama for his environmental consulting work. I’m sure Sonia told you about that.”

“What about it?” Vincent countered.