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“Please, Dad. Please.”
I fall to my knees, finally released from the binding hold.
“He’s there! He’s there!” I hear.
And he is there. My father holds Arthur’s floppy body across his shoulders and jumps into the sea of oil.
My raft drifts slowly towards the first ship that must have responded to our distress call. All the while, my eyes are fixed on the burning structure that will spill millions of barrels of oil into the Persian Gulf and eventually sink.
“I miss you,” I whisper as I watch a rogue tear fall from my cheek and land on my father’s gravestone.
“DOCTOR HOLLAND IS ready for you now, Dayna.” The receptionist holds open the door to Louise Holland’s office — otherwise known as a torture chamber.
“Take a seat,” Doctor Holland says, standing from behind her mahogany desk. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting. I’m afraid we’ve had a bit of an emergency situation.”
“Like a straitjacket situation?” I ask, removing my wool coat and nestling into the corner of the sofa opposite her. The leather is cold even through the tights I’m wearing under my dress.
She regards me coolly. “You’re angry,” she says matter-of-factly.
I rub my hands across my face. “I’m sorry, it’s just not been the best afternoon.”
She sits, and that reprimanding look dissipates. “Have you been to visit your father?”
“Yes, earlier.”
She nods and makes a note on her computer, attempting to be subtle despite being unable to shush the keys. I suspect she has a calendar flag every six months. The anniversary of the explosion and the anniversary of my father’s suicide. Those are the days she can guarantee I’ll visit my father.
She folds her hands in her lap and lets silence fill the room in that way she does. It’s her weapon of choice to make me speak. Today, I feel like rising to her threat. We wait, both of us willing the other to break the stand-off first. She adjusts her glasses unnecessarily and presses her fingertips to her auburn bun.
“Alright, Dayna, how are you finding today?”
I win, yet the victory doesn’t move me at all. “Tough,” I say on a sigh, wondering why I shell out a small fortune every fortnight to sit here.
“How about in comparison to the same day last year? Any easier?”
I shrug. I know it makes me seem like a petulant child but I’m unable to refrain. “I guess.”
“Dayna, why did you come here if you don’t want to be here?” Her voice isn’t admonishing; it’s calm. Calming.
I stand and move to the window, peering out through the horizontal blinds at the view of Westminster. “I came because this is our fortnightly slot.”
“You could have changed days, cancelled. We do that when you’re busy.”
“I guess… I guess I didn’t want to be alone, and if I didn’t come here…”
“If you didn’t come here…”
I take an indulgent breath in and perch on the window ledge, facing Doctor Holland. “I’m afraid I would do something stupid. Get drunk. Find comfort in the arms of a stranger, or worse.”
She nods and rises to reflect me, perching on the end of her desk. “What would ‘worse’ look like?”
I grip the edge of the windowsill. “I don’t know. I didn’t intend for it to have a meaning.”
“I think you did.” She’s right. Worse would look like what I did eighteen months ago. Worse would be running back to Clark Layton, begging him to hold me and take me out of my head the way only he can. Then being dropped like a bag full of trash the next day.
“Would you consider hurting yourself, Dayna?”
“No! Christ! Isn’t that why we’re here? Because my father killed himself and…”
