Afterward (7 page)

“Thanks,” I say, taking a swallow.

Mrs. Jorgenson stands there, smiling frantically. I end up drinking all my lemonade as she stands there watching, and then I hand her back the glass. She takes it and clutches it tight. Ethan just takes a sip of his drink and places it carefully on the garage floor next to his feet.

“So…,” says Mrs. Jorgenson. I know she wants me to leave.

“I was just, you know, talking to Ethan about music,” I say.

Ethan isn't looking at either one of us. Just down at his drums. But then I hear him ask sort of quietly, “Which White Stripes album is the best?”

“Oh,” I answer, all in a rush, “
White Blood Cells
. Their third album. It's really good.”

Ethan nods and glances back at me, then at his mom, then at his drums again.

“So…,” Mrs. Jorgenson says again. “Well.”

“The White Stripes are just drums and guitar,” I keep going, and Ethan is actually looking at me now, peering out of the sides of his eyes. “I mean, you wouldn't think that would be that great, but it really is. It's awesome.” Even though I just gulped down all that lemonade, my mouth is super dry.

“I'm sure Ethan will give them a listen,” Mrs. Jorgenson says, and she puts one hand on my shoulder. Her touch is firm and means business. Her nails are a perfect pale pink.

I don't know if I've built any rapport. Mostly, I think I've come across as a really hyper fan of The White Stripes. This is not going at all like I'd planned. Then again, I didn't really have a good plan in the first place.

“I guess I should be going,” I say, disappointed but trying not to show it. “It was nice talking to you, Ethan.”

Ethan nods at me, then looks away. He's gripping his drumsticks again.

“Nice to talk to you, too,” he murmurs.

“Maybe I'll see you around,” I manage, but nobody answers me. I hop on my bike and as I glide toward the end of the driveway and turn onto Ethan's street, I listen for his drumming to start up again, but there's nothing but silence, and I feel so bad about this that my stomach twists a little out of guilt.

 

ETHAN—149 DAYS AFTERWARD

I normally meet with Dr. Greenberg on Fridays anyway, but if I didn't have an appointment today I think my mom sure would have scheduled one for me anyway. Because of what happened with that girl Caroline coming over yesterday. I know my mom wasn't crazy about Caroline showing up randomly because after Caroline left, my mom asked me like five hundred times if I was okay. Then after I started playing video games, she took her phone and went into the living room and started talking in this hushed voice, I think to my dad or to her therapist or maybe even to Dr. Greenberg.

Anyway, I have an appointment this morning already, so now here I am, having survived the nightmarish drive into the city. I sit, swallowed up by this big, overstuffed beige couch, glancing first at Dr. Greenberg sitting across from me in his office chair and then out the window at the pecan tree, wishing I could be that ordinary.

I know I said Dr. Greenberg looks like a skinny Santa Claus, but if you dressed him in more worn-out clothes instead of in the khaki slacks and plain button-down shirts he usually wears, he could also pass for one of those guys who stands at freeway off-ramps holding a sign that says
HOMELESS VET ANYTHING HELPS
. Plus, Groovy usually joins us in sessions. Groovy is this big golden retriever with liquid-brown eyes like a human's, almost. The first time he came into Dr. Greenberg's office while I was in there, he leaped up onto the couch that I sit on during appointments like some sort of dog superhero. Then he curled up next to me and did this dog sigh of total contentment.

I thought it was weird at first, but I got used to it. When I walk into the office for today's session, Groovy follows me in and sits down right next to me, and I spend the next ten minutes scratching behind his ears and giving Dr. Greenberg the shortest answers I can come up with, wondering how much more time until our session is up.

“Groovy likes you,” says Dr. Greenberg, giving me a soft half smile.

“I like Groovy,” I answer.

Silence.

I wonder how much my parents are paying Dr. Greenberg. If he's so famous, probably a lot. Which sort of makes me feel guilty since in the five months I've been seeing him I just answer his questions as simply as I can, and we make basic conversation about the weather or what we ate for breakfast. I mean, I'm not rude or anything. He's a nice enough guy. I'm just not sure why I keep coming here if we don't even really talk about everything that happened.

Not that I'm dying to talk about any of it.

“You don't have any pets, do you?” asks Dr. Greenberg.

“No,” I answer. “My mom doesn't like animals in the house.” I bet if I asked for a dog now, though, I would get one. I could get five, probably. I feel so guilty over that realization that I'm pretty sure I'll never ask for a dog ever. Probably not even a goldfish.

And suddenly a memory comes at me. The image of that stray tabby Marty let me feed sometimes. The one I found hanging out around the apartment complex. The one I found after he finally started letting me go outside and breathe fresh air. The picture shoots through me like a needle through fabric. Quick and sharp and exact.

No, don't think about it.

I squeeze my eyes tight.

“Ethan, you with me?”

I blink a few times, and my left hand moves to pet Groovy's soft, silky head. It steadies me a little.

“Yeah, I'm with you,” I answer.

My eyes scan the back wall of the office. I'm trying to get my bearings. After all these months of sitting in this room in Dr. Greenberg's house, the room that he's turned into his office, I've memorized the diplomas with the names Harvard and Columbia on them. Along with the diplomas there's a framed black-and-white photograph of a younger looking Dr. Greenberg with a darker beard marching in a street, surrounded by other guys with crazy beards and girls with long, messy hair. I've always wondered about it.

“What's that picture of?” I ask, motioning at the image. If I can take up time asking questions, the session will go by faster. And I won't have to talk about myself.

Dr. Greenberg twists around in his seat and smiles fondly.

“Oh, that's me protesting the war in Vietnam,” he says. “Back when I was a student. I was arrested shortly after that picture was taken.”

“And they let you become a therapist?” I ask. There's a mug shot of my therapist somewhere in a police station. I swear to God, this guy gets weirder every time.

“Ha!” Dr. Greenberg says. “That's terrific. Yes. They let me become a therapist. That's not the only time I was arrested, just so you know. I used to be very active in the no nukes movement in the eighties.”

“No nukes?”

“Nuclear weapons. I protested against them, too.”

“Oh,” I say. People don't talk about countries firing nuclear weapons much anymore. It's just terrorists blowing shit up or people shooting up schools that freaks everybody out.

Dr. Greenberg picks at something in his beard with his enormous, old guy fingers. He probably gets a lot of food stuck in there.

“You still playing the drums you got for your birthday?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I say. “I am.”

“You like practicing on them?”

“Yeah, I enjoy it.” I could say that I'm not sure if I'm any good or that it's been so long since I've really played, but the whole idea just feels too exhausting to even discuss.

“Your parents told me a girl came to see you yesterday while you were playing,” he says. Dr. Greenberg has explained to me that while our sessions are private, he talks to my parents about the “general course of my treatment.” Whatever that means. So it's no surprise to me that he knows about Caroline. Although I guess I was hoping he wouldn't bring her up.

Almost right after he mentions her, though, he gets up and walks to his desk, where he puts his hands on the bottom of his back and stretches. His belly sticks out a little.

“Now where did I put that thing?” he mutters, like he didn't just mention Caroline. He opens one desk drawer, then another.

“What are you doing?” I ask. I wonder again how much money my parents are spending on this guy. I mean, he's nice. But still. He's been arrested more than once, and now he's randomly digging through his desk drawers?

“I'm looking for Groovy's brush,” he says, his eyes down, his hands opening and closing drawers. “Oh, here it is.”

He walks over and hands me a plastic brush with a blue handle. I catch a faint whiff of the same Old Spice deodorant my dad uses.

“He loves to be brushed,” he says, and then he settles back into his chair. “I mean, only if you want to.”

Groovy notices the brush in my hand and flips over, squirming in excitement. His tail even wags. I'd have to be a pretty big asshole not to brush this dog right now.

So I do. I start tugging the brush through his soft, golden retriever hair. The teeth leave tiny, orderly lines in his fur.

“So this young woman…?” he says. I keep brushing. Groovy stays still.

“Yeah,” I say.

“She's the older sister of the other young man who was kidnapped. Right?”

I nod. I keep brushing. I feel my face getting hot.

“Okay,” says Dr. Greenberg, and I think he's wondering what to say to me. I must be pretty messed up if this world-famous therapist doesn't even know what to say next.

There's a long pause, and then I just can't help it. “Did my mom seem worried?” I ask. “About me talking to Caroline?”

“Is it important to you that you not worry your parents?” he answers. Answering a question with a question. I hate that.

“Yeah, I guess so,” I say. “I mean, I made them worry so much while I was … gone.” I never know how to refer to the time that I was kidnapped. I hate saying the word
kidnapped
out loud because it makes me feel awful. But if I say my time with Marty, it makes it sound like I was there cutting school and having an okay time. I already know that's what some people think is the truth. That I was just there hanging out. I feel my heart start to pick up speed, but just then Groovy scooches over to me and rests his head on my thigh. I keep brushing him. He's starting to fall asleep.

Dr. Greenberg waits for a while and finally says, “Maybe your mother seemed a little anxious about it. I think considering how you and Caroline are connected, she's just concerned about how it might make you feel.”

“Connected,” I repeat, like Caroline and I are puzzle pieces or threads in a spider's web. I know what he means, of course, but I don't want to think about Caroline's little brother. My brain has gotten good at shoving memories around where I can't get to them. And the ones about Dylan are hazy and gray and untouchable and probably right where they belong.

“Do you want to share what she wanted to talk about?” Dr. Greenberg asks, interrupting my thoughts.

I shrug. “We didn't really talk about anything.” I remember Jesse's last visit, and him bringing up his guilt over the past. “She didn't, like, bring up, you know…,” I offer. I'm gripping Groovy's brush hard in my hands. “She plays guitar. She mostly seemed to want to talk about music.”

Dr. Greenberg nods. “What if she did bring it up?” he asks.

This is the closest Dr. Greenberg and I have ever come to really talking about me in any kind of serious way. I mean the stuff that happened to me. I feel the slightest wave of nausea building in my stomach. I drag the brush over Groovy's fur and close my eyes for a moment.

“I mean … I know my parents want to protect me,” I say. I wonder if they've told Dr. Greenberg to tell me to stop talking to Caroline. The idea bothers me. I feel guilty for making my parents worry about me so much, and I feel guilty that I get so annoyed by them worrying. I want to be able to decide who I hang out with. Not that I necessarily want to hang out with Caroline. I mean, it was kind of cool how Caroline knew so much about my drums and music, but the idea of hanging out with her makes me nervous.

How am I supposed to come talk to a therapist about my feelings when I don't really know what the hell I feel?

Dr. Greenberg gives me a half smile again. “Of course your parents want to protect you,” he says. “I wonder why they might feel especially protective with regard to Caroline.”

It's not phrased like a question, but it's like he expects an answer. I give Groovy one last brush and try to respond. “Maybe they're worried that talking to Caroline would bring stuff up about … everything,” I say. “And I could get, like, hurt?”

“Drawing healthy boundaries is something that's sometimes hard for victims of trauma,” Dr. Greenberg says, resting his hands on top of his belly. “I'm sorry. To translate that into normal language, what I mean is that people who have been through something like what you've been through sometimes have a hard time knowing who to trust. Knowing who to make friends with.”

“Yeah,” I say. I mean, what am I supposed to say to that?
No shit?

“If you'd like, that's something we could talk about here, during our sessions,” Dr. Greenberg says. “How to have good friendships. Good relationships.”

“Okay,” I say.

Friendships. I'm not sure I have any left. I'm not sure if Jesse is still my friend, or if I even want to be his. And I think back on Bennie and Narciso, the two guys from the apartment complex. I try to imagine what they're doing now—skateboarding, complaining about their teachers, talking about girls—and I wonder if they ever think of me.

All of a sudden, I want to stop thinking about all this. Talking about all of this. So I flip through my mind for something to say. “I liked brushing Groovy. I put him to sleep.”