Chapter 15

Linda climbed into her car, punched Yaron’s number, and asked him for an emergency session.

“You can come over right now,” the therapist said. “I have an opening.”

Anxiety turned over in her stomach as she entered the counselor’s office.

“Linda. What an expected surprise,” Yaron greeted her. “You seem agitated.”

“Hello, Yaron, thank you for having me at such short notice. I need to talk with you about something that happened.”

“Dennis isn’t coming?”

“No.”

He studied her expression for a few seconds. “I see,”

Linda fell onto the pillow and stared at the therapist, although she wasn’t really seeing him.

“I discovered Dennis has been was keeping things from me. He bought us a new house with money he’d been setting aside during his time working at the oil rig. He bought it a year ago ... and never told me.”

Yaron whistled through his teeth. “Oh boy.”

“Yes.” She threw her purse to the side. “Then, he put it back in the market to pay for the Daycare Center I want trying to hide what he did from me.”

A beat of silence passed. “To give you your dream. How do you feel about it?”

“How do you think I feel? I’m royally pissed at him. We can’t go forward if he can’t be honest with me. I just simply can’t stay in a relationship where there is no communication.”

“Why do you think he has had so much trouble communicating with you in these last two years?”

“He said his work in the oil rig messed with his mind. He said that he shut me down because he didn’t want to look weak in front of me. His father was like this.”

Yaron nodded, “I suspect that when Dennis returned, he was suffering some minor form of PTSD. Post-traumatic stress it’s not uncommon in people who work stressful jobs.”

“Is that the same thing that soldiers get when they go to war?”

“Yes, but there are different types. The symptoms include feeling detached from people, not being able to have positive emotions, problems paying attention or focusing ... Sounds familiar?”

Linda was lost in her thoughts now.

“He seems to be doing better since we started counseling.”

“Yes, he does. Some people recover after a period of adjustment. I suspect at first, Dennis kept his defenses up to protect himself. He found a routine that allowed him to function and he never left it till you pushed him out of it.”

“What am I going to do? I do love him, but this is too freaking much!”

Yaron sighed, “I’ve never seen two people who are more in love with each other than you two. Since the first session, I was sure you were going to make it. There wasn’t a chance in hell that man was letting you go.” He made a pause and added, “Dennis would stop a bullet for you. He loves you so much that would give you his heart for your life.”

Linda gave her therapist a bitter laugh, “He can give me his heart, but he can’t open it up to me.”

“I didn’t see the secret house coming,” Yaron admitted.

“That makes two of us.”

Yaron gave Linda an understanding smile. “It wasn’t right for him to keep the house from you, Linda. It wasn’t right to shut you down.” He started to hedge. “But...”

She turned her head. “But what?”

“Change within a person doesn’t happen overnight. He has to work on it every single day. It’s like exercising a muscle, the more you do it, the better you get. It gets easier if your significant other helps you and supports you,” Yaron marking every word. “Dennis bought this house a year ago when communication had broken down between you two. It’s reasonable for him to think revealing it now might cause the worst damage.”