Chapter 4: Counseling and Comforting

January 4, 1990, Milford, Ohio

“Where did you sleep last night?” Doctor Mercer asked after I sat down on her couch.

“With Bethany,” I said.

Doctor Mercer shook her head, “I told her that was a terrible idea.”

“Nothing happened, Doctor Mercer. Nothing except me holding her while she cried herself to sleep. I was wearing full pajamas and she had on a long nightgown that I didn’t even know she owned.”

“I would hope not!” Doctor Mercer said with a nervous laugh.

“Point taken, but you know what I meant,” I said. “One thing Bethany has taught me over the years is what it means to truly consent to sex. And in her state, she can’t consent. I know it. And if I could resist her to the point of distraction and frustration back when we were fifteen, don’t you think I could do so now?”

“You COULD. But your desire to comfort her could override your good judgment. That’s why I think it’s so risky. Tell me about last night.”

“Aren’t we talking about my confrontation with mortality?”

“No. You’ll work that out yourself. You promised Bethany that you would start writing in your journal again. That’s all you need. I can’t help you with your impending death any more than you can help me with mine. That’s a path we all have to walk alone. You’re staring death in the face right now. You need to come to grips with it on your terms, not mine or anyone else’s. Look, to be blunt, you’re fine. You really are. Bethany on the other hand, is not.”

“No, she isn’t,” I agreed.

“So tell me what happened last night.”

I nodded, “Well, I went and got my stuff from my friend’s house and then drove back to Milford. Bethany and I went to Frisch’s for lunch, and then we stopped in to see my friend Andreas at his deli. He’s retiring in a few months and moving to Arizona. Anyway, we went back to her house and just sat together and listened to music and talked. We had dinner with her parents, and then spent the evening with them and Ed. Bethany’s mom is very uncomfortable with Bethany’s choices.”

“So am I,” Doctor Mercer said. “But go on.”

“Her mom made a couple of remarks and I just let them go. She tried to hint at Bethany making bad choices but between Bethany’s dad and me, we got her to hold her tongue.”

Doctor Mercer nodded, “Bethany was worried about her mom and what she might say because of what happened between you and Bethany four-and-a-half years ago.”

“She’s been upset with Bethany ever since,” I said. “But the thing is, Bethany and I were not meant to be together. It would have been forced, if you will, and neither of us would have been truly happy in the long run.”

“This might sound odd, but you two were too close to get married. You knew how to be friends and lovers, but that doesn’t translate to being married in every case; most certainly not in yours. She’d have acquiesced to your very odd notion of marriage, but she wouldn’t have embraced it the way Jessica apparently has.”

“And you know that how?” I asked, knowing the answer.

“Bethany and I talked after your breakup, but before she got together with Nick. I helped her through the whole Andrew fiasco.”

I shook my head, “She wasn’t thinking clearly then.”

“And she’s not now, even though it might appear that she is. But continue, please.”

“Well, we went up to bed and she started to change in front of me, and all I could see in my mind was the sexy cheerleader I used to make love with all the time. I stopped her, took my things and went to the bathroom to change, and asked her to open the door to her room when she’d changed for bed.”

Doctor Mercer nodded, “Very clear thinking on your part.”

“Both one of the easiest and hardest things I’ve ever done,” I said.

Doctor Mercer gave a slight laugh, “I get it. Go on.”

“We got into bed and she snuggled close and I held her while she cried herself to sleep. I couldn’t sleep, so I lay there thinking about everything that had happened. I don’t know how long it was, but Bethany woke up and lifted her head from my chest and asked me to please make love to her. She begged, even. I refused, gently, and she cried herself to sleep again. This morning she apologized and promised she wouldn’t ask again.”

“That’s exactly what I was afraid of,” Doctor Mercer said. “She’s an emotional wreck right now and she’s making some bad decisions. Not all of her decisions are bad, but this one certainly was.”

“No, it wasn’t,” I objected firmly. “She made exactly the right decisions. She needs me in exactly the way I agreed to be with her, and she did that knowing that after thirteen years she could trust me to keep things under control. She was right, by the way.”

“We’ve discussed your sexuality many times in the past, but I have to say that given your penchant for sleeping with a girl at the drop of a hat, I’m impressed.”

“Any hat,” I chuckled.

“Please?”

I suppressed a chuckle. I wasn’t used to the ‘Cincinnati Please’ any longer, and it now seemed quaint. I guess I really was turning into a ‘Chicago’ boy, despite my allegiance to the Reds and Penguins.

“Sorry. A Star Trek: The Next Generation reference. There’s a planet where one of the characters claims people make love at the drop of a hat and then says ‘Any hat’.”

“Sounds like a place you’d enjoy!” Doctor Mercer chuckled.

“So would any red-blooded male. The only problem is they have the death penalty for ALL crimes. Including trampling flowers.”

“I knew there had to be some downside to this male paradise!”

“Doctor Mercer,” I chuckled, “I’m sure you know that women do enjoy sex as much as men!”

“Yes, yes, but we’re going off-topic.”

“Are we? You were worried that Bethany and I would sleep together, euphemistically, that is, rather than literally sleep. It didn’t happen. It won’t happen. In fact, I’d say that it won’t happen ever again for the rest of our lives. She needs me to be something else completely.”

“And what’s that?”

“Her pillar and rock of support. I can’t do that if we’re screwing.”

“You’re a very different person than that fifteen-year-old who was helping Bethany, or the one who’d just lost his girlfriend, or the one who had broken up with his future wife.”

“Adversity has a way of changing us.”

“Indeed it does. And I want to help Bethany change in a positive way.”

“And me?” I asked.

“You don’t need me, Steve. You never have, except perhaps as someone to push you to work things out. I’ve given you some guidance on how to approach your problems. You’ve done the rest. You’re a stronger person than you think, and if you would just let that strong person out, I think you’ll find that you like him a lot. I know I do. Bethany certainly does. That’s who she’s clinging to.”

“I’m glad you recognized that,” I said. “She’s not clinging to Steve Adams, ‘Sex God’, but to Steve Adams, ‘Rock of Support’. And I know that.”

Doctor Mercer laughed, “Sex God? Seriously?”

“I have references!” I chuckled. “Lots of them.”

She smiled, “How many kids do you have now?”

“Five, with one on the way and one more planned. Jesse is the oldest, then Matthew, Birgit, Michael, and Albert.”

“You named one of your children after HER? Who’s her mother?”

“Kara, of course. And she’s going to name the baby she’s carrying ‘Stephie’ if she has a girl.”

“Is there anything at all about your life that isn’t strange?”

“Probably not, and you know most of my innermost secrets.”

“Most?” she asked.

I nodded, “Most. Some things I can’t talk about, even with you. But they’re things I’ve worked through and although they helped make me who I am today, they aren’t particularly relevant at this point.”

“Does Bethany know about these things?” Doctor Mercer asked.

“Some, yes,” I said. “But please just let sleeping dogs lie. These issues were resolved years and years ago.”

She nodded, “OK. Do you remember the very first time you were here? Why you told me you came here?”

“I wanted to learn how to help Bethany. I guess that’s why I’m here now, too, really. Not for me. For her.”

“Yes, I think so. I think your struggle is not just with mortality, but with how to help a girl you used to be intimate with but can’t be now.”

“You’re wrong, Doctor Mercer. We ARE intimate. More intimate than if we were screwing. Sex isn’t true intimacy. It might contribute to it, but it’s not intimacy. It’s just sex unless there’s something more behind it.”

“Wow! Did Bethany teach you that?”

I shook my head, “No. It was an Indian girl named Anala. She was my closest confidante and advisor for quite some time. I haven’t seen or talked to her in a while because her husband is very conservative and isn’t comfortable with my lifestyle. She had a very positive impact on me and helped me learn how to deal with many issues that have come up in my life.”

“But not this one.”

“No. Death wasn’t something Anala and I really talked about. We discussed just about everything else, though. I do have someone who has given me something of a different perspective. There’s a young woman named Abbie I met about a year ago who’s ‘goth’, if you know what that means.”

“I do. You talk to her about her views on life?”

“Yes. She lives with us, and when our current nanny gets married, Abbie will become our nanny. The kids love her, and she’s even helped Matthew be a little ‘goth’ a few times. He really loves her. Anyway, when I first met her in Albany, we talked about her views about the world, how everything is decaying and dying, and the only thing that’s eternal is music. It’s an interesting perspective, and we got to talking about Greek philosophers and music, along with everything else.”

“But you don’t strike me as buying into that philosophy.”

“I don’t. But that doesn’t mean I can’t learn from her. I can learn from just about anyone. I’ve gone to clubs with her and some of her friends from time to time, too. It’s been a very interesting experience for an upper-middle-class entrepreneur from Hyde Park!”

“I’m sure! I just can’t see you in a punk or goth club!”

“For Halloween I did the full ‘goth’ thing, including using theatrical dye on my hair. But when I go to the club I just wear black clothes. Well, now. Originally I just dressed as I normally do. It’s allowed me to meet some people with very different outlooks on life.”

“I told you that you had everything you need to work out your mortality, and I guess you have even more resources than I thought you did.”

“What do YOU believe, Doctor Mercer?”

“I have no clue. I’m Jewish, so I was raised with a somewhat different take, but what struck me from the Torah was the repeated statement that ‘G-d remembered’ someone - that is, called them to mind. I think that’s the key to understanding eternal life. That G-d remembers us.”

“Memory Eternal,” I said softly.

“Yes.”

“That’s what the Orthodox Christian hymn for the departed says, asking that the memory of someone be eternal. That we live on by our memories being carried forward by others, especially by God.”

“That makes as much sense as anything else.”

A chilling thought hit me. Who would remember Nick? Nicholas was too young to know his father. Bethany, Karl, Howard, and I would die, and there would be nobody to remember Nick. He’d become just a name on a census form or on a family tree written in a bible.

“Shit,” I sighed. “Who’s going to remember Nick when all of us die?”

“Maybe that’s your true task here,” Doctor Mercer said. “To help Bethany make sure that Nick’s memory is eternal.”

“That just might be it,” I said.

And suddenly, I knew exactly what I had to do.

January 7, 1990, Milford, Ohio

“Thanks for everything,” Bethany said. “I couldn’t have made it through these last few days without you. I mean that.”

She’d cried herself to sleep in my arms each night, and I’d held her many other times over the four days I’d been in Milford. She’d spent quite a bit of time with Doctor Mercer, and I’d kept my appointments on Friday and Saturday. Our conversations had mostly revolved around Bethany and how I could help her, but also on my relationships and my evolving acceptance of my own mortality.

“Just call me whenever you need to talk. You have my home and work numbers, and I gave you my cellular telephone number, but that really only works well if I’m in the Chicago area at the moment. Everywhere else it seems hit or miss as they’re building out the system. And call Kathy if you need her. She was pretty clear when we talked to her yesterday about dropping everything and coming to help if you needed it.”

“I know. I promise I’ll call one of you when I need help,” Bethany said.

“And don’t forget to do what I said - gather all your photos and write stories for each of them. I’ll do the same, and when I talk to Howard and Karl, I’ll ask them as well. By the time Nicholas is able to read, he’ll have a huge collection of stories about his dad, along with pictures, and anything else we can think of.”

“That’s such a grand idea,” she said.

“Thank Doctor Mercer. She pushed me in the right direction when we were talking about mortality and what the meaning of ‘eternal life’ might be. And it hit me that Nick needs to be remembered. So we’re all going to make sure Nicholas knows everything possible about his dad.”

“Thanks. He’s too little to appreciate it now, but I’m sure he will later on. I really owe you an apology for that first night.”

“No you do not!” I said firmly. “First of all, you already apologized. More importantly, we both knew what was going to happen. I knew you would ask and you knew I would say ‘no’. That’s why you talked to me about it first! We cemented the trust we both need to have a proper relationship. One that is intimate as can be, but one which does not cross the uncrossable line.”

“Maybe someday,” she sighed wistfully.

I shook my head, “No. We can’t even think that way, Sweetheart. We’re two very different people now. And we need to guard our relationship carefully.”

“You’ve more or less settled down with Jessica, Kara, Elyse, and Abbie at this point.”

Chapter 5 »