Chapter 5

JESSICA – Moving on

I was confused. I was horrified that I had put my heart and my soul into that note and a man, this doctor had read it.

My thoughts were jumbled. Wow! I don’t know what I was thinking. Doctor Spaulding thought I was mostly depressed and he talked to me about self-esteem. We talked about what I had accomplished in school and what I had to offer in the job with the oil company. Then he asked me the shocker; he wanted to know if I wished I was married to Gerald and was living with him! When he asked that I thought about a big, slimy snake.

I thought back to when I met Gerald:

Outside of my loneliness I was feeling better. I sure wasn’t missing Gerry. And to think of what I had almost done because of his running around!

I liked Doctor Spaulding. He was funny but he made me think a lot too. We talked a couple of times then he introduced me to this wizened (that’s the word that came to my mind when I saw her) woman that Doctor Spaulding introduced as Maggie O’Conlan. She was a retired professor emeritus from the psychology department at UC Colorado. She now had a private practice in Boulder.

I talked privately with her a couple of times then we made arrangements for me to start seeing her weekly for a few weeks. If that went okay and I still wanted to she could refer me to a colleague in Grand Junction and start on my new job. She had called them and explained I’d been caught in the snow and had suffered severe frostbite. They said they would hold the job for me for a couple of months.

From some of our conversations I understood that she knew generally about the suicide note but hadn’t seen it.

And I kept wondering about what Cal - I couldn’t think of him as Doctor Caleb - had done with the mirror. I couldn’t believe the difference! What shook me up a little though, was whenever I smiled at Cal he smiled back. Which made me smile. It felt strange.

I couldn’t stop worrying about that note and that Cal had read it. It bothered me. Not that I had written the note but that he had read it. No one had seen the depths of my pain, my innermost secrets. I was both excited about it and ashamed at the same time. I felt the need to clear the air. I couldn’t get him to talk seriously. Like the last time, right before I left the hospital.

I was trying to broach the subject of the note so we could talk about it. I thought he was ready but then he asked if he could see my toe. It was healing and had only a loose bandage over it. I pulled my foot out from under the sheet and held it up. He lifted the bandage and looked really serious.

“Damn, Jesse. What are you going to do if you have to count past nineteen?”

I had to laugh at that ... but then I started crying, sobbing really. Life was just too much for me all of a sudden and I wished that Cal had not found me. Cal looked stunned as he tried to comfort me but it was too much! I yelled at him to leave me alone!

Later Maggie came in and talked to me; I was calm then.

“Jessica, I’m concerned about these mood swings of yours. Do you understand what I’m talking about?”

I thought for a minute, frowning in concentration.

“Can I tell you the truth, Doctor O’Conlan?”

She smiled at me, somewhat wryly. “Yes, Jessica, that would be nice!”

I looked at her, confused for a minute and then realized she was teasing me.

“Doctor, I’ve never been happy in my life! I’ve never been loved by anyone, except maybe my aunt and uncle. I’ve been lonely; I’ve been sad. I didn’t want to live anymore ... I couldn’t take it! Cal made me laugh yesterday; it felt so good. Then he had me look into a mirror and see how a smile transformed me, made me a different person.