Chapter 16

"Dana, do you ever wonder what it could have been like? If none of the bad ever happened to us?" Ray asked.

"Do you wonder how strong it could have been? Luke and Jessie would have envied us. It still makes me sad. It still makes me angry, but I am tired of being angry. I am tired of being sad," Ray continued his soliloquy.

"I still hate him. I still never want to think of him again. I still can't think of the two of you together without feeling ill. We could have been everything to each other. The two of us would have been back-to-back, taking on the world. You and I straddling the line of the present, one eye peering to the past, the other cast to the future. And ready to slay anything that came at us."

In the month that followed their visit to Chuck's grave the anger sessions of regret grew more numerous. The rage was still there. But it didn't always weigh as heavily in the forefront of Ray's mind. He wasn't sure when it happened. He didn't have a clue which meeting with Mike convinced Dana to do it. But she started to hold him for the entire 20 minutes. She would sit next to him, and wrap her arms around him, and sometimes lay her head on his shoulder.

It took a little getting use to in the beginning. She still didn't say a word. She just held him and let him say what he needed to say. Sometimes he thought of hugging her back. But he just wasn't ready for it yet.

"I am pleased at how well this is going," Mike said.

Both Ray and Dana smiled.

"I am still having trouble sleeping. I sleep fine, but every now and again I'll startle awake," Ray admitted.

"Is it like one of those falling dreams?" Mike asked.

"No, one minute I am sleeping, next it's like a jolt and I'm up."

"Is there a thought that you wake to?"

"No, other than why the hell am I awake?" Ray responded.

"How often?" the counselor continued.

"Well I can't really tell you for sure. But not anywhere as bad as before."

"Okay Ray. You still sleep in your study right?" Ray nodded. "Well I want you to start keeping a journal of this. Let's start tracking how often you are having these episodes. I may ask that you talk to your doctor and maybe have a test or two. Let's make sure that it's cause is not physical. On the journal I want you to write down the date and time, and what you were thinking about. Also write down anything that you may feel is important. Was it storming outside? Were your children already up and making noise? Let's try to figure out the impact of the outside stimuli. Heck, even if you had burritos for dinner, when you usually don't. Anything and everything."

"Okay Mike," Ray agreed.

"Make sure you keep that journal right by your bed or couch or cot or whatever you are sleeping on."

Ray nodded.

"Okay last 2 or 3 sessions we talked about your visit to Chuck's grave. We also talked about Dana and her abandonment issues with her father. How's the guitar playing going Ray?"

"Well real well. I'm playing a little everyday. The guitar Dana bought me is very good. It doesn't have a lot soul, but it is very forgiving," Ray laughed a little self consciously.

"A lot of soul?"

"Yeah, I would one day love an old beautiful wooden guitar. I read somewhere that new guitars would have no "memory" and no "soul". They would be like a new-born. I would love to someday play something that has been loved and treated right."

"Wouldn't you want your own new guitar to pour your own, what did you say?" Mike scanned his notes with his finger, "to pour your own memories and soul into?"

"I don't think I'd want anything that I could pour my memories into."

"Why did you give up playing the guitar?" the doctor asked.

"It stopped being important," Ray responded.

"You told me you hurt your hand," Dana interjected.

"Well which one is it Ray? Aren't you tired of dancing yet?" Mike said with a smirk. "You are hopping around trying to say everything and nothing. I'm not a mind reader. And do you magically expect Dana to be one?"

"It was an injury. I broke a finger."

"How?" Mike pressed.

"It's a long story."

"It's a good thing that we almost have forty five minutes left."

"It was an argument with my father. He would get angry. I was older then. He swung a bat at me. I dodged it. It just nicked my hand," Ray said it coldly without emotion.

He had replayed so much of his life in his head. Trying different scenarios. What if I told the old bastard what he wanted to hear? What if I had hit him first, what if I moved to the left instead of the right? So many what ifs'. And it all amounted to the same thing. The past was the past and there was no changing it.

Ray heard Dana sigh as she looked at him.

Mike asked, "Was that the worse that I got?"

Ray didn't want to answer. He was backed into a corner. They were expecting a lie. They were goading him to tell the truth. They though they could handle it. Fine, he'd give them what they wanted.

"No. It was worse when I was younger," Ray spat at them.

"Like what?" Dana asked. "What happened to you?" she finished in a quiet soft voice.

"You've seen it. Those odd freckles that are in a line. Like Orion's belt I think you said. A good strong jab with a sharp fork into a twelve year old's body can do that. The scar on my back was a thin strong whip-like stick, supple and biting as a knife. And a broken nose."

He could see Dana from the corner of his eye. He could see her looking at him. She was seeing his irregular profile. She was trying to stare through his shirt. Her hand was up and almost reaching toward him. Her eyes seemed to glisten even from where he sat.

"I guessed that it was bad. I wondered if you were hurt. But I never knew how badly," she said.

"Was your father punished for this?" Mike asked.

"He was a drunk. He wasn't a stupid drunk. Once the school called to find out about the broken nose when I was ten, it scared him. That was when the hits and beatings happened below the neck. I was the only kid wearing long sleeve shirts and jeans in the middle of summer. There were always accidents. He was sorry. He was always sorry," Ray said to himself with a bitter smile.

"Have you been counseled for this?" Mike asked.

"That was why I was seeing Liz. Dr. Elizabeth Austen."

"I know of her. She is very good. Why did you stop seeing her?"

"Well at that time Dana and I started coming to see you. And my interest in Liz was getting to be too personal."

Ray felt Dana stiffen next to him.

"How so?" Mike asked carefully.

"She is a beautiful intelligent woman. I was lonely and miserable and just learned that my wife had an affair. I started wondering if maybe there wasn't someone else out there who could love me."

"And?"

"And she realized that that was not in my best interest. Also she felt that my attraction to her would jeopardize my development. So she recommended you."

"Okay, so nothing came out of this?" Mike questioned.

"No. Nothing at all. Except a deep respect for someone exceptional in your profession," Ray replied.

"This is the first that Dana has heard about the physical abuse you suffered as a child?"

"Yes."

"So what is the far reaching impact that those experiences may have had to your personality now?"

"I learned to protect myself. I learned that I needed to not get angry or too happy because that would set him off. I learned that I needed to hide everything that I liked. He could be a mean drunk and break things just because he knew I liked them. I learned that I didn't want to be like him. I learned that crying doesn't always make him stop. That he could say I love you son, in the morning when he sobered and it would mean absolutely nothing."

Mike looked hard at him.

"This explains so much Ray."

"What does it explain Mike? Because it never made any sense to me. Not then and certainly not now. You're going to say that that is why I am cold and distant. And scared to feel and always protecting myself, which is certainly not news to me."

"It's probably news to Dana," Mike responded.

"I guess," Ray conceded. "But why didn't I make him stop? Explain that. How weak am I?"

"You were a little guy," Dana whispered. "Just a little guy. Like our Timmy, just like our Judy."

"And mom why couldn't she leave him earlier?" Ray asked.

"Maybe she was scared," Mike said.

"Oh, she was plenty scared. She got beat almost as much as me. But why did she finally leave and not take me with her?" Ray said bitterly.

"When did that happen?" Mike asked.