(no subject)
ONE
It was barely morning and I rolled over to see her still asleep. Gorgeous as always; She never looked more peaceful. I stretched out of bed and made my way to the mirror adjacent to the bed. I look like hell.
I creeped from the bedroom into the bathroom as to not wake her. She rarely slept well and I didn’t want to wake her. I found my self starring over the sink groggy-eyed as a brushed my teeth and began to go through the notions of a normal morning. It was almost five and I had to be at work at nine to meet my first patient. I was going to be late. I delicately placed my toothbrush back into the first slot on the left side and stooped down to the bottom of the sink. I removed the supplies one by one and placed them alone the creases on the floor. I approached the shower with my bleach, gloves and scrub brush. Kneeling on the floor I could feel my back ache. I’m getting to old for this.
After scrubbing for exactly thirty two minutes I stepped into the shower and let the scold my face and back before I began the lengthy task before me. An hour later I emerged from the shower, spotlessly clean and dressed myself in my normal. A form fitting black dress shirt and black slacks that hardly flattered me. I could hear Annet in the kitchen bustling around the kitchen. She was like a tusunami, tearing things apart and trailing debri wherever she went. She was the perfect compliment to me and kept me centered. I don’t know what I’d do without her.
“Honey, have you seen my keys. The last time I saw them they were in the-- Wait.. No… I don’t know where the hell they are. Please help me find them. Ugh, I’m going to be late,” she mumbled from the kitchen.
“One second, just let me get my glasses on.”
I rushed into the bedroom and looked at the clock, 6:45. I approached the oak dresser next to the closet and pulled the drawer open and pulled out a pair of narrow red framed glasses. I was nearly blind without them and made my way down the stairs to help her find her keys.
“What time did you get home last night?” I asked
“What does it matter what time I got home, I need to find my keys.”
“it has everything to do with it. Just what time did you get home.”
“God damnit, don’t play twenty questions with me, just help me find my keys.”
“Just tell me.”
“I got home around six. Are you happy?”
“ Yes. Look in the refrigerator next to the apple juice.”
“Excuse me?”
“Just do it.”
She rolled her eyes and scurried over opened the black door just to appease me. Her hair whipped around and she gave me a puzzled look.
“Did you put those there?”
“No, but it’s not the first time you’ve done it.. Normally I just get them out, I probably forgot to last night..”
She was a little off too, but it just made her more perfect. She bounced over to me and kissed my cheek.
“I love you. I’ll be home about five today, what do you want for dinner? Don’t say salad. I’m sick of salad. Let’s order out, we haven’t ordered out in forever. I’ve been dying to try this new Italian place that opened up down the street.”
I nodded, and with that she disappeared through the front door and down the street.
Our kitchen table was metal and bitterly cold in the morning. I pulled out a tin box I kept in the knife drawer, and slowly began removing the prescription bottles from it . In total I took about eight pills a day. But that was hardly enough. I glanced around the kitchen and settled for a bagel and swallowed the pills between each bite. I washed my hands and went upstairs. Our closet was huge. Annet dominated most of the closet and littered it with shoes. I removed the new shoes she had bought me and slipped them on. Returning to the bathroom once more to wash my hands, I noticed a spec of something on my shirt. As I anxiously removed the shirt I began to panic if I had anything else to wear. The spec was barely noticeable and was probably a piece of lint but I was now it was contaminated and I couldn’t touch it. I ran topless back into the closet and found a similar shirt and rushed down the stairs. I grabbed my suitcase and headed for the door. It was then I noticed a small trail of things on the floor. What the hell.
At first I thought Annet had leaked things from her purse or pockets, but I was wrong. The first object was a take-out menu, presumably the new place she wanted to try that had all the meat selections and prices blacked out. The next was a beautiful fourtain pen, and the next a set of movie tickets for tonight.. The last thing left in the small trail was directly in front of the door, a pocket sized anti-bacterial gel with a piece of paper attached to it that read:
Hey sweetheart, I love you and wanted to have a good start for the day.
Sorry if I was a little grumpy. I’ll see you tonight. I love you, and you
can start washing your hands now silly girl.
Love always,
Annet
I smiled and opened the top of the small bottle and used the entire thing on my hands and placed it in the trashcan filled with similar empty bottles.
TWO
I rushed into the office slamming the door behind me and racing up the stairs. I busted into my office and looked at the clock, 8:30.
I plugged my cellphone into the charger tucked under my enormous desk and studied the room around me. I stood up and began evening the books filling the tall bookshelves placed around the room. Fiona clamered to the front desk about fifteen minutes later and asked me if I wanted some coffee, I declined politely. She seemed like the kind of person who would spit I your coffee if she disliked something you said the day before. I tried not to diagnose people who didn’t want a diagnoses so I normally refrained from conversation with her.
Minutes later she erupted into my office, coffee in hand with the files of my first two patients. Robert and Charlotte, who liked to be called Char or Charlie.
Robert was a fourty-eight year old single and financially successful man. He was raised by a lovely family in a lovely home in a lovely neighborhood. The problem about all of this was, that he didn’t grow up in a lovely household with a lovely family in a lovely home. He was raised by his aunt who worked at a brothel frequented by police. She was only ten years his elder and was left to raise him when his mother skipped town after refusing to pay a loan shark. Robert was seven when he moved in with his Aunt Pennalope and was deathly afraid of the stubby woman who demanded that she call him mom. She was horribly unattractive and would physically and sexually abuse him. Despite the odds of Robert becoming successful, he got a decent job at a computer company in sales. He worked with the marketing crew on distributing and selling to other large companies. He had went fourty-one years without treatment and didn’t think that it was necessary until he found himself lingering on the top of that very building debating on whether or not he would go to heaven if he jumped.
He never got to make the choice.
Security guards from the building pulled him from the ledge and forcibly placed him in his superior’s office. His boss, a Mrs. Berlin was a kind hearted middle-aged woman and told him that if he wanted to keep his job he’d have to see a therapist to fix his problems.
“We can’t have our salesman dropping from the roof, it’s bad for sales. People will think that your computer malfunctioned and you just finally had enough,” she joked.
A week later, Robert was sitting on the couch across from me sweating profusely and straightening the creases in his jeans. His hair was much longer than and his overall appearance showed that he probably hadn’t bathed since the last day he went to work(which was nearly a week ago).
That was three years ago, and Robert has, amongst other changes, began to bathe more frequently.
Charlotte was much different patient. She was interesting and young, she was almost nineteen years old. Her hips were the most feminine thing about her entire body. She was attractive in an androgynous way, she was beautiful in the way that my partner wasn’t. I hated that I thought about that. I hated the way I sometimes looked at her.
Charlie was a lesbian raised by devote Christians.
She originally came to me to treat her severe depression. Her parents, like most, denied that she had a problem and tiptoed around the subject. She had short hair and a short temper.