“So what are we supposed to talk about?” Jessica asked, already stealing a glance at her cell phone to check the time. She wondered how she would ever make it through the next fifty minutes.
“It can be anything you’d like, really,” the doctor answered. “How you feel. Things happening at home. The life of a young woman heading into her senior year of high school. . . . Anything. This is your time.”
“And if I don’t want to talk about anything?”
“Then it will be a very long hour,” the doctor answered with a smile.
A moment or two passed before Jessica spoke again.
“I don’t even know what I’m doing here.”
“Your mother thought it would be a good idea,” the doctor said.
“Why? You’re her therapist, not mine. I don’t need to talk to anybody.”
“Your mother seems to think you do,” the doctor countered.
“About what?”
“Anything you’d like.”
“You said that already,” Jessica stated flatly. She stared at the ceiling, then at the door, and then back at her cell phone. Forty-nine minutes to go.
When it became obvious to the doctor that Jessica really did not want to talk about anything, she switched tactics.
“Look, try not to think about this as therapy, per se. It might help if you treat it more like ‘girl talk.’ You know, from one woman to another.”
Jessica raised her eyebrows and shot an exasperated look that plainly said, “Seriously?” The doctor paused and pursed her lips before switching tactics again.
“Can I ask you a few questions then?”
“Whatever,” Jessica replied, looking at her feet.
“Tell me about your friends,” the doctor began.
“Like what?”
“Well . . . how about we start with some names.”
Jessica did not answer at first. The doctor waited.
“My best friend is Bree,” Jessica began at last.
“Bree?”
“Yeah. It’s short for Briana . . . but she doesn’t really like Briana . . . which is fine because she doesn’t really look like a Briana either.”
“And what’s a Briana supposed to look like?”
“I don’t know. But it’s not Bree.”
“So how long have you known her?” the doctor asked.
“Since second grade,” Jessica replied. “She moved here and got put in my class.”
“That’s like—what—ten years?”
“I guess.”
“So you’re close?”
“Yes,” Jessica replied, softening ever so slightly. “I don’t know what I’d do without her sometimes,” she added.
“It sounds like you two hit it off right away. So what made Bree different?”
Jessica thought for a moment, as if she’d never considered this before.
“I guess what made Bree different was . . . well, just that she was different.”
“How do you mean?”
“I don’t know. She just wasn’t like anyone else I knew. She wasn’t like all the other kids.”
Jessica paused again, as if trying to piece this all together for herself for the first time. She closed her eyes and pictured her second grade class: the room, the teacher, the other kids . . . and lastly her spot alone in the back.
“Well, for one, Bree wasn’t mean to me.”
The doctor looked sympathetic. Jessica continued.
“Okay, looking back . . . I don’t honestly believe everyone was mean to me. But it felt like it at the time, you know?”
“In what way were kids mean to you?”
“Oh, calling me names, mostly,” Jessica said. “Leaving me out of things, too, I guess. And asking me stupid questions.”
“What’s a stupid question for a second grader?”
“Oh just stupid stuff,” Jessica said, not looking up.
“Such as?”
Jessica didn’t answer at first. Clearly this was something still bothering her. She finally replied, “I guess the worst one was, ‘What are you?'”
The doctor nodded knowingly. “Well, if it’s any comfort, you’re not alone on that one. If you can’t be immediately identified with a known major race, people are going to wonder—sometimes out loud, unfortunately—what you ‘are.'”
“Yeah, I still get it sometimes.” Jessica put on half a smile and said, “I always want to reply with, ‘Why I’m human, thank you. And what are you?’ But I didn’t think like that back in second grade.”
“That’s not bad,” the doctor said with a grin, “You should try it some time.”
“It’s not worth it. It’s easier to just ignore them.”
A quiet moment passed when Jessica asked, “You’re wondering what I am, aren’t you?” But she sounded amused at this point, not angry.
The doctor looked embarrassed and then quickly admitted, “All right, all right: it did cross my mind just then. I owe you that in the interest of a healthy doctor-patient relationship. But let’s move on to another topic.”
“My mom’s family was from Brazil,” Jessica blurted, figuring they should just get past this point now. “My dad was half British and half Indian. Like, from India Indian. Not Native American.”
At the word “dad,” Jessica caught the look on the doctor’s face and immediately regretted mentioning her father in any context. She knew the direction this conversation was about to take and she didn’t want to follow.
“Can we talk about your dad?” the doctor asked.
There it was. She silently debated about what to do next as two familiar emotions continued their long-term struggle for control. On the one hand, Jessica wanted nothing more than to run away and never talk about her father to anyone. But then another part of her always wondered if just facing it might actually help. Maybe it was time to finally talk about . . . that day.
The doctor looked hopeful as Jessica came to a decision. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and began.
“I was nine years old. It was December and my parents had a fight. They argued from time to time, of course, like all married people . . . nothing ever serious. But this time was a little different: there was something really bothering them. I still have no idea what it was, even now.
“Anyway, they took a break long enough to get me ready for bed. But as soon as I was all tucked in with my nightlight on and my sleepy songs playing, they started right back in on each other. I can still remember falling asleep to the muffled sound of voices arguing on the other side of the wall.
“I woke up the next morning and enjoyed a few seconds of blissful amnesia before it all came back to me. That made me feel bad again, at least at first, but then I realized everything would soon be fine. They never stayed mad very long. I knew that I’d head to the kitchen and meet them for breakfast and everything would be all right. Then, just before he’d leave for work, my dad and I would exchange our secret handshake and hug each other. He always gave the best hugs.
“See you at dinner! he’d say just before closing the garage door. And don’t eat all the spaghetti before I get home!
“He said that to me every morning since that one night I actually did eat all the spaghetti before he got home and all he got was a wilted salad and some crusty leftover bread.
“But something was different on this morning. He wasn’t in his usual good mood. He ran around the kitchen looking for his keys, mumbling and grumbling. He was sweating a little.
“Hi daddy! I called out. He grunted something and sort of nodded in my direction without looking up before yelling to no one in particular, there’re the damn things! He grabbed his keys and went straight for the garage door. It was apparent we weren’t going to get our handshake or our hug in this morning. I still held out hope that he might tell me when he’d see me again (or what I wasn’t supposed to do to the spaghetti) . . . but not this time. He closed the garage door and was gone.”
Jessica stopped for some minutes and wiped her cheek.
“After the car left, I remember asking my mom if we really could have spaghetti that night. She said yes. I then asked if Bree could come over too. She smiled and said she’d give Bree’s mother a call. I got ready for school as she began a grocery list.
“By seven that night, Bree and I were at the table, being our usual silly selves. At my request, my mom had poured us each a glass of grape juice in those cheap, plastic champagne glasses. You know those things?”
The doctor acknowledged with a smile.
“We kept laughing and toasting each other: ‘To the fridge!’ or ‘To our bicycles!’ or ‘To the spaghetti!’ It was funny. To us. Guess you had to be there.
“Anyway, my dad was usually home around this time and everyone was now feeling hungry—especially me, because I’d skipped my after-school snack so I wouldn’t spoil our big dinner. My mom thought that was very grown-up of me.
“By seven thirty, he still wasn’t home. My mom called his cell to find out when he might be home. It went right to voicemail. So she called his office number. Same thing.
“I’m sure he’s just stuck in traffic, she said to us reassuringly. It wasn’t unusual for him to arrive home as late as eight o’clock on some nights. Why don’t you go ahead and eat, you two? she suggested. I just remember crossing my arms and saying not without daddy!
“By now, though, Bree was getting a little tired and cranky. My mom said we needed to take her home, which we did. It was eight thirty by the time we’d dropped her off and returned home. We nibbled on some bread and tapped our fingers, nervously watching the clock.
“Nine o’clock rolled around. This was unusual. He might work this late once in a while but never without a text or something. After several more phone attempts, my mom finally called a friend of ours who worked with my dad.
“I could hear his voice on the other side of the phone: No, I don’t know where he is, Leese. I last saw him around lunch. But I think he was tied up in meetings all afternoon.
Jessica stopped again. The doctor handed her a box of tissues. A few more quiet minutes passed.
“By ten, my mom left a note on the table. It just said CALL ME! We then drove to my dad’s work. His car was still in the open lot in front of the building. A couple offices still had lights on but the place otherwise looked completely deserted. The corner of the building where my dad worked was completely dark except for the exit signs.
“My mom looked around frantically, now at a complete loss about what to do. Where are you?! she shouted into the night but no one answered. Numb, we got back into the car and drove home. The note we left was still lying near the cold spaghetti on the kitchen table.
“After that she called the police. They talked for a while and I don’t really know what about, except that nothing really came of it. I heard later they don’t really do anything if someone’s only been missing a few hours.
“But nothing else happened that night. Nothing happened the next day. Nothing happened the next month. He never came home. Officially, the police declared him a runaway. They said there was no sign of foul play, no ransom demands, no . . . no body was ever found.”
Jessica stopped for the third and longest time. The doctor waited ever so patiently for her to continue.
Jessica wiped her eyes, swallowed hard and went on, “Of course my mom doesn’t believe that story. She’s convinced he’s dead. Probably because it’s only explanation she can believe.”
“But is that what you believe?” the doctor asked.
Jessica didn’t answer for a while.
“Does it matter?” she finally snapped. “He’s gone. We got on with our lives. We made up a new definition of normal and—well, and here we are now.”
Jessica put down the tissue box and quick as a light switch once again became the distant girl who walked into the office.
“I think it matters,” the doctor countered. “I think it matters a great deal. It helps you define your coping mechanisms.”
“Coping mechanisms,” Jessica repeated with a mild, derisive snort. “I’m seventeen now. I think it’s a little late for me to be ‘defining coping mechanisms.'”
Jessica checked her cell phone again. Time was up.