The office of Harvey Greene, BPsych

Recently

Not long after Thomas had sunk himself as comfortably as possible into Harvey Greene’s couch, it began to rain outside. A few sporadic drops ticked onto the roof for long enough for Thomas to cock his head and say, ‘Is that rain?’ before it came rushing down in a heavy sheet.

The psychologist opened with, ‘How are you feeling today?’

Thomas told him he was fine, as to be expected. The sound of the rain comfortingly dulled his senses and for an almost pleasant moment his anxiety eased.

‘It sounds like home, doesn’t it?’ Thomas said. ‘No matter where you are, rain on the roof is the sound of being tucked up in bed.’

‘I agree,’ the psych said, ‘It’s a soothing sound. And sometimes I think there’s something of a little kid in each of us, looking for comfort. Isn’t there?’

Thomas inwardly scoffed at the psychobabble, but he didn’t want to be argumentative when he had only just gotten settled. ‘If you say so.’

Harvey got straight to it. ‘You obviously survived the kids’ teenage years,’ he said. ‘How old are Millie and Arthur now? They’d be, what . . .’ he looked down at his notes and Thomas said, ‘Millie’s close to fifty; Arthur’s early-forties.’

‘And how many grandkids did you say?’

‘Five. Jordan – Millie’s eldest – is driving and drinking and everything.’

Harvey said, ‘And they all know about your relationship with Aida?’

‘Yes.’

‘But they keep it from their friends, too?’

‘I honestly don’t know anymore.’ Thomas rubbed his chin. ‘Some of the younger kids these days wouldn’t care so much. It’s different now.’

‘Society is more tolerant?’

Thomas gave a wry laugh. ‘We like to think so, don’t we? But I reckon it’s just different versions of the same intolerance. There’s still criticism – horrible things still happen because of narrow minds.’

‘Is that why you were never entirely forthcoming – about Aida – with Millie and Arthur, when they were younger?’

‘We wanted to protect them, yeah.’

‘But they found out.’

‘We were foolish to think they would never work it out.’ And because he could now, with the sentiment of time passed, Thomas smiled about it. ‘We didn’t like to lie to them, but we did it to protect them. We saw it like any private business. Don’t talk about it, don’t make it obvious, and everyone is safe. Right?’

Harvey looked at him, waiting.

‘We believed – or maybe hoped – that they could grow up seeing Aida as a kind of aunty and that way, they would be guarded, I suppose, from collateral harm. Who’s to say the authorities wouldn’t have taken the kids off us? Can’t say our country doesn’t have a shitty history of arbitrarily taking kids off their parents,’ he pointed out.

‘The worst of it was their childhood years,’ Thomas continued, ‘with school kids and such. We had a few close calls, the odd run-in . . . but people were so bloody conservative no one could really substantiate it. No one could say for sure, “these three people are in a relationship”.’ Thomas paused to listen to the rain grow heavier. ‘I’m sure we weren’t the only family with something to hide. Eventually the kids came to terms with it in their own ways, once they got older.’

‘But from what you’ve said, it was rocky when they were growing up, wasn’t it?’

Thomas mulled it over. ‘Isn’t it always uncomfortable when you find out about . . . the bedroom business of your parents?’

‘Maybe.’

‘I suppose our bedroom business was different to other parents.’

‘Only that you know of,’ Harvey said.

‘But it wasn’t just . . . sex,’ Thomas managed to say. ‘By the time the kids came along it was more than that. And then, the kids had never known any different. It’s not like Aida came along when they were already grown. The only parents they’d had, ever since they were babies, were the three of us. If anything, because I was at work all the time, they had two mums. Aida wasn’t an add-on or a plus-one.’

‘Aida was integral for being herself, you mean?’

‘Yeah. She was as much “Mum” as Elsie.’

‘Is that how Aida saw it?’

It gave Thomas pause. ‘I don’t know. I think so. But maybe . . .’

‘Go on.’

‘I know she never stopped thinking about her own baby. The baby she never got to be a mother to.’

Harvey said, ‘Hmm.’ He made a note on his pad. ‘Aida never went back to her parents, after that? Or went away again?’

Thomas shook his head. ‘But there was obviously still something there, because her father continued to pay her an allowance. Even after I bought the house. “Guilt money”, Aida called it. But she took it.’ Thomas shifted his weight, plucked at the seam of his pants. ‘But their relationship was strained. Aida said she couldn’t look at either of them without thinking of her baby. After a time she just stopped seeing them. Then her father died, and her mother moved away . . .’ he shrugged sadly.

‘How did Aida take it?’

‘Same way any of us take that kind of thing,’ Thomas said, lowering his brows. ‘In her own way. Her own time.’ It didn’t feel right, discussing this part of Aida’s grief with the shrink. This part of Aida was separate, independent of the story he was here to confess. Aida had always protected the three of them from her own family. Kept her last name guarded, secure. That was her choice. She wasn’t here now to give Thomas permission as to what he could say.

They were quiet for a time and Thomas appreciated the shrink leaving him to listen to the rain, unprompted for a while. The downpour had eased and he heard the gutters gurgle softly, the iron on the verandah roof outside ticking and popping as the sun broke through the clouds.

‘Let me ask something,’ Harvey said. ‘You implied last time –’ he flipped back a couple of pages in his notes ‘– that the sexual relationship between you and Aida didn’t really exist without Elsie. It seems to me like Elsie was the central pin that bound you and Aida. So it wasn’t precisely an equal triangle, as such.’

Thomas looked up at the video camera. ‘They always loved each other more than me.’ He said it quietly, plainly. In his peripheral vision he saw the shrink go still. ‘I got to love two women, and wasn’t I lucky? But I never had what they had.’

‘What did they have?’

Still gazing at the ceiling, Thomas’s brows drew together. ‘I think women are capable of a bond that men can’t understand. They know what it’s like to be female in a man’s world. And maybe that’s a good thing, because I’m about to die.’

‘And they’ll still have that bond?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I take it you still haven’t told them about the cancer?’

Thomas glanced at the box of tissues. ‘Not yet.’

‘How are you feeling about that?’

Thomas dug his elbow into the arm of the couch, trying to jimmy himself into a position that didn’t send flares of pain through him. ‘After all this talk about keeping things secret from our loved ones, pretty rotten to be honest with you. Omission isn’t always mercy.’

‘“What we don’t know can’t hurt us”,’ Harvey quipped.

Thomas said, ‘But I’m still going to die, aren’t I? Not telling the people I love about it beforehand isn’t going to magically stop that from happening.’ He felt himself sag, suddenly weary. ‘I’ve become an old bastard.’ He sighed, then steeled himself. ‘All right. So the kids grew up.’