The last time I spoke to Jim was by telephone. It had been more than a month since I’d last had contact with him. Upon the advice of our family counselor, I had sent Jim an e-mail asking if he would reconsider allowing me to see Michael. He telephoned me a few days later. I told him our counselor had said that even though the amount of time I spent with Michael would naturally lessen over time as our lives moved in different directions, he thought it best that I retain contact with him now, even if it was only in limited amounts. Jim insisted that the counselor had told him the opposite, but he did not provide any details or further insight into why.
For just a moment I wondered if the counselor was playing both sides for his own benefit. “If our counselor is telling you one thing and me another, why don’t we go see him together?” I suggested.
Any doubts I had about the counselor’s intentions were immediately cleared up by Jim’s reply. “No, I’m not doing that,” he said. “And besides, it’s not going to change my mind.”
“What have you told Michael about all of this?” I asked.
“I told him that people move on. You’ve moved on; we’ve moved on. People move on. You just need to let this go. I’m not changing my mind.”
“I’ll never let it go!” I screamed into the phone, and then I hung up on him. Although I can’t recall specifically, it’s also possible I called him an asshole.
But the fact remained that my threat carried absolutely no weight; there wasn’t a thing I could do about any of this.