“No, I’m not hurt. I think I’m having some sort of night terrors or a recurring nightmare. It seems stupid now that I’ve got you on the phone.”
“Tell me.” The doctor’s voice left no room for argument. Lance began to talk. The words spewed out of his mouth. He described the events of the past six weeks—the dream, the sudden writer’s block, his missed deadline, and the meeting with Ellington & Field. Dr. Tyler asked him to describe the dream as best he could, and as Lance spoke, the doctor occasionally stopped him to ask about a minor detail or for him to repeat a certain part, but mostly he was silent. When Lance finished, he sat back in his office chair and closed his eyes, listening to the humming quiet of the doctor’s bedroom in Michigan.
“Well, my boy, this is fairly simple. Your writing becoming inhibited by the dream’s presence is easily explainable. Your writing, the words you put down in your books, has been your shield ever since you learned to put pencil to paper. It’s been your refuge. We made huge breakthroughs several years ago, and the anger, along with the feeling of helplessness, was well within check, correct?”
“Yeah, the last three years have been really good. Sometimes, days will actually go by when I don’t think of him or my mother.”
“Exactly. And furthermore, I think you’ve done your best work recently.”
“What, are you a critic?” The doctor laughed but then fell silent again. Lance nodded to himself. “Yeah, I guess I have.”
“You were finally letting go, Lance. Your past and your future were separating and you were moving forward, but I think somewhere deep in your mind you realized it.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying the dream might be a self-protection mechanism.”
Lance leaned forward in the chair again, resting his elbows on his thighs. His forehead wrinkled as he frowned. “You think I’m trying to hold on to my past?” Lance heard the anger in his voice before he felt it and immediately tried to calm himself.
“I think you’re consciously ready to move on. The fear you have of your anger, it almost falls into obsessive-compulsive country, and that’s because your real fear is being anything like your father. Your father was a sadist, at best; you are a gentle person. Your father hated creating things, and that’s all you do. Do you see? You’ve changed your physical appearance by working out so you wouldn’t even resemble him in stature. You are as different from him as a rock is from water.
“Lance, you’ve told me things that would curl the hair of many a child therapist, and unless you’re withholding something major from me, you’ve let all the monsters out of your closet.”
Lance sighed. “I haven’t kept anything from you, I’ve told you about every time that bastard hit me or my mother. How he liked to watch us in pain. He fed on it. Each time he beat either one of us, it gave him the energy to keep doing it. It was intrinsic violence at its purest. So no, I haven’t kept anything a secret.” Lance began to sweat again, the drops tickling his naked back like cold fingernails stroking his spine.
“Please don’t get upset. All I’m trying to say is that somewhere in your subconscious you’re panicking because I think you’re ready to let go.”
“Let go of what? I’ve vented everything that’s happened to me.”
“Let go of it all. Of your hatred for a man so violently killed that the medical examiner did the autopsy in a bucket instead of on a table. Of your longing for a mother who disappeared, and the anger you harbored for her. Of the immense physical and emotional trauma you endured and overcame. Of your past, Lance. You can finally let it go.”
The study began to blur as warm tears surfaced in Lance’s eyes. He breathed in deeply and released it, so surprised that he nearly laughed at the relief starting to ebb through his tangled nerves.