It's Only Words

They devoted about ten minutes of their time to incidental chatter as they sipped the port on the living-room sofa before Robert opened the gate. “Tell me, why have you come here this evening, Emily?” “Am I that horrible a daughter that I need a reason to come?” she asked “You were only just here and it is a little out of the ordinary for you. You are a very busy woman, my darling daughter and I am very proud of you. I would love it if you were here every day, but if there is something on your mind I want you to know that I’m here and that I’m listening.” She looked up at her father and began to cry. He took her glass and put both his and hers down and held his little girl. ‘I would be there if ever she should fall,’ he thought. “What is it?” he asked. The fear was welling up inside him. “It’s not your health?” “No,” she promised. “No, I am not ill and Shannon is fine. I’ve started therapy a few weeks back,” she confided. “A psychologist?” he asked. “He’s a psychiatrist as well, but I’m not seeking medication just yet,” she said. “I was hoping to wait for middle age to get the really good stuff.” Robert frowned at that last remark. “They’ve come a long way with medications, Emily. I continue to read up on them,” he said. “I didn’t mean to be so flippant, daddy.” He took a handkerchief from his left pocket. He always kept a clean handkerchief in his left pocket and the one he used in his right. Emily took it and dabbed at her eyes and clamped it beneath her nose. “Are you suffering from depression?” he asked gently. “Not so much depression as anxiousness,” she said. “I get a little scared sometimes, daddy.” “Welcome to the human race,” he said with a smile that was both warm and sympathetic. “I stress a lot.” “You work too hard.” “I think I work too hard because I stress a lot,” she said. “I think I’m trying to get lost in my work.” He nodded. He understood. “At least you’re productive. Did your doctor explain this to you or was it you who explained this to him?” She smiled. “I suppose I knew this going in.” “You needed to have it confirmed by a professional?” “I guess,” she said. She was a little girl again and talking to her daddy. “Do you disapprove?” she asked. “Disapprove?” “About the shrink, I mean?” “No,” he said and then he put his hand on her knee. “I’m proud of you, Emily. I had always actually feared that you wouldn’t get therapy.” “You thought I was nuts?” “Put the jokes aside,” he said quietly. “Talking is good,” he said with resolve. He averted his eyes from hers and stared down at his shoes. “I was not much of a talker on things that mattered.” “That’s not true,” she said, but even to her the words did not ring true. “I kept things inside, Emily.” He looked up at her. “You’ve kept things inside. I wanted you to talk then, but you did not. You seemed so well and well adjusted and I wanted to believe that you’d always be all right. I should have forced the issue back then, but I was afraid I’d push you away from me. I wanted to be on the same side,” he said. “We are on the same side,” she said and took his hand. “Are you talking to your therapist?” “I’m trying.” “Just open up and trust him, Emily. You need to speak of it.” “It was so long ago,” she said. “It’s ancient history.” “It’ll never be ancient history, Emily. I can promise you that it will always be right beside you. You need to talk and you need to deal with it and cope. I’m afraid that I haven’t been much of a role model in that respect. We all tend to hide from our ails in one form or another. Maybe I’m to blame for what ails you now.” “It was never you,” she said. “I should have dealt with things differently. I could have saved you from that back then. Perhaps I could have saved…” “No,” she interrupted. “You did all that you could have done. You tried. I saw that then. I was there.” “You were a child, Emily.” “I was never a child.” “No,” he said. “No, you never had the chance to be a child. You had to grow up much too soon.” “I like to think that I was born that way. You were too,” she said. “We are two old souls.” “You may be right,” he concurred. “Circumstance may have precipitated it, though.” “Was it very bad for you as a child?” she asked “No, not really,” he said. “Talk to me,” she said. “Yes,” he said. His face changed and visions of the past were fading in and out on him. “It was rather bad for me,” he said after a time. “It was bad for your aunt as well.” He looked at his daughter. His heart was broken. “It was worse for you.” Emily broke down then and Robert held her with all that he had. He too wept, but he was silent and steady. He was as strong as he could be for his little girl and if it were possible, he would never again let her out of his grasp. How I’ve messed everything up, he thought. “I love you,” she said. “I know you do,” he told her. “I am so sorry for not be strong enough. I should’ve taken you away from here.” “Where to?” she asked. “Where could you have taken me? We didn’t have the support then. We really don’t have it now,” she said reflecting on her life with her daughter. “I come from a tiny family and brought a child into the world with a man who had no family of his own to speak of. Then he left us,” she said sardonically. “What a fool I was to do that. Family is so important.” “I had a sizeable family,” he said. “I was still pretty much on my own. I suppose it’s true,” he continued. “Size doesn’t matter.” Emily, surprised by her father’s uncharacteristic quip, put her hand to her mouth and muffled the laugh. She attempted a look of disapproval, but failed miserably and began to laugh all the more. “I got you on that one,” he said with a mischievous grin. “I’d been waiting to shock you for years.” He picked their glasses up from the coffee table and handed Emily’s to her. “A toast,” he said. “To open, honest and straightforward; three friends who’ve evaded us for some time; that they should show their faces and be seen,” he said and then lifted his glass and waited until she lifted hers. Emily was hesitant at first. Finally she relented and drank to the toast and deeply enough to drain the port in a single gulp. Robert took the glass and stood up to fill it. “Don’t’ be too difficult with that doctor of yours, Emily. Speak to him and not at him.” “What do you mean?” she said. “You know what I mean. Tell him. Tell him everything,” he said staring into her eyes. “How do you know that I haven’t told him already?” she said almost defiantly. “Because I know you,” he said. “You get that from me.” “He suggested that I bring you into a session,” she said. She watched his eyes carefully and saw the flicker of what? Was it pain? Was it fear? Was it regret? “I told him that it was out of the question,” she said mercifully. She felt that she had hurt him and for a moment she believed that it was deliberate. “Why did she want to hurt him? Was it to share the pain? Perhaps she should ask Dr. Freud, she thought. “Would it help?” he asked. “What?” she asked. “Would it be helpful for me to come? Do you want me there?” he asked. “I’ll come if you want me to be there.” “Do you want to come?” “Of course not,” he said. “I’m a coward. But I will come if it would be of help to you. If it helps you Emily, I would want to come.” “No,” she said. “I wouldn’t do that to you. Seeing a shrink was a tough decision for me.” “Talking to the shrink may be tougher.” Robert carried the glasses back to the sofa and sat down. He looked at his daughter imploringly. “Talk to him,” he said. “You need to open up.” “Maybe I have,” she said softly. “Have you?” “No,” she said. “I don’t know that I can, daddy.” Her eyes filled again, but she managed to hold her composure. “Yes you can,” he said. “Let go, Emily. Don’t carry it around with you any longer.”