Landings

He appeared harmless enough. Conservatively dressed in khaki slacks and a light blue button-down oxford shirt with a Ralph Lauren emblem, she took note of his expensive Cole Haan loafers. A man with good taste in shoes was always a plus. His shock of salt and pepper graying hair gave him a cross between a Bill Clinton and a Kenny Rogers look, which she didn’t find offensive either. At least he was all right to look at, but she had trouble meeting his eyes. His eyes were penetrating, not in an invasive manner, but more in the all-encompassing way they appeared to embrace her. Nothing seemed to escape his perception. This realization ran a chill up her spine.

He sized her up rather quickly as well. She sat frozen on the couch, staring into the palm plant as so many of his patients did when they hoped to avoid the journey they knew there was no turning back from. His wife recently transplanted the palm into a larger pot when its ever-increasing size outgrew the last container. Thank heavens for my wife, he thought to himself. She has a sixth sense about what soothes people when they entered his office and somehow she intuited that this plant would provide a healing balm for trembling clients.

Dressed in black from head to toe, her dark mahogany locks spilled over the shoulders of her black cashmere sweater tucked neatly into her black jeans. The silver belt buckle at her waist gleamed and for a moment the entirety of the picture she conveyed reminded him of another woman he worked with long ago, a woman he nearly lost to suicide. She had the same ivory skin with a sprinkle of freckles across her nose. But that woman’s eyes were blue and this woman’s eyes were dark brown. He sighed with relief at this noted difference.

A slight tremor in his hand gave him pause and for a moment he wondered if he were up to this challenge. He quickly brushed off this feeling of foreboding, reminding himself that he always felt this way at the beginning. Never before had it stopped him from meeting the challenge head on. He knew the path and would find a way to coax her down the trail. She appeared to be unaware of the rivulets of tears streaking her carefully applied makeup, and he surmised that she was not in body at the moment.

Dr. Blackburn thought of her husband, Allan, a round soft man whose lack of muscular tone presented an almost pudgy physique even though he wasn’t overweight. With thinning blonde hair and lids that drooped a bit over pale blue eyes, Allan appeared to be a sleepy distant boy who was perpetually lost in his attention deficit world. As a chemist his mind was full of equations, hypothesizes and experiments, but the one he could not reconcile was Jesse. He had a gentle demeanor free of the rancor many husbands of survivors displayed. Allan was all but shut down emotionally and this disconnect from his feeling life probably allowed he and Jesse room for relationship. Their dance of love mimicked the stalking moves of the hunted, forever seeking safe shelters to ride out the haunting of their past. Allan had been sullen of late, not wanting to share any more of Jesse’s story. He admitted he had no idea where Jesse went at night, feigning belief in her tales of late nights at the library doing research. Allan was one of the combat weary, those who had seen so much but who related very little. Dr Blackburn hoped Jesse would fill in some of the blanks.

After an awkward silence that Jesse found excruciating and no longer endurable, she spoke to Dr. Blackburn.

"I’m just here to help my husband. He’s been depressed and that’s why I sent him to you. I was hoping you could help him. My friend Jane recommended you."