There wasn't a single sound that infiltrated the office of Dr. J. Drew Sheard as he sat across from his complicated patient. She had entered his office, a week after her meltdown, looking as apologetic as ever.
She hadn't said a word to him still. She sat with her head down, and Drew was sure if she could shrink herself down to the tiniest thing in the room, she would.
He wasn't sure if she was apologetic because she truly felt bad or because he was certain that the facility's head nurse gave her a piece of her mind. For as long as he'd known Jacky, she wasn't one to hold in her feelings whether it'd hurt your feelings or not. So, he was sure Karen became of victim of Jacky's confrontational side.
He couldn't stand the deafening silence throughout the room any longer, so he retrieved the whiteboard and marker from his desk and handed it over in his patient's direction.
Karen looked at the whiteboard in her doctor's hand and contemplated using it as her way out of speaking. After the argument she had with her sister, she had an entire week to think about her actions and how she was avoiding talking about everything.
She took in a deep breath and almost reached out for the whiteboard, but at the last minute, she decided that it would become her crutch if she let it. She also felt she owed him more than words on a board after last week.
She shook her head, "I'll talk." She quietly told him, shocking him in the process.
Drew had expected her to jump at the chance to take the whiteboard. He hadn't heard her speaking voice in a long time — since they were teenagers.
She was still so soft-spoken.
He fought off a smile and placed the board back on his desk.
"Okay," He wrote down about her willingness to speak in his notes before looking back at her. "What do you wanna talk about today?"
Karen looked around the room. She saw pictures of him and his family on his desk. She spotted the figurine she had broke in their last session in the trash and the picture of him and his brother was placed in a new frame on the shelf that was behind his desk — far from her reach.
She took a look at the window, that was already repaired. She didn't see anymore potted plants — real or fake. She sighed at the thought of her doctor not getting the little things that an office has to make it feel like home, because of her.
She looked back to her doctor, "My sister."
"Dori—"
"Jacky."
Drew nodded. He gestured for her to continue.
"She is a mother to me," She told him, confirming his theory from weeks ago. "My mother would be on the road with my sister, Twinkie, a lot. At first, she would leave us at the house with my father, but he didn't know how to cook and when Jacky would be doing night shifts we would go without dinner. My mother didn't realize until one evening when their trip got cut short and she came home to find us in the living room, eating potato chips for dinner."
Drew wrote down in his notes - neglect started from father.
"She started asking Jacky to take off work hours to watch me and my sisters," Karen started to pick at her nails. "At one point, it had been so many hours taken off, her work eventually let her go. Momma didn't care though. She thought it was great that Jacky would have more time on her hands to practice singing and to look after her kids." She said spitefully.
