Lightning Bolt

CHAPTER EIGHTY SEVEN

YOU ARE THE AUTHOR

OF THE STORY OF YOUR LIFE

I sat waiting patiently looking out of the small glass window at shoppers walking on by, bags of their purchases gripped tightly in their hands, talking and laughing with their companion for the day. It was warm outside, the sun hazy in the sky.

Where was he?

I peered down at my watch for the hundredth time. It was now fifteen minutes after the time we had arranged.

He would be here! He was just running late and if he didn't show then I would have to accept his actions.

This is what Dr Peterson had taught me; to except, forgive and move on.

I had been to see Dr Peterson with Thea a few times now. I was intrigued to meet the woman who had helped Thea through her hard times, who had broken down her defences and finally managed to get her to open up.

She wasn't what I expected.

I had imagined a tall, thin crisp lady who wore half mooned glasses on the end of her nose, sitting in a clinical cold room with a stern approach to her profession to get the results she needed. But instead she was short and round, several chins, her eyes crinkling at the corners with her kindness, which radiated from her. She was friendly and welcoming, a calming aura surrounding her with an approachable attitude, a mother hen which sat in an airy light room waiting patiently for you to speak, to unleash your demons.

She had this uncanny ability to get you to talk, saying the right things at the right time to help entice you which inevitably I ended up doing.

She helped both of us deal with the horrors of losing Sophie, something which we had always needed and it helped immensely. To say the words which had been trapped inside for so long, to finally let them go was like breaking a dam, the built up pressure now vanished.

We both knew how we felt, how the loss had changed our lives, how it had gripped us and torn our hearts apart, but to be able to speak the words together, to each other somehow, eased the pain of our grief.

We were moving on yet never forgetting. That could never happen! But we were exercising our demons together something we should have done from the very beginning.

Once Dr Peterson started digging around inside however she soon found more skeletons lurking in the darkest corners of my soul. She began to rake up my past, bringing back memories I had locked away. If I was honest she didn't have to scratch far under the surface. I had simply put a plaster over it all which she seemed to peel back with ease.