The Selfless Gene

Chapter 4

"Come in, come in." Dr Johnson ushered Isabella into her office."I'm making tea. Almond milk and no sugar still okay for you?"

"Yes, thanks." Isabella gazed out across a large window which overlooked the psychiatrist's garden and back of her house. Dr Esther Johnson had been retired for ten years but still kept her 'most treasured' patients on if she was needed by them. Truth be told, she kept the ones that were unfinished, still unfixed or intriguing. Her office was built in retirement to give comfort and quietness to them when needed, and to keep her private life separate. Her husband Patrick also liked that it housed the big dusty medical journals and framed certificates. Still professional but now with tokens of comfort, like the view of her dogs sitting in front of her prized roses, the patients took up most of her attention these days.

She'd seen Isabella for the first two years after the horrific death of her parents, while she settled in with her aunt. Slowly she'd assimilated back into a 'normal' life, but had never relinquished the trauma. She held onto it, desperate to let go but equally unable to relax her grip. It clung to her, feeding off her weaker moments. The story evolved over time, the trauma changing to fit her situation or place in life. But since she'd come back, there was a clarity to her suffering, a truth that had crystalized. Something had put her right back under that fateful bed.

Isabella had seen Dr Johnson on or off since childhood but ever since she'd broken off her 'great love', it seemed like her return was permanent.

"Almost done. How's the new boyfriend? All going well?" Her disarming familiarity made it feel like a family reunion, not a therapy session.

"Great", she paused. "He's great. We might go away soon, take a break. He's been up against it at work so some sun would be nice. And a cocktail or two, of course."

"Where are you thinking?"

"Nowhere challenging. Probably a Spanish island or something."

"Very nice. Pat and I are going to the Lakes for a month. In all this time, I've never been! Can you imagine it. Seventy-five years and not even close."

"It's far."

"Great thing about retirement, no deadlines. Except I'll have to sort someone to fix my roses."

"OAP road trip!" Dr Johnson said, sitting down with the kind of sigh that reveals age in an instant. "Now, tea done for you. Shall we start? We talked about this being our last session in a while."

"Yes, that's right. I'm feeling better, clearer."

As they talked, she started, as always, to remove herself from the situation and speak about it as if it was somebody else's story. The truth was no clearer; her childhood trauma was different to before. All the embellishments and protective lies she'd created had a cinematic quality and hid the true events. She'd heard everything and something had pierced her heart.

Isabella tells the story to Dr Johnson again. The smell of a roast, her dad's playfulness, and how she always used to sing or hum. Her mum and dad's deaths through drugs and brute force.

"Since you came back to me all these years after, the story changed. You've removed the old embellishments and some facts seem to have changed entirely."

"Something reminded me and gave me clarity."

"Ok, was he kinder? Repentant? You know, compared to the lady, Mirna."

"I was left to live. Is that a kindness?"

The air grew a little colder despite the understanding between them.

"Did he mouth 'I'm sorry?'"

"No."

"You just hid under the sofa. Did they hurt you at all? Tell me about the scars and cuts you had on your hands."

Isabella shares something new with Dr Johnson, stopping her in her tracks.

"I was discovered by them because my blood was running out from under the sofa. I'd gone rigid and was gripping, maybe pushing, the wooden floor so hard that I broke my skin. The grooves of the wood cut me and blood dripped through the floor and out from the sofa. I may have scratched at it, I probably grabbed and pushed further in." Isabella pauses.

"You know, I don't think it actually hurt."

Dr Johnson drew a slow breath, aware that the new information needed to be digested but also to give Isabella enough space to keep telling the true story.

"Mirna, the woman there, she mentioned an enemy. I never knew who it was. My parents were sweethearts, what sort of enemy could they have been involved with?"

The doctor left her to answer her own question, but Isabella had stopped.

"Recently you've changed one of the characters, the grey man. To a woman."

"He, she was Italian. Their hair was long, I guessed it was a guy. I mean everything said it was a guy but, well, my memory must have changed it. Because, because, of those eyes. I'll never forget that look. It was, dark. They were from hell." She stammers.

"When I saw those eyes again, it was on a woman. She hadn't aged to the man I remembered and neither had my pain. My hands hurt again at the sight of her. Only this time she was with him."

"Those were the eyes you saw on the old woman who was with your ex-boyfriend?"

"Yes. One hundred percent." Isabella tenses, body and mind.

"And then you ended it with him?"

"Perhaps he's the enemy. To my parents and to me, if he knows her, he definitely will be."