Death makes me rub my finger

'Death is easier.' She says to me. 

*finger-rub*

'Sorry?' I ask. Sure I heard her wrong. 

'When someone dies, they die.' 

Duh. I think to myself. 

*finger-rub x2* 

'They stop BEING. The form they were in when they left is gone. The PERSON they were when they left. Is gone. And you're free to truly, purely, uninterruptedly grieve.'  

*finger-rub*

'But he didn't die. And please God, may that be the last thing that happens to him.'

I panic and rub my ring finger again. It has yet to fulfil its role as a ring holder. But rubbing it gives me a sense of peace. Because they say, your ring finger has a direct link to your heart. So I'm rubbing my heart. Caressing it. Comforting it through the pain. 

'I'm not saying you wish him dead. Far from it.' 

*finger-rub* 

At every mention of the word dead, *finger-rub*, the rubbing intensifies. Dead skin starts to flake off in my hand. 

Dead skin. 

The rubbing increases again. 

'So, what do you mean then?' 

She takes a deep breath and uncrosses her legs, then recrosses them the other way. Puts the clipboard back on her lap. 

'Grief comes in many forms. And loss does, too.' 

'You lost your Dad when he left you. But he didn't die.'

*finger rub* 

Any form of the word will do it. 

Die - Died - Death - Dying. 

Take your pick. 

They all end the same way. 

*finger-rub x4* 

'He walked away.' I mumble. 

The small statement eased the urgency to rub my finger for a moment. 

'Exactly.' 

'But walking away, equally like and unlike death, can never be a clean break.' She adds. 

I look up and face her for the first time since the death chat started. 

My left ring finger still sitting snugly in my right hand. Rubbed. 

'Huh?' 

'When someone dies, *finger-rub* it's human nature to reminisce about them. Who they were. What they liked, disliked, loved, loathed. How they always danced around the kitchen with a mop and bucket. Or how they always smoked a pipe, even in the 21st century.'

The legs uncross and she looks me face on. 

'You know that old adage? About never speaking ill of the dead?' she asks. 

'Yeah'. I murmur, mid-finger rub.

'Well, we're all human. And none of us have perfect relationships with each other.'

I look up. Wondering what she's getting at.

My finger now coated in a flaky snowstorm. 

She glances at it but carries on. Clearly picking her battles today. 

'It's inevitable that after a death, *finger-rub* we do sometimes vent about the person. Or, we learn some rather unpleasant things about the person who's passed.' 

*finger-rub* 

I must have looked anxious. Or suspicious. I think my family must keep these dirty secrets buried in the fresh grave. *finger rub*

She explains. 

'It could be little "silly" things.' She air quotes. A woman that put-together should never be allowed to air-quote. 

'Like, they always forgot to take the bins out, and you can't believe how frustrating that was.' The clipboard gets abandoned on her lap now as she thinks up more examples. 

'Or maybe they always left towels on the bathroom floor.' 

'Or never replaced an empty loo roll.' 

Something tells me these are personal to her. Like this session has now become hers. But my ring finger is getting a break from death comments (damn *finger-rub*), so I let her carry on. She must have a point somewhere. 

'Or they could be a bit more unsavoury. Hard to swallow.' 

'Maybe after they're gone, you learn that they gambled away more of their income than you realised. And that was why you struggled so much as a family. Maybe they spent too many Friday nights at the pub, leaving you at home to worry.' 

'Or maybe,'

There's a pause. 

And not a typical therapist pause where they want you to teach yourself something. This one's even longer. 

'They had another family you didn't know about.' 

I look up. Bullseye. 

So that's what she was building to. 

'But Dad didn't have another family all along. He just got one after he left.' 

Just. 

Wow, I said, 'Just'. 

Maybe I don't need therapy after all. 

'Indeed.' She says, retaking the therapist position with her legs crossed again. Clipboard on the lap. 

'The similarity between someone dying *finger-rub* and you finding out about their double life, or someone leaving you and finding another family is that questions can be asked.' 

'But with the latter, they can hopefully be answered.'

'In either situation, there are inevitably more questions than answers.' She acknowledges. 

'And in truth, in both circumstances, many questions will undoubtedly go unanswered too.' She adds.

I'm losing the point she's trying to make now. 

'When your Dad walked away, he left you with a thousand questions right?' She asks, pen back to its ready position. Hovering over the clipboard. 

'More like 3 million.' I say. Shifting in my seat. Why pick a leathery seat for a therapy office? Too slippery. Maybe they hope it will cause my words to slip out. As well as me. Truths that can't grip onto the leather, so have to fall out. 

'Hmm.' She scribbles something down whilst still looking straight in my direction.

Is that taught at therapist school as well? 

'And some, you have asked.'

I nod.

'Some, he has answered.' 

I nod again. 

'But still a few have gone unanswered.' 

Nod. 

'And would you say that a lot more have gone unasked, too?' She adds the "therapist head-tilt" to this one. The "I'm asking a judgy-sounding question, but I really don't mean it in a judgy way" look. 

'Holly?' 

I gave too long a pause, apparently. I guess only therapists can do the pregnant pause thing. 

So I nod. More hesitant this time. 

No mention of death *finger-rub*. But the rubbing starts again anyway. A friend now. 

'Like what?' She asks. We both know full well that I've vomited these questions at her before, but clearly, she has a new angle of processing them today. So, I appease her and go along with it. 

'I saw him as a superhero. My Dad. Who could take on the world and do no wrong. Who loved me beyond all earthly treasures.' 

I pause. 

She nods encouragingly. 

I release a big sigh and keep going. Too late to go back now. 

'But then he left, and I learnt stuff about him that didn't add up. It didn't match my childhood pictures of him. He wasn't the superhero anymore.' 

I pause again. I don't bother looking up. I know the nod will be there. Waiting. 

'Suddenly, the cape was black. And dark. It had all these secret pockets that I'd never seen before. Or maybe I had glimpsed but never questioned. Maybe I had thought there were sweets in them or something. But it was just dust. And dirt. And lies and spit and broken glass. Crossed fingers from every promise he had ever made. His costume was suddenly a mask. And I couldn't see how I hadn't seen it before.'

I stop for air. 

'Very good, Holly.' 

I think she means my descriptions. Or just the releasing of my feelings. Because if she means the situation is very good, then she's more messed up than me. 

'When a loved one leaves. Voluntarily. Right out that front door,' 

Ok, I get the picture. 

'And you start to learn from others around you who the person really was. And is. It's hard to process.' 

'It's like you said so eloquently, Holly. It's like their entire appearance, their demeanour from the whole time they were in your life has shifted.' 

*finger-rub and a few tears*

'And you're left to work out what was real.' 

Therapist level pause. 

I give in. 

'It's like my childhood is a jigsaw puzzle that got broken into little pieces. And I'm trying to put them back together. But there are more pieces than the picture says. So, I have to work out which ones fit and which ones to leave in the box.' 

*finger-rub* 

Legs uncross. 

'The person you grew up with was always there.' 

Therapist pause. 

'But they were also never really there.' 

*finger-rub*

'I can see the jigsaw in my head. And how it should look.'

I look up at her with tear-rimmed eyes.

'But one large section is blurry. With lots of gaps. And I don't know which pieces of him are the ones that fit.' 

'It's like the man in the original picture,' 

I picture him in my mind's eye.

'Was a phantom.' 

'A ghost.'

'Like one of those Christmas movies. Where someone comes into the sad family's life and brightens up their Christmas. And then when they have overcome their hardships, the mysterious someone disappears before they can thank them.' 

'And maybe, like that example, you just have to accept what was. The magical Christmases of childhood. For what they were. And set the mystery someone free. So that you, too, Holly, can be set free.