As I sit in the waiting room, I take in the few magazines on the table. One about home improvement and another about cars. My eyes move to the television that’s on and tuned to a home renovation show. Maybe handy people are more likely to see a psychologist?
“Logan Folger?” An older woman is standing outside an open door.
I stand up. “Yes.”
“Follow me.”
She leads me to a small room with a desk, two chairs, and a couch. “Sit wherever you’re most comfortable.”
Is this a test? I stare at the two chairs and the couch. Finally, I choose to sit on the couch. She closes the door and sits in the chair on the other side of the desk.
“What brings you in today?” she asks.
“My brother.” It’s honest.
She claps her hands in front of her on the desk, then leans forward. “What is going on with him?”
I stare for a moment, then realize she misunderstood. “No, my brother insisted I see you.”
She waits, and I don’t say more. Then she responds. “Why?”
I cross one leg over the other knee. “Something happened to me, and he thinks I need to talk to someone about it.”
Again, she waits. Silence doesn’t seem to faze her, since she doesn’t rush to fill it.
“And I told him I would so he would stop bothering me.”
“What happened to you?”
As much as I don’t want to discuss it, I have to talk about something, so I tell her about getting tossed into the grave and then the dirt pouring in.
“That must have been scary,” she says.
I shrug. “I’ve been in worse situations.”
She leans back in the chair. “You have?”
I nod.
“Military?” she asks.
I nod again.
“Do you want to talk about what happened there?”
I laugh. “Sorry, it’s just not something most people would understand.”
“I would.”
I uncross my legs. “You serve?”
She nods. “Eight years until I lost my leg. Now I work with others in the military.”
“Ah, I bet my brother knew that but didn’t tell me.”
“You know now. Tell me, are you having nightmares? Reliving being buried alive?”
Leaning forward, I meet her gaze. For two seconds, I debate bringing this up, but then I realize, why not? She’s objective and probably the only person I can talk to about it. “No, nothing like that. What’s bothering me is something else. Something I’m not sure how to deal with.”
