Intaglio Dragons All The Way Down

chapter 4: Mediation



Cole sat in the cozy depths of the armchair, his eyes unfocused. He was supposed to be talking, but instead he was counting the minutes until his penance was over. Today was the first meeting with the counsellor, the one that both he and his father had agreed to see. Nina had been the one to suggest Marta Langden, the same therapist that Frank and Nina had seen years ago, and Nina swore that she had single-handedly prevented their divorce, assisting them through months of marital problems in the wake of Angela Thomas’s suicide. That revelation was one Cole hadn’t been expecting, but it made the suggestion to go for counselling with his father much easier. Being here, and talking about it, however, were two different things altogether.

Cole hated it.

The woman was in her early forties, with warm caramel skin, long dark hair, and a youthful demeanour. She had broad lips, and a wide grin, but most striking were her dark eyes; they sparkled with good humour. Cole liked her on sight, found her comforting in a way he couldn’t explain. She’d suggested that for the first session, Cole and Frank simply talk. With this advice, both of them had fallen back into their old patterns. Frank grumbled on about life as he remembered it.

‘How the f*ck would he know?’ Cole’s mind hissed, ‘he wasn’t there anyhow...’

Marta nodded and prompted Frank to continue, attempting to lure Cole into the conversation. He gave monosyllabic answers, letting his father’s words wash over him like the tide. His responses grew further and further apart until they drowned him.

Now he sat in silence.

Cole’s body was here, but he was floating somewhere and sometime else… wishing himself back to Ava. Thinking about the student show that opened this Friday at the University Gallery. Reliving his hopes that Ava would like the statue he had created of her. Joking with Chim in the hardware store again, teasing him about his love of woodworking equipment (though Marcus had failed his only sculpture class). Fighting Kip Chambers in the alley…

Anywhere but here.

“...and it was a hard life,” his father rambled, “I mean, I was working on my career, but Angela was a fine mother. Yes, she always kept good care of the kids. Had them well-dressed and fed all on her own. Mind you, most women stayed home in those days. She loved Hanna and Cole more than anything. Could never fault her on that...”

Cole’s eyes drifted to the window. The last week had been warmer on the coast and the humidity and wind had completely dispersed the snow. He missed the white crispness of it. (A clean sheet hiding dingy bedclothes.) The day outside the window was a dull, muddy brown, the slate grey sky hinting at bad weather. For a moment, Cole wished he was out there on the ocean in a boat, moving across the water.

Free.

“Now, Cole,” Marta said, pulling his attention back, “do you have any memories of your mother you wanted to share? Anything about the time when your father was away?”

He blinked, remembering her standing at the kitchen window, knuckles pressed against her mouth, trying to hold in sobs. He blinked again, and she was gone.

“Nope.”

Marta nodded. Frank took it as his cue to continue.

“Angela and I had our issues, of course,” Frank grumbled, “but she was a good mother. Hanna thought the world of her...” his voice thickened. “Always thoughtful of how Angela felt... of her emotions. She was a good child. So caring...”

Cole’s eyes drifted to the window again. The clouds had a purple hue, reminding him of a bruise across the sky. Not a good time to be boating… perhaps just trawling along the cliff’s edge instead. Blending into the clouds and colours. Dissolving.

“How would you describe your times together as a family?” the therapist prompted.

“We weren’t happy, but we weren’t really unhappy either. We had different ideas about marriage. Angela was younger somehow... more naive. I was on a career path. I had things to do, places to be...”

Cole sighed, letting his eyelids half-close as his father’s voice wrapped the room in shadowy tones, the words building walls between the two of them.

“...I remember a lot of family vacations together... and the kids playing in the ocean, once we moved here. It was good to have a home base. Angela really made it hers. Hanna loved the water.” Frank laughed, remembering. “God, she was like a fish. We had some really good times there: barbeques on the beach and lobster roasts... lots of good memories. Hanna always used to say...”

Cole watched as the ghost of his older sister wandered into the mediation room. She was grinning at him, her sun-streaked hair tumbling over her shoulders, nose sunburnt pink and peeling. She was so real he could almost reach out and touch her. Cole imagined her perched on the edge of their father’s chair, listening to his words, legs swinging. His sister would be teasing him if she was alive (as she always did), correcting the stories in the way that only Hanna had ever been allowed.

She’d been the favoured child... the happy one.

In the background, Cole’s father began another tale of his eldest child, the words were nothing but the dull pound of the surf. Meaningless and disconnected. A snippet from a Mari Evans poem, half-forgotten, shimmered across Cole’s consciousness like sunlight catching on water.

‘...Where have you gone / with your confident / walk with / your crooked smile... / why did you leave me / when you took your / laughter / and departed / are you aware that / with you / went the sun / all light / and what few stars / there were?’

Across from him, Hanna winked.

Cole’s expression wavered, remembering Hanna’s light next to his darkness. His thoughts pulled him further and further back through time, a net cast out into deep water.

“Cole…?”

The counsellor’s voice interrupted his musings. His head bobbed up like a sinker on a line.

“And how about you,” Marta said, “how would you describe your family, Cole?”

He took several slow breaths, trying to focus on her question, his chest aching with the words he could not say.

“Cole,” his father growled in admonition. Under the pain, a flicker of anger ignited.

“We weren’t a family,” Cole sneered, turning back to the window.

Frank made a disgusted clucking sound. Cole knew that if they’d been at home without a mediator, that statement would have already started a fight. Marta leaned forward, the long waves of her hair dropping like a curtain between her and Frank. She smiled gently.

“Could you explain that to me, Cole?” she asked.

He narrowed his eyes, pushing himself up and away from this place. Out, out over the churning water, out to the horizon where the clouds were turning black. He was heading into oblivion. Skimming over the sea, moving so far and so fast that none of this seemed real.

Far away from here.

“No.”

Beside him, his father cleared his throat and began speaking again.

“You know, I think that things were just fine until Angela’s death, but with that, it really started to get bad for Cole and me. I mean, we just didn’t ever have a lot in common… Hanna went into the military like I had – a family tradition, you know – but Cole had no interest in that. Made no bones about saying it either. We had different ideas of what was worthwhile, what was important. Now Hanna, though… she had an ease with people... a way about her. A skill that would’ve served her well in life. If she’d lived, that is...”

Cole’s eyelids fluttered as he saw the first flicker of lightning on the horizon, and he was gone.

: : : : : : : : : :

The room's deep chairs and benign, hotel-room style paintings, had completely faded in Cole’s mind, replaced by Hanna Thomas.

It was a summer afternoon, and Cole’s sister was laughing and happy, the way she’d looked when she’d graduated from high school. The two of them were at the cove two or three clicks beyond their parents’ house, cliff jumping. Thirteen-year-old Cole was in the water below, watching as Hanna walked to the edge of the cliff face, high above him, grinning down. Her voice echoed down as she called out defiantly. Cole’s sister, as always, was fearless. (Tempting fate.) In this memory, he floated face-up in the water, watching with his heart in his throat as Hanna threw herself from the precipice.

Her body formed a jackknife halfway down, stretching out like an arrow as she plunged into the inky depths.

Next to Cole’s chair in this other place Frank Thomas stood up to leave. Cole stumbled to follow, sitting upright.

“Wait just a moment, Cole,” Marta said, pulling him from the memory before Hanna resurfaced. “I need to talk to you for a little longer.”

He blinked himself back into the therapist’s office. His father stood, putting a square fist out to shake Marta’s hand, assuring her that he looked forward to the next session. She gave him a pleasant goodbye, waiting with patient solemnity. Cole reached to pick up his coat.

“Hold on,” Marta repeated, hand lifting as if she expected him to bolt.

At the door, his father turned back, his face dark and brooding like the day beyond.

“It’s okay,” Cole said, “Ava's coming by to pick me up anyhow, just in case...”

He left the rest unspoken.

“Thanks again, Frank,” Marta said brightly, waiting for him to go.

As he headed for the front foyer, the therapist peeked out the doorway, calling out to the secretary at the desk.

“Just hold my next appointment for five minutes, all right?”

Pulling the door closed behind her, she gestured to the chair. Cole anxiously sat back down. There was a long, uncomfortable moment when she didn’t speak, just watched him. She took a heavy breath, as if measuring and weighing something.

“This isn’t going to work,” she said.

Cole’s eyes widened, his heart starting to pound. He was trying here. He wanted to get past his issues... for Ava and for himself. Wanted to—

“Cole, if you want to resolve things with your father, then you’ll actually need to participate. I can’t...” she frowned, leaning back, her fingers running over the seam on the chair's arm rest, “I can’t do this for you. I can’t make you better. The work is yours, and I’m not sure you’re at a place that you can do it yet.”

Cole felt himself sinking. It was like being dragged beneath the water's surface and drowning, the rocks closer than they appeared.

“I don’t...” Cole managed to say, “I don’t know how to try.”

Marta nodded, sitting back up.

“I can help you with that part... but only if you want to. So I need to know,” she said, hands opening before her, “is this something you want to do? Is this worthwhile for you?”

Cole swallowed, feeling Oliver’s words in the room with them.

“Y-yeah, I do.”

Marta nodded.

“Alright then,” she said calmly. “The first thing we need to do is start meeting together.”

Cole frowned in confusion.

“Sorry… what?”

“We need to talk – just you and me – about your feelings. About whatever it is that makes it so difficult for you to talk to him here,” she said, gesturing to the now-closed door, “and then when your father is here, you need to be willing to share that with him. So what do you think?”

For a moment Cole flashed back to swimming in the cove with Hanna The moments of dread after she'd gone under, the fear that she’d never come back up again and Cole would be left alone. Waiting, terrified... and then the shaky relief when her laughing face broke surface once more.

Here in Marta’s office, he had the same feeling.

“I can do that.”