She nodded. “Do you think that?”
“I’m leaning more towards yes. I’ll give just about anything a go to not feel so scared and helpless or have Holly think I don’t trust her. I just don’t know how I’m going to deal with seeing him.”
“And that’s why you’re here?”
“That and I want me and Holly to be able to talk about it without arguing. I hate arguing with her.”
“I hate arguing with you too,” she replied, squeezing my hand.
“What are you most scared of happening if you visited him? Your anger getting the better of you?”
I gulped. “No, I’m most scared of remembering who he was before.”
Carol left the words to hang in the air. Holly froze.
“That would be perfectly normal if you did,” Carol said. “You could remember plenty of good things right now if you allowed yourself to.”
“Well I won’t.”
She nodded. “I know. That’s fine too; some people are capable of forgetting and not having it interfere with their lives. When it eats away at you and affects your life though, that’s the time to face it.”
“You may as well have just said ‘Jasper, face it’,” I replied.
“Do you believe it affects your life?”
I diverted my eyes, looking at the back of the sofa beside her shoulder.
“Yes,” I admitted. “But I don’t want it to.”
“And you don’t want anyone to know it does,” Holly said and covered my hand with her own.
“I don’t want other people having to deal with my problems.”
Carol nodded again.
“We’re talking about your mum and Oakley. Jasper, I can tell you that Oakley is doing very well and from what she tells me your mother is too. Now it’s time to focus on you. They want to offer you the same support. You’re not putting anything on them, but taking it off.”
I frowned. That was a crock of shit. How could telling them help them?
“You don’t believe me,” she said. “Do you know Oakley’s main concern now? The thing that we go over the most?”
When I didn’t reply she said, “You, Jasper. She worries about you.”
“I don’t want them to worry about me, and I don’t want to be a mess every time I’m away from Sophia. Tell me what I have to do.”
“We’ll start by talking,” she said. “About everything you’re comfortable with.”
“I’ll wait outside,” Holly said, squeezing my hand before she let go.
“You don’t have to.” The thought of losing Holly before I even properly had her was terrifying. If hearing my deepest, darkest fears would make her understand me and not give up, then I’d go with it.
She seemed to realise my fear and kissed my cheek.
“It’s okay. I’ll be right outside. I’m not going anywhere, Jasper.”
I watched her leave, a little overwhelmed that she could make me love her more and more when I hadn’t wanted to love anyone ever again.
“You’re happy with Holly,” Carol said, gaining my attention.
“Yeah. I didn’t think that’d happen again, especially not so soon.”
“Ah, it usually happens when you least expect it. So, where do you want to start?”
“The day Max was arrested,” I replied, and she nodded. “At first I was certain they’d got it wrong. I would have put any money on it being a mistake. I kept going over it; there must be another Max Farrell. The second Oakley said ‘It is true’ my whole world collapsed. Ever since then, I see Oakley as a little girl, in distress, everywhere. I dream about it all the time.”
Carol’s looks at me intently. “Oh? You’ve not mentioned this before.”
“No one knows.”
“You say you see her?”
“Not like an imaginary friend, I’m not four, but I picture her aged five, in a long pink nightdress, clutching her teddy and crying. Tears are rolling down her face, but she never makes a sound. Then I saw Everleigh like that too. And now…”
“You see Sophia.”
I swallowed a lump in my throat. “Yeah.”
“What about the dreams?”
“Always the same,” I said. “Always Oakley as a kid again, silently screaming my name. I’ve wondered too many times if she did that when Frank…”
Carol nodded, letting me know she got it because, Christ, I could not finish that sentence.
“I need it to stop,” I said, inwardly wincing at the desperation in my voice.
“We’ll work on that.”
“How?”
“The same way Oakley ended her nightmares.”
I gave a quick nod. “Facing it. Right.” Man up and fucking do it.
“I don’t hate the man I thought he was.”
It was out in the open, and I hated myself more than I ever had before.
Carol smiled reassuringly. “Of course not. He was your dad, and you loved him. I understand that your feelings for him now have changed– “
“That’s putting it fucking lightly.”
“–but you should never feel bad about remembering affection for someone who was once everything to you.”