“That’s cool,” he said, collecting plates while Petra brought the serving dish, and I, the glasses. “I think I’ll go out to the porch, mess around with some tunes.”
Once the dishes were loaded and table wiped down, Petra and I went back to our seats. Wayne had grabbed a guitar from the corner of the living room and through the doorway, I could hear his strumming, soft and pretty.
“He’s not bad,” I said quietly.
Petra nodded, her head still buried in the file. “No, he’s not. I keep telling him that. He just needs to focus, start writing the songs down, putting words to them.” She glanced up, smiling. “As you might have guessed, he doesn’t take direction well.”
She read for a while longer, then stretched, working her head side to side to loosen the muscles. “Okay,” she said, resting her hands on her knees, within reach of the file on the coffee table. “It looks like your mom blamed herself for the accident. Survivor guilt. Again, not uncommon. Hers was more severe than most. Her doctor—a Mary Wells, who I met briefly when I first started at Barrow—also interviewed your grandmother Nan. Apparently she came to help out as soon as she heard about the accident. She stayed with you and your mom but could barely get your mom out of bed during the day. Then, at night, she’d find her walking the house, weeping, or watching over your bed. She got scared, unable to get Georgia—your mom—to talk to her at all. Nan says she just wasn’t sure what was going through your mom’s head, and when she took her into Bering General, they couldn’t get much out of her either. Your mom was at Barrow for almost a month before she said anything during her sessions with Dr. Wells.”
“Before she said anything? You mean she just sat there?”
Petra nodded. “Sure. That happens a lot. Patients are scared. It’s very hard for some people to open up, especially if they’ve been through a trauma. Dr. Wells wasn’t concerned. In fact, I can tell from her notes after she first met Georgia …” She paused. “Does it bother you if I call her that? It’s how Dr. Wells referred to her.”
I shook my head.
“Anyway, Dr. Wells expected it would take at least that long to get Georgia to talk.”
“Okay, so then what? After a month, she started talking?”
Petra nodded. “I’ve only just read through their first session with any dialog. Dr. Wells had suspected depression, survivor guilt. That’s obvious, given the situation, but this was the first time Georgia confirmed it.”
“What did she say?”
Petra checked the handwritten pages again. “Very little. Dr. Wells asked Georgia if she was still sad. It’s something she asked every time, sometimes getting a nod, others no response at all. This time Georgia nodded.
“ ‘Can you tell me about it?’ Dr. Wells asked.
“No response.
“ ‘Do you miss Daniel?’
“Here, she nods again. Then she says, ‘It’s all my fault.’
“ ‘What’s your fault, Georgia?’
“ ‘That he’s gone.’ She breaks down crying.” Petra looked up. “That’s it.”
“That’s it?”
“That was a real breakthrough, getting Georgia to confide at all. A chink in the armor.”
I looked at Petra, then the file, only a fraction of the pages leafed through.
“This is going to take a while,” Petra said, reading my thoughts.
“Your job requires a lot of patience,” I told her.
“That it does.”
“It’s going to take you hours to read all of that.” I felt guilty. I wanted to tell her she didn’t have to. I mean, she’d be up until after midnight at the rate we were going, and I was sure she had to work the next day. But I was desperate to know what was in the file. “Can I help you sort through it?”
“No.” She gestured to the pages. “Legally, I can’t let you without all the right forms. I’s dotted, t’s crossed and all that. But even if I wanted to bend the rules, I don’t think it would help. Dr. Wells’s notes are in a shorthand that wouldn’t make sense to you.”
She could read the disappointment on my face.
“Listen, Cass. I know you need to know what’s in here. I don’t mind reading it all, really I don’t. I’m going to skim the session notes and see what I can find. Why don’t you grab a book or even sit with Wayne for a while. I can fill you in as I go.”
I should stay, I thought, still feeling guilty about letting Petra do all the work. But she was right, there was nothing I could do, and staring at her, waiting for each little tidbit, wouldn’t help. “Maybe I’ll sit outside for a bit. Get some air.”
“Great idea.”
I paused by the front door. “Thanks a million, Petra. I really owe you.”
She smiled. “No sweat.”
Wayne was leaning against the clapboard, barefoot, with his guitar across his lap.
“We could hear you inside,” I told him when he finished playing. “Your songs are nice, very pretty.”
“Thanks,” he said. “I could hear you too.”
I didn’t say anything, embarrassed and a little annoyed.
“I didn’t mean to,” he said. “It’s just real quiet out here.”
I nodded. There was something so disarming about him. I could see why it was hard for Petra to make a break.
“Tough stuff about your mom,” he added quietly.
“Yeah, well, I never really knew her. I’m just trying to figure out what happened.”
“You’re brave to do it,” he said. “My old man walked out on us when I was five. My mom never told me why and I never asked. Don’t think I’d want to hear it.”
I shrugged. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear it either, but sometimes want and need are not congruent.
“I’m going to take a little walk while Petra’s reading,” I said. “Any recommendations about which way to go?”
He chuckled. “The roads around here are all pretty much the same. Cornfields, wheat fields, and more cornfields. Take your pick.”
That sounded fine to me. I started walking.
Wayne was right, the road in both directions was long and straight, flanked by dry stalks of wheat. The sun was low in the sky and, in Ashville, would have been sinking below the hills already. Here it just hung perilously close to the flat horizon. It was warm, so I walked slowly. In no hurry.