Sly picked at a piece of lint on his jeans. "You're right." His right leg jangled in a staccato rhythm, a denim jackhammer.
"Care to elaborate?" She put down the pad on her dark wood end table.
Sly closed his eyes and rubbed them. "I don't think I can."
"Well, let's see if we can pin-point the trouble. I want you to list some recent happenings in your life."
Sly opened his eyes. "I'm finally getting adjusted to working at the music store."
"Does 'adjusted' mean you like it?"
"Yeah." He looked down to his hands. "I'm still working on my therapy for my hand, and I can move it a little." He tentatively squeezed his right hand, and the fingers moved slightly, tendons and bone moving underneath the skin.
"That's wonderful progress, Sly."
"Thanks." He coughed. "Emily is going to Port Charles Community College for some courses, and Jude just turned three months old."
"It all sounds positive, Sly."
"Yeah, it is. So why do I feel like this?"
"Can you explain a little more clearly? What are you feeling like?"
Sly stared at Gail's large mahogany desk. "I don't know. Wound up really tight, I guess."
"Are you experiencing any more flashbacks?"
"No, not in a long time." He grimaced. "Everything's been going really well. I guess that's the problem."
Gail let the statement hang in the air for a moment. "Why is that a problem, Sly?"
"I keep waiting for that proverbial shoe to drop. Something bad's going to happen. I know it."
"So, whenever something good happens in your life, something bad follows?" Gail asked, following Sly's logic.
"You got it." He looked past her to the far corner of the office.
"Can you give me some examples of this principle in action?"
Sly coughed again. "Sure. Well, I have probably the greatest gig in my short career, and then we get into a car accident. I reconnect with Lucky and then he beats me up. Emily and I make love, and she gets pregnant." Shame colored his features. "I shouldn't have said that last one."
"Why not, Sly?"
"Because I love my son, and I don't want to demean his life in any way." Sly bit his lip.
"It's not demeaning him to wish that the circumstances of his conception were different."
Sly examined the back of his right hand, running a finger across the pink scars. "I wanted better for him. A real dad with a good job and lots of things to offer."
Gail sighed. "Sly, you are that dad. You're working hard to improve yourself and your son will reap the benefits."
Sly bounced his leg again. "You keep saying that, but I'm not sure the facts prove you're right."
"The facts as I see them, Sly, are that you have strengthened your relationship with Emily, with your families, you've gotten a good job, and you're addressing the issues of your past as best you can. That's a heck of a lot in a short amount of time."
"You're forgetting something. I may work hard, but I let people down. It's inevitable."
"How do you let people down, Sly?"
"Well, like with Wildfire. I quit the band, and now their future is uncertain," he said quietly.
"Realizing that you can't do everything is not a bad thing, Sly. You know they'll survive without you."
"Maybe."
Gail looked down at her legal pad and decided to set it aside, in favor of a more direct, personal approach to the conversation. "Sly, what's really bothering you? You don't seem to have that 'spark' you've had recently."
Sly stared ahead, his eyes far away. "I don't know. I feel weird, like I'm sort of normal, but not really. It's like when you go out with your friends to the diner or something, and everyone's laughing and having a good time, and you just can't join in, but you don't know why." Sly promptly closed his mouth after the unexpected outpouring of words.
"Now we're getting somewhere." Gail leaned closer. "It could be that those of us on the more reflective side just sit back and naturally observe more than participate. Often I have to make myself let go a little bit and try to take off the thinker hat. Be more outgoing."
Sly's right eyebrow crinkled slightly. "So Gail Baldwin isn't always the life of the party?"
Gail chuckled. "Goodness, no. Between my somewhat pensive nature and the fact that I'm a psychiatrist, it can be hard to get the conversations going. People think I'm constantly analyzing them, so they're a bit more reluctant to talk to me."
"And Lee's a lawyer. So people either clam up or ask unsolicited advice."
Gail nodded. "It's certainly an interesting mix." She smiled at Sly. "My point is that happiness can be worked towards. We can choose to be in a good frame of mind, but it's hard. It's very easy to get wrapped up in negative emotions."
Sly said nothing, and ran his finger over the fabric of the chair he was sitting on, feeling the tiny squares imbedded.
"The bottom line is you deserve to be happy. Why don't you say that for me? 'I deserve to be happy." Gail grew concerned when Sly looked away.
"Jude deserves to be happy. Emily deserves to be happy," he whispered, focusing on a small spot on the far wall.
"What about you Sly? Don't you think you deserve to be happy?"
"God! I don't know." Sly abruptly stood up and walked farther away from Gail, wiping his hands on the front of his corduroys.
"Why don't you know?" Gail rose as well, but didn't approach.
"Never seemed to be able to hold onto it for long," he whispered, more to himself than for Gail's benefit.
"Happiness isn't measured in the length of time you experience it. It's
only important that you make the most of it." Gail noted Sly's sigh as
he laid his head against the wall. "I can see that nothing I say is going
to help right now."
"How can generic 'think positive' clichés help me feel any happier?
How can I ever achieve that when all I've seen in my life is suffering, violence,
and pain?" Sly slowly turned around to face Gail, but only peeked from
behind his eyelashes, eyes half shut.
"You have every right to feel sad and upset about events in your life. It's human and natural. But you wear your past like the man with the albatross," Gail said, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Maybe you can learn how to put it in perspective with what's going on in your life now."
"Who am I without my past?" Sly exhaled.
"You are more than your past, Sly." Gail gave him a gentle squeeze as she focused her gaze. "Someday your eyes will open to the gifts around you. People will look back on your life and call you blessed."
"More like cursed," Sly replied bitterly.
Gail was quiet for a moment, carefully choosing her next words. "I can understand why you feel that way. I think your identity is so wrapped up in this sadness and anger because too many times, those things were all people knew about you. They were either too busy or disinterested to see past it, or maybe it was all you were willing to show. No one got to see the real Sly, the wonderful young man with interests, talents, passions, and a tremendous heart."
"You're much too generous, Gail."
"And you're much too hard on yourself. You are so strong, Sly Eckert, and so special. I know someday you will believe that, too." Gail smiled, but she could see in his eyes that Sly was retreating behind the wall he so carefully built for himself when his emotions grew too intense. He slumped his shoulders and looked down, almost as if to make him smaller, invisible.
Gail walked over to her bookcase and pulled out a brown leather volume with gold embossed lettering. "Sly, I would like to read you something from Paul's second letter to the Corinthians."
Sly looked up at her. This was new. "I didn't think psychiatrists gave out spiritual advice."
"No advice from me; this is just something I think you need to hear." Gail flipped through the pages of the Bible, crinkled and worn at the edges from use. She quickly found the passage. "There are some of my fellow colleagues who think that spirituality has no place in psychiatry, but I have a difference of opinion."
Sly followed her finger as it ran down the page. He felt guilty that he had been neglecting God lately; he got to Mass intermittently, but the busy circumstances of his life distracted him from his spirituality. That's no excuse, he thought.
Gail held the Bible in both hands and read with a clear voice. "As to the extraordinary revelations, in order that I might not become conceited I was given a thorn in the flesh, an angel of Satan to beat me and keep me from getting proud. Three times I begged the Lord that this might leave me. He said to me, 'My grace is enough for you, for in weakness power reaches perfection.' And so I willingly boast of my weaknesses instead, that the power of Christ may rest upon me."
Sly stood silently, his head bowed in thought, and a stray piece of hair fell into his eyes.
Gail continued. "Therefore I am content with weakness, with mistreatment, with distress, with persecutions and difficulties for the sake of Christ; for when I am powerless, it is then that I am strong."
She looked up and met the eyes of her young patient. "Just something to think about for the week. Go home, be with your family."
*-*-*-*-*-*
Emily flattened out the novel on the kitchen counter, cracking the spine so it would stay open. A jar of tomato sauce and a box of ziti anchored the pages. She turned on the stove and placed the pot on the burner. She added a few dashes of salt and a wish that the water would boil quickly.
Jude made a squeak from his car seat, placed in the middle of the dining room table, where Emily could keep an eye on him. She glanced over to make sure he was ok, and he was, his eyes scanning the room.
Jude had reached an age of new awareness. Emily could tell he really saw things and registered them somewhere in his mind. He had lost the blindness of the newborn. He also grew a bit mellower in the past few weeks, crying a little less, sleeping a little longer. Emily gave him a smile when his eyes focused on her again. He had really turned out all right so far. A few features were beginning to poke through the baby chubbiness: a little nose, two pink lips, the lower that stuck out in a semi-pout. She was amazed; it had been three months, and she and Sly hadn't managed to break him.
Emily turned her attention to the book on the counter, Seize the Day by Saul Bellow. She had been fortunate to take some summer courses at PC Community College, and her favorite was literature. The professor moved quickly, and assigned one novel a week, followed by an essay. It was a challenge keeping up with the pace and the demands of her life at home. Many times, she read while she nursed Jude in her arms. She used one hand to hold his head, and somehow managed to grasp the book in the other.
It was comforting to know that others in her class had similar issues. Some were parents like her, some were returning to school while working full-time. The diversity made for some really interesting discussions. She had not realized how much she missed being in a classroom, learning. The end of her senior year was focused on completing her GED before Jude was born, and with all of the stress and trauma of those months, anything she studied seemed gone after the test. Both she and Sly felt it was important that she return to her education as soon as she could, for her future, and the future of their family. They were well aware many teenaged mothers could not or did not continue in their education, trapping them in low wages and less opportunity.
Emily shook her head as she turned the page. She and Sly were luckier than most teenaged parents. After all, they both had huge trust funds coming once they turned 25. For Sly that meant in five years he would have complete access to the kind of money he felt would truly provide for his family. Emily always insisted he already provided very well, but he disagreed.
Emily fought her family from giving them too much. She didn't want to fall into the Quartermaine trap, like AJ, of growing too comfortable with the money and material possessions. She knew better than most that money was all too fleeting, life was too fleeting. It couldn't be counted on. Instead, they relied on Sly's income from his job at the music store, and the occasional money she got from babysitting a neighbor's child a few nights a week.
A key turned in the lock of the front door of the apartment, and Emily heard Sly's soft footsteps. It was a familiar ritual for Sly after a therapy session: he dropped his keys on the coffee table, kicked off his shoes (which sent a low clump to the apartment downstairs), and walked over to the CD collection. She learned to interpret his mood by the albums he chose. Sometimes he came home angry, and he chose a Metallica CD. Other times, he was thinking about loss, so he pulled out "Late For the Sky" by Jackson Browne. If he felt unsure about their marriage, he might listen to "Tunnel of Love" by Bruce Springsteen. Once, he surprised her and spun her around the apartment to "Let's Stay Together" by Al Green. Then there was the time he told her, "I'm sad, but it's ok," and played something by Emmylou Harris. There had to be 500 CDs in an old bookcase, and Sly seemed to listen to them all equally.
"Hi, babe," she said as she saw the water finally start to boil in the aluminum and copper pot on the stove.
"Hey," he called back from the living room, but said nothing more.
Emily glanced at Jude, now asleep in the car seat, the six o'clock summer light casting an orange glow on his face. That's peace, she thought. She then turned back to the stove and poured in the pasta and waited for tonight's musical selection.
Sly's eyes scanned the bookshelves until he found the item he was searching for. From the highest shelf, he pulled down a fat, purple volume. The binding of the paperback was cracked, and some of the pages were falling out. He carefully opened the book towards the back and flipped through some pages until he found the passage he was looking for. He read the lines over and over, trying to memorize the words.
Emily read a few more pages of the novel before she realized that the music never came. She looked down and saw that the ziti all clumped together. "Damn," she whispered under her breath as she grabbed the wooden spoon and jabbed at the pasta, trying to separate it. It sat stubbornly at the bottom of the pot, mocking her. She sighed as she turned off the stove and carried the pot over to the sink to dump it out and try again.
As she walked, Emily tripped over the small throw rug in the kitchen. She lost her balance and the pot banged against the edge of the sink. She yelped in pain as some of the hot water splashed onto her left arm.
Sly raced to the kitchen as soon as he heard Emily cry. "Oh my God, Em, what happened?" he asked as he found his wife in tears, but still clutching the pan of water.
"The, the water…" she sputtered, and Sly quickly grabbed the pot from her and dumped it out in the sink.
Jude let out a cry, woken up by all the commotion. "Hang on a minute, buddy," Sly called to his son. He turned the faucet on to cold, and stuck Emily's arm under the stream. "Is it terrible? Should we go to the hospital?"
The water felt good on Emily's red, throbbing arm. "I'm ok now. Sorry I yelled." She blushed. "I ruined dinner, so I was trying to start over, but I tripped on the rug, and the hot water splashed me."
Sly looked at her arm intently after she shut off the faucet. "Are you sure you're ok?"
Emily shook her head. "Really, I'm fine. Sorry to scare you guys." She walked over to the table and rubbed Jude's head. "Mommy's ok, Jude."
Sly wrapped his arms around Emily's waist and kissed her neck. "I'm so glad. When I heard you scream, I didn't know what happened…" Sly let the thought trail off.
"Here I am, all in one piece," Emily whispered, and turned to face him. She kissed him softly, laying her hands on his tense shoulders.
"You don't deserve to be hurt, Emily." Sly pulled away.
Emily grew concerned about the tone in his voice, the finality of it. "You don't either, Sly."
Sly exhaled. "I don't know," he said, walking over to the sliding glass doors leading to their patio. He brushed his hand against the glass.
"Why don't you know?" Her voice increased in pitch at the end of the question, and Sly turned.
"Hey, I don't mean to scare you, Em. I'll tell you now I'm not suicidal or anything like that." He looked up into her eyes, and she relaxed a little. "I don't mean to sound that way." His eyes drifted to the orange sunset on the horizon, and the leaves of the sycamore tree coated with dusk. "I feel like talking today. If I don't, I think I'm going to explode."
"That would be really hard to clean up," she smiled as she drew a chair and sat at the table, "so why don't you tell me what you're really thinking about?"
Sly shook his head. "What am I not thinking about? My brain never shuts off." He took a seat across from Emily, and Jude was at the end of the table, well within both of their view. He took her hands in his, admiring their soft warmth. "I was thinking that I don't deserve you."
"Why?" Emily asked softly, but not pressing for further details.
"I've done bad things in my life, Emily. I've hurt so many people, hurt myself." He clutched Emily's hands a bit tighter, and she very gently stroked his injured right hand. "You remember that Harry Chapin song where he says, 'All my life's a circle'? That's how I feel now. I can't help wondering what's looming on the horizon."
"Who says what's coming is bad? I try to think that things are going to get better, a little bit each day," Emily said with a slight smile.
"I try to think like that too, but there are no guarantees. We learned that the hard way." He looked to their son, now asleep again, his chest rising and falling in a slow rhythm. "Who knows what's going to happen to any of us?"
"It's not like it makes sense," Emily whispered. She and Sly both looked up at the same time.
"I said that to you the first day I met you." Sly blinked. "You remembered."
"I had never met someone in my situation before that day." Emily let go of Sly's hands. "I felt terrible that we shared that bond, losing our parents. You said you understood, and I knew you really did." She paused as she recalled the three new friends sitting around the table at Kelly's, sages of eleven and thirteen.
"We'll always have Lucky to thank for introducing us. He's been on my mind lately, how he and I met."
"Tell me about it again." Emily looked into her husband's brown eyes, and they softened as he began the story.
"I met him at the movies, some really terrible monster flick. I was hiding underneath my jacket because I was scared, but I tried to play it cool when the lights came up." Sly blushed. "We started to talk, and he asked me if I knew about any places to hide out." His brown eyes clouded. "So I showed him the catacombs. Big mistake." He fiddled with the edge of the red woven placemat. "God, Emily, I was so lonely. I was just so desperate for someone to talk to, and then there's Lucky, who was not only my age, but also my cousin. When we met, it was like finding a treasure. He really wanted to know me." He sighed. "I just didn't know what befriending him would cost."
"Cost?" Emily squinted in the afternoon sunlight. The story had deviated from its usual path.
"Because I showed him the catacombs, because I was defiant and chased after Lucky, it cost me my father." Sly bent his head, and his blonde hair, now almost to his chin, fell across his eyes.
"You couldn't have known what was happening, Sly. You were just a kid."
"I wasn't supposed to be a kid. I was supposed to be a man," Sly whispered, and his hands shook on the table. "I should have known better! I directly disobeyed my father and left with Lucky. That's when my dad came looking for us down in the catacombs." He looked up to Emily, his eyes veiled with tears. "That's why he was shot. That's where he died."
Emily's heart crumbled to see Sly this way. From his voice and posture, she could see the scared eleven year old he was that day. She took his trembling hands. "That was not your fault, Sly."
Sly abruptly pulled away from her. "Yes it was, Emily. It was all my fault. I might as well have pulled the trigger!" He put his head in his hands as a sob rippled through his muscles, finally reaching his lips. "I killed him, and for that, I will pay with my life."
Emily rose from the table and joined her husband, crouching to embrace him. "That is not true, Sly. It's not true."
"Yes, it is," he said, his voice muffled into Emily's shoulder. "I deserve every bad thing that's ever happened or will happen to me. I'm guilty, and I need to be punished."
Emily pulled back to witness the tears streaming down her husband's face. She wiped a few off his cheek. "I am so sorry you feel that way. I'm sorry nobody told you differently."
"But see, they did. Luke did the next day, my Aunt Jenny did, plenty of people tried to tell me that. I just didn't believe them. I still don't."
Emily let a few tears spill onto her own cheeks. "So you think that every time something bad happens to you, it's to somehow pay this debt to your father?"
Sly pushed back his hair with his left hand. "I guess. I don't believe that God wants to punish me. But I feel like something else, maybe something psychological, draws trouble to me. It's because I deserve it." He stood up and pushed his chair away.
Emily followed Sly. She very gently put her hand on his back. "Does this have anything to do with your grandfather?"
Sly stiffened, but then his shoulders began to shake. "That's how I got myself through. I deserved the abuse, because it was justice. Every blow brought me closer to him, to my dad." He turned to face Emily, amazed at the words that escaped his lips, but he heeded the urge to continue. "I wanted to die so badly, and be with my dad again. I convinced myself that if I stayed with my grandfather, it would cleanse me, get me ready to go. When I finally died and got to see my dad again, I could show him every bruise, every scar, and tell him, 'This is what I did for you. This is how much I loved you.'"
Sly then sank to the floor, spent, and buried his face in his hands. Emily joined him. She wrapped her arms around him as they cried together.
Awakened by his father's sobs, Jude stirred in his seat on the table, but stayed silent, somehow in tune with the moment.
Twenty years of desperate emotion finally found an escape from Sly's heart, and he could not fight this time. The single thought filled his mind: this is how much I love you, Dad. This is how much.
Bible quote is from 2 Corinthians 12:7-10