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Liisa considers it for a moment. “My father always provided for my sister and me, but he didn’t know how to express his feelings. Not even sure he was capable of it. And then, after he remarried, our stepmother, Helmi, tried, in her way. But she wasn’t much better.”
Holly leans toward her. “You didn’t feel loved as a child?”
Liisa’s cheeks redden. “So what? With or without a mother, countless children grow up feeling the same. And they don’t wind up as Xanax addicts.”
Holly smiles patiently. “If one of your clients said the same to you, you might call it deflection.”
“Maybe so.” Liisa clears her throat again. “But my trauma still pales compared to what, say, someone like Elaine went through.”
“Everyone’s trauma is unique,” Holly says, but Liisa’s comment resonates. “What about your daughter? She’s in college now, isn’t she?”
“She’s a senior,” Liisa shifts in her seat. “What does this have to do with her?”
“Your experience growing up without a mother… did that affect your own approach to parenting?”
“I never knew any different.” She shrugs. “Besides, Kimberly is strong.”
Liisa has been evasive about her homelife from the outset. Holly still doesn’t know what happened between Liisa and her ex-husband, only that he lives on the East Coast now. Recognizing her client’s rising defensiveness, Holly veers the conversation elsewhere, focusing on abstinence strategies until the end of their session.
After Liisa leaves, Holly finishes her charting. Just as she is about to pack up for the day, her assistant appears in her doorway, shifting from one foot to the other. “What’s up, Tanya?”
“There’s a Tyler Golding on the phone,” she says. “He wants to talk to you about his sister.”
Holly’s heart thuds as she connects the surname. “Elaine’s brother?”
Tanya nods. “He says it’s important.”
Holly suppresses a groan. Is this how it begins? “Put him through, please.”
Seconds later her phone rings and, after taking a deep breath, Holly answers. “Dr. Danvers.”
There’s a long pause. “I’m Tyler Golding. I think you know my sister, Elaine.”
“I’m sorry, but I’m not at liberty to discuss my clients.” Holly braces for the expected verbal tirade.
He hesitates. “I’m kinda worried about Elaine.”
She sits up straighter. “Why?”
“I can’t reach her.”
“I don’t mean to pry, Tyler, but I thought you and your sister were estranged?”
“I haven’t spoken to Elaine in almost three years.” Before Holly can ask anything further, Tyler adds, “Growing up, we were tight. But then the drugs. Nonstop. Elaine put our family through hell. The lies, the stealing, the revolving-door rehab visits… My dad died of a heart attack before he was fifty. Mom followed him a couple years later. They called it cancer, but I’m pretty sure she just gave up.”
“That must have been hard for you to see,” Holly says, still wondering as to the purpose of his call.
“I never bought any of my sister’s bullshit about being some kind of opioid victims’ champion. She might’ve fooled the others, but last time I saw Elaine, she was higher than a kite. I could see it in her tiny pupils. And I wasn’t about to let her put me in an early grave, too.”
“I get it, Tyler.” Holly thinks of the times Elaine mentioned her sadness over her estrangement from her little brother, without ever explaining the reason behind it. “So why are you trying to reach your sister now?”
“Elaine called me a couple days back. A bunch of times. Then she blew up my phone with texts. She left this rambling voicemail. Some weird stuff about childhood trips on our uncle’s boat and how she’d never let anything like that happen again.”
Holly’s breathing picks up, and her grip tightens on the receiver. “Did Elaine explain what she meant by that?”
“Nope. All the other messages were about how she’d turned over a new leaf. How she found a cure for her addiction. Psychedelics or something? Not that I believed a word of it.” He snorts. “But Elaine told me that if I didn’t get back to her, she was going to drive up to San Jose to track me down.”
“Did you call her back?”
