Ashton Daigle

Victoria Davenport knew about loss. So it was with great understanding and empathy in which she watched her young patient, Ethan Hendrickson, as he sat listlessly before her, impassive, staring at the floor.

She lost her husband to a stroke fourteen years ago, three years before she took her current position as the school psychiatrist at Piedmont Academy. Ironically enough, being a medical doctor, a trained professional in the mental health field, did not help her much to cope when Michael, her husband, passed away.

In some ways, it seemed, it even made it more difficult. Somehow, knowing and being able to identify when she was in denial or anger or any of the other stages of grief, seemed, at times, like adding insult to injury. More than once, during the first few years immediately following Michael’s death, the old adage, “ignorance is bliss” would come to mind and the fact that she could not be ignorant, no matter how hard she tried, was a bittersweet cruelty in itself.

At the moment, she did not exactly know what was bothering Ethan. She knew it likely had to do with the loss of his mother, eight years ago, during the World Trade Center attacks. However, she didn’t know what had triggered his current despondency.

Like a big game hunter or captain of a deep-sea charter fishing boat, Victoria was methodically patient. She didn’t speak, nor did she intend to. She waited Ethan out and when he did finally look up at her, she smiled at him slightly.

After another thirty seconds, Ethan exhaled deeply and muttered, “Well, I guess I’m supposed to say something.”

“You don’t have to,” Victoria said, choosing her words carefully. “Sometimes, just a little silence can be soothing, healing even.”

Ethan looked at her thoughtfully, considering this.

“But aren’t you going to ask what’s bothering me?” Ethan asked.

“Not unless you want me to,” she replied. “Do you want me to?”

“No,” Ethan blurted, and then looked at her with uncertainty. “Well maybe. I don’t know.”

Victoria smiled at him and continued to nod slightly.

“It’s my dad,” Ethan finally said. “It’s a long story.”

“Well, I’m not in ant hurry,” Victoria said. “Well, I have an aerobics class at six and there’s the chaperone meeting for the Thanksgiving trip set for 7:30 or eight, but it’s only two now. You have my full attention until then if need be.”

With this Ethan smiled and said, “I’d have to be pretty messed up to be here that long.”

Victoria smiled and added, “Well, I don’t think you’re messed up at all.” They fell silent for a moment and Victoria asked, “So what’s up with your dad?”

“It’s about the camping trip,” Ethan said.

“Oh,” Victoria said, taken aback. “What about it?”

“I don’t want to go,” Ethan said. “I don’t want Dad to go either. I want me, Dad and Roger to spend the holiday with my grandparents.”

Victoria suddenly realized the crux of the situation.

“Ah,” she said. “You mean your mother’s parents.”

“Yeah,” Ethan said. “I never knew Dad’s parents. I think they both died before I was born. Or his mom did. I think Dad’s dad died when I was one or something.”

“Well,” Victoria said diplomatically. “Have you talked to your father about this? Does he know you want to do this?”

“Yeah, I talked to him,” Ethan said. “He gave me a big lecture about responsibility and how he have to follow through with what we have to do what we say we’re going to do.”

“Well Ethan, your father does have a point,” she replied. “Responsibility isn’t always a fun thing.”

“I know that,” Ethan said. “And I know he’s made a commitment and that he can’t back out now. I know all of that, but…”

“But what?” Victoria asked.

“I’m not happy about it,” Ethan said.

Victoria knew she was possibly treading treacherous waters.

Both boys, Ethan and Roger had been damaged in different ways by the death of their mother. Roger’s grief and road to recovery had practically been textbook, a term she loathed to use.

However, Ethan’s path had been different, a lot more difficult to breech and treat. For the first few years after his mother’s death, he seemed to remain completely un-phased, a fact which Victoria attributed to his young age. Ethan was now 13, but when he first arrived at Piedmont only months after his mother’s death, he was five.

Shortly after his ninth birthday, though, he began to withdraw. For Victoria, it had practically been a four-year uphill battle. There had been moments during that time when she’d actually questioned her own skills and even almost went as far as referring him to another psychiatrist. But eventually, and through a lot of hard work on both their behalf, Ethan had begun to emerge again into the land of the living. He wasn’t as withdrawn, he became involved in sports and extracurricular activities.

Unlike his brother, Roger, who wasn’t active and who shied away from hard physical activity of any kind, Ethan was hardy, sturdy and enjoyed physical activity, having participated in both basketball and track and field. Ethan also enjoyed camping, which was even more of a reason for warning bells to go off for Victoria.

However, by the same token, she didn’t want to make a mountain out of a mole hill either.

“Did you tell your dad how you feel?” she asked.

“Yeah, I told him it sucked,” Ethan said.

Victoria didn’t flinch, because she knew Ethan’s propensity for sometimes going for the shock value effect.

“It sucked, isn’t a feeling Ethan,” Victoria casually reminded him. “Did you tell him how you feel?”

“Well,” he admitted. “I guess not.”

“How do you feel about it?” Victoria asked.

“Upset, sad,” Ethan said, knowing this would get her off his back.

“Do you know why it upsets you?” she asked him.

“They’re like the only family we have,” he said. “Dad seems to have a problem with them. And I don’t know why.”

“Well, if I’m wrong tell me, but as far as I know, you’re father has never begrudged you or Roger from visiting them, has he?”

“No, but when we do, he never stays with us, not like he used to when Mom was still alive,” Ethan said. “It’s fuzzy but I can remember when I was little, and how we’d all get together for holidays. I remember summer barbecues the most, my grandfather and Dad, both of them squirting Roger and I with the hose and bombing us with water balloons.”

Victoria could see the pain, the anguish, literally well up just beneath the surface of Ethan’s gaze, but he didn’t cry.

He swallowed hard and continued shakily, “They would laugh and joke with each other, but since Mom died, it’s like they can hardly stand to be around each other.”

“Well, your mother’s death affected all of you,” she said. “And every person is affected differently by grief. I suspect that your dad and grandfather are no different. They feel pain too over their individual losses. The pain of losing a spouse is different than losing a son or a daughter I imagine.”

“Doesn’t it all just hurt though?” Ethan asked.

“Yes, but probably in different ways,” Victoria said. “I think you need to let your father and your grandparents too, know how you feel. And maybe, just maybe, they can put whatever differences they have aside, for the good of you and Roger.”

“Maybe,” Ethan said. “Maybe. I’d like that.”

“They probably would too,” Victoria said.

“I know I was just a little kid but I can see those balloons, my mom sitting at the table, her hair blowing in the breeze as she laughed. Dad nailed Roger with a red water balloon, right in the head.”

Ethan paused.

“I sure do miss her,” Ethan said. “I miss my mother. And the people who say I’m too young to remember her are full of shit. I remember a lot. I miss her. I wish she’d come back.”

“I know, Ethan,” Victoria said. “I know.”

There it was - simple statement, a seemingly simple problem - just a boy that missed his mother. And for the thousandth time, Victoria Davenport felt her own heart shatter into a billion painful shards.

— — —

One “friend” of Ethan’s, that very few people knew, or really cared or paid much attention to if they did know, was Bertha, the head cook at Piedmont Academy. Bertha was a striking, round black lady who usually had nothing to give the students except the occasional shoulder to cry on or an empty mixing bowl to lick.

Like Victoria Davenport, Bertha was a miracle worker in her own right, but her miracles were performed in the kitchen. With only a few spices and choice ingredients she could make magic from nothingness, a feat which never ceased to amaze Ethan.

Her biscuits were fluffy and delicate. They literally melted in your mouth.

“Boy don’t you have somewhere to go,” she said to him playfully, “you’re just right under my feet this afternoon. I have to get dinner cooked.”

“My art class got cancelled today,” Ethan said. “Miss Jones is out with the flu.”

“Well, least if you’re going to be here, you might as well help me. Put an apron on and wash those dirty paws of yours. Then grab the potato peeler and start peeling,” she said.

“But Bertha,” Ethan protested. “You always make me peel potatoes.”

“Well if you went and hung out more with your friends, instead of with the old lady in the kitchen you might not have that problem, would you,” Bertha said, still teasingly.

“I have friends now, geez,” he said. “But they’re boring. Besides, if I didn’t come keep you company who would?” he asked.

“Goody Cole’s ghost I reckon,” Bertha said.

With this, Ethan bristled.

“Stop that Bertha, you know that freaks me out,” he said. “That’s just a kid’s story anyway.”

“Oh is it now, Mr. Smarty Pants,” Bertha said, enjoying getting a rise out of Ethan.

Ethan slid on an apron and moved over to the sink, where he got a big handful of Gojo and squished it between his fingers, scrubbing under hot water. He didn’t know why, but he loved the feel and smell of the stuff. It made him feel safe, sort of like Bertha did.

Truth be told, Bertha was the closest thing he had to a mother figure and Ethan loved her, completely with his whole heart.

He grabbed the potato peeler and began peeling while he thought for a moment, “Yes, it is just a kid’s tale.”

“I reckon it might be,” Bertha said. “But I’ve seen some strange things since I’ve been here.”

“Like the time you told me about, when all the chairs got moved,” he asked.

Now it was Bertha’s turn to bristle. For a second she could believe the memory Ethan had, for she’d only told him that story once and that had been several years ago.

It had happened shortly after Bertha started working at Piedmont. She had come into the kitchen early one morning, as her arthiritis had been acting up and she hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep the night before. She came into the kitchen early, and as per her usual routine, went to the cafeteria area and began placing all the chairs. Each evening, the janitors placed them on top of the tables so they could mop the floors.

Bertha spent a half hour unstacking and placing all the chairs, only to have to return to the kitchen to meet the delivery man at the back door. When she returned to the cafeteria, all the chairs had been re-stacked on the tables. No one had come in, as the cafeteria doors which led into the school hallway were still locked.

Needless to say, she almost fainted, and as she had kidded with Ethan, “I think I’m the first black lady to ever turn white with shock. But I threw up my hands then and there and said, ‘Goody Cole, you can have the chairs however you like them, I got no problem with you and you don’t need to have no problems with me.’

And when she went back to the kitchen to splash water in her face and returned to the cafeteria, all the chairs were back in their proper place. There had been small incidences since then but nothing so dramatic. For this, Bertha was grateful.

But she couldn’t get over the fact the Ethan remembered her story.

“Yeah, like that I reckon,” she finally said. “How the hell do you remember that anyway boy?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I just do. Have you ever had anything else like that happen,” he asked, now earnestly curious, all fear gone from him, which sort of made Bertha nervous.

“I don’t think so,” she finally said, deciding nit to tell him of the dreams she sometimes had, which guest starred Goody Cole.

“I think about her a lot,” Ethan said. “I think she was a lonely woman.”

“Oh yeah,” Bertha said. She was genuinely curious at what the boy had to say, almost as if her life depended on it.

“Yeah, I don’t think she was really a witch,” Ethan said.

Bertha, who had lived through the civil rights movement in the 60’s and who had experienced prejudice, persecution even nodded and said, “No, I reckon she wasn’t. Sometime folks have a way of ganging up on people who are different.”

“Like the Nazi’s during World War II?” he asked her.

“Yeah, like them, or the Ku Klux Klan, or like them folks back in Goody’s time during the witch trials,” she said, as she picked up a large glass measuring cup and began mixing an egg, water and flour mixture.

“I think Goody Cole was a sad woman too,” Ethan said.

“Now how on earth would you know a thing like that?” she asked him.

“I’ve seen it in my dreams,” Ethan said.

For a long moment, nothing but a deadly silence hung in the air, as if everything had become suspended in time, for eternity.

The sound of the mixing bowl, shattering loudly as it crashed to the floor, finally broke them from their trance.