Forgive Me

Fiction

By Halle Aten

A woman opened the door and ushered the senator inside. He entered a sparsely furnished office with a few diplomas, two chairs, a desk, and a couch. It was a small space, with warm yellow light and a soothing hum emanating from somewhere. Not quite womblike, but cozy in a no-frills way.

A clean, well-lighted place.

Taking the seat behind the desk, the woman gestured to the chair across from her. Thank God she didn’t expect him to sit on that couch. “Hello, Senator Crawford. I’m Dr. Winchell. I’m flattered that you’ve elected to come see me.”

He flashed his winning smile. “Delighted, doctor. I’ve heard that you were the person to see in cases… like mine.” Bradley unbuttoned his jacket, hitched up his pants, and lowered into his seat with practiced dignity, taking command of his new domain.

The doctor plucked a black ballpoint pen from behind her ear and placed it atop a blank legal pad as she clicked off the monitor on her desktop computer. “Senator…”

He held up his hand, still smiling away. “Please, it’s Bradley.”

“Okay, Bradley. No more ‘doctor’ out of you then, either, alright? I’m Gates.”

Wow, so quick to undermine her own authority. Was that a trust-building move, or just a lack of confidence in her own skills? He couldn’t tell. Yet. “Gates it is.”

“Great. So, Bradley, have you seen a therapist before?”

He shook his head. “Nope. I’m a stranger in a strange land, doctor... Gates. You’ve got a therapy virgin, here.”

Gates chuckled. “Alright, I’ll be gentle.” She pulled a packet of papers from the bottom drawer of her desk and pushed them over to Bradley. “This informed consent contains everything you need to know if you have questions later. Before you review or sign that, however, I need to go over the rules. I’m sure you are aware of confidentiality, but there are limits…”

Bradley tuned out as the therapist nattered on. He didn’t need to hear “the rules.” He liked to make the rules… and sometimes break them, too.

“... danger of harm to yourself or someone else...”

Bradley sized the woman up. Plain navy suit, naked neatly trimmed nails, sensible haircut. He knew dozens of women like her, so desperate to be taken seriously that they eschew all things feminine in favor of dressing like a nun. Maybe her mail-order graduate program had advised her to mute her appeal so it wouldn’t interfere with the “therapeutic work,” or something. If you could get past the drab look, she was attractive in an average way: someone you’d sleep with if there were no better options. Probably a decent student, given all the degrees, but not imposing and likely not very bright. Intern material.

“… unless you know of a dependent youth or adult that is being abused. Do you understand?” She tilted her head and waited for a response.

“Crystal clear,” Bradley replied.

Gates offered a strained smile, like a mother indulging a slow child. “I’m aware I was clear. Did you understand?”

“Of course.” No need to get bitchy.

She waited, unmoving.

“Yes, I understood,” he asserted.

“Excellent!” She clapped her hands together once, crisp as a Pringle. “Let’s get started, then. What brings you in today?”

Bradley was surprised but pleased she cut to business so quickly. “I haven’t been myself lately, I guess. Trouble sleeping, a bit forgetful. I’m not on top of things the way I like to be.”

Gates nodded and scribbled on her notepad. “Is this since the incident?”

Usually, Bradley appreciated someone who fucked around so little, but this felt brusque, a little aggressive. He wasn’t used to being handled like this. “Um, yes. I suppose so.”

The doctor seemed to pick up on his wavelength. “I know this is hard. Facing the things hurting us on the inside takes courage, honesty, and hard work. I find it’s better to jump into the deep end right away to get past all the hemming and hawing. You know how to swim; you’re just afraid to. I’m here to guide you.”

I can see the sense in that... or maybe I’m getting spun, here. Bradley looked at Gates’s plain face and sighed. This wasn’t an oversight hearing or closed session. What possible reason could she have for trying to spin him?

“Okay, I got you, doc. I’ve been having trouble since the kidnapping. My ex-wife and I were already caught up in a custody thing when Avery was taken, and then my son started some fights at school. My wife was no help. She grew paranoid about money, paparazzi, things her psychic was saying—all very strange—and… I don’t know. I didn’t think about it much; I just took care of the situation. Got my kid back. But now that guy’s still out there. It makes me nuts that he got away.”  

Gates stopped writing and looked up with a raised eyebrow. “Nuts?”

“Oh, you know. I think about it a lot. Where he might be hiding out, all the ways I’d love to hurt that son-of-a-mother, what I’m going to do when they find him. Maybe you have a pill or something that will help?”

The doctor leaned back in her chair with a wry smile. “A pill to find the guy, or a pill to decide what you want to do to him?”

Bradley held up his hands. “Okay, you win! No need for the ad hominem attacks. You know what I mean.”

Gates tapped her pen in her palm. “I’m sorry, Bradley. I’m not trying to win an argument or manipulate you. I assumed you knew that I don’t prescribe meds. I’m a Ph.D., not M.D. Your people didn’t tell you that when they vetted my credentials?”

Bradley shrugged.

“You’ve been through something intense, senator, maybe even traumatic. A pill isn’t going to get the job done. It might take the edge off your symptoms, help you sleep better, but that’s as deep as it will go. If that’s what you’re interested in, you should see your family doctor or a psychiatrist.”

Bradley considered it. He could use a good night’s sleep, but that wouldn’t solve the worst of his problems. He didn’t know what would. “I guess I just want to get over this and get back to life’s regularly scheduled programming.”

“Well, that kind of remedy I can provide. Have you tried empathy?”

“What?”

 “Empathy. How do you understand the guy who took your daughter? What made him do something like that?”

“Are you kidding? The greedy loser wanted money!”

Gates leaned back again, shaking her head gently. “That’s a very simple, incomplete explanation. I would expect better from someone as smart as you, Bradley.”

“You would?”

“Come on. That guy could have gotten money a thousand different ways. He could have robbed a bank, held people up at gunpoint, broken into someone’s house, scammed people online, started a Ponzi scheme, et cetera. He didn’t. He chose to kidnap and ransom your daughter: a specific, targeted crime. Do you understand why?”

Bradley was speechless.

“The majority of perpetrators were victims themselves. We need to understand that so we can rehabilitate them.” Gates pulled her chair back to her desk and leaned forward. “So, why did he do it?”

Rehabilitate? Fuck that. I just want the motherfucker locked up. “I have no idea.”

“Okay, let’s try an exercise then. I want you to imagine you grew up in a tough home. Alcoholic, abusive father, depressed mother. Never enough money or food, people always screaming at each other or absent, constant threats of violence. Can you imagine that?”

He smirked. Better than you know, Gatesy. “Yeah, I can.”

“So, then there’s this guy. He’s smart, attractive, successful, has everything you always thought you deserved. How do you feel about him?”

“I don’t know. I admire him, I want to be like him.”

“Try harder, Bradley…”

“What? I… envy him? Want what he has?”

“That’s better. And…?”

“Resent him, I guess. Look, doc, Gates, whatever, I see where you’re going with this. The scumbag wanted to hurt me, wanted what I had, so he took my daughter. So what? You want me to give him a hug and a bag of candy, or something?”

“No, but you’re getting warmer.” Gates laughed. “You’re a victim, Bradley. The illusion that your life is safe has been shattered. That means, in some ways, you’re just like him.”

“‘Like him?!’” Bradley slammed his fist on the desk and jumped out of his chair. “You’re joking, right? I don’t go around stealing children. What a crock!”

“Who knows? Under other circumstances...”

Bradley stepped toward the desk and glared at Gates. “I would take someone’s kid? No way! Sure, I’m having a hard time with this stupid helpless feeling, but that doesn’t mean I need to have empathy for some piece of... human trash...who ransoms people’s kids.”

“Of course you don’t need to. You don’t need to do anything.” Gates locked her fingers under her chin and heaved a deep sigh. “Let me ask you, then. How do you think you can recover from feeling helpless?”

“Live in a safer world?”           

“You came to me for that? Sorry, but my magic wand’s in the shop, and I’m clear out of pixie dust.”

Jesus Christ, with the sarcasm! “I came here because I can’t answer that question! But I really can’t imagine feeling safe until that guy is put away.”

Gates laid her hands on her desk, palms down, with a sappy look of sympathy on her face, like a kindergarten teacher dealing with the kid who wouldn’t stop eating paste. What the fuck.

“You’re a senator, Bradley. Putting that one guy away is going to make your world safe?”

Okay, she had a point.

Gates continued, “Your outside world’s as safe as it ever was. The immediate danger’s over; you got your daughter home safe and sound. Your inside world is where the problem is now— insomnia, anxiety, anger, scary thoughts, self-doubt, guilt. Just like a pill isn’t going to get it done, catching this guy isn’t the answer, either. If you want to be free— if you want to sleep, think clearly, and breathe easily again— there’s only one path. Empathy.”

“Well, I don’t see how understanding a criminal scumbag makes me feel any better. It might make him feel better.” He hated the pouty sound in his voice, but he couldn’t help it. Why couldn’t this woman understand that this fucker had to pay for what he did?

“Empathy doesn’t heal because of what you give, Bradley. It’s about what you get.”

“Yeah, and what’s that?”

“Understanding. The only way to release your anger and make yourself free again. “‘When a deep injury is done to us, we never heal until we forgive.’ That was Nelson Mandela... after he was in prison for twenty-seven years.”

“Well, excuse me! I didn’t realize this was a pissing contest to see who’s suffered more! What is this?”

“Bradley, you’ll never be free until you find a way to understand and forgive this guy.” Gates pushed away from her desk and stood, stretching her back. “Or don’t. It’s your call.”

Fine, I won’t, you sanctimonious bitch. Bradley was sorely regretting giving up his golf date for this pseudo-Christian bullshit. “Thank you so much for your time, Dr. Winchell.” He rose from his chair, brushed the wrinkles out of his pants, and pulled out his wallet.

Pretending that he hadn’t confirmed the doctor’s ridiculous fee three times over the phone, he asked, “What do I owe you?”

With a tight smile, Gates nodded. “My rate is $250.”

Bradley pulled out a fat wad of cash and started counting five-dollar bills onto the desk.

Gates put her hand over Bradley’s and gently pushed the money back towards him. “I take credit cards, you know. We can settle-up later.”

“Whatever you want.” He grabbed his cash, shoved it back in his wallet, and walked to the door.

Gates stepped around her desk and picked something up from the floor. A business card, maybe? She held it out. “Bradley, you dropped this.”

Bradley turned from the door and saw the item in the doctor’s hand.

Oh my God, was that still in my wallet?

Gates’s face softened. “Is this your daughter? She’s beautiful.”

He stepped back into the room to take the photo. “Yeah, she looks like my mom.” He looked at the picture in silence for a moment. It was a shot from their last family vacation in Lake Como. Avery had been what, fifteen? She’d snapped the selfie on the boat she insisted they take to George Clooney’s villa. Damn kid knew he hated the guy’s politics, but she’d played him just right. “Daddy,” she’d appealed. “What better way to learn about your enemy than to visit his home? Become the fox in the henhouse, right?”

And then she’d given him her killer smile: bright, even teeth, dimples on both sides, and an adoring look that told him he was the only man she’d ever love. How long had it been since he’d seen that smile? He was sure she’d shared it with others— maybe even with that breathing piece of shit before he took her God-knows-where for three days— but Bradley hadn’t seen it in years. It killed him to think that she’d probably spent those three days hating him as much as she hated her captor.

God, maybe more.

Feeling far away, Bradley heard himself ask, “You know what she said when we got her back?”

He could hear his Patek Philippe Grandmaster Chime ticking. What the hell time was it, anyway?

He breathed in and let the air out in a long, low whoooooosh. “She said, ‘Why didn’t you kill that son-of-a-bitch, Dad? How could you let him go?’” He looked up at Gates, tears in his lower eyelids. “‘How could you let him go?’” He unlatched his watch and shoved it into his pocket. Damn thing was so loud.

Gates held him with her eyes, unblinking. “Did you want to kill him, Bradley?”

“What kind of question is that? Of course I wanted to kill him. I wanted to rip off his head, feed it to my dog, and dance on his dismembered corpse!”

No reaction. The woman was an Easter Island sculpture: stolid, monolithic, formidable. “Why didn’t you?”

His knees buckled, and Bradley dropped back into the chair in front of the desk. “Too much risk. I had to get my kid back.”

Gates edged behind the desk and reclaimed her seat. “So, you cared more about your child than about getting revenge.”

Examining his Prada shoes, Bradley nodded.

“But you don’t care enough for yourself to forgive and let this go. You torment yourself with thoughts about... what, exactly? What do you think about when you’re at work, unable to concentrate? At night, lying awake in the dark?”

Bradley stared at the floor. The grey carpet looked new but dull, a tight industrial weave at odds with the warm, intimate space.

“Do you think about those three days? What he did to her?” Gates’s voice was tightening around him, shrinking his space to breathe. To think. Be. “What he would’ve done if they hadn’t found her?”

A flood of hideous images poured into his mind. Images he couldn’t erase, images he’d seen thousands of times.

“Maybe it’s not this guy you can’t forgive. Maybe it’s you.”

“Me?!” Bradley looked up at that crazy bitch. He couldn’t feel his hands. He rubbed them on the thighs of his trousers, trying to friction some feeling back. “What in the name of bleeding Jesus are you talking about now?”

Gates leaned forward. “You let her get taken. You didn’t protect your little girl.”

A knot was forming in his stomach, pulling his muscles, his entire body, inward. “Are you saying this was my fault?”

“No, but maybe part of you believes that it is. Maybe these symptoms are your way of punishing yourself.”

Punishing?... He could feel the gravity in his stomach increasing, approaching a critical state, a black hole forming inside of him. He gripped the arms of his chair, hoping to anchor himself to something solid, to keep from collapsing into nothing.

Gates took up her pen and started writing. “What did you do wrong, Bradley? Why do you need to be punished?” There was a glint in her eye.

Is she enjoying this?

His lungs were being tugged down into his stomach. Or pushed? Was he collapsing on the inside or the outside? He couldn’t tell. “But I didn’t... I don’t...”

“You didn’t do enough? You failed to protect her?”

“I’m her father! That’s my job, right?”

“Yes, it is.”

“So it is my fault!” He couldn’t breathe. Sinking. Everything sliding down. Into his center. “The center cannot hold…”

“It was your job to protect your daughter.” What the hell was that bitch writing on her stupid notepad?

“Is it your fault she was taken?”

Bradley’s insides succumbed to their own gravity. The star he was collapsed, imploded, and pulled into the very center of his existence. “The blood-dimmed tide is loosed…”

“Of course it’s my fault, you duplicitous cunt! Fucking mind-game-wielding bitch!”

Bradley tore out of his chair and started pacing the room. “My daughter got taken and violated like some trash-heap whore because of me! And you want to talk to me about forgiveness?!”

Gates looked puzzled. “Was Avery raped?”

“Yes, she was raped, you dipshit! Of course she was!” He clenched his fists, fighting the urge to punch the wall.

“That wasn’t in the police report I received with your records.”

“No, she never reported it.”

Gates’s face paled. “I had no idea, Bradley. I’m so sorry. She told you about it?”

“No, of course not! She didn’t tell anybody! I just know!”

Gates sat back with an odd look on her face. “If Avery never told anyone, how could you ‘just know’ something like that?”

Bradley spun to face the doctor. He could feel heat in his cheeks, and there was a strange buzzing in his ears. “Are you some kind of retard?! Grown men don’t kidnap young girls and play hopscotch with them all day!”

Oddly calm, the doctor said, “Is that right?” She pulled a folder out from somewhere, riffled through it, pulled out a photograph, and placed it on the desk. “Bradley, who is this?”

Bradley stomped over and looked at the picture. Fifty expressions crossed his face as his cheeks turned an odd shade of purple.

“I… how should… I don’t know,” he choked out.

Gates turned her head slowly side to side. “Oh, I think you do.”

His eyes went wild. “Where did you get that?” Bradley lurched forward, hands out in a choking gesture.

Gates pinned Bradley with her gaze, commanding him to look at her. “Monica McAllister. 2002. Dartmouth. Ring any bells?”

Apoplexy overtook him. “Whaa-?”

“You didn’t play hopscotch with her, did you, Bradley?”

“I don’t know what...”

“You think her Daddy wanted to feed your head to his dog?”

“No, no, no. No.”

“How many times? How many times did you fuck her before you let your friends have a turn?”

Bradley’s eyes darted around the room. Gates couldn’t tell if he was looking for something to attack her with or a way to escape. Good. He wouldn’t find either.

“How many times, Bradley?”

“You can’t...”

“Was she ‘some kind of fucking trash-heap whore,’ Bradley? Was she?” Her voice was rising.

“Yes!”

“Is that right? She took advantage of you?”

“She deserved it!”

“The bitch got what she deserved?”

“Dressed like that, strutting around with her twat hanging out like a neon sign! ‘Slut, slut, I’m a slut!’”

“So, you gave it to her good?”

“Yeah, I did!”

“It felt good to kill her, didn’t it?”

“Hell yes! Smug cunt kept saying she was going to tell our families! Ruin our futures! I shut her up, put it right through that bitch’s worthless brain!!”

The room went silent.

Deliberately, eyes locked on Bradley, Gates rose from her seat and smiled. “You arrogant, cock-swinging, shit-for-brains.”

She pulled some papers out of the folder on the desk. “Gabriela— your ex-wife, right? — gave us everything we needed to know about you. Names of all your rapist friends, dates, places. But Avery, she was the hero. We couldn’t have done it without her, Bradley.”

Gates read directly from the top page in her hand. “My dad fucked around with my two best friends for years. Thought I didn’t know. Promised them money, cars, expensive jewelry, all kinds of shit, so they would keep quiet. What an idiot! High school girls don’t keep quiet about anything, especially not when they’re fucking a senator. He didn’t give two shits when Eliza got pregnant. Just sent her away to get it taken ‘care of.’ Mr. Pro-Life, himself. Fucking hypocrite!”

Gates looked up, shaking her head. “Avery agreed to fake the kidnapping, can you believe it? What kind of kid is willing to do something like that?” Gates flipped the folder shut and slammed her fist on top of it. “A kid who’s ready to break the cycle of violence, Bradley. That’s who. A kid who won’t let herself be the victim of her twisted murdering psychopath of a father any longer. You better believe you failed to protect that girl, Bradley. You failed to protect her from you.”

Gates pressed the button on her computer monitor that she’d clicked when Bradley first came in, leaned forward, and said, “We got it, guys. Your turn.”

The door burst open and six armed police officers stormed in. As the first officer cuffed Bradley and the next started reading him his Miranda rights, two FBI agents strolled into the room.

The taller, more affable one greeted Gates. “Wow, Agent Winchell.” He shook her hand. “No one’s been able to get this guy; he’s been on our list a long time.” He eyed her sideways. “That was some impressive acting, there. You’d probably be a good therapist— you know, for real.”

“Yeah, maybe after I retire. Got enough work for now.” Gates registered the look of horror and disbelief on Bradley’s face as he was shoved through the door. She wondered what his position on prison reform would be from the other side of the bars. “Hey, Bradley!” she called out. The guys pulled him back into the doorframe. “Avery has good field work instincts. She’d make one heck of an agent.”

Bradley’s gaze snapped to Gates, wild, unhinged. He blinked, straightened to his full height, adjusted his tie, and assumed his former cool demeanor. “You mean the child you coerced into cooperating with your little stage play? I know a lot of judges who will empathize with the suffering this has caused her.”

Gates stepped in front of Bradley, hands cuffed behind him, and leaned in close. She caught a tangy whiff of fear-sweat and grinned. “Twenty-two is not a child, senator. I should think you would know that. That’s how old Monica McAllister was.”

The guys dragged Bradley down the hall, and Gates watched, reveling in a good day’s work. Gates would leave empathy and forgiveness to the actual therapists of the world; they had a lot of great insights to offer the people who wanted to listen. Gates was more interested in the scumbags who never listened. She wanted to hold up a mirror to their smug lying-ass faces and watch them squirm like Bradley when they realized they weren’t untouchable after all. 

The words of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., rang through Gates’s mind. This was her positive self-talk, her mantra, her gospel— whatever you wanted to call it— “There can be no peace without justice.” Gates had gotten a good dose of justice-style healing from her therapy session with Bradley. She would sleep well that night.

---

Dr. Halle Aten is a clinical psychologist based in suburban Chicago. She earned her PhD in 2007 and has practiced therapy for nearly two decades. A former Los Angeles resident, she draws on a wide range of life experiences in her writing. She is at work on a second novel and, off the page, splits her time between parenting, tennis courts, and karaoke stages.