He set the coffee down and cracked his knuckles. “I mean that it’s been over twenty years since I last set foot in a classroom, and I don’t relish the idea of going back now and having to sit in a room with a bunch of kids who are less than half my age. I mean it takes years—sometimes decades—to build a decent writing career. Yeah, I’ve got a file cabinet filled with short stories and half-finished novels, but I’m guessing a quarter of the people in the world have the same thing—and odds are they’re doing something with their stuff.”

“So what’s stopping you?—and please don’t waste our time by going back to that ‘It’s too late’ argument, all right?”

“Look at me, will you? I’m a forty-four year old glorified janitor! I have touched no one; I have moved no one; I have helped no one, not really, not judging from the results—and I’ve got a pair of matching headstones I can show you to back up that last point. More of my life is behind me than ahead, and I’d rather not spend whatever years I have left working my ass off to fail at something else.” Even to himself, it sounded like whining, and he was sorry now he’d ever started talking. “What have you failed at before?” “I should have . . .” He stopped himself. “You should have what, Martin?” He shook his head. “I hear it in my head and it sounds so stupid that I’m too embarrassed to actually say it.” “I’m not going to laugh at or make fun of you.”

“I should think not. People don’t bring piping hot café mochas that can easily be thrown in the face to someone they’re planning to mock. That wasn’t a threat or anything.”

“I know. But I’d still like an answer to my question. You should have . . . what?”

“I was going to say, ‘I should have been able to save them,’ but even back then whenever I thought that, I knew it was stupid. Nothing could save them after a certain point; cancer comes back, its spreads and metastasizes and all you can do is pump someone full of pain killers to keep them comfortable; bad hearts give out, regardless of the catheterizations and stents and bypasses and nitro tablets. I don’t think I actually believed I could save them, but . . .”

“But maybe what you were feeling was something close to that?”

Martin ran a hand over his face, exhaling loudly, becoming irritated with the tears. “I should have been able to do more to help them.” “But from the sound of it, you did more than anyone had the right to expect.” “I could’ve found the money to buy her a goddamn dishwasher.” Dr. Hayes tilted her head slightly. “Beg pardon?”

“Mom. I could have . . . look, this isn’t getting us anywhere. I could sit here and come up with shoulda-woulda-coulda’s until we’re both old enough to retire.”

“Since I’ve got all the letters after my name and several degrees hanging in expensive frames on my office walls, could you let me be the judge of that?” “Do you talk to all of your patients this way?” “Only those I watch vomit and buy café mochas for.” “You’re quick.” “And you’re good at evasion.” “It’s a gift.”

“So is compassion, so is intelligence, and so is the desire and ability to create. Let me ask you something, Martin: why is it that someone of your intelligence—and I had a friend check into your records at OSU, I saw your grades, saw that you’d won three separate scholarships, one of them for creative writing, so I know you’re smart, and I know you’re talented—why is it that you never went back to school? Why is it you chose to stay in a profession that—while a good and honorable job—doesn’t challenge you or require any use of your talents?”

He stared at her for a few moments, sat back, and rubbed his eyes. “Because I’m scared.”

“Of what? About what?”

“Of being rejected—and I’m not talking about just the writing, okay? I’m scared of being be rejected by people, possible friends, lovers, all of it.”

“Why?”

“How the fuck should I know? Sorry, sorry . . . I didn’t mean to raise my voice.”

“That’s all right.”

“It all sounds so . . . so whiny when I say it out loud.”

“No one’s judging you. And, no, it doesn’t.”

“Look . . . I’ve had friends, and I’ve had girlfriends, and for a while it’s all good, but eventually they all start to drift away. I used to think it was something I did—maybe I wasn’t open enough, or honest enough, or affectionate enough—but that didn’t hold up. Maybe in individual instances it might apply, but when the pattern kept repeating over and over . . . it took me a while, but I finally figured it out: I am just not an exciting person. I’m not the life of the party—and, no, I never wanted to be the life of the party. I am not one of the happy people, okay? I realized a long time ago that whatever mechanism it is that enables people to embrace and trust happiness is just not part of my make-up. I don’t get upset about it, I don’t sit around and cry and do the ‘Poor-poor-pitiful-me’ routine, I just accept it and try to get on with things.”

“But you’re not getting on with things, Martin; otherwise, you wouldn’t have planned your suicide so thoroughly.”

“Oh, and it would’ve worked, too.”

Dr. Hayes nodded. “Yes. Based on the recipe you had written down and the dosages of the various medications and how you planned on ingesting them, there was no room for error. You’d be dead right now if you hadn’t walked through that door last night. Why does that make you smile?”

“Because it’s nice to know I got it right.”

“And you’re proud of that?”

“Not particularly. Not now, anyway.”

“Does it scare you, that you almost succeeded?”

Martin thought it over for a few moments. “No . . . and I know it should. What’s that say about my frame of mind?”

“You tell me.”

Martin sighed and rose to his feet. “I’m really grateful for all the trouble you’ve gone through to help me, Dr. Hayes, but I don’t feel like talking to you any more.”

She pointed at Martin’s chair. “You don’t get to make that call, not in here. If this were my private practice and you made that declaration, I wouldn’t push it, I’d just smile and say, ‘See you next week’ and then charge you my three-figure fee for the full hour, anyway. In here, you’re done when I say you’re done. I have tentatively recommended you for a 4-day stay; that can be either increased or decreased, depending on how much you cooperate in our trying to help you. Just because this place is considered the fast-food franchise of mental health doesn’t mean we don’t try our best. Now please sit down and let’s finish this.”

Martin complied. “I’m only doing this because you bought an extra coffee for me.”

“And providing you don’t piss me off, I’ll buy an extra one for you tomorrow, as well.” Her tone was light but her eyes were serious. “Listen to me, Martin; it has been my experience that most people who seriously attempt suicide don’t do it because their spirit has been crushed in some single, massive, cataclysmic blow, but rather because it has bled to death from thousands of small scratches they weren’t even aware of. You’re right to insist that dealing with the death of your parents and the incredible hole it left in your life isn’t what drove you toward your decision; it was however, I think—and excuse my resorting to a tired cliché—the straw that broke the camel’s back. If it hadn’t been that, it would have been something else—a really bad night at work, a flat tire, burning your dinner, an obnoxious telemarketer, who knows? It’s not necessarily the thing itself—it’s everything that has led up its suddenly taking on this profound, symbolic significance that you’d never attribute to it under everyday circumstances. Do you understand?” “You’re pretty good at this. Ever think of doing it professionally?” Dr. Hayes sat back. “Does that mean you agree?” “Yeah . . . yeah, it does.”