Chapter 16
November 27, 2006
The past two days had been nightmarish. Nick had raced to Kevin’s house in
LA after Tim had called him. He had walked in on Kevin while he was still on
the phone with Rachel. When he took the phone from Kevin and spoke to her,
Nick had been in tears. He had collected a few things for Kevin and had
immediately taken him to the airport where a private jet had been arranged
for, and flew with him back to Kentucky.
Their arrival at the house had been in the pre-dawn hours of the morning,
and Jemma and Aaron had both been asleep. Rachel had been hard-pressed the
next morning to keep them away from him. Once
they knew that their father was back, and so soon after his birthday, they
both wanted to see him. Rachel had had to explain that Daddy was very sick,
and that they would just have to be patient. Not
something either one of them wanted to hear.
The family doctor had been called. He had diagnosed alcohol poisoning, and
he had insisted that, barring hospitalizing him, Kevin be kept on
twenty-four hour suicide watch. Tim, Tracy, Ellen and Jerry
had been practically camped out at the house, taking turns with Rachel
sitting with Kevin in Ann’s room. Nick had stayed for the first day and had
then returned to LA after a long conversation with the
doctor. Nick had also taken charge of notifying AJ, Brian and Howie. They
had each called to ask if they could help in any way, but Kevin refused to
speak to them. In fact, the only person he would respond to at all was
Rachel.
Rachel paused outside the bedroom door. This was going to be hard, but it
had to be done. Nick had taken the pictures and gotten them developed and
sent them to her as the doctor had suggested. Rachel had agreed with the
doctor that this needed to be done, and the doctor had pointed out to the
family that Kevin had turned to her in crisis and that was half the battle.
Since she had a Masters in psychology and a certificate in social work, she
was qualified, and she was in the right place at the right time.
She opened the door and stepped into Ann’s room, hoping that she looked more
cheerful than she felt. Kevin was sitting in the rocking chair by the window
in the sunshine. He looked up as she entered and
gave her a brittle smile. Then he turned away again.
"Here’s your breakfast, Kevin", she said as cheerfully as she could. "You
have to eat at least half of it.No more pushing it around the plate."
"I’ll try, Rachel. But I’m not really hungry." She sat with him while he
toyed with the food.
"Kevin, if you don’t start to eat, the doctor’s going to put you into the
hospital and on intravenous feeding. Is that what you want?"
He looked up at her. "What’s the point, Rachel?", he whispered. "I’m stuck-I
can’t get past this. I’ve tried."
Rachel took a deep breath. This was it. She took the tray away from him and
placed it on the bed. Then she sat back down on the footstool in front of
him.
"Kevin-there’s something I need you to do for me", she started. He looked at
her without any curiosity. Just waiting. She remembered that look. It was
just like back in October when they had talked about Jemma’s nightmares and
about coming home for Thanksgiving. Well, he hadn’t been able to face that,
and now here he was home anyway, and recovering from alcohol poisoning.
"Do you remember anything about what happened in LA before Nick got to the
house?"
"No", he mumbled. He suddenly had a feeling of déjà vu. He had been in this
room before and had this feeling. That he’d done something horribly wrong.
And somehow Rachel was tangled up in that feeling.
He tensed up as he tried to remember. And then he exhaled, as it came back
to him that she had helped him somehow. "No, I don’t remember anything", he
sighed.
Rachel watched him struggling with his memories or the lack of them. She bit
her lip. Can’t put this off, she thought. "Kevin? I have some pictures that
I need you to look at. The doctor says that it’ll help you to put things
back together. You can look at them alone, or I’ll stay here with you if you
want."
Panic. It was welling up again. He didn’t want to look at those pictures. He
didn’t want to know. Rachel placed the packet in his lap, and he stared at
the envelope. He couldn’t make his hands move
to open it. Rachel stood up to move away from him. His head jerked up and
his hand shot out to grab her wrist-to stop her.
"I can’t!", he gasped. She looked down at him with affection and concern in
her eyes. "Stay with me! Please." His eyes pleaded with her. "Help me?"
"Okay, Kevin. I’m here." Rachel picked up the envelope and removed the
pictures.
Slowly, one by one, she placed them in his lap. He stared down at them. At
first he didn’t recognize the place. But as memory flooded back, he tipped
his head back against the headrest of the rocking chair and sobbed. There,
in his lap was hard evidence of what he had done. He had destroyed Kristy.
Picture after picture of the rooms of his house in LA. Picture after picture
of massive destruction. Books torn and thrown into the fireplace-some
charred-others merely torn from their bindings.
Pictures and picture frames had been wrenched from the walls and battered
into pieces. One of the legs of the grand piano had been broken and the
piano was tilted at a crazy angle. He had apparently
thrown every breakable memento he could find at the stone mantle piece,
because ceramic, glass and crystal shards littered the hearth. The bedroom
was even worse. Boxes of Kristin’s clothes that had
been stored away had been ripped open and the contents destroyed. Burned and
torn. There was a picture of the bed-what was left of it. A fireplace poker
lay atop the quilt on the floor. And it was evident that the poker had been
used to hammer at the headboard and gouge the mattress, as well as shatter
the mirror over the dismantled dresser and rip through an oil painting on
the wall. Nothing was salvageable in that room.
Rachel had seen them before, but she couldn’t control her own tears as she
watched him confronted with the evidence of his rampage. Finally, she had to
take the pictures away from him. She sat down again on the footstool in
front of him and took his hands in hers.
"Kevin, this happened because you haven’t let yourself grieve. No one is
saying that you don’t have a right to be hurt and frightened and tormented
by what’s happened, but you have to get on with life.
That’s what it’s all about. Living. You have to be good to yourself. You
have to let yourself feel all the things that losing someone entails. When
you do that, you can look back with love-not hate."
"I don’t hate Kristy!", he sobbed.
"Don’t you, Kevin?" she asked gently. "Look at the pictures again." She
hesitated. "And thank god you were alone in the house."
He looked up at her. "What do you mean?"
"Do you remember what happened here, after Kristin’s memorial service?"
Rachel asked gently.
He looked at Rachel, and suddenly he remembered how she fit into the feeling
of déjà vu he had had before. LA wasn’t the first time this had happened.
"Oh my God", he breathed.
"Fortunately, that time, it was contained in one room. Because Kevin, if you
had stepped outside your room that night, the first thing you would have
seen would have been your son. He heard you crying
and when I came up to bed he was standing in the hallway, trying to figure
out how to help you." Rachel paused. "In this kind of rage..." she tapped
the packet of pictures, "...can you honestly say that you know he’d have
been safe?" she asked softly.
Kevin blanched and covered his face with his hands.
"Do you understand now why you have to let the feelings out? Before they
create this kind of backlash?" She gently pulled his hands away from his
face, and looked into his eyes. "Sometimes people need help for that to
happen. If you need it, we’ll help you-either your family, or a
professional, whatever you choose." She squeezed his hands. "You have a
wonderful, loving family Kevin. They’ve been torn apart by your grief. If
you let them, they can help you heal and you can heal
them as well. You have two beautiful children. Their hearts are aching
because even they can see what this has done to you. All they want is to
love you and be loved in return. Nothing is simpler than that.
And nothing is harder. But believe me, they’re worth it. What I’ve seen in
the last ten months with them has been a gift from God-and you should be on
the receiving end-not me."
"I don’t know if I can-love them", he whispered.
Rachel smiled. "All you have to do is meet them half-way. Actually, less
than half-way. They’re only waiting for you to say ‘Come’, and they’ll be
there. And it doesn’t have to happen all in one day. If
they can see that you’re getting better, they’ll be okay. Can you try?"
"I’ll try", he said so softly that she had to lean in to hear it. "Thank
you, Rachel-for being here for them-and for me. I promise I’ll try. Will you
be here to help me?"
"Yes, Kevin. I promise I’ll be here." She smiled up at him. "Now let’s try
again with that breakfast."
Chapter 17
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