Therapy—Week Six.
Daniel sat straighter today. Not tense, just more comfortable and relaxed.
"I started sleeping again," he said.
Dr. Greene gave a nod. "How are the dreams?"
"Messy. But not like before. They're…not full of gaps anymore. I remember them."
He paused.
"I remember him."
Dr. Greene waited.
Daniel ran a hand through his hair. "He wasn't just rage. Or escape. He….he loved my son too. But in his own way. Took him out for ice cream once. I wasn't even aware it happened until this week."
"You said you felt calmer," she prompted.
"I think the medication's helping," he admitted. "Slows down the panic. Lets me catch my thoughts before they tear me apart."
"You still writing to him?"
Daniel held up his notebook. "Yeah. Only now…I feel like I'm writing with him."
"Does that scare you?"
He looked out the window. Sunlight hit his face.
"A little," he said. "But also….I don't feel alone."
Therapy—Week Seven.
Dr. Greene had given him a strange assignment this week.
"Describe a room," she had said, "where both of you could sit together."
Daniel thought it was silly at first. But he did it anyway. And now he was telling her what happened.
"It's a studio flat," he said. "Not one I've lived in, but…it feels familiar. Dim light, one chair by a table, small fridge at the corner of the room."
Dr. Greene jotted a note but didn't interrupt.
"He's there before I am. Sitting and slouched. Wearing my jacket. Or maybe I'm wearing his. I don't know."
Daniel's voice became a little low.
"I didn't say anything. Just looked at him. He looked back, and then he said something weird. He said, 'I'm tired too, you know.'"
Daniel blinked hard.
"That got me. I always thought he was this…force. Untouchable, angry. But he was just tired. Holding all the things I refused to hold."
Dr. Greene asked, "Did you speak after that?"
"I sat across from him. We didn't talk, but we didn't leave either."
A moment passed.
Then Daniel added softly, "it felt like…I could breathe again."
Dr. Greene finally said, "That's what integration starts to feel like. Not fireworks, not breakdown. Just…space."
Therapy—Week Eight.
The room was quiet except for the fan. Daniel sat with a small box in his lap—old letters, receipts, scribbled notes.
Stuff he'd shoved away.
"These are his," he said, barely above whisper.
Dr. Greene didn't need to ask whose.
Daniel began laying the contents out on the floor. A parking ticket from Kings Cross. A note that said, "Don't forget to call," A cinema stub dated two years ago—a movie he swore he never saw.
"I used to think he hijacked my life," Daniel said. "But now…I'm wondering if I give it to him."
He looked at her. There was no anger this time.
"I couldn't shout at my boss. Couldn't tell at my dad's grave. Couldn't sleep with guilt in the same room as my son's drawings."
His voice cracked.
"So I made someone, who could."
He looked down at the letters. Some were crumpled. One had blood on the corner.
"I don't hate him anymore."
"What do you feel instead?" Dr. Greene asked.
Daniel took a breath.
"Gratitude. Maybe regret too. I don't know. He held things I couldn't."
"...."
"I think it's time I held them myself."