SECOND CHANCES

by JoAnn Baca

I want him found. It’s… it’s all such a joke, you know.
Sixteen years ago, my life was going along just fine, everything’s fine.
Kanin Evans comes along and boom. Last week my life was wonderful.
Great job, great man who loves me…
Kanin Evans comes along, my life is falling apart again.
I haven’t been to my office in four days, I…  I don’t sleep…
It’s just, I keep seeing him.

~ Mrs. Davis, A Gentle Rain

The room is deliberately old-fashioned, the furniture warm and comfortable, all of it designed to put people at ease. Sunlight filters through slatted blinds that keep the world outside at bay. It’s safe here, a cocoon, quiet…conducive to the sharing of secrets.

And he hears them all.

Today he has a new patient, one who has been struggling for most of an hour to tell him why she must talk with him and not her family or friends. So…yet another secret he must keep.

“This woman from the District Attorney’s Office…this Catherine Chandler…she acts like she will help but there’s something about her that makes me wonder if…” Madolyn Davis sighs, her hands shaking. She bends her head, staring at the shredded tissue in her hands.

Dr. Grafton shifts in his chair, thankful she hasn’t seen the startled look on his face. A name from the past…

He had expected the cancellation of her remaining appointments after the difficulties she had in opening up to him, but to hear Catherine Chandler’s name from the mouth of another patient months after last seeing the woman herself…what are the odds? From what he knows of Catherine Chandler, he doesn’t think she would be an apathetic attorney. Surely the feeling that she’s dragging her feet is all in Mrs. Davis’s mind.

Moments tick by. The woman sitting opposite him sobs quietly but doesn’t finish her thought.

“Madolyn.” He says her name gently, trying to nudge her into speaking again. Her time is draining away and he wants to get some kind of handle on this patient’s core concern. But she still doesn’t speak.

“Mrs. Davis…are you more upset that you saw the man again…or that the woman from the DA’s office doesn’t seem eager to help you?” He knows he is being provocative. In his experience, sometimes he needs to ask seemingly rude questions to jar his patients into an honest response.

“Can’t it be both?” Her tone is sharp, offended.

He tilts his head, non-committal. “What do you think?”

She reacts, and the words she’s been struggling to find finally break free.  “I think my life has been a sham for sixteen years.” Her eyes flash, her anger starting to pour out. “I think I was fooling myself, thinking I could move on from my son’s death…his murder…by this drunk who ran from facing me, from facing justice!” She sits up straighter in her chair. “I see clearly now, for the first time in years. And if this attorney thinks I’ll let her get by with a half-hearted effort, I’ll have her job!”

The psychiatrist pretends to jot notes as she speaks, deliberately not making eye contact. Her pain has been lanced now, and the poison of her harbored feelings finally is flowing into the light.

He takes a brief glance at his watch. Time is getting short, and only now is he making any headway.

When she winds down, he asks, “What will you do?”

She frowns at his question. “What can I do but wait?”

He tries again. “When he is found. What will you do?”

Madolyn shuts her eyes, as if imagining the moment, and her face begins to contort with rage. “They’ll need to jail me.” Her hands become claws, and she flexes her fingers as she adds, “I’ll tear him apart.”

Dr. Grafton stills the shake of his head that feels imminent. “Will you?” he asks instead.

Her eyelids pop open and she glares at him. “I…can’t…wait.”

* * *

“Madolyn Davis is here.” The message from the disembodied voice on his intercom surprises Dr. Grafton. “I told her she needs an appointment but…”

“It’s all right, Ms. Halifax. Send her in.” He closes the notebook he has been writing in, and as he gets up from his desk, he picks up a fresh pad. By the time Mrs. Davis is ushered in, he is in his usual seat.

“I know I shouldn’t have barged in. Thank you for seeing me.” Her apology is perfunctory.

She is a woman used to getting her way. He believes this is a trait she developed after her son was killed; a situation in which she had no control made her determined never to be in such a position again. Now that she is feeling as she had years ago, it unsettles her. So she seeks to assert control where she can.

“Please sit. What’s on your mind?” He waits, pencil poised above his notepad.

“The Chandler woman…” Madolyn flushes a bit, clearly embarrassed, and looks down at her hands. “She…she did her job.”

“I see.” This is not what he expected her to say.

“She has him…he’s in custody.” A deep shuddering sigh follows her last word. Years of anticipation flow out in that exhalation.

Dr. Grafton is glad she came in today even if she didn’t have an appointment. It’s an important moment, perhaps pivotal.  “How does that make you feel?”

Shaking her head, she seems to search for a description before finally saying, “Strange. I…I’ve wanted this for so long.”

He nods, accepting the fact. Before he can ask another question, though, she says, “Miss Chandler said she can arrange a meeting.”

So…Catherine Chandler understands what he does, that this woman needs a kind of closure that merely watching a trial cannot provide. He asks, “At the jail?”

“No. At her office, not…there.” She shudders involuntarily at the mention of the jail environment.

He realizes, if she doesn’t, that Catherine Chandler is giving her back a measure of control by bringing Kanin Evans to a neutral space for this meeting. Going into a prison would be much more stressful for Mrs. Davis – a physical search, the smells and sounds of hundreds of incarcerated people, a cold, drafty meeting space…it would add elements of discomfort, fear, and irritation, compounding her long-held feelings about the man.

But there is more to it…much more. What Catherine Chandler is doing is presenting Kanin Evans to Madolyn Davis in the most civilized, conventional space she can…perhaps as a subtle signal reinforcing his humanity, even his decency, in the face of his past crimes? Was this meeting arranged in the D.A.’s offices offered as a favor to the distraught woman…or to the man in custody?

Dr. Grafton now begins to wonder if what Madolyn Davis felt when first speaking with Catherine Chandler bore a measure of truth: has she, in fact, been reluctant to bring this particular man to justice? And is she now doing all she can to help him?

He thinks back to his meetings with her and her descriptions of the odd circumstances of her problematic relationship with the man she loves. She couldn’t introduce him to friends or family. He had to live apart from her, for reasons she couldn’t disclose. He had overcome hardship and pain. They could never have a life together. Dr. Grafton remembers that he had even asked her at one point if this man she loves is a fugitive.

He also remembers how deeply he was concerned for her, how much he was affected by her situation, how frustrated he was by his inability to help her. He recalls her desperate need to unburden herself, which was stymied by her nobility in keeping a promise that clearly hampered her in trying to resolve her circumstances. He had admired her as much for that as he was exasperated with her for not spilling her secrets.

But now he understands. This man…this Kanin Evans…must be her secret love. That accounts for all that Catherine Chandler had told him. It now makes sense.

“Dr. Grafton?” Madolyn Davis’s voice pierces his ruminations and, startled that he has drifted away like that, he colors and apologizes. But before he takes up the thread of his conversation with her, he recalls one more thing that Catherine Chandler had said – that the man she loves has the most beautiful spirit and most generous heart of anyone she knew.

Those words had stayed with him, long after she had stopped seeing him. A troubled man with a beautiful spirit would be one she would want to protect or, failing that, to present in the best light possible.

Strangely, his heart goes out to this couple. Their tragedy, in its way, would last as long and be as unresolvable as Mrs. Davis’s has been. Unless…

He is struck by a sudden impulse to help her now in a way he couldn’t then.

“Mrs. Davis…” He hardly knows how to say what he feels he must. He knows it isn’t appropriately dispassionate – or appropriate at all – but instead of the prescribed approach his profession requires, he offers a personal opinion. “Mrs. Davis, this man…he is going to pay for his crime now, yes?”

She nods.

“Perhaps, instead of sharing your anger with him as soon as you see him…perhaps you could ask some questions about his life these past years.”

Quizzical, she tilts her head. “Ask…questions?”

“Use this opportunity you’ve been given…this second chance. There’s time enough for anger. Maybe first…find out something about him. Give yourself some time to see him as more than the worst thing he’s ever done.” He bites his tongue, holding back more, not wanting to give away his suspicions regarding the identity of this man, now that he is certain he is the one Catherine Chandler spoke of.

Slowly she considers his suggestion. “I’ll…I’ll think about it.”

Rising to leave, she offers her hand to him. “Thank you, Doctor,” she says.

* * *

“Doctor? Mrs. Davis is on Line 1.”

Coat on and briefcase in hand, about to leave for the day, Dr. Grafton leans over his desk to grab the phone and punch the button for Line 1. “Yes, Mrs. Davis?”

“My apologies for calling you so late. Is it possible…might I have a few minutes of your time?”

He knows she has been to her meeting at the D.A.’s Office. He has nothing pressing awaiting him at home. And he is quite curious on a personal level regarding the outcome of her confrontation with the man responsible for her son’s death. “If you can come in now, you can have half an hour. Will that work?”

“Yes! Thank you! I’ll be there right away.”

* * *

“I’ve seen him. Kanin Evans.” She says this without preamble as soon as she walks into his office. As she sits, he notes the lack of tension in her shoulders. Even the lines in her face seem softer. A sad smile graces her lips.

The change in her is surprising. Where is the anger, the outrage, the desire to strike out at the man who is responsible for her child’s death?

“And now?”

Instead of answering his question, she looks at him and says, “He was willing to talk with me, to let me say whatever I needed to say to him.”

He waits for her to continue, and when she doesn’t, he asks, “And that surprised you?”

Again, she chooses a non sequitur rather than answering his question. “He has a little boy of his own now.”

“I see.” This information stuns him. As far as he knows, Catherine Chandler has no children.

“He has a wife. Both of them are waiting for him, back wherever he calls home.”

She says this with a kindness, a compassion he has never heard in her voice before. Something happened during her meeting, some connection was made, some understanding was reached, that overcame the desire for revenge she has harbored for so long.

He is glad for her sake that she is no longer being eaten alive with the agony of her loss, with the anger it created. But he is disappointed in himself. He has been dangerously unprofessional in his thinking because of his own misguided assumptions, and has allowed his personal feelings about a former patient to cloud his judgment about a current one. Thankfully, it has all worked out for the best despite his error. For now he is sure that he has been wrong all along. Kanin Evans is not Catherine Chandler’s secret love. That mystery remains unsolved.

Smiling inwardly at what a foolish romantic he was to think there was some connection between Catherine Chandler and the man in custody, he settles in to listen to Mrs. Davis.

He is glad that he has managed to help this particular patient to begin to heal. And he is glad that he broke protocol to advise her to ask the man questions, to find out about him…to humanize him. Because whatever passed between them, Dr. Grafton is convinced it was the beginning of the healing for which Madolyn Davis has been searching for sixteen years.