Chapter 16: Fourteen - Anniversary

Anniversary

Abercoster’s Institute for Troubled Teenagers was originally supposed to be a house

What the architect who had designed the house had originally intended to be the living room, now served as a sort of lobby, where Dr. Larkson and the head nurse Patty Malone received and welcomed new patients.  The kitchen, large and old-fashioned, looked more like his grandmother’s country kitchen rather than the kitchen of a mental institute. He’d seen a few of those; they looked nothing like this one.

When he first arrived at the institute, Darren couldn’t understand why the Board had insisted that the house be decorated the way it was – like an ordinary family home. He still couldn’t, actually.

Yes, he understood that the Board wanted to make the children feel like they were at home – it was probably supposed to be therapeutic, even. But it was doing the exact opposite.

The children at Abercoster’s hated the phony hominess that the Board was trying to desperately to promote. It only reminded them of the fact that they were far from home, away from their families, surrounded by people who force-fed them psychological theories about their mentality. People who insisted that there was something wrong with them. People who pretended to care.

No wonder they’re so hostile, Darren thought. This place will never feel like home.

The only real advantage of having the Institute in a large house was the amount of privacy it offered. Because the house was so large, the children got the entire third floor to themselves. The boys owned half of the west wing, while the girls owned the other half. The east wing consisted of the library, TV room, and a separate common room for the children to just hang out together.

The second floor belonged entirely to the doctors and nurses. One half of the west wing was consisted of Darren’s and Pauline Larkson’s offices, and a few other empty rooms meant to serve as offices for visiting therapists. The other half of the same wing consisted of the nurses’ rooms.

Seven in total, for Patty and her team.

The other wing contained a larger room where Dr. Larkson held group meetings for the kids, another small library, and five rooms for the Institute’s doctors.

Sighing, Darren opened his door and stepped inside, exhausted from his argument with his boss.  He may have kept a tight lid on his emotions back in Dr. Larkson’s office, but once he entered his room, he lost all of the self-control he’d displayed earlier.

Growling, he slammed the door shut behind him and locked it forcefully, kicking his shoes off angrily. How could the woman he’d been in awe of not more than forty-eight hours ago have turned out to be so cruel? Was she really willing to give up on a patient just like that?

He shook his head wildly, trying to dispel the angry thoughts in his head.

Pauline Larkson’s murky principles weren’t any of his business, were they? He needed to focus on his own job instead of getting caught up in how much he disagreed with Dr. Larkson’s refusal to treat Parish.

Still fuming, despite the voice in his head urging him to calm down, Darren unbuttoned his shirt and took it off, tossing it onto the floor at the foot of his new bed. Groaning heavily, he slumped onto his face, gazing blankly at the ceiling as he desperately tried to organize his muddled thoughts.

After a few moments, he gave up. He pulled a pillow off the bed and chucked it at the dresser in front of his bed in anger, crying out in obvious anger.

For the first time, he was thankful that he was all alone. Because Dr. Larkson lived close-by, she did not feel inclined to be one of the “live-in doctors” that the Institute’s brochures raved about. So he had an entire wing to himself.

At first, he’d thought it was a little lonely, but now he was glad. He didn’t want anyone to hear the temper tantrum.

What had he even been thinking when he’d agreed to take on Parish’s case? He couldn’t do it by himself. If older doctors with years more experience in their pockets than he had couldn’t help Parish, what made him think that he could?

It was a death sentence. If he failed the boy, it could ruin his career. But the consequences of failure would be worse for Parish. The boy was a violent patient. If Darren couldn’t manage to get him better, Parish would be forced into a strait jacket and locked up in a padded room. The chances of him ever seeing the light of day would be all but non-existent then. Could Darren really live with himself if he let that happen?

No, Darren decided. He would do everything in his power to make sure that didn’t happen.

Maybe there was a chance that all his attempts would do was only buy the boy a little more time, but something was better than nothing, wasn’t it? He owed it to the boy to at least, try, didn’t he?

It was what Tracey would have done if she’d been in his position.

The abrupt change in his train of thought caused Darren’s eyes to fill with tears.

Blinking them away, he stood up and pulled the white vest he was wearing underneath his shirt off. Sighing heavily, he dropped the vest onto the ground on top of his shirt as he made his way sadly into the adjoining bathroom.

When he emerged fifteen minutes later, hair dripping wet, he noticed the cell phone on his bedside table flashing. Frowning, he walked around the bed and picked up the phone, surprised when he recognized the number on the screen.

It was his mother.

“Mom?” He couldn’t keep the suspicion out of his voice. It was very unlike his mother to be calling so late at night. “What’s wrong?”

“Your father just told me that you won’t be coming home this weekend.” The disappointment in her voice was tangible.

Sighing dejectedly, Darren sank onto the edge of the bed and nodded.

“He’s right, Mom. I can’t make it.” A few minutes after his heated argument with Dr. Larkson, Darren had sent his father a message informing him that he wouldn’t be able to make it home for the weekend. He had promised himself to do everything he could to help Parish and didn’t even want to risk an off-day.

“Darren, you know how important this is…” He heard his mother sniffle and his heart dropped. “You’ve never missed it before.”

“Mom…” He started to argue, until he was cut off by the sound of footsteps outside his door. “Hold on, okay?”

Guessing it was probably one of the nurses or the night guards; he stood up and made his way to the balcony door, not wanting his conversation overheard by anyone. He had his hand on the doorknob when he realized that he was dressed in nothing but a towel. Rolling his eyes at himself, he walked over to the dresser and pulled a pair of shorts out.

“Darren, are you there?”

“Hold on, hold on.” He mumbled into the phone as he placed it on the top of the dresser as he pulled on the shorts. Once he was done, he draped the towel around his neck and picked the phone back up. “Hey, mom. I’m back.”

“I’m still waiting to hear your excuse for not being able to make it.” She answered dryly as he made his way out onto the balcony and shut the door softly behind himself.

He sighed. “It’s complicated.”

“I’m a smart woman, Darren. I think I should be able to grasp the idea.”

He huffed in exasperation. Louise Michelson was nothing if not persistent. There was no escaping this.

“Fine.” He ran his fingers through his hair wearily. “I can’t come because I have a patient that needs me here.”

“So you get a fancy new job and suddenly you have no interest in family obligations?”

“No, Mom.” He countered. “You don’t get it. This kid needs me. He’s in trouble and if I don’t help him, he could get locked up.”

“So you’re putting a complete stranger – some deranged teenager – before your own sister?” His mother spat angrily.

Darren’s heart sank even lower. “Mom, don’t do that—”

“Don’t do what, Darren? I think I have every right to be angry.”

“It’s not like I don’t want to be there, of course I do!”

“So what harm is it going to do if you take two days off?”

“I can’t, Mom.” He groaned. “I have to help this kid.”

“Darren Michelson, don’t you do this to me.” She whispered angrily. “I already lost one child. I don’t want to have to lose another.”

“Mom, you’re not—”

“Seven years.” she hissed. “Tomorrow, it’ll have been seven years since I had to put her in the ground, and even after all this time, the wounds haven’t healed. She loved you, Darren. Why can’t you just come down here an honor her memory?”

Something inside him snapped. “I am trying to honor her memory, Mom! Despite what you think, everything I’ve done since the day she died was because of her. You think I don’t want to be there? I do. I want to be there. I want to sit with you guys and tell stories about her. I want to go to the cemetery and put orchids on her grave. Purple, just like she loved. I want to sit there and tell her about how I’ve turned my life around – but instead, I’m going to do something that she would have wanted me to. ”

He paused for a second, his breathing ragged. “Do you know why she died?”

“Darren…”

“No, Mom, you need to hear this.” He interrupted, his fingers curling around the phone in his hands tightly. The night air was chilly, and he was only in a pair of shorts, but he didn’t feel the cold. All he felt was the raw anger and pain that, even seven years after his sister’s death, still hadn’t managed to dissolve. “She died because she was trying to do the right thing. She died trying to help people.”

Unbidden images of his sister’s body flashed into his head, and his eyes filled with tears once more.

“She was out there looking for me. Because I’d gotten so sick of you and Dad treating me like a freak that I’d decided to run away from home. She got killed because she was trying to help that woman who was getting mugged.” He could hear his mother’s quiet sobs, but continued anyway, needing to get the pain off his chest. “She died trying to help two people. Because that’s who Tracey was. She was passionate about people and had the biggest heart. And if she were here today, I know that she’d do everything in her power to make sure that this kid isn’t thrown into a strait jacket and tossed in a padded room in solitary confinement.

“Tracey would die before she let something like happen. And you know what? I think that while orchids on her grave and old stories are great, this is the way to best honor Tracey’s memory. By doing something I know she’d want me to do – something that she would have done herself if she’d been alive today.”

A long silence ensued, broken only by his mother’s occasional sobs.

Darren felt bad about making her cry. He hated it. But he’d been bottling up these emotions for seven years, and they needed to be said. Everything Darren had done after his sister’s murder had been in her memory.

He’d started interacting with people more. He’d made friends. He studied hard and worked his way through college – and since he hadn’t had the slightest clue what he wanted to become, he decided that he wanted to be more like Tracey. He wanted to be the selfless, kind hearted person she had been.

So, following in her footsteps, he became a psychologist.

He’d turned his entire life around, morphing from the antisocial teenager into a hardworking, dedicated young man, who truly cared about other people.

He just hated that it had taken her death to achieve all of this.

Finally, his mother’s sobs subsided. “You’re right.”

Darren felt his spirit lift a little. “I am?”

“Yes. You are.” She sighed. “Your father tried to explain it to me earlier, but I wouldn’t listen. You were right, Son. I needed to hear this. Tracey would have wanted you to stay.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

“No. Thank you.” He pictured a small smile playing on her lips. “I should let you go now. You have work in the morning, right?”

“Yeah.” He nodded.

“Okay. Good night, Son. I love you.”

“I love you too, Mom. Tell Dad I said hey.”

“Will do.” He smiled, getting ready to hang up. His mother’s voice stopped him. “Oh, and Darren?”

“Yeah?”

“Try and help that boy, okay? It’s really horrible what might happen to him.”

He sighed heavily, his earlier worries tumbling back into his mind. “I know, Mom. I’ll do my best.”

She hung up after that, and Darren went back inside, suddenly feeling the chill of the cold night air.

Running a shaky hand through his hair, Darren realized that it was still damp from his shower. Using the towel that was draped around his shoulders, he proceeded to rub his hair dry, all the while contemplating how he was going to help Parish.

Get him to talk about his mother, a small voice in his head answered. He agreed. Parish had a lot of unresolved issues when it came to his mother. And his father, too, for that matter.

Tossing the damp towel onto the wooden chair at his desk, Darren flopped down on his bed, suddenly overwhelmed with exhaustion. Suddenly feeling a little cold, he pulled the sheet over his body and rested his head on his pillows as he slowly began to drift off to sleep.

Just before his eyes eased shut, he made a mental note to push his session with October to the afternoon. He needed to head out to the flower store and get some orchids for his office. Purple ones, just like she liked.

He fell asleep after that, oblivious to the fact that was being watched; the only thought on his mind being his dead sister Tracey Michelson and whether or not she was proud of him.