Gold Hill by Claudia Hall Christian Page B

feel like I’m sitting around
waiting for him to kill himself. Why pretend to build a life with
someone when he’s just going to betray me, destroy our life and
himself? Again.”
    “ How the
hell . . . ” Jeraine started.
    “ Jeraine,” The therapist’s
stern manner and powerful presence were reasons she’d been so
helpful for them. “Remember what we do here?”
    “ We listen until the
person’s done talking,” Jeraine mumbled. “But
she . . . ?”
    The therapist gave him a
hard look and he shrugged.
    “ Please Tanesha,” the
therapist said. “We’re trying to understand what you’re
saying.”
    “ Yeah,” Jeraine said.
“Trying to understand your insanity.”
    “ It’s not like it hasn’t
happened before,” Tanesha crossed her arms and gave him an angry
look. “How many times have I seen you destroy yourself? Me? Our
life? A million.”
    “ I guess what’s confusing,
Tanesha, is that all of this was true when we started working
together,” the therapist said. “You were living with your
grandmother and seeing that doctor. Jeraine was just out of rehab
and living in New York. What did you say then?”
    “ I said I would wait to
see where it would go but I didn’t promise anything,” Tanesha said.
“Now I know where it’s going to go. He’s going to kill himself and
leave me with all the responsibility for our screwed up life. One
way or another, these addicted folks end up dead and everyone else
has to pick up the pieces.”
    The therapist gave Tanesha
a long probing look.
    “ I feel like I’m repeating
myself, but I really want to understand,” the therapist
said.
    “ See! She doesn’t make any
sense,” Jeraine said.
    The therapist gave him a
hard look.
    “ Fine,” he said. “I’ll
shut up.”
    “ This is what I know,” the
therapist said. “I get weekly reports on Jeraine’s progress. His
therapist called me last night to tell me about the brain scans. It
sounds like the tests confirm what you’ve suspected all along,
Tanesha. He has some brain damage. Is the confirmation of the brain
damage what happened?”
    “ I don’t have any money
anymore,” Jeraine said.
    “ But we knew that,” the
therapist said. “Or suspected it. Tanesha, you were talking about
it the last time you were here alone.”
    “ You knew about the
money?” Jeraine shook his head at her. She nodded. “Why didn’t you
tell me?”
    “ I did,” Tanesha said.
“Remember when we sent the files to Schmidty? What did I
say?”
    “ I don’t know.”
    “ I said, ‘I’m glad we’re
getting this looked at but don’t be disappointed if you have less
than you think,’” Tanesha said.
    “ I have a lot less than I
thought,” Jeraine said.
    “ So if it’s not the money,
and it’s not the brain scans, what is it?” the therapist asked.
“What is causing this sudden change of heart?”
    “ I just woke up to
reality,” Tanesha shrugged.
    “ What reality?” Jeraine
gawked at Tanesha. “What’s different?”
    “ Let me,” the therapist
smiled at Jeraine. He shook his head and looked out the window.
“What woke you up to reality?”
    Tanesha opened her mouth
and then closed it. She glanced at Jeraine and then at the
therapist.
    “ Why don’t you tell us
about the sleep walking?” the therapist asked. “If this is a
reality, and you know what’s going to happen, what do you have to
lose?”
    Tanesha shot the therapist
an icy glare.
    “ I mean, you’re leaving,
right?” the therapist asked. “That’s what I hear. Rather than wait
for him to kill himself, you’re leaving, right?”
    “ That’s exactly right,”
Tanesha nodded.
    “ So what do you care?” the
therapist asked. “Tell us your story and you can leave.”
    As she and the therapist
stared at each other, Tanesha felt Jeraine look at the therapist
and then at her.
    “ Fine,” Tanesha
said.
    “ Have you ever sleep
walked before?” the therapist asked.
    “ When I was a child,”
Tanesha said.
    “ She did