Free The Henry Sessions by June Gray

 
 
 
    Prologue

 
 
 
    “So Henry,” Dr. Galicia began on that Tuesday morning. “I’ve decided to try something different with you since we have a short amount of time.”
    “What’s that?” Henry asked, looking around the office. The furnishings were no longer the same. Gone were the knick-knacks that Doc Gal kept on every surface, and the furniture was different, more modern. It was as if Doc Gal dropped her bohemian sensibilities and moved to Scandinavia. Even the doc looked different. Back then she wore her hair long and loose, her clothes a little eccentric. Now her black hair was cut into a sharp bob and her clothes were crisp and professional.
    It had been fifteen years since Henry last sat in this room. Of course everything about Doc Gal had changed. He had changed too, hadn’t he?
    “We will be taping your sessions,” Doc Gal said, placing a voice recorder on the coffee table between them. “So you can go back and listen to everything you’ve said.”
    He stared hard at the small device. “Will that help… with everything?”
    “I’m hoping so. Somewhere along the way, your stories will reveal a little nugget of truth. I want you to be able to hear it later on.”
    “This isn’t how we did this back when I was younger.”
    She shook her head with a tiny grin. She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “Like I said, I wanted to try something different.” She bent over and pressed record. “You can just start talking.”
    “About what?”
    “About your past.”
    He shook his head, not sure if he could do this. “I don’t even know where to begin.”
    “How about we start from the beginning and work our way from there?”
    Henry tried to avoid looking at the recorder but even though he bore holes into the cream wall behind Doc Gal’s head, he could still feel the recorder’s presence, could swear he could hear its internal mechanisms whirring.
    “Talk about your earliest memory,” she suggested.
    Henry closed his eyes, thinking hard of his very first memory, and began to talk.

 
 
    1

 
 
    My earliest memory is of going to the park when I was two, maybe three years old. My nanny, Louise, took me to this tiny park down the street and I played with this kid I’d never met before. He kept referring to Louise as my mom and I never corrected him. I figured she was better than my mom, because at least she took care of me.
    My parents were busy career-oriented people. My mom was an up and coming lawyer and my dad had his landscaping business. Mom was always working late or dashing off to meet with clients, and Dad, well, when he wasn’t working or drinking with his buddies, he was sitting in his man cave and needing his man space.
    I was not allowed to enter the man cave unless he was having a football-watching party and he needed me to get them some more chips or beer.
    For some reason I always thought men loved having sons because it meant they had someone to teach baseball or how to build cars. At the very least, they had someone to carry on the family name, but my Dad didn’t seem to care either way. He didn’t do the other things that my classmates’ parents did. We never did little league or boy scouts or any of that.
    Why? Fuck if I know. He was a shitty parent is what I finally concluded a long time ago. Too selfish to have a kid, that’s for sure.
    My mom would sometimes show some semblance of affection for me. When she had a spare minute, she’d give me a hug or a kiss on the forehead. You know, easy mom stuff. But what I really wanted her to do was stay home and take care of me, be there when I got off the bus like other kids’ moms. I wanted to come home to freshly-baked cookies and a glass of milk. I thought that’s what moms were supposed to do, not rush off to work every day and come home in time to march me off to bed.
    Have I started rebuilding that broken relationship with my parents?
    Hell no.
    Do I want to?
    I don’t know if I should even bother.