Free The Dog Year by Ann Wertz Garvin Page A

great short-term fix, but I don’t want you stealing tampons from a gas station in three months. We’re going for a long view here. You’re getting a tune-up that includes working on your impulse control and working through your grief. That’s going to take some time.”
    â€œHow long?”
    â€œThat’s up to me. And, to some extent, you.” She met Lucy’s eyes. “You’ll work in this office, and go to regular meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous.”
    â€œWhat? No . . . I.”
    â€œWe’re a small town. That’s all there is for easily accessible group therapy that deals with addiction.”
    â€œForget it. There is no way I’m going to AA.”
    â€œThen you’d better find a new job.” Tig looked her straight in the eye. The women faced each other like two brick walls, one intact, the other crumbling. Lucy’s glance faltered and Tig spoke again, this time more gently. “I’ll be there. It’s part of my clinic commitment. Since we send all kinds of people to the meetings, we find it’s helpful to have a therapist there, at least some of the time. Now some questions, just to get the details out of the way, an assessment for the record. Have you ever stolen things that you really didn’t need?”
    The question worked like a stun gun on Lucy. She was a thief, a crook, and a robber. This last word made Lucy grimace. She thought of a masked face, a striped suit, a filled sack, the Hamburgler.
    Tig answered her own question, consulting her notes. “Unless you’re planning on opening a clinic, I’m assuming you didn’t need the twenty-two suture kits and fifteen packages of latex gloves.” She looked at Lucy over her reading glasses and Lucy nodded. Tig continued, “Did you feel a sense of pleasure or relief right after you stole these things?”
    â€œNo. Sometimes, I didn’t even notice what I was doing. I’d come home with a pocket full of two-by-two pads and not remember taking them.”
    â€œSo no sense of pleasure or relief? No feelings of anger?”
    â€œMost days, I don’t feel much of anything.”
    Tig put her pencil down. “When did that start?”
    Lucy cleared her throat, remembered coming home after the accident. The silent house. Oatmeal on the counter congealed and uneaten, evidence of her morning sickness, a feeling she now regretted hating. She saw her husband’s coffee cup. She shrugged.
    â€œI’ve got a full schedule, Lucy. Lots of people in and out of here. The longer this takes, the less you get to be a surgeon.”
    â€œJeez, what’s the rush? I’m just clearing my throat here.”
    â€œI’ve found that addiction and denial need less kid-glove treatment and more tough love, Lucy. We don’t have a ton of time if we’re going to save your job. It doesn’t do either of us any good to soft-sell it.”
    Lucy dropped her head. “I love denial. I don’t know how I’d get through a day without it.” She swallowed hard. “After my husband died—” She stopped, held her hand up to signal Tig to wait. She tried again. “Richard had a penchant for reading obituaries. He cut out the more memorable deaths or photographs and tacked them to the fridge.” She shrugged. “Sometimes it was a story he liked. Other times, there was something about the face of the person who’d died. It sounds morbid, I know. He saw it as a reminder to stay in the present.” Lucy stared at the swirl in the carpet, heard her husband’s voice,
Life is what you do, Lucy, my sweet. And you do it until you die
.
    â€œHe liked to quote Zorba the Greek when he was being philosophical about life. The last obits he saved were photographs of two men, printed next to each other in the newspaper. Bob Grabben and Stanley Stolen died on the same day in August.” She stopped, looked at Tig. “I