Birds || Fuenciado

Chapter 28: Evening Primrose

"You can't have it, Sarah," Jaime warns from across the sofa, and she scoffs again, dropping my hand and looking over at him, arms folded.

"Fine. I didn't want a beautiful sapphire gemstone ring anyway. And I didn't want the emerald one either."

Reminding me of Mike for a moment, he pokes his tongue out at her, and she pokes hers back.

I've just finished the twentieth stitch and am handing the needles back to Sarah with instructions not to let the wool trail on the inside when I hear the front door open and close. A moment later Dad walks into the living room, Mike in tow. "Greetings, earthlings," he says brightly, and we greet him in return as he vanishes again, heading for the kitchen, no doubt to make a coffee.

Doug bounces up from where he was lying by Tony and trots over to Mike, tail wagging, toy squeaking, and Mike bends down to play with him. "Hey trouble," I smile, and for the first time in a while, he looks up and smiles back. It isn't a full smile or a bright smile, or even a happy smile - but it's real, and it hasn't been for over a month. Without warning, my heart skips a beat and tears spring in my eyes. It's the tiniest thing ever to get emotional about; but it's like I've just seen a miracle happen.

"Hello."

"How was counselling?"

He straightens up again, putting his hands in his pockets and nodding. "It was good. It was hard," he admits, looking down for a moment. "I didn't say very much today. But the therapist said that was okay. Her name is Rose, she's really nice. It was...sad. Seeing how many of us there were...others like me. Who've had the same thing happen to them. But I think it's going to help."

"I'm really glad, buddy," I nod, reaching out a hand. He touches his fingers to mine and locks them, as is customary now.

It was Jaime's idea - when Tony was compiling a list of various therapists he knows the numbers of, brainstorming it with Jaime in an effort to come up with one that was both competent and affordable, Jaime suddenly had an epiphany, recalling something he had stumbled across many years ago; after recruiting Tony to some frantic searching in the Yellow Pages phone directory and about half an hour of scanning, they found what he was looking for - the number for the Infinity Project, a mental health group therapy service specialising in support for survivors of sexual assault. And, because it's a charity-run organisation, it was free. Affordable, professional support. It isn't quite the cognitive behavioural therapy he probably needs at this point; but until we can get together the money to make it work for him, he has a place he can access unconditional support and maybe, just maybe, start healing.

It's been a surprisingly good week, actually, and it's all been thanks to Jaime. Not only has he succeeded in obtaining a genuinely useful point of access for Mike in terms of the beginnings of treatment, but, after conversation with Andrew, managed to find Mike his first tutor for home schooling. Andrew, it is true, currently teaches third grade - but apparently, six years ago he worked in a high school teaching both Psychology and English. So on his available days off, which are Tuesdays and Saturdays, he's going to tutor Mike privately in those subjects.

Things, to my absolute astonishment, are starting to work out. All he has to do now is find an ultimate cure for alopecia areata and we'll be fixed.

With Mom, Dad, Sarah, Tony and Mike in the house, I collect my watercolour book and my pens and pencils and deposit them in Jaime's rucksack and then we leave together, walk down the road hand in hand to the bus stop. It was his idea, to get me out of the house - although he took me out on my birthday, since we first went to the police I've barely been out at all; except for when I went into work and had breakdown of the century. I've been busy - Mom and I have been talking, working things out, making arrangements together. Trying to reconnect, I suppose, at the same time we've been trying to look after Mike without truly knowing how. I've mostly stayed inside my house, within the same sets of walls. So it's nice to be outside, nothing to do, no strings attached. I don't even need to be working on my portfolio anymore - although that coin is double sided; the other side being that the reason I don't need to work on it is that I'm not going to college.