Page 46 of Goodbye Days

“Short stories. Poems. I have some ideas for novels, but I haven’t started anything.”

“I hope I haven’t dissuaded you by talking about my own struggles with finishing what I’ve started.”

“No.”

“Good. So. Let me introduce myself. My name is Raúl Mendez. I was born in Juarez, Mexico, and moved to El Paso when I was quite young. I grew up in Texas, did my undergrad at the University of Texas at Austin, before I came to Vanderbilt for graduate school and medical school. I’ve been here ever since. Now, have you ever been to a therapist before or did Georgia tell you how it works here?”

“No, not really. I mean, I guess we talk? I tell you about my mother? Find penises in Rorschach tests?” I wouldn’t normally make such a joke around an adult I had just met. But he puts me at ease and plus I don’t want to talk about heavy, serious stuff for as long as possible.

He laughs. He wags his finger and leans forward in his chair, adjusting his glasses. “Close. You talk; I listen. Sometimes I offer an insight about something you’ve said or ask you to elaborate on something. But I’m doing my job best when you’re talking and I’m listening. I’m not here to give you answers to your problems. I’m here to let you discover answers on your own. So it may be frustrating sometimes that I don’t come out and tell you what I think you should do, but I assure you that it’s part of the process. Okay?”

“Okay. I guess. I mean, honestly, I don’t super want to be here.”

“That’s normal.”

“At least something about me is.”

“So, Carver—interesting name, by the way—tell me about yourself.”

I take a deep breath and run my fingers through my hair. “My name comes from Raymond Carver. My dad is a huge fan of his stories, so he gave me the name.”

“I’m a fan.”

“Of the name or of Raymond Carver?”

“Both. It seems you and your father have something in common there.”

“We both love to read. He’s an English professor.”

“Sorry for interrupting, continue.”

“Anyway, I’m seventeen and a senior at Nashville Arts Academy.”

“Now there’s a good school for a book lover. You must be an excellent writer to have gotten in there—I assume it was your writing and you’re not also an extremely talented jazz saxophonist.” He says the last part with an impish eyebrow raise.

“I am,” I murmur.

He starts to get up. “As it happens, I keep a saxophone here for my clients, if you’d like—”

I smile. “I was kidding.”

“Me too.” His eyes sparkle. He pauses for a moment. “So. How are you?”

I cast my eyes over his shoulder and try to inject nonchalance into my voice. “I’m good. Yeah, doing pretty good.”

“I’m glad.”

“Yeah.” I tap my fingers on the armrest, the way casual people do—the way people who are fine do.

“A lot of the people I see are doing pretty good.”

“Then why are they here?”

“They want to be doing better.”

“And?”

“Sometimes it helps. Sometimes it doesn’t. I like to think it helps more often than it doesn’t.”