By Matthew E. Henry
“I’d rather not use names.”
“Why is that?”
“To maintain confidentiality.”
“You do realize…”
“Yes. I appreciate the irony of me saying that to a therapist. It’s not that I think you’d tell anyone or put my business out there. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be sitting here right now. But it’s a personal quirk. An integrity thing. My kids know what they say to me stays with me, unless it’s a ‘mandated reporter’ situation. It’s the deal I have with them. We even have explicit conversations about it at the beginning of the year.”
“And why is that?”
“Because if they know I will respect them—their lives, their secrets—in the small things, they’ll trust me with the big things. Trust me with the ‘show up at my door crying,’ ‘pull me out of class in the middle of a lesson,’ things.”
“Has that happened?”
“Have I been pulled out of class?”
“Yes.”
“Every year. At least once a semester. Sometimes more.”
“Alright. Explain it to me without using names.”
“It’s really two different stories that capture it.”
“Alright. What’s the first story?”
“Back when I was married, we were having another fight about our lack of communication. We both felt it. That night, she wanted to talk about it and I wanted some peace. I was on my phone, and she was annoyed. Not that we were in a conversation, and I was ignoring her. We were watching TV together and I was absently scrolling on my phone, but it was a symptom of a bigger disease for her. Another straw on the camel’s back. My eyes on the screen instead of on her, on us. That’s what started it. In the middle of the fight, I dramatically turned the phone on silent to ‘be present,’ to give her what she wanted. So, the fight goes on—and nowhere—for an hour and then two, punctuated by a lot of silence throughout. That’s how we fought: questions hurled and then silence. Anyway, she has to go to the bathroom and when she gets up, I check my phone. There’s a slew of text messages and missed calls. Asking if I’ve seen…one of my kids, and…”
“Hold on. Sorry to interrupt. You give your phone number to your students?”
“What? Oh. No. This was when I was teaching at the college level. My office and cell number were on the syllabus.”
“I understand. Please continue.”
“So I’m seeing all these message from my kids asking if I’ve seen…this person. And I’m getting worried. A ton of messages I’ve missed over those hours of mostly silent arguing. And then I scroll back far enough to see one from the person they’re looking for…”
“And?”
“It wasn’t good.”
“And?”
“So I called them…”
“And what did they say when you got through?
What happened?
Why have you stopped talking?”
“I don’t want to talk about it. In the end it was fine. Like, right now, they are fine. That’s what matters. They are safe and healthy and making me proud in their profession. Recently they won an award. But that night I almost lost them.”
“And you think if you haven’t been in a fight…”
“If I had been on my phone, I would have been able to intervene hours earlier. Long before things got as bad as they did. And…”
“And what?”
“And if I had lost them that night…”
“I understand.”
“Alright. What is the other story?”
“I’m sorry?”
“You said there were two stories that answered my question.”
“Oh. Yeah. No.”
“Come again?”
“I can’t tell you that story.”
“And why do you think that is?”
“Because it involves one of my kids and I don’t know how they would feel if they read this.”
“I’m sorry? If they ‘read this’? What is ‘this’?”
“This story that I’m writing. This remembrance typed out as a fictionalized conversation with my therapist. I mean, what the fuck even is this conceit?”
“I believe it is the medium you have chosen to express these thoughts. So why not continue employing it to express those thoughts?”
“Because I don’t know how my kid would feel if they saw the details of that night in this format.
They don’t need to relive that night through my words, even anonymously. Also, they don’t know how much that situation impacted me. They don’t need that burden. That’s not theirs to carry. Suffice it to say, that night changed everything for me.”
“Alright. But why…?”
“I know it is as much my story to tell as it is theirs. That’s not the problem. I’ve finished wrestling with that dilemma. I know the boundaries, the line between exploitation and processing for my own mental health. This isn’t that. But it still isn’t something I want them to see.”
“But you did not seem to have the same moral qualms with the first story. Why is that?”
“Because I know how that person—a grown adult—would react. What they will take away from it. I’ve seen them love and care for their own students in ways that surpass anything I’ve ever done. It’s not the same.”
“But…”
“Look, I did what I needed to do, even though it was uncomfortable. Even though others would have told me not to. But, honestly, they can fuck right off. I have no further room for their Monday morning quarterbacking of my actions based on their own insecurities when I’m trying to keep my kids alive.”
“Who is the they in that sentence? Who are you talking about?”
“It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that I’m here to take care of my kids, not the feelings of broken people who should spend more time with their own therapists. I’m going to do what’s best for my kids, as best I can.”
“And yourself?”
“What?”
“Will you also take care of yourself?”
“Enough.”
“And the student in question?”
“Still alive. They all are. So far.”
“They?”
“It’s more than one. The same story repeated a few times.”
“But there was a first.”
“Yes.”
Matthew E. Henry (MEH) is the author of six poetry collections, including the Colored page (Sundress Publications, 2022), The Third Renunciation (New York Quarterly Books, 2023), and said the Frog to the scorpion (Harbor Editions, 2024). He is editor-in-chief of The Weight Journal and an associate poetry editor at Pidgeonholes and Rise Up Review. The 2023 winner of the Solstice Literary Magazine Stephen Dunn Prize, MEH’s poetry and prose appears or is forthcoming in Porcupine Literary, ASP Bulletin, Barren Magazine, Ninth Letter, Ploughshares, Mayday, Redivider, Shenandoah, and Zone 3 among others. MEH’s an educator who received his MFA yet continued to spend money he didn’t have completing an MA in theology and a PhD in education. You can find him at www.MEHPoeting.com writing about education, race, religion, and burning oppressive systems to the ground.
