76. I want the truth

“A couple of weeks before Christmas, Castle insisted I go Christmas shopping with him, and invited me round beforehand. His daughter was there.  Alexis.  She wasn’t coming with us.  It was nothing, really.  Just normal family stuff.”

“Such as?” Dr Burke is somewhat confused as to why Mr Castle would invite Detective Beckett Christmas shopping, but he is unwilling to reopen the subject of Christmas at this juncture when he is sure from previous sessions that it will divert this session into areas which will, presently, be unhelpful.

Detective Beckett winces. “School stuff, reminders to take care.  The usual.”

“You have said the usual.  Why do you think that that was usual?”

“Doesn’t every decent parent do that?” Dr Burke regards her with a beady gaze.  “My parents were like that.”

Dr Burke wonders if he should have become a dentist, instead of a psychiatrist. Pulling teeth must surely be easier than extracting feelings from Detective Beckett.

“Detective Beckett, please include how you felt at the time in your descriptions,” he says, only just succeeding in preventing irritation from colouring his tone. Even though he is aware of how difficult it is for Detective Beckett to reveal her emotions, her inability to do so is quite hard for him to manage.  He supposes that a truly testing patient is an excellent challenge for his professional skills.

“I… didn’t want to see it. Too many memories.  It… upset me.”

“Alexis upset you?”

“The memories upset me. Not Alexis.”

“But if you had not seen Mr Castle with his daughter, you would not have been upset, would you? So would you not say that it was her fault that you were upset?”

“No, I wouldn’t. It’s not her fault.”

“Really?” Dr Burke is deliberately pressing on an evident sore spot.  Detective Beckett refuses to take his bait, which is mildly surprising.  In most cases, his patients are only too eager to place the blame elsewhere.  Detective Beckett appears to have resisted that temptation.

“Let us move on, then, to the next occasion.”

“Just before Christmas. Castle invited me for dinner.  I didn’t want to go, but I couldn’t get out it without upsetting him.  I should just have said no.  I spent all evening trying to be nice and hiding how I felt.”

Dr Burke waits, watching her with sharp intelligent eyes.

“I was jealous,” she spits bitterly. “Happy now?  Pathetically jealous.  I didn’t need to come here to work that out.  I knew that.”  So too did Dr Burke.  Detective Beckett had mentioned that previously.

“Why do you think you should not be upset by watching Mr Castle with his daughter?”

“It’s pathetic. Jealous of a normal family?  It’s stupid and childish.”

“It is also wholly understandable. You had previously had such a relationship with both your parents, did you not?”

“Yeah…”

“Which was taken away from you. Did you previously consider that point?”

“No…”

“You have not, in fact, grieved for either the loss of your father or the loss of your previously stable family. Tell me, Detective Beckett, have you any acquaintances, except for Mr Castle, who have teenage children?”

“No.”

“Do you have any other acquaintances who have children of any age?”

“No.”

Dr Burke pauses for a second. “Would you say that you avoid children?” 

Detective Beckett simply stares at him, transfixed. “What?”

“Would you say that you avoid children?”

“No.” Dr Burke continues to regard her calmly. 

“But you will not go to Mr Castle’s apartment, will you? If you are not avoiding his daughter, why is that?”

Dr Burke notes with satisfaction that he has given Detective Beckett considerable pause for thought. Of course she is avoiding children and adolescents.  Or, more precisely, she is avoiding the memories which they induce in her.

“This isn’t what I wanted to talk about,” Detective Beckett suddenly emits. “I did some thinking.  Three points that I need to get over.  Castle’s always there for his daughter, and my dad isn’t for me.  They’re a family, and I don’t have one.  And I didn’t like watching the dinner a few weeks ago because it was just like we used to be.  I just want to sort that out and be fixed.”

Dr Burke perceives another avoidance strategy. Detective Beckett appears to have a substantial quantity of those, but she will need to face her issues at some stage.  On the other hand, compared to the session in which she had managed to avoid discussing any matter at all, this could be considered to be progress.  A crab, he recalls, also progresses by moving sideways.

“Mm,” he emits, in order to acknowledge that he has heard her. He thinks for a moment or two, and considers that taking a risk is justified.  “Detective Beckett, your three points appear to be linked to your avoidance of situations where you might be forced to watch a normal family relationship occur.”

Detective Beckett simply looks at Dr Burke, without comment.

“It is entirely reasonable, as I have already noted, that you should be uncomfortable in such situations. However, avoiding them will not, in the long run, be helpful.” 

Detective Beckett appears to be about to comment. Dr Burke forestalls her.  “I do not consider that you should necessarily seek out a family situation now.  That would be unhelpful and counterproductive.  However, you need to consider the entirety of your situation.  None of the issues you have raised exist in isolation, and you will not be able to overcome them without considering them both individually and in the overall context.”

He pauses, and considers the risks inherent in his next statement, if he makes it. He decides, with no qualms, that the blunt truth will be better for Detective Beckett than any softening.  If only her previous therapist had taken a similar approach.  “The matters you have raised are quite inextricably linked to your father’s alcoholism and his behaviour whilst drinking.  If you wish to address these issues, you will also have to address the earlier issues.”  He steeples his fingers under his chin, and considers Detective Beckett, who has lost most of her colour.  “I should like to start with your father’s actions, and your reactions to them.  Allow me to summarise these, so that you may point out areas with which you disagree as we proceed.”

Detective Beckett’s hands are entwined in her lap, and her mouth is pinched closed. It is self-evident that she does not wish to proceed in this way.  However, she has not to date wished to proceed in any other more effective way, and so Dr Burke considers that his strategy will be no less efficacious than any other.

“You have told me that your father became an alcoholic consequent upon your mother’s death. Almost immediately after you returned to college, and during a surprise visit home, he was sufficiently drunk that he mistook you for your mother and, on discovering his error, made it clear that you were an inadequate replacement.”  Dr Burke pauses.  “Detective Beckett, did this happen again?”

“Yes,” she says very shortly, without explaining which point had occurred again.

“Frequently?”

“Often enough.”

“How did you deal with it?” Dr Burke returns to hard facts and actions, for the time being.

“Got my hair cut. Got it coloured.  Made sure I didn’t look like Mom.”  Her voice spikes.  “It worked.”

“In what way did it work?”

“He stopped mistaking me for Mom.”

“Did that help him to accept your presence?” Dr Burke is determined to force Detective Beckett to confront the root cause of all her issues.  He had hoped that she would be able to open the necessary discussions herself, but he has come to the conclusion in the course of this session that she is quite unable to open up to him without being forced to.  It is really quite antithetical to his usual principles, in which he encourages his patients to talk freely.  Normally, of course, his patients wish to talk, and indeed are quite frequently difficult to prevent from talking.  Detective Beckett may or may not wish to talk, and indeed he believes that she does wish to talk, but she does not do so.  He surmises that she does not wholly trust him.  This is normal.  He recalls that he had concluded that she did not confide in her friends or speak to her co-workers.

“No.”

“No? What happened?”

“All that happened was that every time he got drunk he told me I wasn’t her and I should go because he couldn’t bear to see me.  All he wanted was Mom.  He didn’t… I wasn’t enough for him.”  She stops.

“So, your father consistently rejected you, when drunk, because you were not your mother. You changed your appearance and behaviour from that which you would have otherwise preferred, in the hope that he would thereby accept you.”  Dr Burke allows that statement to lie unadorned, and moves on.  “How did he react to you when he was sober?”

“Then he said he couldn’t do without me. Begged me to stay, begged me to be strong for him.  Told me how like Mom I was.  Told me he loved me and he’d stop, do better.  He lied.  He never did.  Not then.  Not for years.”

“How did you initially deal with your father?”

“Cleaned him up. Hauled him out of the tank when he was arrested.  Picked him up when he was in public, when he was close to passed out drunk in the Park.  Even when he was telling me I wasn’t her.”  Detective Beckett’s tone is hard.  Her bitterness is not reassuring. 

“For how long did you continue to do this?”

 “Two years.”

“And then?”

“I stopped.” Dr Burke remembers that.  It had been a major part of the first session in which Detective Beckett had actually talked.  A memorable moment.  “Walked away and left him to it.”

Dr Burke waits.

“Didn’t answer his calls. Didn’t go get him from the cells.  Left him to die, or not.  Every time someone knocked on the door it could have been another cop.  At least then it would have been over.”  Dr Burke does not wince.  He has heard that before.  “He called and called but I wouldn’t go.  No matter how much he cried.”

Detective Beckett had listened to her father? That is unusual, and very disturbing.

“Finally he stopped calling. No-one told me he’d been picked up dead” – the flat tone is really quite horrible to hear – “so I guessed he’d given up.”  She stops, and the jaws of the ensuing silence gape.  “It was a relief,” she says, and buries her face in a Kleenex.  “It was a relief.”

It is wholly evident that Detective Beckett is weeping.

“I didn’t hear from him for nearly a year. Then he got the rehab centre to call me, and his sponsor.  They said he’d been there nine months, wholly dry for three.  He’d wanted to prove he could do it before he called.  He knew I wouldn’t take his call.  He wanted someone else to prove it.  Something to believe in, after all the lies.  They had to do a lot of talking to convince me.”  She blows her nose, dully dabs at her eyes.  “So I went, eventually.”

Dr Burke consciously exudes an air of intelligent sympathy, and, despite the advancing clock, waits for Detective Beckett to continue. He will not end this session until Detective Beckett herself does.

“He was so pleased to see me. It was great.  He was my Dad again.  I knew he’d have to do the Twelve Steps, and make amends, but he was back.  Every time he looked at me he lit up.”   Detective Beckett looks straight at Dr Burke, her eyes flooded.  “I didn’t realise then.  Only when I was thinking it through after last time I saw you.  I needed him to look at me as if he loved me.”

Dr Burke’s own heart sinks. He can predict the next words with considerable accuracy.

“I wanted him to be my Dad again. I just wanted it to be like it used to be.  When he was pleased to see me.  Before… if something was wrong, after Mom passed, he’d cry, and then he’d drink, and tell me to go.  So if he was happy, he wouldn’t be crying, and then he wouldn’t be drinking, and I thought he loved me.  And I needed him to want to see me.  So I did everything to keep him happy.  I wanted our family back.  I thought we had our family back.”

Dr Burke sees it all perfectly clearly. It had occurred precisely as he had surmised.  Detective Beckett has not said, however, that if he were not crying, and if he were not drinking, her father would also not be telling her to leave.

Detective Beckett stops, hard. “But we don’t.  I spent all that time trying to keep him happy and trying to be a family and hoping he still loved me.  I did everything to try and make him love me.  What a waste of time.”

She looks at her watch. “I’m sorry.  I’ve overrun.  Thank you.”  She stands up.

“Detective Beckett, you do not have to leave now. There is no other patient after you.  You may continue.”  He continues, swiftly, before she can open the door to which she is moving.  “I should like to summarise your actions once more.  You changed your appearance when your father reacted badly to your similarity to your mother.  When that failed to return him to sobriety, and he continued to express his desire for your mother to return and for you to leave, you tried to protect him, and prevent that discussion, by never opening any topic of conversation which might upset him.  When that also failed, you tried to save him from the consequences of his behaviour by doing everything in your power to ensure that you were there whenever he called for you.  And yet, in the end, none of it stopped him hurting you.”

Detective Beckett stares at him, colour draining from her face as appalled knowledge begins to inhabit her eyes. Her hand drops from the door.  “No…” she says, but Dr Burke is certain that she is not denying that she has now seen the truth.  She is, after all, a very intelligent woman.  “No…”  She turns blindly back to the chair and collapses into it.  “It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t like that.”

There is another gaping silence. Detective Beckett is bloodless and seemingly incapable of speech, thought or movement.  It is entirely apparent that this thought has never before occurred to her.  Dr Burke resolves to ensure that her previous therapist is censured.  Surely that should have been explored?

“Has it not previously occurred to you that the way you have behaved with your father exhibits similarities with the way in which victims of emotional abuse react to their abuser?”

“My father never abused me,” Detective Beckett spits out.  “Never.”

“And yet you have avoided provoking any situations in which he would potentially hurt you, emotionally.” This is far blunter than Dr Burke would wish to be, but the truth must come out.  “Can you honestly say that you have not observed that phenomenon in others, in the course of your work?”

There is another ghastly silence.

“I want to go home,” she finally says. She sounds like a shocked, injured high-schooler, and Dr Burke is reminded that the original trauma took place when she was only nineteen.

“You may leave at any time, Detective Beckett, but I counsel that you only do so once you are a little calmer.”

“Now. I want to go home.”  Detective Beckett murmurs something almost inaudible, following that.  Dr Burke has no idea what she might have said.  He is, however, concerned.

“Detective Beckett, you might find this evening less… difficult if you were to spend it with a friend.”

“I’m going home. I need to go home.”

She fumbles with the door before she can manage to open it.

“Detective Beckett, if there is no-one who will be with you then at least allow me to contact someone to collect you.”

“There will be someone. I just want to go home.”

She leaves Dr Burke contemplating his empty office with considerable concern. The next session is unlikely to be any more pleasant, for either Detective Beckett or Dr Burke.

It takes Beckett fifteen minutes before she can even start the car. It’s not true.  It wasn’t like that.  It wasn’t.  It was the disease, it wasn’t her father.  It’s not true.

Castle wanders round to Beckett’s apartment at his nearly-usual post therapy time, knocks, waits, knocks again, waits some more, and then following a third, not hopeful, knock moves straight from mild concern as to what he might find to full-scale worry as to why she isn’t there. He dials her cell, and gets voicemail.  This doesn’t appease his twisting stomach, even as he leaves a message.  He contemplates whether to wait here, or to go and get a coffee and return in a short while.  Deciding on the latter, he tears a page out his notebook and scrawls on it, tucks it into the doorframe and starts to leave.

The elevator arrives to take him down and, lost in fearful worries, he’s practically stepping into it before he realises that Beckett is stepping out. To be fair, it’s not as if she’s realised he’s there either.  She has exactly the same empty, exhausted, pallid look as when Montgomery benched her.  Castle puts a gentle, careful arm around her shoulders, detects immediately that she is shivering, and doesn’t let go until they are safely inside.  Even then, it’s only for as long as it takes for Beckett to shed her coat, after which he returns her to the crook of his arm and the warmth in his body.  She hasn’t yet said a single word.

“Kate, what’s wrong?”

“It’s not true,” she whispers, which makes no sense at all, and then buries her face in his chest and flings her arms round him, gripping painfully hard.

“What’s not true?” Castle asks, scrambling to try to make sense of anything at all that isn’t the single very obvious truth that therapy tonight has not gone well, to put it mildly.

“He didn’t.”

Which is no help at all. Who didn’t?  Didn’t what? 

“It wasn’t him. It was the alcohol.”

Okay, so one part becomes clearer. Whatever it was, it’s to do with her father.  He sits them down, which is a little awkward since Beckett is absolutely not letting go of him and is trying to burrow through his sweater.

“Kate, stop trying to do anything,” he says softly. “Just stop.  Stay here.”  Her grip eases slightly, and the burrowing ceases.  He finds himself with a bundle of beleaguered Beckett, which happens immediately after therapy sessions far, far too often.  Therapy, it appears, is one of those necessary evils which turns out to be the right thing in retrospect but is devastatingly hard to get through at the time.