*This is the last episode of Black Sun, thank you all for reading!*
Ray Bushnell kept Karen for a little longer than I thought. She stayed three weeks and a half in the small, padded room he had built in the filthy apartment he used for an office. The Lord himseld knows if he was actually sleeping there. Ray and I had been friends for many years, but when he called me to pick her up, he sounded tired, frustrated and he charged me a hefty bill at the door.
''Either you pay that or I put her out of her misery son. That girl is damaged goods champ, what she needs is an intense counselling program, a bootcamp or whatever.''
With her parents dead, Trevor estranged and Mona feeling betrayed, I had no choice but to take Karen home with me. Either I offered her my hospitality or I dumper her into one of these women refuges with prostitutes, heroin addicts and teenage runaways. After all we went through, I was battling with the idea of making her go through a rough stretch, but if I left her alone in this state, she would never recover from it. Even if Pat called me ''retarded'' and Mona ''pussy whip'', saying she would never talk to me again if I took her with me, I did it anyway. There are these times in life where you know you don't want to do something, but you don't want to live with the consequences of letting the parade pass you by. So I took Karen in with me and signed her up for counselling, which Pat paid and put on Tony's bill post-mortem. You have to admire the class mobsters have sometimes. I would've paid to see the face of the accountant when he saw the bill for ''External Consultations'' at a psychiatric clinic.
By the time we got back to Seattle, the police organized elections for the commissioner position. I didn't know any of the runner ups, which was rather surprising. I had heard subsequently, through the grapevine, that the position was a hot potato. Nobody wanted to answer for what had been going on. There were 221 bodies at the morgue, waiting to be identified and to have a murderer found. There was also an ex-chief of police with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. There were a lot of burning questions that were unanswered and a blinded population that didn't know there was no reason to be scared anymore. A pier with over two hundred drowned bodies is scary enough when you don't know that the people floating were the ones you should've been afraid of.
The day of the election, I had an appointment at the psychiatrist with Karen. She was responding to treatment well according to her doctor, but that the goal was to forge a new identity for her, that the Society of Jesus had completely killed who she was before. On that specific day, the doc had asked me over the phone to come to the session. Karen had been talking about me a lot and he said that was necessary that I would come and discuss with them both for one session at least. I accepted because the man was obviously doing a good job. Even if we didn't discuss the events of the last few months together since I left her with Ray Bushnell, he recovered a certain life rythmn without denying anything that had happened. She was a lot more silent and a lot more serious than before. She had lost her childish charm, but had gotten in the trade a calm and mature demeanor that suited her even better. There was indeed a new Karen.
The doctor was that old man in his sixties. He didn't have the austere presence you would expect from a psychiatrist. You know that Freud lanky-bearded-intellectual-man-in-his-fifties? He was more like a balding-grandfather-with-suspender-and-bowtie type of guy. He was the type of doctor to offer you a peppermint before consultation. His name was Elmer Montross. How could have I disliked an old man named Elmer Montross?
We got through the greetings and I could feel that Karen was nervous. She had removed her shoes and and wrapped her arm around her legs in a foetus position. She often did that when he had serious discussions back in the days. Dr. Montross didn't seem to formalize himself that she put her feet on his posh looking chair so I thought she did that pretty regularly. It had been a month she was in therapy with him, two times a week. She spoke to him a lot more than she spoke to me during that time.
''So Michael, how has it been for you since Karen came back in your life? ''
''Surprisingly well sir'' I said spontaneously. ''I think there has been a cut with the past made by these events. They served their purpose in the long run.''
Karen smiled at me. I couldn't help but to feel warm inside. It's stupid I know, especially after all she put me through. But the world shines at the ones to persevere and for the first time in that long eclipse, that long polar night that my life had undergone for the last few months.
''Karen, is there anything you'd like to tell Mike about what happened?''
She looked down and said: ''He's right about the cut. He changed a lot also. He used to be self-absorbed and ambitious, but now that the storm to everything away, he changed so much. It's not the same when I look in his eyes.''
''How is it now?'' asked Dr. Montross.
''Like nightfall''
''What do you mean?'' I asked her.
''Karen has been speaking with a lot of images since we started therapy together'' precised Montross.
''It's like...a quiet night by seaside. When I look in his eyes, I don't feel I need to be somewhere else'' she continued, as if I wasn't in the room.
''Is there anything you'd like to answer to that Michael?''
''I don't know, nightfall is a natural phenomenon. It's something enjoyable. What I went through here was something more of a sun eclipse. It was the day, but outside it was pitch black like a moonless night''.
''Is there anything you'd like to ask Karen about that eclipse? Now would be the time.''
''There's a lot to say, there's a lot I would like to discuss, but is there anything that would be pertinent and constructive after what happened? Fuck, we swam through a pier full of dead bodies together. There is nothing you can say about that. She had always been kind and trusting and now people abused of her best side for what? Fuck if I'd ever know? I'm not sure I want to doc, not at all.''
''I'd like to tell you Mike...if you want.''
I stayed silent. The doc motionned his hands, quiety asking her to proceed.
''Secrets are going to rot your existence away'' precised the doc.
''The Greenwell family had always been on top of the Society Of Jesus. Reed wasn't the first member of the family to be a member, but he was the first to take control of it. He made Glen Winchester a member of it. All of that, I knew before I saw Trevor put his head in a bag.''
''Then why you came to me then?'' I interrupted, hurt.
''Michael, let her finish please''.
''I wanted out OK?'' Karen said, with a shaking voice. ''I wanted out, they wanted to make Trevor a scapegoat and he was losing his mind over this. I wanted out, but as soon as I disappeared, the fucking family closed down on me.''
''What about Trevor in this? You had a house with him and all''.
''I never loved him. I loved that he loved me so much. But all this time, I kept being scorned overyour loss. I love you Mike.''
''So do I.''
The doc smiled. She handed me her hand and I took it. After all this, after all this downwards spiral, the death of my brother John and my boss. The executation of Reed Greenwell, the pier disaster. All of that finished with Karen and I, alone together. I looked into her eyes and for the first time, I saw no confusion or no hesitation. I had lost everything. My job, my brother, my family unity and my illusions about my career. None of that seemed important anymore.
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