#2 – Zürich
I should learn how to write better because Mom says I'm supposed to be reading certain parts of this to my shrink. He's not my shrink, per se. He prefers the term 'family counselor with a dash of condescending asshole.' Oh, wait the last part's me. He's short and pudgy and overly sensitive about anything I say and I'm pretty sure that he thinks that I have suicidal tendencies. I hate being smart because I can read through his lines and understand the things underneath.
“So this is your daughter, Sophie?” He asked when we first met. She nodded and I sank into one of the beanbag chairs he had tossed casually on the floor. He sat across from me in a garish orange one. I glare at it. I hate orange. My mother sits next to me and holds my hand. He and Mom have been having appointments for almost as long as I can remember and are on a friendly basis. Dad hates him, which is actually rare because he never comes right out and blurts it like he does with this man, and I can truly say that he is my father.
“My name is Fitzgerald Montgomery. You can call me Gerald or Mr. Montgomery, whichever one you see fit.”
He adjusted in his chair and brought a spiral notebook and a blue bic pen. I liked those pens, and I have one too. It's the only truly comfortable pen I've ever tried and I grow a molecule of respect for him. It is taken away again when he speaks once more.
“So, Zürich tell me about yourself.”
I've never been one to stand idiocy like this so I said, “Why don't you read your file on me if your interested?”
“Zürich, be nice,” Mom said. I closed my eyes and asked, “Do I have to speak?”
I heard the raspy sound of his hand rubbing his stubble and I prepared for something else moronic. He paused before he finally said, “It isn't required but we have another hour before our session ends, so it's probably best if you do.”
I nodded at him and for the next sixty-two and a half minutes, listened to my mother talk with Gerald about little inconsequential things that annoyed her. She hated that my father never lifted the toilet seat when he went to pee, and when he did he forgot to put it down.
She disliked when we used two cups instead of rinsing out the first, that my room was a disaster area she'd nearly lost a foot in, and she needed a new car but Dad was unwilling to do so until everything on it died at once and did so for over a week.
His words, not hers.
Dad may be rich, but I've never met anyone with a tighter wallet. Samuel says I'm like that too. Samuel is my overly-large teddy-bear. I won him at a carnival, where you knock over the milk-jugs. He says that because I didn't pay for him and he's miffed; I argued with the guy displaying him until he gave up and let me play. It's not that I pretend he talks, because I don't.
His mouth moves and his face shifts, and his tone is sometimes so caustic I feel welts rise on my skin, and my imagination isn't that great. He only does it with me though. Besides, he has a nickname for me that only he understands. Yar sounds like it's bear-speak for something but he refuses to tell me.
Dad told me, when he saw Samuel the first time, “I'm glad you have something to believe in.” He leaned against the door-way and stared at me, really looked at me, and said, “Humanity will let you down time and time again, but something that you earned will always give you hope.” I think that's the most inspirational thing anyone has ever told me.
Mom says I need to get with the program, and that no one has teddy-bears. Sometimes the reversal of roles between them is a shock to my system. Samuel claims that I need adventure in my life if little things like that make me pause. I get the feeling that he's right.
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