Patient #082315

Session Transcript
Date: Monday, 14 February 2005
Patient: S. Bennett #082315


How was your weekend, Sydney?

It was good, I guess. Martin’s folks took Mason and me to Medieval Times Saturday evening. That is Mason’s favorite place right now. All he can talk about is growing up to be a knight – but not the nasty green knight. He is already asking when we can go again.

Were you able to make contact with John?

Yes.

And?

I met with him Saturday morning. It was… awkward. I left Mason with his grandparents but I took a photo album with me so that John could see pictures of him. It was hard, watching him look through the photos, both of us realizing how much of Mason’s life he had missed. I could see so many emotions in his eyes. He was proud and sad and loving all at the same time. Part of me wanted to reach out and tell him that it was okay, but I couldn’t. I thought I had come to terms with everything but now that we are home… everything is just so different now. On the island, even though there were others there, at times it felt like it was just the two of us. It just felt … less complicated. Now everything has changed.

Tell me about the island. Why was it less complicated?

It just was. It more about survival. I didn’t even know John was alive until we’d been there almost two months. We were on two different parts of the island. For two months it was all about staying alive. Our experiences were so different.

Different how?

The side of the island where they crashed was paradise compared to where we were. There were so few of us; so many were taken by Ben’s people. We had to scrape for every little scrap of food and we lived in constant fear. It was… a nightmare. They had plenty of food, fresh water… they didn’t live in fear like we did. Finding them was almost as good as finding home.

What happened when you first found John?

I didn’t know how I felt. Part of me was relieved but yet part of me felt angry. He had walked out on me and I thought he was out of my life. And I couldn’t avoid him. It was an island not a big city. It wasn’t like I had places I could go to avoid him. The only good thing was that he didn’t know about Mason. As far as he knew there really wasn’t much for us to discuss. But then once he found out…. I didn’t mean for him to find out. I didn’t want for him to. He hadn’t been a part of Mason’s life, it didn’t look like we were going to get rescued, and there wasn’t any need for him to know. It wasn’t that that I wanted to keep him from Mason. It was just that I didn’t want to know how he could just walk away like that. I didn’t want to know that it had meant more to me than to him.

How did he find out?

One of the other survivors had a baby, a little boy, while we were there. I was helping her out, trying to give her some assurances that everything would be okay. She asked me how I knew so much and I told her that I had a son who had just turned four just after we crashed. Word got back to him. He did the math and confronted me about it. He wanted to know if he was Mason’s father. I couldn’t lie to him. I told him everything. When Mason had been conceived, how I had planned on telling him, how he disappeared from my life without a word and I married Martin. I was so angry with him. I felt…. Abandoned. Betrayed. Alone. That was when he told me about his accident and how he wasn’t able to get in touch with me. Then when he was I was already married to Martin. He never knew about Mason. He was as angry with me as I was with him. I had never seen him angry before, but that day…. We spent days being furious with each other. And then one day I saw him holding Aaron, playing with him, cuddling him, and I just… lost it. Seeing him with the baby made me realize how much we had both missed out on. Why was it that some stranger’s baby was getting the attention that Mason should have had? I was just sitting on the beach sobbing and all of a sudden he was there and he was holding me and it just didn’t matter anymore. All the hurt and anger and everything… it was just… gone. It was like we declared a truce without ever saying a word.

And how do you feel about this truce now?

I don’t know. Those last weeks on the island… I found myself falling in love with him all over again. He wasn’t the same person that he had been, but it didn’t seem to matter. It was like we were finally getting back to the way we were, back to each other. And then we were rescued and came back here and it’s all just so different. The media is everywhere and so many people want all the details and it’s been hard readjusting and it seems that the only reason he is calling is to see Mason and I just… I just don’t know.

What is that you want?

I want things to be the way they were before, the way they were on the island, the way they were five years ago. I want for him to call not just because he wants to see Mason but because he wants to see me too. I want him back in my life and not just as Mason’s father.

And what if John only wants to be a part of Mason’s life and not yours?

I won’t keep Mason from him. I wouldn’t do that to either of them. But if that is all he wants then I’ll have to accept it, I guess. I can’t make him want me. I know that I can’t have it the way that it was. I know that. I just wish…. When I was a little girl all I ever wanted was to grow up to be a wife and mommy. I didn’t want to be famous or to be rich or anything like that. When my friends and I played they would make up these elaborate fantasies of being a rock star or an actress or a princess – things like that. I just wanted a family. I wanted to fall so in love with someone that there wouldn’t be words to describe it. I wanted to find someone and have people look at us and say, “That’s the kind of love I wish I had.” I wanted to create a child out of that perfect love, a child that would be the living symbol of our love. I never, ever thought, “Hey, I wanna get knocked up when I’m 28, be abandoned by the child’s father, marry my gay best friend, become a widow, and be a single mom. Yeah, that’s the ticket!”

But John didn’t abandon you, did he? You said yourself that he couldn’t help his accident anymore than Martin could.

It’s all just too much. I mean, I guess he’s having as much trouble coping with all of this as I am. For years I thought that he didn’t want me anymore and now I’m having to come to terms with the fact that it wasn’t that he didn’t want me; it was his accident that kept us apart. And he’s having to deal with the fact that he has a son that he’s never known. How do we do this? How do we figure this all out? I can’t look at him and pretend that I don’t want him in my life. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to move forward anymore. I just … don’t… know.