Chapter Nine
NASH
“I’ve never had a home that I can feel safe in,” the boy said, his eyes falling to the hands tightly clasped in his lap.
Here it was. The root of his behavior.
“That must have been hard, Trent. Do you feel lonely sometimes?” Nash asked gently.
Trent shrugged. But underneath the pretending, the denial that he was lonely, Nash knew his patient felt utterly isolated in a world that had only handed him hardships. And his heart went out to the ten-year-old whose teachers had given up on him because of his defensive behavior.
He was the child of an absentee dad and a mother in and out of treatment for drug problems. She’d recently been arrested for the possession of two grams of cocaine and was spending six months in jail. She’d be returning to him after six months in a halfway house.
Trent had been bounced around from foster home to foster home, a ward of a system designed to defeat those whom it needed to lift.
“Sometimes I just wish my mom was back,” Trent whispered.
“Was it better when she was around?”
“At least I had a mom… Sometimes she wasn’t there or she was high, but she was mine.”
Nash felt what the boy was saying in every cell of his body—the longing for something of his own, and missing a mother who never quite acted like one but was his all the same.
“Do you feel like you don’t have anything that is yours?”
“All I have is myself. My mom’s in jail now. I don’t have a home or a family.”
“You have people who care about you.”
“They all ask if my foster home is treating me right. No one really cares.”
“What if I told you I did?”
Trent gazed at him appraisingly. His hands tightened. “I don’t believe you.”
“Well, I hope that changes soon,” Nash said easily. “Because I do. So what’s your favorite sport?”
“Why?”
“I’m wondering. It’s okay if you don’t have one.”
“I have one,” Trent said quickly.
Nash raised his eyebrows.
“I like basketball.”
“Well…lucky for you, I do too.” Nash moved Trent’s patient file from his lap to the table in front of him.
In the coat closet in his office, Nash had a shelf full of games. Some were puzzles. Others were brain-teasing trivia cards that simultaneously frustrated and encouraged children to use their minds. Still more, he had some tabletop basketball and foosball, in miniature so they were made for smaller hands.
Trent watched Nash closely as he put the tabletop basketball game down—two tiny metal hoops attached to both sides of a miniature backboard, with small catapults at either end of the baseboard, meant for aiming and shooting small orange beanbags.
“Want to play?” Nash offered.
The brief spark in Trent’s eyes was unmistakable, but his mouth remained in a thin line. He pulled the board close and carefully positioned it in front of himself, kneeling on the floor in front of the coffee table so he could be at eye level with the hoop.
“Game until ten,” Trent said.
“Okay,” Nash agreed. “Ready, go!”
Trent was far more adept at getting the hang of the catapult. Nash often pushed too hard, having to scramble across the table to capture errant beanbags, while Trent continued to shoot and score.
“Yes! Ten!” Trent exclaimed triumphantly.
“Man, you’re good.” Nash laughed. “Honestly, I can never get the hang of this thing.”
“You didn’t let me win, did you?”
“No…I genuinely stink, Trent.”
Trent cracked a smile. “My mom’s old boyfriend taught me to play basketball. He was really good.”
“I can tell. Even at tabletop basketball, you’re talented.”
“He used to take me to the park all the time. But I haven’t seen him since my mom got arrested.”
“That must have been hard. It sounds like you had a lot of fun.”
“I got to feel good at something.”
“You’re still good at it,” Nash said gently.
“My friends think so.”
“Do you have a best friend?”
“Yeah. Sometimes I think he’s the only person I have. But I’m jealous too.”
“Why’s that?”
“He has parents who love him. His dad takes him out to play football. He has a brother.”
A pang of kinship struck Nash in the chest. Gazing at Trent’s wishful eyes, he could see himself in them—a boy without parents, who loved his best friend for providing the home he didn’t have and envied him for the very same things.
“I’m sure he wishes he had some of your talents too, Trent. You’re doing great.”
Trent nodded.
The alarm on Nash’s phone rang, signaling the end of their session, the soft bells ringing the tune to “Hedwig’s Theme” from Harry Potter.
“What’s that song?” Trent asked as the alarm chimed.
“It’s the theme song from Harry Potter. It’s always been my favorite book series.”
“I’ve never read it.”
“Do you want to?”
“I guess… It’s not like I have anything else to do.” Trent’s eyes flicked at the bookshelf, scanning it up and down in a flash.
Nash strode to his bookshelf, pulling out the blue book. “Well, here’s the first one. Why don’t you borrow it? I only ask that you please bring it back in good condition… Like I said, they’re my favorites.”
“Thanks, Dr. Hawthorne.”
Trent took the book from Nash delicately, opening the cover slowly and running his hands over the page.
Nash wondered if he’d ever owned a book of his own.
As Trent stepped out of Nash’s office and his foster mother stood in the hallway to take him home, Nash gave a smile and a wave. He watched them walk tentatively, a few feet apart, as though she didn’t know what to do with him and he didn’t care to allow her into his space or, as Nash knew, into his heart.
But before they exited the practice, she patted Trent’s shoulder—a brief but poignant action that left Nash with a sliver of hope that perhaps this boy would find comfort and care in a world that hadn’t given him much of those things.
Nash stood at the door to his office for a few minutes, reflecting on the session, until the administrative assistant, Bryony, broke his reverie.
“Are you okay, Dr. Hawthorne?”
Nash snapped to attention. “Yes, I’m thinking about my client. Sometimes you wonder if what you see will change down the road.”
Bryony smiled from her desk. “I sure hope so. Isn’t that why you do what you do?”
Nash returned her grin and nodded before entering his office again and taking a seat at his desk.
Isn’t that why you do what you do?
Skimming again through Trent’s file, a thick folder filled to the brim with stories of not completing homework, talking back to teachers, social isolation (with the exception of his single best friend), and a troubled home life, Nash thought about the boy with the big green eyes who had sat on the couch and who had appeared smaller than ever as social workers hovered around him on his first day in the office.
These don’t sum up the kid at all. Even in the short month that Nash had been in New York, he could spot the human side of Trent, like the way his eyes widened with hope or the way he pursed his lips to fight a smile.
Isn’t that why you do what you do?
Bryony was right. Whether it was Trent or any of his other clients, all Nash wanted was to be a source of light to a child who had only seen dark days and a person who only helped grow children into the giants they were meant to be.