Abigail

The next day the weather proved Australia wasn't the earthly paradise depicted in the tourist ads. As usual, Sydney followed up two weeks of cloudless skies with a torrent of rain. Wind gusts strong enough to sweep sixth-graders off their feet tore through the street and commuters had to wade through half a foot of water just to get to the bus stop on the other side of the road. Abigail ducked under the overhanging roof of the newsagent's and attempted to fix her inverted umbrella.

Cars moved slowly, windshield wipers working at full speed and their lights bright. One, however, moved slower than the others and then came to a stop altogether a few metres down the road. The rain was too heavy to make out the driver, but she recognised the car.

Giving up on the umbrella, Abigail folded it up as best she could and sprinted the short distance to the car. She grinned as the passenger-side door swung open before her.

"Thanks for picking me up," she said as she slid into the car. "Sorry, I'm soaking wet. I'm going to ruin your seats."

Kalvin's gaze was on the bus overtaking them. "There's nothing to ruin. How was work?"

"It's work, nothing exciting about it."

Abigail had spent the day on data entry and archiving. The highlight had been the hour spent shifting bundles of old documents from the storage cupboards into cardboard boxes for the archive storage company to pick-up the next day. It felt good to be able to move about instead of staring at a screen all day and the rest of the staff had left her alone while she was out in the back of the office. For the first couple of hours, Abigail got nothing other than awkward condolences and horrified stares at the state of her face.

"You should do swim lessons with me," Kalvin said. "Between the kids and the parents, there's never a dull moment."

Abigail laughed. "No way. I couldn't deal with the parents. Do you remember the Howells? The police had to fish them all out of the pool."

"They've calmed down since then. Caroline, the middle sister, is still swimming."

Abigail struggled to match the name to the face. There had been five different Howells and the eldest had swum a division lower than Abigail. Caroline had to be halfway through high school by now. The image was jarring. In her mind, the swimming world was as she had known it, but that couldn't be true. She had moved on and so had the swimming clubs.

"I wonder how many faces I'd recognise if I went back to squads," she said softly.

Kalvin made a face, but didn't offer a proper reply. A new wave of wind and heavy rain had descended on them. The water fell at a sharp angle to the road and the cars around them were grey blurs. There was no hope of seeing the lane markings.

However, ten minutes later, when they pulled into the carpark of the clinic, the rain had become a drizzle and the sky was already brighter. The SES would soon be securing torn-off roofs and clearing fallen trees all over the city.

Abigail half-wished they had been one of the unlucky people who had a tree collapse on their car. It would have been a good excuse to miss this appointment.

"Do you want me to come in with you?" Kalvin asked.

Abigail glanced towards the sliding doors of the clinic and shook her head. As much as she hated the thought of having to go inside, to have Kalvin with her would be worse. He didn't need to know all the skeletons in the Fitzpatrick family closet.

"Then I'll go do my shopping and I'll see you back here."

"Thank you."

Abigail climbed out of the car and waved Kalvin good-bye, then hurried inside. The longer she thought about it, the more likely she was to flake out.

A high-pitched buzz sounded when she stepped through the doors. A moment later, the receptionist appeared from the back office.

"Good day," said Abigail a little too quickly. "I'm Abigail Fitzpatrick. I have an appointment with the psychologist."

"We have more than one here. Do you have the name?" the receptionist replied in a flat tone.

"Fiona McCowan."

The receptionist flipped through a thick book in the centre of her desk. "Yes, I have you down here. Your first time here, isn't it? You'll need to fill out some forms —"

"She can do those later," said a short woman as she stepped into the room. "Why don't you come with me, Abby?"

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Abigail followed the woman inside the clinic and down several white-walled, blue-carpeted hallways until they reached her office. The room was smaller than Abigail expected — a desk pressed against the wall, a shelf of psychology books and four chairs. She wondered if the chairs were a test.

"Please sit down wherever you like," the psychologist said. "I'm Fiona. Is it ok if I call you Abby?"

Only the knowledge that this was her chance to get to the bottom of what happened to her parents stopped Abigail from turning around and fleeing.

She chose the middle chair of the three against the wall. As to her name, she shrugged. Her family and most of her friends called her Abby. Her mother would have referred to her as Abby when she met with Fiona. Abigail had no illusions that her mother would have kept the details of her family life from this woman. That was the point, wasn't it? You were supposed to tell psychologists the truth.

"I'm sorry for your loss," Fiona said. "How are you doing?"

Fiona turned her desk chair so that she faced Abigail, but left a respectful three feet of space between them. She wore an indigo cardigan and a woollen skirt over black tights. Grey speckled her hair; most women would have reached for the hair dye years ago. Abigail thought she looked like the kind of woman her mother would have got along with.

"I'm ok. A little wet I suppose," Abigail replied. She didn't know what to do with her hands. Or her feet. Or her face. Body language was something like ninety per cent of human communication, wasn't it? Fiona was probably trained to spot all sorts of things in her patients' body language.

Fiona leant back in her chair. "What caused the bruising around your eye?"

"A surfboarding accident."

Abigail bit her lip. The lie had come easily when others had asked the same question, but Fiona might know Abigail hadn't told her the truth.

I'm not here for therapy. And it doesn't matter what she thinks.

Yet she couldn't will herself to calm down. Abigail liked her thoughts to remain her own and here it felt like every word and every gesture threatened to expose her. Abigail wrung her hands. This office made her skin crawl.

"That must have been a nasty hit. But it looks like it's beginning to heal," Fiona said. "I thought today, to start off, why don't you tell me a little about yourself? Your background, your interests, what brought you here today."

"My mother brought me here."

"In what way?"

Abigail folded her arms. "I'd like to know if there was anything she told you that could explain the motive behind what she did to my father and to herself."

"I cannot discuss other patients, Abby. It would be highly unprofessional to do so."

"I've no intention of becoming your patient. My only concern is my mother's behaviour. She talked to you more than anyone. There had to be something in what she told you."

The polite smile plastered on Fiona's face from the moment she had greeted Abigail faded. "I've already told the police this. Nothing in all our discussions suggested that your mother was a danger to herself or to anyone else. I thought she was doing well."

"Then you are a shitty shrink."

" I've been questioning what I failed to spot since I heard about what happened, but no matter my second-guessing there simply wasn't anything to suggest she was about to do what she did. I think perhaps you've been working through similar self-doubts. That's what led you here, isn't it?"

"What do you think happened to my mother?"

"It's difficult to say. Delusions and paranoia can occur during an acute manic episode."

"Surely an episode that acute would cause other symptoms. I talked with her that morning, she acted fine. The past couple of months she was depressed more than anything else. She didn't act like a person losing touch with reality."

Fiona leant forward and rested her elbows on her knees. "Sometimes we have to accept we'll never understand what had been the thoughts of those who choose to take their lives. It's a diffi—"

"Yeah, I know. I heard plenty of that when my brother killed himself."

The more she thought about it, the stronger her suspicions grew. Her mother's actions had been radically out of character. Abigail would have questioned Fiona on the medication her mother had been taking, but the police had already verified that she hadn't changed her medication in the past six months.

"I think you told me everything you will and I'd best go now. Thank you for your time," Abigail said.

"Hold on, Abby. Why don't we talk for a little longer? You've suffered a big blow, there must be many things on your mind."

Abigail wondered if she should tell her about the half-dead angel back at her house or about the reaper out to destroy the only thing keeping humanity safe from demons. The expression on Fiona's face would be priceless. Yeah, and then she'll declare me schizophrenic.

"Thanks, but no thanks," Abigail replied and moved towards the door.

"Your mother always worried you were prone to depression like she was," Fiona said.

Depression? Sure, back at school Abigail had taken one of those online questionnaires that promised to rate your predisposition towards depression and her score had been outstanding. She was fine though. Unlike her mother, she climbed out of bed in the morning and went about her life like every other person.

"Didn't you say you're not supposed to discuss your patients?" Abigail asked.

"I'm concerned about you."

"Sure you are. That'd be so convenient for you. This is my mother's regular appointment, isn't it? That's why I was able to get a spot so quickly. How neat — just cross out Maria and pencil in Abigail."

Fiona pursed her lips. "That's not true in the slightest, Abby. Many people talk to a psychologist at some time or another in their lives, there's no shame in it."

"Of course not. Mental illness is a disease like any other," Abigail rested her hand on the door handle. "But my head is mine and my thoughts are for me alone, I don't see how mulling over everything with a stranger will do me any good. Thank you for your time today, Fiona."

The woman started to say something, then thought better of it. She schooled her features into an expression of benign sympathy and said, "Bye, Abby. Don't hesitate to reach out if you ever change your mind."

Abigail slammed the door behind her. Mental illness was a disease, that was the crux of it. No one tried to cure cancer by talking to it. If Abigail really were mentally ill, she would swallow all the pills in the world, side-effects be damned. But her parents had talked to shrinks year after year and Abigail had never seen a shred of evidence it had helped them.