The Last Handful of Clover - Book 2: Gifts Both Light and Dark

2.14 Interregnum

2003 – 2016

The years after Justin's death were dark ones for Richard Pratt.

Although the police never arrived at his door, their eyes full of anger and disgust, he couldn't look in the mirror every morning without feeling those same emotions. What he had done to the boy who had trusted him felt like a stain on his soul that he could never wash away. His teaching suffered, especially in that first year, and it looked for a while like he might not achieve the tenure he had worked for so long and hard.

Every morning for months he cried in bed for an hour before finally prying himself out and beginning his day. Ten months after Justin's death, he found he was still in such a deep and dark depression, that he knew he had to find a way back to the surface or it would likely kill him.

Counseling was out of the question. There was no way he could ever reveal the dark side of himself to a counselor. But what he could do was to begin re-engaging with the world. Perhaps he could even find a way to redeem himself for what he had done.

That summer he gave a lot of money to a gay youth group in the city, and he even tried volunteering with them for a time. But he soon found that his attraction to the handsome young men, many barely out of high school, made him wonder if his motivations were truly selfless. He didn't believe that he'd ever act on those attractions again, but he couldn't stop seeing Justin in all the hurt and needy young men that he encountered. And even as he tried to convince himself that he was not a predator, and of no danger to these young men, his attraction to them was a constant reminder that he was, at the very least, broken. And had been for many, many years.

Eventually, he learned from a friend of a place called the Utah Youth Crisis Line. There was no in-person component to their service, and in fact, they made it a policy that their counselors would never meet their callers. Their job, as the brochure informed him, was something called LBIR: "Listening, Brainstorming, Information, and Referral."

It sounded perfect to Richard.

The Volunteer Coordinator for the hotline was a woman named, delightfully, Davida Wimsey. Davida was a young, femme, lesbian warrior, and she and Richard hit it off immediately. So much so, that even before he had finished the training, he was staying late to talk to her in private, and telling her his life story. And surprising even himself, he even opened up about Justin.

Davida listened intently, using all the active listening techniques on him that he was learning in her training sessions. And before he knew it, she had the entire story. And she looked at Richard as if he was a complex math problem she was trying to parse. There was no judgment in her eyes. But plenty of uncertainty.

"You know, Richard," she said, leaning over the old steel desk in her tiny office. "Most people think that having lost someone to suicide is an advantage to working on a crisis hotline. That it will make you more sensitive and insightful in this work. But I'd like to be honest with you."

"Please do," Richard said. He crossed his arms over his chest and waited, doing his best not to let his guard come up and derail the conversation.

"The truth is, that more often than not, someone who has lost someone to suicide—especially as recently as you lost Justin—has a hard time working here. Rather than making you receptive, it's much more likely to lead you to engage inappropriately with the callers. I hear how much you feel you failed Justin. And I just don't want you to come here thinking that the Crisis Line is a path toward redemption, or even healing, for that loss. It certainly isn't going to ease your conscience for the mistakes you made."

Richard sighed, and his hands fell to his lap. He felt his shoulders slump a little, as he tried to find the right words to say.

"I'd be less than honest if I said that hadn't crossed my mind, Davida." Richard said, realizing even as he spoke that he was preparing to lie to the woman, and that she could probably tell. "But I'm not here for my own therapy. I believe I can keep the callers front and center, and help them problem-solve and find their own way back."