Before And After the Divorce - 13. A Condo, a Psychologist, and More Time With Dad

We met Marilyn at the condo. Dad was as surprised as I was at first when I told him Lacy had bought it. She must really have been planning to move out with Dominic, even with a fantasy custody agreement. Well, that's moot now anyway. Dad liked the condo and would be willing to move into it. Fortunately, it's less than a mile from the apartment. It's just two bedrooms, but he was figuring on that anyway, so Dominic could stay over occasionally. Like when I wanted a boyfriend to spend the night. Dad made that point abundantly clear during our tour. Once I have copies of the death certificate, I'll call my lawyer and start looking into what it would take to transfer ownership. Dad felt it would be best if I put the condo in both our names, rather than just his. It would probably work out better for taxes and other assorted legal stuff. That and when he dies, it will revert directly to me without any issues. Hopefully that's still a long way off. Seventy-four isn't that old and he's still in pretty good shape. That and I don't need to deal with another death anytime soon. I know I'm going to have to argue with him about him paying for it. An argument I know I'll lose, but maybe I can at least get him to compromise. He doesn’t need to pay anything, but he won’t want to do that.

If dad wasn't considering a move, it would have been a good place for Dominic and me. But there's enough going on in our lives, throwing a move into the mix wouldn't help matters much.

Dad decided to head back over to the condo when I took Dominic to his Psychologist's appointment. Dr. Benjamin Aslers seemed pretty nice. He made us both feel comfortable right away. He took me into his office alone first to get an idea what was going on. Dominic hadn't really been showing any issues, but the doctor agreed with me that a visit or two couldn't hurt. After I gave him a summary of all that happened, he was actually surprised Dominic wasn't having more problems. I guess I should be happy something is going well. After a few minutes, he brought Dominic in and talked with him a while.

"So, Dominic, your dad tells me you're 7 years old."

"Yes, well, seven and a half."

"Yes. Half-years are still important at your age. When you get to be an old man like me, you tend to wish you were younger."

"You're not old. My grandfather's seventy-something, and he's not old. So, you can't be either."

"Well, thanks for saying that. There are days that I feel older than my 65 years, but not always."

I was impressed, the doctor was talking with Dominic like he was an adult friend, just hanging out at a party or something. I was expecting him to dive right in about Dominic's feelings about Lacy.

"Do you like sports?"

"Yes. Dad and I are Penguins and Steelers fans."

"Have you ever been to any games?"

"No. I was still five when he and mom were still together. Maybe this year I can convince him to take me."

I think that's the first time I've ever heard Dominic refer to Lacy as mom, not mommy. Was he trying to act more grown up for the doctor?"

"I think that would be a great idea. Do you and your father do a lot of things together?"

"I guess. There have been a lot of things going on lately, and he takes me when I'm not in school."

"What kinds of things?"

"Well, lately, a lot of it has been about mom. But we go out to dinner together sometimes. I like that because he's not the best cook."

"Oh, no? Does he make you any foods that you do like?"

"Oh, I don't mean I don't like what he makes. He just doesn't make big dinners, like my mom used to. He makes a lot of my favorite foods."

"What kinds of things did you do with him that were about your mom?"

"He let me help him at the funeral home. I picked out mommy's cas..ket. I said that wrong the last time. I also helped pick out the cemetery plot. I had a problem with plot initially too. When the man at the funeral home said there was one by a stream, I said we should get that one."

"And did you?"

"Yes. I saw it yesterday. It will be a nice place for her to relax forever. She liked the sound of a stream when she was trying to relax."

"It sounds like you did a very good job picking those things."

"I guess. Did I daddy?"

"You most certainly did. I'm very proud of how good a job you did."

"What was yesterday?"

The doctor knew this because I told him, but apparently, he wanted to see how Dominic reacted about it.

"That was the funeral."

"Oh, I see. I bet that was hard for you."

"I guess. It was sad."

"What do you think was the saddest part?"

"At the end, before we left. I said goodbye one more time and dropped a clump of dirt on the casket. Daddy did too, we were both crying."

"Yes, that does sound sad. There really are no good things about a funeral."

"Nope."

"Do you like school?"

"Mostly. They go over the same things a lot and it gets boring. But then there's new things and it's not boring anymore."

"That's good."

"Where do you think your mom is now?"

Dominic looked at me like he thought the doctor was crazy.

"At the cemetery. You should know that."

"I mean, do you think she's around you at all? Her spirit?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I asked God not to take her and he didn't listen, so I don't think he's real. So, when we die, we go in the ground and that's it."

"Did your father say you could go visit her?"

"Yes. But I don't see the point."

"A lot of people visit for themselves, not necessarily for the departed."

"To make yourself feel better about it?"

"Yes. And it's a good time to remember the good things about your mother. Whether or not you believe she's aware of you, you want to remember her, right?"

"Yes. I wish I could remember better from before she got sick."

"Yes. It's hard to look past the most recent times. But I'm sure your father would be happy to help you remember more. Right, Dylan?"

"Yes. Anytime you want to talk about her, I'm here."

"Yeah. I guess after you told be you didn't hate her because you got divorced, I can do that. I didn't want you to get angry at me by talking about her."

"I would never have gotten angry at you."

"I didn't think Aunt Jessica was telling the truth."

"Oh? Is Aunt Jessica mom's or dad's sister?"

"Mom's. She said that daddy hated mommy, and he wouldn't want to talk about her with me. She said if I wanted to talk about her, I could go live with her."

The doctor obviously saw I was about to get ugly, but he motioned that I should wait.

"Did you believe her?"

"A little at first. I believed that because they were divorced, they hated each other, but daddy told me he still loved her, they just couldn't live together anymore. But we lived together for about a month before she died and everything was OK. So I didn't think he really hated her. I don't know why Aunt Jessica would say that."

"Do you think you'd ever want to go live with her?"

It's like a switch was thrown. He went from calm to nearly hysterical in a second.

"Noooo. You're not going to make me, are you daddy? I want to stay with you!"

"No. I would never let her take you away. She said that to try to make you mad at me. Doctor, at the viewing, she said that if it wouldn't hurt Dominic to be taken away from me, she would fight me for custody."

"That's a little strange, why do you think she would do that?"

"To be perfectly honest with you, she thinks because I'm gay I would, um, do things that would hurt Dominic."

"That's an all-too-common perspective, I'm afraid. Dominic. Do you want a drink of water or anything? Take a break to calm down, maybe?"

"Water would be good. I'm OK to keep going."

He grabbed a water bottle from a mini fridge behind him, opened it and handed it to Dominic.

"This may get a little uncomfortable for you Dylan, so hopefully you can bear with me for a minute."

"If it will help Dominic, I don't care how uncomfortable I am."

"Dominic, what your father said he was gay just now, do you know what that means, and does it bother you?"

I had to tense up, afraid of how Dominic might answer.

"Well, I kind of know what it means. It means he wants to sex with other, men, I guess."

"Does that bother you?"

"No. I don't see what's wrong about that. As long as nobody is hurting anybody."

"Do you think that because he likes other men, he might like boys, too?"

"You mean to sex with?"

"Yes."

"No"

"Can you say why not?"

"I know he loves me and he's never wanted to sex with me, so I don't think he'd want to with other boys either."

"Would you want him to have sex with you?"

I was about to stand up and take Dominic right out of there, but again, the doctor motioned me to wait. It was difficult, but I waited.

"No. I'm not old enough to do that, and I don't think mommies or daddies should sex with their children."

"Why not?"

There goes the blood pressure again.

"I don't know. I guess because it sounds wrong."

"Thank you, Dominic. Would you mind waiting for your father back out in the waiting room for a minute? Ask Betty for a snack if you want one. You did very well today."

"OK."

After he left, Doctor Aslers tried to calm me down.

"I knew that would be difficult for you, and I'm glad you didn't hit me. Dominic is very intelligent and mature for his age. I'm sure his mother's illness has a lot to do with that. If I wasn't relatively sure how he would answer those questions, I wouldn't have asked. But I study Kinesics, or interpreting body language. He had almost no reaction when you said you were gay. I was confident he would react the way he did. I'm sorry if it upset you."

"I guess it's alright. I guess I didn't think he'd really know about any of that stuff."

"Unfortunately, children are becoming familiar with sex at a younger and younger age. Granted Dominic is younger than is even normal for these days, but it didn't surprise me that he had a basic understanding of things."

"I guess I should have trusted you. But like I said, I had no idea he knew anything about sex."

"Yes. That being said, I believe Dominic is handling his mother's death extremely well. There's always a chance for that to suddenly change. I'd like to see him again in two weeks, and if he's still adjusting well, we'll drop it back to monthly, and take it from there. I really don't see him needing long-term counseling at this point. But if either of you need, please, don't hesitate to call and make an appointment prior to your scheduled one. Letting any sort of emotional or mental health issue fester is the worst thing that could be done when someone needs help."

"Thank you doctor. Aside from the discussion at the end, I was impressed with your methods. You didn't dive right in asking him questions about his mother."

"No. That would have been a mistake. Plus, I needed to gauge his level of maturity. I could see right away he wasn't a normal seven-year-old boy in that regard."

"Seven and a half."

We had a chuckle about that. We said goodbye, he wished me luck with Dominic's adjustment and said he'd see me in two weeks. Once we got to the car, I asked Dominic if he liked the doctor.

"Yeah, he was nice. Remember when I told Mr. Hitch that sometimes teachers treated me like I was dumb?"

"Yes."

"He was like Mr. Hitch. He didn't make me feel like he thought he was talking to a baby."

"That's true. He told me after you went into the outer office that he thought you were mature for your age. He thought you acted older than you really were."

"Is that good?"

"Yes. Very good. Let's go see what Grandpa is doing. I'll call him to see where he's at."

Dad was still at the condo. He'd made a list of everything he wanted to do with it. We went to dinner and took Dominic bowling, since he enjoyed it the last time I took him. It was the start of a number of bonding sessions for the three Pastore men. Over the next few weeks, we spent a lot of evenings together, but more about that later.

Next up - "Law, Finances, Real Estate, and More Bonding"