Intermix titles by June Gray
The Disarm Series
DISARM
BESIEGE
RETREAT
THE HENRY SESSIONS
ENGAGE
CAPTURE
THE HENRY SESSIONS
A Disarm Novella
June Gray
INTERMIX BOOKS, NEW YORK
INTERMIX BOOKS
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have control over and does not have any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
THE HENRY SESSIONS
An InterMix Book / published by arrangement with the author
PUBLISHING HISTORY
InterMix eBook edition / May 2013
Copyright © 2012 by June Gray.
Cover photo by Oleg Gekman.
Cover design by June Gray.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
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375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
ISBN: 978-0-698-14980-9
INTERMIX
InterMix Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group and New American Library, divisions of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
INTERMIX and the “IM” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
DEDICATION
To those serving with honor in the United States military.
Thank you.
Prologue
“So Henry,” Dr. Galicia began on that Tuesday morning. “I’ve decided to try something different with you since we have a short amount of time.”
“What’s that?” Henry asked, looking around the office. The furnishings were no longer the same. Gone were the knick-knacks that Doc Gal kept on every surface, and the furniture was different, more modern. It was as if Doc Gal dropped her bohemian sensibilities and moved to Scandinavia. Even the doc looked different. Back then she wore her hair long and loose, her clothes a little eccentric. Now her black hair was cut into a sharp bob and her clothes were crisp and professional.
It had been fifteen years since Henry last sat in this room. Of course everything about Doc Gal had changed. He had changed too, hadn’t he?
“We will be taping your sessions,” Doc Gal said, placing a voice recorder on the coffee table between them. “So you can go back and listen to everything you’ve said.”
He stared hard at the small device. “Will that help . . . with everything?”
“I’m hoping so. Somewhere along the way, your stories will reveal a little nugget of truth. I want you to be able to hear it later on.”
“This isn’t how we did this back when I was younger.”
She shook her head with a tiny grin. She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “Like I said, I wanted to try something different.” She bent over and pressed record. “You can just start talking.”
“About what?”
“About your past.”
He shook his head, not sure if he could do this. “I don’t even know where to begin.”
“How about we start from the beginning and work our way from there?”
Henry tried to avoid looking at the recorder but even though he bore holes into the cream wall behind Doc Gal’s head, he could still feel the recorder’s presence, could swear he could hear its internal mechanisms whirring.
“Talk about your earliest memory,” she suggested.
Henry closed his eyes, thinking hard of his very first memory, and began to talk.
1
My earliest memory is of going to the park when I was two, maybe three years old. My nanny, Louise, took me to this tiny park down the street and I played with this kid I’d never met before. He kept referring to Louise as my mom and I never corrected him. I figured she was better than my mom, because at least she took care of me.
My parents were busy career-oriented people. My mom was an up and coming lawyer and my dad had his landscaping business. Mom was always working late or dashing off to meet with clients, and Dad, well, when he wasn’t working or drinking with his buddies, he was sitting in his man cave and needing his man space.
I was not allowed to enter the man cave unless he was having a football-watching party and he needed me to get them some more chips or beer.
For some reason I always thought men loved having sons because it meant they had someone to teach baseball or how to build cars. At the very least, they had someone to carry on the family name, but my Dad didn’t seem to care either way. He didn’t do the other things that my classmates’ parents did. We never did little league or boy scouts or any of that.
Why? Fuck if I know. He was a shitty parent is what I finally concluded a long time ago. Too selfish to have a kid, that’s for sure.
My mom would sometimes show some semblance of affection for me. When she had a spare minute, she’d give me a hug or a kiss on the forehead. You know, easy mom stuff. But what I really wanted her to do was stay home and take care of me, be there when I got off the bus like other kids’ moms. I wanted to come home to freshly-baked cookies and a glass of milk. I thought that’s what moms were supposed to do, not rush off to work every day and come home in time to march me off to bed.
Have I started rebuilding that broken relationship with my parents?
Hell no.
Do I want to?
I don’t know if I should even bother. They are who they are and I hate them and love them regardless.
Just . . . sometimes I wish they would at least attempt to apologize, you know? Would it hurt them to say, “Henry, we’re sorry we neglected you and allowed you to be raised by a nanny”? I don’t know if that’s the magic salve that will heal all wounds but it’d be nice to hear them acknowledge it.
They never even called me to say goodbye before I deployed.
~
I was a bit of a wild child when I was younger, as you were well aware. I had my first smoke in fifth grade and tried my first beer in sixth grade. By seventh grade, I’d lost my virginity to this girl—I can’t even remember her name anymore—who was just visiting Monterey for the week. I bragged to my friends at school that I’d had a one-night stand but I remember wanting her to fall in love with me. I’m not sure what that says about me, that I wanted love and acceptance from a girl who wasn’t even going to stick around.
Desperate? Stupid? Naïve? All of the above?
The first time I tried pot was at a party at the beginning of sophomore year. I think if I’d been able to get my hands on it, I probably would have done it more. As it was, I wasn’t inventive enough to find it and not cool enough to have the right connections to the people who could.
My first fight was with a boy in the playground in second grade. He threw sand in my face so I punched him in the balls. That earned me a trip to the principal’s office. Louise was the one to pick me up from the office.
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