Fate's Cruel Hand

Her fingers dance over the keyboard in quick succession, an email to a colleague at the hospital for a referral for one of her more difficult patients. She reaches for her coffee and swallows the cold caffeine. She pulls a face and reads what she's written. Kelly rubs her forehead and wonders if Carl Benton would embrace the treatment she is hoping to give him, a psychiatric assessment at the mental health wing. The man clearly had alarming issues and during his sessions mostly talked about hurting himself and other people, but today what he said scared her.

Getting up from her desk she goes into the waiting room where a young boy, probably a teenager is waiting to be seen by one of her colleagues. She checks the light board behind the receptionist's desk and knocks on Susan Willard's door.
"Come in" Susan shouts from her desk. She's popping some cold medicine and dabbing vaseline on her red nose.

"You shouldn't have come in today" Kelly says as she sits down in one of the chairs.

"I needed to get out of the house. Marcus is driving me crazy with his DIY gimmick. Anyway, what can I do for you? No sign of an engagement ring I see" Susan purposely looks at Kelly's ring finger.

She blushes hard.

"You know how I feel when it comes to interaction with patients" Susan begins "But, you sent him to me before anything happened. What I'm trying to say is that I'm happy for you both. I really am"

"Thank you" Kelly says with surprise"You know my own ethics on relationships with patients"

"He technically wasn't your patient when you both became involved" she reminds her colleague."Anyway, what can I do for you"

"Carl Benton, one of my patients is showing elevated signs of harming himself and others. I'm referring him to Dr Gulley at the mental health unit, but I don't what to do in the meantime."

Susan Willard nods.

"We could set up a strategy plan, but if he is hell-bent on hurting himself we have to make a decision whether admitting him is the right option. What's his history?"

Kelly doesn't need his file or his notes to explain his history. She knows it all too well, sitting worrying about it after every session. His whole sad life is committed to memory in a file she tries not to open.

"Carl was taken into care at the age of eleven, his mother a drug addict and prostitute. He seen a lot of things growing up no child should ever have to know about" Kelly says"He was fostered to a family and lived with them on their farm and after three weeks of being there, they didn't want him"

"Any reason why?" Susan asks curiously. She knows it's unusual for a foster family to make that decision unless there are serious concerns.

"The family woke up one morning to find their dog dead on their porch. Hacked to death with a carving knife. They followed the trail of blood and it led them straight to Carl who was cleaning up in the bathroom" Kelly feels acid rising in her throat.

"He was taken back into care where another family fostered him for around two months. He attacked his foster mother with a baseball bat"

Susan shakes her head with disgust.

She had worked with children who had experienced non conventional childhoods, but had never heard of such a sad, violent story.

"Again he was sent back into care and ran away. He went straight to the squat where his mother was living and stabbed the man she was giving her services to, with a broken bottle. He was arrested and sent to juvenile detention where he was seen by a child psychologist, who said he was seriously destructive"

Kelly also tells Susan how at the age of fifteen, Carl Benton mutilated small animals and aggressively beat stray dogs. The same child psychologist claimed it was his way of being in control of his own life, making that decision to inflict pain on someone or something less because all his life he had known pain, being passed from pillar to post.
Benton's story escalated when he was sent to prison at the age of eighteen for strangling a prostitute, symbolically, his mother.

They make the decision to alert the police and have him admitted for his own safety and the safety of others. They receive a phone call an hour later to say that Carl Benton had hung himself in his motel room.

******

Jeremy peers through the glass and looks down at the half-dozen trays of bracelets. He leans on his crutch and scans the pieces, not sure whether he should choose a bracelet, a ring or a necklace with matching ear rings. To anyone who is passing, he looks like the boyfriend or husband who is picking an anniversary gift for his partner, either that or he's guilty for something.

"Well?" Wayne comes up beside him and hands him the paper pharmacy bag, his new medication for his dodgy ticker.

"I dunno, man. Too many to choose from" Jeremy mumbles as he opens the bag.

His heart doctor had given him a new drug to take which should help, the first set of pills being the wrong ones for his condition. He had brushed it off and knew it was pretty much trial and error, one set of medication could work great for someone and sometimes it didn't. He fell into the latter.

"Hurry up and choose one" Wayne whines. He had agreed to take Jeremy to his appointment while Kelly was at work, but it also gave him the perfect excuse to buy a special gift.

"What would you choose for Marilyn, then?"

Wayne scratches his head and shrugs his shoulders. He has no idea what he would buy for his soon to be wife.

"Exactly" Jeremy laughs and starts hobbling inside. Wayne shakes his head and laughs. Never once has he seen or heard of Jeremy ever buying jewellery for a girlfriend.