John woke up to the smell of sizzling bacon, and thought he must be somewhere in a dream. The smell conjured up memories of his grandparent’s farm from his childhood, when his grandmother would wake up at the crack of dawn to cook breakfast for everyone. It was a wonderful memory.

Stephanie came into the room a minute later with a tray full of food. Quite sure he didn’t own bacon or a tray, he surmised she had gone shopping this morning, and he was thoroughly impressed by her domestic skills.

“This looks wonderful Stephanie,” he said with a smile, pulling her towards her as he did. At first they kissed slowly, and then she set the trey down and crawled into bed with him. They continued to kiss, and then, after a long moment of looking into each other’s eyes, they both instinctively knew it was time.

They stayed in bed most of the morning making love, and for John the connection was so intense he had to choke back tears. It occurred to him that he had waited a lifetime to feel like this, and now that he had, he felt a pang of regret for all that he had missed. He sat and admired her beautiful form as she settled back into sleep. How did he get so lucky?

Later that afternoon they got around to eating the breakfast she had put together, laughing and talking as they ate. In the back of his mind he thought about how all of this was going to work logistically, but then tried to put these thoughts out of his mind. He reminded himself that he had been gifted a wonderful moment, and that never again would he sit and laugh with this wonderful woman having just made love for the first time. He was learning to smell the roses.

That evening the conversation turned a little more serious, as John noticed Stephanie’s mood seem to change.

“Not that I am an expert empath by any means, but I do detect a little disturbance in the force,” John continued. “What’s up? Is something wrong?”

“All of a sudden I was thinking about Kim,” she continued. “She’s seemed very troubled lately and she won’t tell me why. I know about confidentiality and all, but what do you think? What can I do to help her?”

“I spoke with her on the phone the other day and she seemed a bit worried about my accident. We’ve grown closer over the last couple of weeks, and I’m definitely concerned she feels on some level that I’m abandoning her,” John explained

“Yea she has been extremely worried about you, and I know that is part of it. She’s come to see you as a kind of dad.”

“Well that is on some level one of the ideas in therapy, according to one theory anyway. The therapist in a sense reaparents the person coming to see them, and replaces an old maladaptive pattern of communication with encouragement and understanding. In Kim’s case she not only needs this kind of thing, but quite literally has no physical father in her life right now. I found myself acting like a dad the other day when she was telling me about her new boyfriend.”

“I find myself drawn to the idea of therapy as a kind of undoing of prior emotional family experiences,” Stephanie responded. “I feel like that in the classroom a lot as well. You see kids that are so tough on the outside but inside just dying for some kind of love and validation. I’ve seen that with Kim as well. So far having sex was the only way that she could get love from a parent, and that is so sick I don’t know if it can be undone,” she said as she softly began to cry.

John thought about what she said and was highly impressed by her empathy as well as her therapeutic acumen. He thought back to an old lesson he remembered regarding group therapy. Essentially it was suggested that the group becomes a recapitulation of the family itself, and that by observing and working with the in-process communications in the group, you could observe how someone behaved on their family.  Specifically John thought about what the therapeutic value of Kim spending time with both he and Stephanie together might be. He knew there were some possible ethical questions here, and didn’t want to mess around with Kim’s already fragile psyche if there was a chance he and Stephanie might not last.

“I have a question for you Stephanie and I want you to think about it a little before you answer,” John said seriously.

But before he could continue she walked over to John and kissed his forehead. “You’re thinking that it would be a good idea for the three of us to spend some time together, right? Well I think it’s a wonderful idea,” she said with a smile.

“And John”

“Yeah?”

“I’m in this for the long haul if that eases your mind a little.”