The after party following the funeral was both exhausting and gratifying for John, as he was emotionally and physical spent, but also enlivened to hear so many stories about how Paul had affected people’s lives. A few of Dr. Paul’s patients had asked him about starting therapy with him now that Paul had passed, and John realized that there were a number of logistical issues regarding his practice that John could perhaps be of assistance with. Losing your therapist to death was an incredibly traumatic loss for people in therapy, and he agreed to see everyone who had asked despite his reservations about how all of this might actually work. He was sure this was something Paul would have wanted.
Later that night, and despite have had less than 6 hours of sleep the following two nights, John went to a little jazz bar called Andy’s in downtown Chicago which had always been a favorite of Dr. Paul’s. His instincts were telling him to lean on Stephanie during this difficult time, but right now he just wanted to be in a place that let him feel close to his old mentor by himself. He knew his emotional state was fragile.
He had a number of glasses of Scotch as he sat and listened to the saxophone and tried not to think about all that he had to deal with. Paul was the man he had always turned to during the emotional storms of his life, and, despite what he said during the eulogy, he felt a huge whole in his life he knew would take a lot of time to work though.
John stayed at Andy’s until the place closed that night, drinking Scotch and silently toasting to himself all of the ways his old mentor had touched his life. The jazz has helped him lose time and get utterly lost in his memories, and he began to get an understanding of why Paul had enjoyed this place so much throughout his many years of working as a therapist in downtown Chicago.
Realizing he was quite drunk, and not wanting to go home and be alone there, John staggered over to the nearby House of Blues hotel and rented himself a room for the evening. Somehow being home was something he didn’t want to face that night, and he just wanted to go to sleep and wake up feeling something different than he was feeling. He was in pain, and he had dealt with it in an old familiar way by drinking way too much. He was in danger of backsliding, but for tonight at least just wanted to crash and forget about all of it.
John woke up the next morning to a ringing cell phone. He was still in his suit, and laughed to himself about his meeting with Dr. Paul a while back when they had joked about him waking up in his same clothes. John quickly sobered up however when he realized it was Paul’s sister on the phone, and he grew perplexed when she asked him to meet her downtown later that same afternoon.
John took a cab ride home and found himself wondering what it was Paul’s sister needed to talk about. He had met her only once over the years, and knew she was married to a wealthy man in New York where she lived with her family in downtown Manhattan. He knew there were some legal issues with Paul’s practice he could perhaps be of assistance with, although these kinds of things were hardly his area of expertise.
John felt a wave of depression as he walked into his house and saw the big suitcase sitting there in the middle of his living room. He had never really gotten unpacked since he had been back in Chicago, and he called Stephanie and asked if he could stay at her house again that night. John was relieved to find that she was happy to hear from him, and he reminded himself to stay vigilant and resist the urge to push her away from her now, despite the fact that he had a nearly lifelong tendency to do this.
They spent the day together talking about all of the recent developments in his life. Stephanie had reported that Kim had gotten a little restless and uncomfortable from not having spoken to him in a while, and it was something that had also been weighing heavily on his mind. His trip home, as well his night in the bar the night before were the beginning of a pattern of distancing that he was well aware of, and he remembered that this was a luxury he didn’t have when he had gotten so highly involved in a child’s life. He was committed now.
Later that afternoon, he found himself sitting in the office of a high-priced law firm in the city. It was unfamiliar ground for him, and as someone who had a nearly lifelong distaste for lawyers, he felt uncomfortable thinking about what it was he was doing here.
Seeing Paul’s sister Linda, John gave her a hug and thanked her for letting him be such a big part of her brother’s funeral. She assured john that his eulogy was beautiful, and that Paul had spoken of him often in the days before his death, which again filled John with a sense of guilt for not having been there. After they had comforted each other and exchanged pleasantries, John decided it was time to politely find out what he was doing here.
“Well John as you know, Paul didn’t have any children, and I was the only family he really had. What you may or may not have known was that Paul accumulated a great deal of money over the years, and he left much of it to various charities here in Chicago. The rest of it he left to you. His house, his practice, and a large part of his remaining assets. We had talked about this and I was fine with it. You were truly like a son to him and I can think of no better person to carry on my brother’s legacy,” she said with resolve.
John sat and took the news in with a sense of shock. He had never really known much about Dr. Paul’s finances, but guessed that 30 years of practicing so regularly must have been good to him. Having been fairly irresponsible with money for the majority of his life, John was having trouble processing that someone had just left him such a considerable amount of it. Linda had also given him a letter to read from her brother, but he wasn’t sure he was ready to read it just yet. After signing a great deal of paperwork with the lawyers and saying his goodbyes to Linda, John hailed a cab and started home. While he was stunned at this recent development in his life, a plan was also beginning to crystallize in his mind.