This Post has Nothing to do with Christmas

A friend of mine once saw a psychotherapist when she was going through a bad time – she'd been made redundant, had depression, was unemployed and single and just about everything was going wrong.

This fellow was a sort of father figure and was there for her when everything else in her life seemed to be going belly up. Happily life improved after a while, she became involved in a relationship and instinctively felt that it was time to stop seeing this therapist. Nothing she could put her finger on; just something wasn't right. And she didn't feel the need to see anyone. Life was OK: she could manage on her own. So she told him she wasn't going to see him again.

He rang her at home. Several times. Wanting to know why.

She became uneasy with these phone calls. Why was he behaving so weirdly? Sounding so – desperate? The last phone call took place when her sister in law was visiting, and she was rather abrupt. Told him not to call her again.

He didn't.

She bumped into him many years later and felt uneasy about the whole incident. Nothing had happened, but it was the undercurrents of what hadn't been said that still rankled.

Wanting to get some closure on this, she told a friend. The friend was a writer.

She asked if she could use the material to write a novel. Her friend agreed, and the novel was written.

So far, two agents have asked to see the full manuscript, but both said no. Could it be third time lucky?