by Tom Saric
"Can I get some stuff from inside?"
"Not today. Once they clear it, then okay. It'll probably take a day or two."
Debbie and Ernie walked away, and Renee put a hand on my shoulder. It felt comfortable.
"I once forgot to turn off the iron, left home, and didn’t remember until I was on a toll bridge toward Baltimore. I U-turned through the booth, cars honking, people rolling down their windows and swearing at me. I drove the two hours home." She touched my cheek and gently moved my head so she was looking into my eyes. "And you know what? When I got in my driveway, I remembered that my iron broke a month earlier."
I laughed with her. She’d said what I needed to hear.
Herman O'Brien wandered up, wearing chest waders and pointing at Anna with his cigarette. "The ol' girl made it."
"Thankfully. Thanks for noticing the fire, Herman. It could've been worse."
"Hard not to notice with a smell like that."
Renee shifted uncomfortably next to me. I sensed she wanted an introduction. "Herman, this is Renee. Renee, my neighbor, Herman."
Herman held the cigarette to his mouth and took a drag while checking out Renee. She reached her hand out but he didn't reciprocate. "And who would you be?"
"Um, I don't, I don't." Renee looked at me, flustered. "His, um, friend?"
"Well, nice to meet you, Gus's friend."
Herman then turned away from Renee and faced me, as though he was trying to cut her out of the conversation.
"A kettle, eh?"
"That's what they say."
"Afternoon tea gone wrong?"
"Morning tea."
Herman squinted and tilted his head. "Hmm. Could've sworn I saw you leaving this afternoon."
I felt my knees almost buckle. My memory of the entire day was fuzzy. Could I have forgotten coming home mid-day?
"What's an ol' guy like me know. The days. The times. They all blur together." He flicked his cigarette butt into the woods. "You're gonna need a place. I got space."
Herman's home is what happens twenty years after a married man becomes widowed. He hadn't ever cleaned the place properly. He exclusively used disposable plates and cutlery. The toilet and shower looked like they had never been scrubbed.
"Herman, thanks, but I think I'll stay in town, closer to work. I don't want to impose."
Herman shrugged. I'm not sure he really wanted me there any more than I wanted to go.
"Maybe your friend here will offer."
Even in the dark, I could see Renee blush.
"If, if you want, I mean-"
Every part of me wanted to go home with Renee. But I reminded myself that fires that burn bright quickly run out of fuel. My ex-wife taught me that.
"You are both kind. But I'll get a room in town."
She opened the door and offered to take his jacket, but he declined. They had been expecting him, she said. That was unfortunate. He didn't think anyone else would be home. It was supposed to be just the two of them, talking. This complicated matters.
He stared at the back of her head as she led him down a hallway. Through her brown curls, he could see its shape—boxy, with hard angles attached to a short, thick neck. He'd aim at the top of the neck, just above the fat fold where the base of her skull met her spine. It would take one shot, clean through the spinal cord.
They passed through the kitchen. The counters were wiped down and shiny. The stove looked brand new, and a tea towel hung perfectly square from the oven handle. A steaming tea pot sat on a hot plate. She didn't offer him any.
She led him into a room that was all windows, without blinds of any kind. The sun blared down, forcing him to give his eyes a few seconds to adjust. The windows looked out at a forest. No neighbors could see inside.
The room already had the overripe-fruit smell of death. He turned the corner and saw the hospital bed facing the window. He hadn't expected that. He slowed his stride and approached cautiously.
The young man lay on the bed, twisting awkwardly against a stack of hard-looking pillows, his legs tangled in a white sheet. Bald, his skin ashy and pale yellow, with dark gray rings around his eyes.
The man's eyes slowly swept over him. "You weren't expecting to see a dying man, were you?"
7
I had a restless night, but still managed to sleep late into Tuesday morning under the tightly tucked-in sheets at Bridgetown's Comfort Inn. I was woken up several times through the night, first by a youth hockey team stampeding through the halls, then a car alarm in the parking lot, and finally a midnight romp between the couple next door. Afterward my aching back prevented me from settling into a comfortable position, but I was determined to catch up on some much-needed rest. Despite not having my medication with me, I managed to find a position that minimized the pain.
The situation reminded me of the weeks I spent living in a hotel after Meg asked me to leave. The mattress at the Hyatt was larger, sheets softer, pillows fluffier. The room was pristine, decorated with airy whites and creams, unlike the taupes and maroons of the outdated Bridgetown motel. But it felt the same. I was alone in that luxurious room too. No one had come to check on me then, except for the room service guy looking for dirty dishes. No one checked on me here either.
I thought of Renee. Maybe I could call her. Maybe she cared where I was.
I should have invested time into my relationships. It seemed like the therapy couch was all that mattered. As though I was a voyeur interested only in the inner workings of other people's lives, oblivious to my own world slowly eroding and washing away. Everyone important in my life had moved on while my back was turned.
Leaving the institute was probably a blessing. I'd completed a court-ordered assessment on Anthony Cruz and deemed him a low risk to re-offend. Two months later, after he raped and killed two more women, my credibility and reputation were destroyed. And with the media fervor and relentless investigative reports that followed, the institute's standing as the most prestigious psychoanalytic school in the world was irreparably damaged. My colleagues avoided me in the halls. I was taken off committees. Even my mother, a former president of the institute, began to doubt my skills as an analyst. “It seems you have some blind spots to work out,” she had said. “It’s unusual for someone of your standing to have such shortcomings.”
But I realized that I was no company man. My path to psychiatric fame was preordained by my mother. She'd even named me Gustav. Not because we had a Germanic background. No, I was named after one of the psychoanalytic greats: Carl Gustav Jung. No one but her called me anything but Gus.
The truth was that psychiatric prominence wasn't what I wanted. And as much as I looked up to Alistair—my mentor and Trustee Emeritus of the institute—I wasn't interested in having theories and therapies named after me. I didn't need the attention. The attention is what buried me.
There was a quiet knock at the door. Then louder.
"Yes?"
"It's me," Sheila said. "Let me in."
I rolled off the bed, then, realizing I was wearing nothing but underwear, ripped the sheet off the bed and wrapped it around myself. I waddled over to the door and flipped the deadbolt.
Sheila was carrying a box of donuts, two cups of coffee, and a yogurt cup. A plastic bag hung from her elbow. She sniffed and then made a sour face.
"Lordie, lordie, Gus. You didn't shower last night?"
I shook my head. "I came here and basically passed out. But I love that you're looking out for me."
She passed me a coffee and put the yogurt, donuts, and her coffee next to the TV stand.
I flipped the coffee tab open and deliberately smelled it before taking a long sip.
Sheila set the grocery bag on the bed and began pulling items out of it.
"A toothbrush and toothpaste, deodorant." She held the stick out in front of me. "You might want to use that now. Shaving cream and a razor."
That made me laugh. Sheila hated my beard, and any chance she got she tried to make it clear that she wan
ted it gone. “What are you hiding behind that thing for?” she would say.
"I figured you needed a change of clothes so I stopped at Frenchie's." The local consignment store.
She pulled out a crisp white dress shirt, tweed blazer, and navy slacks and laid them out on the bed. "I figure you can look more the part."
"Are you trying to change my image?"
"Hunting jackets and steel-toe boots fit in a bit better with the loggers. Oh, that reminds me." She pulled out a pair of shiny caramel-colored loafers complete with tassels.
I stood over the bed, examining my new wardrobe. "You know, Sheila, these could be the very clothes I donated when I first moved here."
"I don't think it'll kill you to clean up a bit, is all."
I had a soft spot for Sheila. She always looked out for me, like an older sister, which is probably why it never worked out between us.
When I'd moved to Bridgetown, I shed the Sigmund Freud style of clothing, the wooden demeanor, the facades, and the arrogance that was drilled into me at the institute. I was done being anything for anyone else. I was going to be me. Sheila was straightforward like that too. She said what she thought. And according to her, I was a slob.
"All right, sweetheart." I tapped her cheek like I was a chauvinist from the 1950s. "For you."
I flipped open the donut box and took one with sprinkles. Sheila sat in the chair and sipped her three-sugar, three-cream coffee, examining me for a little too long.
"What?" I said.
"Are you okay, Gus? I mean truthfully."
"Yeah. Fine."
"It's just that, well-"
It wasn't like Sheila to beat around the bush.
"Sheila, spit it out. I'm a big boy."
"Just the stove, the fire. Coming in late, dirty sometimes." She sighed. "Ever since you moved here, you just haven't slowed down. Going and going. And I know you're the expert, but, well, you've got to take care of yourself. Cardiologists get heart attacks too."
"Are you worried I'm having a breakdown, Sheila?"
"I just wonder if things are catching up with you."
I'd never seen Sheila quite like this. Worried. It was unsettling, because Sheila didn't get worried.
My biggest asset in my work had always been my memory. I could remember details, and little inconsistencies in stories that emerged over time. I could use that to my advantage to help people see their own contradictions so they could address them. With my memory slipping, I felt like I was navigating in the dark without a map.
I’d thought about seeing my doctor about it, but the episodes came and went. And if he got worried he could get my license to practice revoked. The most likely explanation was that I was under stress and not sleeping well. In a few months, everything would be back to normal.
"Sheila." I touched her forearm, attempting to project confidence. "I'm fine." I took a breath and checked in with myself. I thought of Renee. "I actually feel happy."
She nodded and smiled. "You do seem a bit happier today. Maybe burning down a house is some sort of cleansing?"
"Maybe." I laughed. "The kettle. It slipped my mind. Happens to everyone."
Sheila hopped up and waved at the clothes. "Okay, I'll leave you to it then, darling."
"Thanks for the mothering."
"Don't forget to use soap."
I shook my head and went for my second donut.
Sheila stopped at the door.
"Gus, where were you last evening?"
"What do you mean?"
"When I called you. You didn't answer. And you weren't home. You never go out."
I thought about telling Sheila about Renee. But she wouldn't approve of me spending half a night with someone I’d just met in person. And I still wondered whether a part of Sheila would be jealous. But that wasn't worth getting into.
"I needed gas, so I went for a drive. Just thinking."
"Okay. Do you want me to cancel your first appointment?"
"Who is it?"
"Your couple. The Barringtons."
I thought of my meeting with Wanda and wondered if I had the energy to deal with Joe and Lorna Barrington.
"No. Don't cancel. I'll be there."
8
Lorna Barrington was wearing a light blue dress, cut low at the ankle and high at the neck, with lace on the collar. Covering up was decent. She had her hair pulled back into a tight bun and her hands crossed on her lap. Lorna was always astonished when I brought up her rigid posture. This was no surprise, as her puritanical upbringing had brainwashed her into believing that she had to behave as though she were living in 1765.
Joe sat on the chair next to her, legs splayed, wearing a black blazer and dress shirt open at the collar. His wavy hair was slicked back, and his thick mustache was neatly trimmed just above his lip. He viewed himself as Tom Selleck. The Magnum, P.I. one. I had to admit, he could pull it off.
"I was preparing for the show on Sunday. I have been selected, gratefully, for a stand, about six feet long, at the farmers market. The committee at..."
Lorna was the type of client I dreaded working with, especially when I was tired. Everything about her was stilted. Her language was slow and deliberate. Her movements were rehearsed and robotic. Her voice was monotone with a steady, unwavering rhythm.
Truthfully, I could see why Joe would stray. There was simply no way she could satiate his desire, and a guy like Joe always got what he wanted.
"Lorna, I get it," I said. "You were preparing for your quilt show. But we are here to work on you and Joe-"
"I am getting to that."
Joe rolled his eyes as Lorna kept talking. Our sessions revolved around her mindless stories that were only obliquely related to their marriage. I suspected this was a psychological resistance that served to avoid dealing with the real issues at hand: the absence of intimacy and Joe's infidelity.
Lorna kept talking so I cut her off. She looked like she was going to snap. But I knew she wouldn't; it was indecent.
"Look, you two," I said, shifting eye contact between the two of them. "Two years. Every month for two years you have been coming here. And we have never addressed anything of substance. Lorna." I could see she was holding her breath, waiting for a barrage. "You talk for half an hour about some innocuous event. But this isn't Sunday tea. Joe, you sit there quietly, checking the clock, waiting for the session to end. As far as I'm concerned, you're both guilty of avoiding working on the reason you're here. And, frankly, so am I for letting this go on so long."
They were silent. The green banker’s lamp on my desk hummed. The clock seemed to tick louder. I could hear them breathing, see their eyes flicking back and forth nervously. I could almost feel their hearts beating faster.
If I hadn't been so tired, I could have approached this less bluntly. But I was exhausted, my back was aching, so I had little time for bullshit. That little intervention would have caused analysts back at the institute to keel over on their overstuffed couches.
Lorna's hands balled up, squeezing the fabric of her dress. Joe shifted his legs so that his knees were now touching.
"So tell me now. Can we work on what you're here for? Can we stop wasting our time?"
"Joe's never home," Lorna said, conviction in her voice.
"She won't have sex," Joe countered.
"How is she supposed to have sex if you're never home?"
Lorna smiled and lowered her shoulders an inch. "Like last night, Joe left and didn't return until three in the morning."
Joe's eyes widened, as though he was shocked she was keeping track of him. No doubt he was out seeing Wanda last night, though I did my best to ignore this piece of knowledge.
"And why would he come home, Lorna, if he doesn't get any intimacy?"
Her head snapped back a few inches, like I had sucker-punched her. It was the first unrehearsed motion I’d seen in her since their therapy started.
Had I known Joe was having an affair with Wanda, I wouldn't have taken him and Lorna on as clien
ts. But Wanda only disclosed her affair after I had started therapy with the Barringtons. It took a lot of compartmentalization on my part, but I was good at keeping secrets.
Joe and Lorna had come from very different upbringings. Joe was heir to the Bluebird Matchstick fortune. His family owned half of the marina, and he was the high school quarterback always destined for greatness. At least on a Bridgetown scale.
Lorna grew up in a mobile home outside of Bridgetown with devout evangelical parents who believed that any misbehavior was due to direct intervention by the devil.
Somehow the two of them got together and wanted a baby. Years of trying and nothing. Fertility tests showed no abnormalities. So, eventually, the sex just dried up.
Joe and Lorna stared at me, clutching the arms of the chairs, bracing themselves for the next blow.
There was a legendary story in psychotherapist circles of Milton Erickson. He was an eccentric and largely self-taught psychoanalyst from the Midwest who used unconventional methods in therapy. He combined hypnotic techniques, a firm knowledge of the human psyche, and good old country boy charm to become one of the most renowned mid-century psychiatrists. I was tired, and I felt disinhibited, so I conjured up some Milton.
"You two need shock therapy."
They both crinkled their noses.
"Shock therapy?" Joe said.
"Yeah. There's electroshock treatment, but then there's psychological shock treatment. That's the one you need."
"What are you talking about, Doc?"
"I need to know." I leaned forward, my hands pressed together in front of my face. "Do you want your relationship to improve?"
Both nodded.
"Are you willing to do what it takes?"
They nodded again, but hesitantly.
"Then shock therapy is what you need."
I could hear Lorna swallow. Joe snickered and looked away. But I had them intrigued.
"Do we have a deal?" I held out my hand to seal the deal.
Joe threw an arm up and came in for the handshake. I gripped his hand, and as we pulled back, I kept my thumb and little finger gently pressed against his hand. I brushed his palm with my middle finger. As I released, Joe's hand stayed in the air, waiting for the handshake to finish. I quickly took Lorna's hand and did the same.