by Diane Lawson
Yes. Renee hated her Momma, and I was Momma’s effigy, making my little girl pay for what she needed. I put my head back and closed my eyes again. I learned early on that being the target of primitive rage puts me to sleep. It’s some psychic possum reflex that’s like intravenous anesthesia right to my brain. Anyway, I must have dozed for a second. How else to explain the cold draft on my right shoulder and the distinct smell of Old Spice? Howard Westerman was the only man I’d known, besides my father, who wore that scent. My body jerked. The movement made my chair squeak. I was a little disoriented, but as far as I could tell, I hadn’t missed much. Renee was still revved.
“And you know what kills me? He kept my Mercedes. I’m driving the old Volvo that we let the housekeeper use. How the hell am I supposed to pass for a successful realtor driving that piece of trash? I can’t afford a Mercedes.” There actually seemed to be some pain in her voice. “Unless I stop this analysis. That’s a threat, in case you missed it.”
Morrie Viner, anxious for his three o’clock appointment, coughed at the consulting room door. We’d gone two minutes over time. I had to make some connection, tie things up and end the session.
“You’re angry about the unfairness,” I said. “But I heard some sadness under your anger. We need to look at that.” I took a deep breath. “Our time is up for today.”
Renee made no move to vacate. “I’m a little worried about you,” she said. “Wouldn’t you normally have gotten a new car this year? A car starts to look shabby after three years. Especially a black one.”
Her words felt like a knife in my gut. I squeezed the arms of my chair and pushed my tongue into the roof of my mouth, sensing what was coming. Renee had the high-speed gossip access of a niche realtor, and she used the information without mercy.
“It’s none of my business,” she said, “but with your being separated from your husband and all, finances must be tight. This isn’t the kind of real estate a working girl supports by herself.”
She sat up and leaned in for a close look at my face, which I knew beamed a tingling red. The corners of her mouth turned up ever so slightly. Just then, the phone rang. I glanced at the Caller ID to break her gaze. The screen read out Unknown Caller and 207-7635, a number I didn’t recognize.
I was curious about the out-of-routine message left by the Unknown Number, but by the time I’d peed, combed my hair and had a sip of water, the clock read 3:01 PM, and Morrie was still plastered to the door. He charged past me and threw himself on the couch.
“Twenty-three seconds late.” He jabbed at the face of his watch with each word.
It sounds horrid to say, but I took pleasure in knowing it had been more like sixty-six. Yes, this hateful reaction was my countertransference to Morrie. Psychoanalysts are prone to push such feelings off on the patient. The analyst wants to torture a patient? Probably the patient wants to be tortured, they’d say. Or wants to torture the analyst. The truth is that an analyst can be sadistic for her own reasons. How does one apportion the blame? Hadn’t Morrie sucked me dry with his demands? Hardened me with his absolute lack of gratitude for the minimal fee I charged him much less for my patience with his exasperating habits? Hadn’t he devalued me with his inability to show the slightest bit of empathy?
Of course, I knew that these were all symptoms of his Asperger’s Syndrome or whatever yet-to-be-named disorder he has. But understanding someone doesn’t just translate into liking or caring. I understand Richard, for example. Understand how his father Stu made a passionate hobby of demeaning his son, how his mother Esther considered him her possession. Understand that Richard treated me the way they treated him. And I resented the hell out of him in spite of my flawless insight.
“I don’t do seconds, Morrie,” I said.
“But I do. Twenty-three seconds times one-hundred-eighty sessions. Sixty-nine minutes a year. Adds up.”
“What about when we start a few seconds early?”
“That’s not my fault,” he said.
Oh, my god! Not my fault. Close to a feeling! A therapeutic opening!
I settled back in my chair.
In psychoanalysis, the patient has to say whatever comes into his head. Freud instructed analysands to report their thoughts as if those mental images were changing landscape through the window of a train. Most patients will start off talking in session, saying this happened, that happened, surface conversation. Then something appears that’s like a door ajar, an invitation to a deeper place, an opening that leads into a disowned part of the self. This happens seamlessly with most patients, but there are few such opportunities with Morrie.
“Tell me about fault,” I said.
I still consider that the right response, even though fault was a topic I was primed to pick up on in the wake of Howard’s death. Not that I felt to blame in a way that I’d ever be called to account on, of course. But an analyst respects the deeper workings of the mind and the ultimate power of the Unconscious. The Unconscious, that subterranean place where there is no such thing as forgetting. No such thing as coincidence. No such thing as accident.
“Bor-ing.” Morrie shook his head. I kept silent.
Freud, his brows elevated, glared down at me from the bookshelf. I heard him pointing out my mistakes: Don’t you remember how Howard fell apart at your lateness? Didn’t you register that he experimented with volatile substances in his lab? A tiny slip, a bit of distraction, a whiff of an emotion would have been enough to disorder his overly ordered mind. Ka boom. And then there was Camille. You encouraged him to be vulnerable to her, to open his fragile heart to a conniving woman who wanted him gone. You hammered away at his defenses, assuming he could manage his emotions with your help. Suicide isn’t always a conscious act. Ka boom.
“Okay. You win,” Morrie finally said. “It’s all about fault.”
“Do you know that a young child assumes that he is the cause of everything? It’s a normal stage of development.” I often get pulled into trying to educate Morrie about basic human psychology. The information usually rolled off him like rain from a slick metal roof. “What did you think was your fault when you were a kid?”
“I told you. Everything.”
“Everything like?”
Morrie gave a disgusted snort. “Like my dog left fur all over the furniture. Like I got dirty and needed a bath. Like my mother needed to drink too much. Like my father had to work so hard to pay the bills. Like my brother died.”
I questioned my memory. “You have a brother?”
“I don’t have a brother,” he said. “He’s dead.”
“Hello, Morrie,” I said. “We’ve been together for five years. You’ve never mentioned a brother.”
“There’s nothing to mention. He doesn’t interrupt my life.”
These moments happen with Morrie, head-on collisions of our internal realities. The messages he leaves me, announcing himself—This is your patient, Morris Viner—as if we’re strangers, are a prime example. It’s a constant struggle for a human being, even for a psychoanalyst, to keep in mind that the other person has a separate and distinct subjectivity, that we each occupy a unique mental world. Our minds default to the assumption that The Other operates like we do. Morrie runs on very different psychic software. His inner life is about numbers, routine, repetition, compartmentalization. About anything but emotion or meaning. These moments are my signal to go back to the beginning.
“I need to know the story of your brother,” I said.
“Dr. Goodman, this is not what is coming to my mind. This is what’s coming to your mind.”
“You’re right. This is one of those important emotional things we need to pay attention to.”
“I’ll give you two minutes. Then we’re talking about what I want to talk about.” Morrie set the timer on his oversized, multifunction watch. “I was three when he was born. He didn’t grow right. He had asthma, and one of the attacks suffocated him. That’s enough.”
“Two minutes aren’t up,” I said. Everythi
ng about Morrie fell into place for me, and I, perhaps for the first time, felt tender toward him. “No wonder you constantly worry about getting cheated. And about fault.”
“I have no idea what you are talking about, Dr. Goodman.” His right foot, wagging a hundred miles an hour, suggested otherwise.
“You had a sick baby brother who demanded all the attention. When he died, your parents were devastated. Your mother drank to drown her grief, and your father buried himself in his work. No one had time for a lonely little boy.”
Morrie’s jaw twitched. “Are you going to raise your fee in January? I need to know. My trust officer has to plan the withdrawals for next year.” His watch buzzed.
“Did you hear anything I just said?” I asked.
“Your time is up, and our time is up.” Morrie sat and stacked the pillows in descending order by size as he did at the end of each session. “The Simpsons start at five. I don’t like to miss the beginning.”
Chapter Six
The garbled message on my machine was from the San Antonio Police Department. I replayed it five times, trying to distinguish the undistinguishable, trying to hear above the worried ringing in my ears. “Please return the call,” a male voice said. Detective Somebody. Something like Slater. Something about a suicide.
So. Howard’s death had been ruled a suicide. An odd sense of relief swept through me, as if I’d known it all along. I dialed the number right away. A chirpy female answered the phone. “San Antonio Police Department.”
“Detective Slater, please.”
“No Slater in the directory.”
“I might have the name wrong. I’m returning a call from a detective. Something about a suicide.”
“Suicide is Homicide,” she said. “I know who you want.”
I heard a click, then a man said, “Slaughter.”
“What?”
I felt a little crazy. Like some queasiness had taken over my head. I saw Howard’s workshop. I saw it in red. Slaughter. And then the kosher slaughterhouse where my father once worked appeared in my mind. It was an ugly job, but it seemed to suit my dad. He’d do in one domesticated victim after another, while arguing Torah with the shocet above the grinding of the machinery and the hiss of the water hose. My own analyst, Dr. Bernstein, found this bloody bit of my father’s story fascinating, said he’d never heard of such a clear example of counterphobic reaction to castration anxiety. At eight, I’d been equally intrigued, my curiosity urging me to the slaughterhouse against my mother’s strictest prohibition. Slaughter. I’d hear the complaining cows corralled in the back, not yet knowing how much they had to complain about. I’d stand all-eyes in the doorway, taking in the ritual. The process was oddly soothing: the coaxing of the leery but obedient animal, the quick slit of the throat, the hoisting of the carcass. All predictable. No surprises. Not at all like home.
“Detective Slaughter,” the man said. “Homicide.”
“This is Dr. Goodman,” I said, putting the emphasis on doctor to steady myself. “Returning your call.”
“Yeah. You have a patient Allison Forsyth?”
“I’m a psychiatrist.” I stalled. “I can’t reveal the names of my patients.”
“Well, this particular Allison Forsyth jumped off a very tall building earlier today. Didn’t survive to tell the story. Her husband said you were treating her. I’m in charge of the case. I’d like to talk to you. Get some things straight.”
He means Howard, I thought. Howard is the one who died. Allison can’t be dead. We have an appointment tomorrow. And the next day. A chill started at the base of my spine and rolled to my scalp.
“I could come tomorrow morning,” I heard my voice say.
“I’m here at dawn. Beat the I-10 traffic, you know.”
“Eight-fifteen?” I calculated I could drop the kids off, go straight downtown on San Pedro and be back for John Heyderman’s ten o’clock session.
“Police headquarters is on Nueva, west of the Courthouse. You can bypass the security booth. Homicide is down the first hall on the right.”
I wrote the directions in my appointment book using my favorite pen. Then, to try to make what he’d said real, so I would remember what I wanted to deny, I crossed out Allison’s name on my schedule: Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday. And Friday. The thin blue lines I drew in a shaky hand underscored the empty eight o’clock slots formerly reserved for Howard’s name. I willed the action to make me feel. Something. Sad. Frightened. Angry. Something other than the awful numb anxiety that had taken claim of me since Howard’s death, that had invaded my brain, that pushed at the inside of my skull as if the barometric pressure had taken a hard plunge.
I had no choice but to stick with routine. Lock up. Walk the three blocks to pick up the kids from their San Antonio Academy classes: Throw Me a Curve for Alex, My Secret Journal for Tamar. They raced at me from the summer camp holding pen, the smell of dried sweat and dirt slamming into me seconds before they did.
“I get to tell Mom!” Tamar shouted, giving her brother a two-handed shove. “It’s about my friend.” She pulled me down and whispered in my ear, her breath reeking of Gatorade. “That girl named Abigail in my class? Her mom jumped off a building. A big one.” She gasped for air. “She’s dead. Abigail had to leave before snack.”
Small world.
Alex stood with his arms crossed. “She committed suicide. Just use the real word.”
“She needed a psychiatrist,” Tamar said. “Right, Mom?”
Small world.
“She had one, Baby.”
I didn’t have to say that, but the look on my face would have revealed me anyway. My physiology allows no secrets. I blush. I blanch. My mouth twitches. My pupils dilate.
“Mom! That’s two patients in a week,” Alex said. “You’re going to get sued and sent to jail, and we’ll have to go live with Dad. He’ll never let us keep the dogs in his stupid apartment.”
He took off through the parking lot, but not before I’d seen the tears cutting channels through the dust on his cheeks. He darted in and out between the cars, his red baseball cap a bobbing marker. I ran after him as fast I could with a ten-year-old girl by the arm and a pair of Claudia Cuti mules on my feet. Did you overlook the terror that accompanies the possibility of happiness? The voice was so vivid that I stopped and turned to look for the source. But it was in my head. Not Freud this time, but the voice of Dr. Nathan Bernstein, my former analyst.
By the time the kids and I got home that afternoon, my mind was crazed. I should have known just how crazed by virtue of the fact that calling Bernstein seemed to be a reasonable option. I didn’t know where else to turn. A drowning person grabs for a floating board, even if it’s full of nails.
“Dr. Bernstein,” he said, answering the phone with the same vaguely irritated, nasal voice that broadcast his once-daily piece of wisdom over my shoulder as I lay on the hard leather daybed. Those few words, always spoken just at session end, were my cue to vacate.
“This is Nora Goodman,” I said.
He did hesitate, but to his credit and my surprise, he remembered me. “I haven’t heard from you in some time,” he said.
Dr. Nathan Bernstein had been my assigned Training Analyst at the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis. Every analyst-in-training is required to undergo a personal psychoanalysis and for good reason. We all see the world through the constraints of our own psyches. There’s no way you can begin to understand where someone else’s psyche starts if you don’t know where yours ends. Bernstein wasn’t on my wish list for a Training Analyst, but I was too intimidated back then to buck the system with a special request.
Officially, I’d terminated with him fifteen years before all this happened—terminate being the curious word we psychoanalysts use to designate the ending of an analysis. In my case, escape would have been more apt. Freud recommended that analysts get re-analyzed every five years, like a mental tune-up. But in Freud’s time, most analyses lasted only a few months. My analysis with Bernstei
n went on for eight years. Even then, he wasn’t satisfied. Not all analysts adhere to Freud’s guideline for mental maintenance, but I venture that most do stay in touch with their former analysts to let them know about life events or to discuss problems that pop up. Once the door clicked behind me after my last session, I swore I’d never speak to him again.
“Something strange is happening in my life,” I said into the receiver, flooded by a familiar shamed, needful feeling. “I’d like to make an appointment to speak to you.”
“If you’re able, we could talk some now. I happen to be free.”
“I do want to pay you for your time.”
“Is it your wish that I’d not expect to be paid?” he said. “Rather narcissistic, wouldn’t you say? I do hope you’ve called about your inability to cut the tie with the impossible man you insisted upon marrying. Roger, was it?”
“Richard,” I said. For the briefest moment, I felt like defending my husband and the choice I’d made. I saw Richard as I’d seen him when we met our first day at Northwestern Medical School. My head was spinning from my last minute, off-the-waiting-list admission. And there he was. Brilliant. Exotic. A Jew from Texas, no less. Sophisticated and funny. The kind of guy who could joke about MD being stamped on his birth certificate. I’d been scared witless a few weeks later when he pulled me aside after Anatomy lecture. I was certain I’d made some grand faux paux, and that he, as class president, had been assigned to tell me I wasn’t making the grade. Instead he asked if I’d like to attend that evening’s meeting of the Shrink-Lits, the journal club he’d organized for medical students interested in Psychiatry, and perhaps grab a drink afterward at Billy Goat’s Tavern.
Dr. Bernstein went on. “It’s one of the disappointments of my life that so much of what analysis has to offer remains potential.”
“I’m not calling about Richard. Right now I’m worried about something in my practice,” I said. “I have seven analytic patients…”