“What do you do with it?”
Sarah thought a moment. “I spent some time in the park today. Most of the time…well, I don’t know.” She picked at her fingernails. Might as well get it out there, she thought. “I spent last night going through Eric’s things,” she admitted.
“Oh, Sarah,” Dr. Robin’s veneer cracked for an instant; her concern was visible, almost maternal. “Again?”
“Yes.”
“What did you expect to find?”
Come on, Sarah thought. Forty percent of married men cheat on their wives, and you’re asking me what I expected to find?
“Proof,” she said.
“Proof?”
“Yeah, proof. Hairs, makeup stains. I don’t know, anything.”
Dr. Robin sighed. “And did you find any?”
Sarah shook her head.
“As you didn’t the last time.”
“Yeah.”
“But you still feel the need to look for it.”
“Apparently.”
Sarah looked at the doctor, impatient to change the subject.
“I’m still having those nightmares,” she blurted out.
“Nightmares?”
At least Dr. Robin sounded interested.
“You’ll have to remind me—which nightmares do you mean?”
“Same as I always have,” Sarah sighed. “Eric and Juliette. It’s always them.”
“You know it’s only a dream,” Dr. Robin reassured her.
“And then I’m running, always running from something. Or to something,” she said. “There’s nothing there to run to, or from. Ever.”
The therapist opened her journal and made a few notes. “What do you mean, nothing there?” she asked.
“I am running. I’m outside, I’m wet, and it’s cold. And then the sky flashes and then there is thunder and a loud crash, then a scream and all goes dark.”
“What do you make of it?”
“It’s scary, and I feel alone.”
“Of course. No one likes to have nightmares, though you know as well as I do that they can’t do anything to you. They aren’t real, they are a manifestation of how you feel, of your thoughts,” Dr. Robin explained. “Can we talk a little about your parents?”
Sarah looked around feeling very vulnerable. “You were asking how I feel about the kids being in boarding school.”
“Yes, but first let’s talk about your mother and your father,” Dr. Robin insisted.
Sarah looked at her firmly, “I don’t want to talk about them. They were good parents, and they died when I was young.”
“Were they?”
Sarah persisted, “Yes, they were a great couple. I only wish Eric and I were more like them.”
Dr. Robin took notes in her journal.
“You asked me about boarding school,” Sarah reminded her, changing the subject.
“Sure.” Dr. Robin nodded encouragingly.
“If I’m being completely honest, I don’t like it at all. In fact, I hate it.”
“What do you hate about it?”
“It just feels unnatural. I mean, I want them with me, all the time. I know I can’t have that, but I want it. And when they come home on weekends, I feel distant from them. I just keep thinking of how things used to be. This way—I don’t know, it’s like they’re gone. Like they’ve left, and Eric’s left, and I’m just left behind.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?” Sarah felt her voice rise in response to a sudden heat within her.
“Of course. What you’re talking about is loss. Everyone can understand that on some level.”
“What have you lost?” Sarah said, raising her voice again. Isn’t that what these sessions were supposed to be teaching her? “Do you have kids in boarding school? Do you even have kids?”
“You know that isn’t the point here, Sarah.”
“That’s right, you never answer any of my questions,” Sarah muttered. She looked at her fingernails again. Dr. Robin let the silence hang, expecting her to go on. It always frustrated Sarah when she did that, though her expression now was not unkind. “He is seeing someone,” she went on, without looking up. “Eric is always out late, or needing to be somewhere else in a hurry, or just not at home at all. That’s why I keep looking through his things. It’s not jealousy. I can feel him acting different with me. He’s too busy for the kids, too busy for me,” Sarah sighed. “He’s never present.”
“Never? Remember, that kind of unqualified language is rarely accurate, right?”
“Fair enough, but it’s still true in this case.”
“And you feel this absence because he’s having an affair and no other reason? You’ve thought that before, remember?” Dr. Robin said calmly.
“And now it’s really true.” Sarah looked out the window. She knew how she sounded; it was impossible to convey the utter simplicity of it. “I know it is. I saw him with Juliette. He didn’t know I was there, but they were having lunch together. I watched them. I saw how he looked at her.”
Dr. Robin wrote a bit more in her journal. Sarah hated that journal. She constantly wondered what was in it.
“I can’t blame him, I guess,” Sarah reflected. “She is young and pretty.”
“And you don’t feel that way yourself?”
Sarah cringed inwardly. “No.”
“Well, that’s something we might spend some time with in our session today,” the therapist said. “I should tell you that these are normal feelings—especially for women as they get older, and most especially for women with children. But for now—leaving aside the question of whether Eric is or isn’t having an affair in reality—can you tell me specifically how that thought, the thought that he is doing that, makes you feel?”
“I almost can’t allow myself to think about it,” Sarah heard herself say. “It makes me too angry.”
“Too angry in what sense?”
“Like it would make me lose control.”
“And do something?”
“Maybe, yeah,” Sarah admitted.
“What are you worried it would make you do?”
It was the kind of thing Dr. Robin always seized on. But Sarah knew better than to answer that honestly. There were limits to patient confidentiality.
“I haven’t thought that far ahead,” she said.
ENTRY, OCTOBER 11, 2018
Patient: Sarah Rock
Age: 39 (Dob: 12/7/1978)
Sarah continues to be a classic case of mood-congruent disorders, specifically related to loss trauma.
She exhibits the most acute signs of paranoia and distress when talking about her husband, Eric. I have tried on many occasions to help her reconcile these feelings with other losses in her life, but she tends to respond belligerently. She believes that Eric has been cheating on her with his younger coworker, Juliette, and has tried in vain on numerous occasions to produce proof of the affair. She doesn’t go into any potentially dangerous specifics, but has admitted to following Eric and Juliette, which does concern me, especially in light of what has happened in the past.
She also misses her two children, who are away at boarding school, and has lost her sense of purpose. She reports recurrent nightmares: absent-space pursuits, disembodied figures. I am trying hypnosis and cognitive therapy along with medications.
I suspect she is no longer taking the latter as directed, but she insists that she is. Her use of unqualified language is becoming more frequent and associated with her distorted perceptions of Eric and Juliette. I have been coaxing her to not use words like ‘never’ and ‘always’ in her speech patterns. I hope she can understand the reasons for my suggestions.
CHAPTER 3
Thérèse, who had not yet pronounced a word, looked at the new arrival. She had never seen such a man before. Laurent, who was tall and robust, with a florid complexion, astonished her. It was with a feeling akin to admiration that she contemplated his low forehead planted with coarse black hair, his full cheeks, his red
lips, his regular features of sanguineous beauty.
THÉRÈSE RAQUIN
Even without Dr. Robin’s interrogations, it was hard for her to say how she spent her time. With this much time to herself, it would seem that the hours would drag by; but most of the time when she wasn’t asleep, the hours flew by instead. It was one of the drawbacks of therapy days, in particular, that sometimes her mind would feel disorganized, unfamiliar, as though someone else had been moving furniture around in there.
Still, Sarah knew it was all for the greater good. It took work to get better.
Deciding to stay out, she took a long walk up Fifth Avenue along Central Park, feeling the difference the day had made. Her session that morning had energized her, and the heaviness had cleared in the cool autumn air; the afternoon sun seemed to embrace her. She passed the Ukrainian Institute on the corner of 79th Street with its big windows and balcony, its long curtains hiding the memories of the family that once lived there. She walked by the New York Society Library, where she often read, and resisted the urge to go inside.
Fishing in her bag for her sunglasses, she narrowly avoided running into a pretty young woman, who responded to her apology with a huff as she walked off. The girl reminded her of Juliette: petite, dark eyes, not a wrinkle or blemish on her. Sarah shook off the darkness that threatened to creep back up on her from the inside. She really had no reason to suspect her husband; it was her he loved, not Juliette.
On Madison Avenue, heading towards home, she stopped by the Goddess International Delicatessen, a fancy deli with specialties from around the world. The Goddess was one of her housewifely tricks, a little white lie she shared with a number of other moms in the neighborhood. A few dishes from here, heated up and paired with a salad, never failed to look like the perfect homemade meal, whipped up by a magic mom. The kids would never know. Even Eric thought she was a great cook. On many occasions it had proven to be an absolute lifesaver.
When she arrived home, Manuel was still at the front, his shift not yet over. He held the door for her as she hurried in.
“Party in 8B tonight,” he said, taking her bags and placing them in the elevator. “Call us if it’s too loud, okay?”
“Thanks, Manuel,” she said, noting again the look of sympathy in the doorman’s face.
The apartment was shockingly cold, almost icy. No Eric—but that was hardly a surprise. She went to the thermostat and turned up the heat. She wished she had time for a hot bath, but with the kids coming home early this afternoon it would have to wait.
Sarah carried the food down the long hallway to the kitchen and placed the bags on the marble counter. The kitchen felt stark and empty. She took out fruit from one bag and placed it in a big bowl. The color cheered up the lonely room, just a bit. She turned on the oven and poured herself a glass of sauvignon blanc. If the bath wasn’t happening for now, at least this was.
She touched the nameplate on her necklace, thinking again of her encounter in the park, of that mysterious handsome stranger who shared her love of the classics. What was his name? Lawrence. She remembered how her stomach had fluttered when he’d said her name. She had to admit, he was attractive. Maybe even more so than Eric, if she was being honest.
She checked the oven and looked at the clock, registering the time with surprise. The kids—any minute now. She looked at her phone; no messages or texts. Had she been waiting for someone to call?
Smiling at her own absent-mindedness, she juiced lemons and chopped up an onion, seeded a pomegranate, put the fish in the oven and the sauce and kale on burners to heat up, and added a bit more white wine to the sauce—and a bit more for herself, while she was at it. Even keeping up the illusion of domestic mastery held a certain charm for her.
She heard the front door slam shut, followed by the sound of heavy bags dropping to the floor. Immediately the house felt warmer to her, a home again.
“Jason? Darcy?” she called. “Hi, sweethearts!”
Her son shuffled in first. Her oldest, her handsome boy, the one who had first taught her heart to love unconditionally. He seemed older every time she saw him; somehow, he was almost as tall as she was now. She shoved down a pang of melancholy and kissed him.
“Hey, Mom.” Jason looked at her, his blue eyes piercing. For an instant he seemed to be searching for something in her face—then it passed. “Smells good,” he sniffed; then flashed by her down the hallway. She heard the door to his room shut. A few moments later the inevitable music was playing.
Fourteen years old and he was already gone. She felt a sudden rush of helplessness and heard Dr. Robin’s voice: “The words matter; they become the way you think. Try to give the feelings better words, words that will help rather than hurt you.” Jason wasn’t gone—he was just living his own life. She wasn’t helpless—it was just hard to adjust to change sometimes. No one had ever told her that being a parent involved so much loss—all that significance a child would never understand, so wonderful and frightful at the same time.
Sarah resisted the urge to follow Jason and instead went to the foyer to meet Darcy. Her little girl was struggling out of her coat, already showing the monumental exasperation only felt by twelve-year-olds.
“Hi, sweetie,” Sarah said, moving in to help her.
Darcy shrugged her off. “Mom, I’ve got it,” she snapped. Finally getting through the zipper, she threw the coat down onto her backpack with a huff and smiled wearily.
“Welcome home, princess.” Sarah held her close, reveling in her daughter’s still-unresisting embrace. Pre-teen attitude had come with her move to boarding school, but Darcy was still her little angel. She was just a slightly more-prickly angel these days.
Flicking her long hair out of her face, Darcy started for the kitchen. “What’s for dinner?” she asked. “I’m starving! The bus ride was awful.”
At least she’s not shutting herself in her room yet, Sarah thought. She thought of calling Eric, but a jealous twinge checked her. Let him miss out, if he had such other important places to be. The kids were part of what he was missing, too.
Dinner was soon on the table, and the three of them sat down to eat. She served the meal on Eric’s parents’ best china; this was as special an occasion as any. Jason turned up his nose at the flounder.
“Fish, huh?” Jason said.
“It’s flounder, in a lemon and white wine sauce. I used to make it for you all the time—you don’t like it anymore?”
Jason’s look was resigned. “Never mind, Mom. It’s fine.”
Sarah refilled her wine glass. “So how was your week?”
“It was school,” Jason said scornfully.
“But I wasn’t there. Did anything special happen? For either of you?”
“No,” they both said at the same time.
“What about that paper you were working on, Jason?” Sarah tried again. “You turned that in this week, right?”
“Yeah. I got an A on it.”
“That’s fantastic!”
“Whatever,” Jason gave her a blank look. “It was easy.”
“Still, that’s great. I know you took it seriously.”
He picked distractedly at his kale. She wondered if he was still having trouble making friends at school. Better let Eric fish for that one, she thought.
“What about you, Darcy?” she asked her daughter. “Are you liking school any better?”
“Not much,” Darcy said. “Kind of, sometimes.”
“Are you at least sleeping better?”
“Ugh, no. The beds are stiff and always smell weird.”
“I’ll have to call them about that,” Sarah said, resisting the temptation to laugh. For all her whining, Darcy seemed so serious these days. “I couldn’t sleep on a weird-smelling bed either.”
“Can’t we go somewhere closer, so we can sleep here again?”
“We’re only a month in, stupid,” Jason said.
“Jason.” She turned back to Darcy. “We’re giving this a try for now, honey. If it
doesn’t work out, we’ll change it.”
“I hate boarding school,” Darcy pouted.
“I know, baby. But your dad and I—Hey! Jason, I said no phones!”
Jason groaned and set his phone down next to his plate. Sarah picked it up to put it behind her on the counter.
“Mom! I’m not using it,” he protested.
The phone vibrated in Sarah’s hand as she set it facedown on the counter, refusing to look at it. Maybe she didn’t have to worry about the two of them making friends after all. Give the feelings better words. “Come on, I haven’t seen you two all week. Here I am, living the same old boring life, and you’ve got nothing new to tell me?”
Darcy looked embarrassed. “Sorry, Mom. It’s just school. It’s boring too.”
Sarah started to say something, but looked at Jason and stopped.
He was glaring at the empty chair with the place setting.
“Why do you do that?” he asked quietly, motioning at Eric’s chair.
Sarah flinched. “What? Set a place for your dad?”
“Yeah,” Jason said. He was looking at her now, his face imploring. “Why do you even act like he’s coming?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because you know he’s not.”
She flushed with embarrassment and anger at her husband. She and Eric had talked countless times about the importance of eating together, of being there together to greet the kids when they came home. Boarding school was already such a burden on them. How could he have let himself become so distant that even the kids could see it?
“I—it’s a habit,” she heard herself say.
“Are you serious?” Despite his gentler voice, Jason’s look was equal parts pity and contempt, a grotesque mixture in a face so young. “Come on, Mom. You need to stop it.”
Her cheeks burned. “I know,” she said. “I—I knew he had to be away, Jason. I just—I’m sorry. I was just hoping it would be different this time.”
Jason stared at her, disbelieving. She felt her heart break at the look in his eyes. Wasn’t there something else there, too—something still more vulnerable, still more strangely adult? Finally he looked away.
The Woman in the Park Page 3