With Dr. Nissensen, March 8, 1973:
“I was easily able to accommodate you, Sam, but tell me,” Dr. Nissensen said, “why the urgent need for a session out of schedule?”
The previous day, Wednesday, I’d called him from the Haliburton House Inn, and he agreed to an appointment for the next morning.
“Elizabeth referred to her murder.”
“Directly or indirectly?”
“She asked a bunch of questions, and one of them was”—I referred to my own notebook—“‘Where were you when the creep bellman caught me in the lift?’”
“Where were you, in fact?” Nissensen asked.
“Sitting in a café near the CBC office. I’d just handed in my assignment. I was sitting in a café when my wife was murdered.”
“You couldn’t know.”
“To walk home to the hotel and see the police cars. To see the look on the bell captain’s face . . .”
“You could not have known, Sam. How could you have known?”
“Know what’s so goddamn stupid? That saying, Time heals. The truth is, what time doesn’t heal gets worse. If Padgett gets out of prison. For ‘good behavior.’ If he gets out, I’m going to kill him.”
“I doubt that very much.”
“Doubt all you want. I’m capable of it.”
“If you feel helpless, an act of absolute effective action might come to mind.”
Silence for a few moments. “What comes to mind just now, what really comes to mind, is that you might think my seeing Elizabeth on the beach is absolute effective action born out of my sense of helplessness.”
“I simply feel as I have from the start, Sam, that your mind puts Elizabeth on the beach and you see her there and you speak with her there. Whether that is helping or is an act of helplessness—we keep returning to this, don’t we? Very early in our work together, I asked you if you were afraid of Elizabeth telling you the details of her death. And here last night Elizabeth wanted details of that very afternoon from you. ‘Where were you when the creep bellman caught me in the lift?’ You both have curiosities about what happened that day.”
“Eventually Elizabeth and I are going to have to talk this through. In a marriage, things have to be talked through, right?”
Silence for a few minutes.
“Are you back at work on the novel?” Dr. Nissensen asked.
“Can’t talk about it, really. Self-pity is unattractive in a person. Someone acts like, ‘Woe is me,’ it makes me sick.”
“Can’t talk about it is different than refuse to talk about it.”
“Look,” I said, “we’re off the track here. All I was trying to say before was, Elizabeth asked me a lot of questions all in a rush, no time to answer them, and then she was gone. She said she wasn’t up for some big, serious conversation. Then she left the beach.”
“Sounds like she introduced some ‘big, serious’ subjects, though.”
“Yeah, I guess she did, didn’t she.”
“And you went back to your cottage alone and, my guess is, couldn’t sleep for thinking about them.”
“I’m feeling just like Elizabeth right this minute. I’m not up to talking about any big, serious subjects.”
“What would you care to talk about, then?”
Silence.
“I stayed at the Haliburton House Inn last night. But I can’t remember whether I booked a room for tonight. When we’re finished here, I’ll go and find out. This time of year? A Thursday? Shouldn’t be a problem either way.”
“Did you happen to notice that you nodded off about fifteen minutes ago?”
“For how long?”
“I’d say ten minutes. Then you came right back into our conversation.”
“No need for a nap later on, then, right?”
“That’s funny,” Nissensen said. “But what I’m saying is, you seem exhausted. I’m relieved to hear you’re considering not driving home until tomorrow.”
“I already booked a room, I think.”