Faith went to her office bookcase and retrieved her set of TAT cards before returning to her usual seat behind her desk. Since Scourge was apparently skittish where psychological tests were concerned, she took it nice and easy and slowly placed the closed blue box on the desk for him to examine.
Scourge reached out and, with shaky fingers, traced the embossed gold lettering. “Thematic Apperception Test for adults.” He crossed and uncrossed his legs. “If this TAT test circumvents my defenses like it’s supposed to, you’ll see all those shameful secrets you think I’m hiding.”
“Not to worry. I’m only a psychiatrist, buddy, not Kreskin—and this test is only a tool.” She propped her elbows on her desk. “A tool that may give me insight into your personality, into the way your mind works.”
“You have secrets, too, Dr. Clancy. Shameful ones. I can see them in your eyes.”
Scourge was merely displaying a classic defense mechanism: projection. He was projecting his own guilt onto her. She knew this, and yet her mind immediately turned to Grace. Her face heated. “We all have secrets. We’ve all done things we feel guilty about. All of us. Not just you. Mistakes are part of being human, nothing to be embarrassed about.”
She knew these words by heart because she’d recited them to herself more than once. Hopefully, they wouldn’t ring as hollow in Scourge’s ears as they did in her own. “We’re all human.” Her fingers toyed with the necklace Grace had given her—one-half of a heart. The other half had been buried with Grace.
Scourge’s gaze bounced to her throat, and she suddenly felt like the mouse to his toying cat.
“You show me your secrets, and I’ll show you mine,” he said, his voice a coaxing purr.
Keeping her tone all business, she said, “I’m not the patient, and this is not show-and-tell. Either you’re in or you’re out, but I can’t help you if you’re not willing to trust me.”
His fingers drummed the box. He shifted in his chair, bent, and looked around on the floor as if he’d dropped something, which he certainly had not as far as she could tell. Finally, he straightened and stilled. “What do I have to do?”
“Inside this box is a set of cards.” She held up her hand to block his protest. “Not inkblots. There are pictures on the cards, mostly of people. I show you a picture, and you make up a story about it. Simple and painless and we can stop anytime if anything makes you uncomfortable.”
“But I don’t know what story to make up.”
He needed more reassurance. “Any story you want. Anything at all.”
He jerked a nod. “Fine by me, then.”
Infusing her tone with encouragement, she said, “Try to remember, my job is to help you. I’m on your side.”
His lips trembled, and he wiped his mouth.
“Why don’t you go grab a water, take a pit stop if you need one?” Faith needed time to select the cards she wanted to use with Scourge, and he shouldn’t see them beforehand.
“You’re trying to get rid of me.”
“I certainly am.” She smiled at him. “I have to set the test up privately, or the results will be spoiled. Just give me five or ten minutes, if you don’t mind.”
He hesitated but then complied with her wishes. While he was out of the room, Faith selected ten cards from the assortment in the box, focusing on the subject matter she thought most likely to bring Scourge’s problems to the forefront, all in the safe guise of a make-believe story. She’d just completed her selection when he returned with two styrofoam cups of water.
“Thanks. How thoughtful of you.” She accepted the water he held out and waited for him to take a seat, make himself comfortable. Which was going to take a while, judging from all the repositioning of legs and folding and unfolding of arms.
Finally, he seemed settled in.
“Ready. Here we go.” She handed him a card, and just having something to hold in his hands helped him relax. He breathed in and out slowly. “That’s great. You’re using your relaxation techniques without being prompted.” He actually seemed to be learning to cope with his anxiety in a productive way, and that was a very good sign.
“I’m recording.” She turned on a handheld recorder. Later, she’d use the playback to score and analyze the results.
He turned the card upside down, sideways, looked at the back side, flipped it over again. “This is a very strange-looking picture.”
No argument there. The images on card 13MF were indeed strange—the kind that stirred the imagination . . . and the psychosexual urges. In residency, they not so jokingly called it the sex card. It depicted a woman lying in bed, nude from the chest up. Beside her, a man stood hanging his head, hiding his eyes with his forearm.
Scourge continued to look at the card, but when he didn’t volunteer any more information she prompted him. “I’d like you to make up a story about what you see. It can be any story you like, but it should have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Try to make it as dramatic as you can. Oh, and I’ll want to know what the characters in the story are thinking and feeling.”
“Sure. But what’s going on with the woman in bed. Is she asleep, or is she dead?”
“Up to you. I’m afraid I can’t answer any questions about the cards. There’s no right or wrong story, only what you choose.”
He was quiet a good five minutes. Faith relaxed into her chair and stretched her legs; rushing him would be counterproductive.
At last, he said, “She’s dead.”
Keeping her voice and face neutral, she reminded him, “I need you to tell me a beginning, a middle, and an end. I want to know what the characters are thinking and feeling.”
“Right. Well, that’s her son, and he killed her. He’s upset, that’s why he’s hiding his eyes. He’s glad she’s dead, but he’s also sad because now he doesn’t have anyone to take care of him. Only he’s stupid because his mother never took care of him in the first place. He’s already forgotten that’s the reason he killed her. Drunks shouldn’t have kids.”
“And?”
“And he runs away and makes a new life for himself and lives happily ever after. The end.”
Faith took mental notes only—she had the recorder to review later. Scourge’s response to the first card lacked the typical elements. Most patients saw the man and woman as being near the same age, and while some described the woman lying in the bed as dead, most said she was sleeping. Typical stories contained either overt or subtle sexual elements. Scourge’s story held none. The fact that his story was so different meant it was very personal and very significant.
Mother issues.
After presenting Scourge with several more cards, he seemed to relax into the task and get the hang of things. She no longer needed to remind him to tell her what the characters were thinking and feeling or tell a complete story. In response to each story, she offered no judgment or evaluation.
But her heart squeezed a little at Scourge’s reactions. While she kept her expressions as neutral as possible, he beamed like a boy who’d just brought home a straight-A report card to his parents. For Scourge, the mere absence of criticism seemed equal to the highest of praise. If only she could touch his sleeve, tell him well done, but that would’ve contaminated the process.
Each story grew more elaborate than the next, and Scourge was on a quite a roll. But it’d been over an hour, and she still had one more card to show him. Card 2 depicted a family—a teenage girl holding books in her arms, a man plowing a field in the background, and a pregnant woman standing to the side. Faith leaned forward, eager to learn his reaction to the family card.
“Oh,” he said in a loud voice. He set the card on her desk and jabbed it repeatedly with his index finger. “This is going to be my favorite story.”
Okay. People didn’t usually get quite that jazzed about the farm family, so maybe she’d been right to select the card. Suppressing a smile, she made no comment.
“So, this girl looks to be around sixteen. Let’s call her Nancy.”
First character he’d named. She twisted in her chair.
He looked up, eyes glittering with excitement. “See these books? Nancy’s a good student. She’s on the honor roll, student council, the whole nine yards. But today she has to hurry with her homework because she’s getting ready for a meeting of the 4-H club.”
It wasn’t easy for to hide her surprise. The animated way Scourge recounted his story, the rich details—giving the characters names and ages—was highly unusual. She bit her lower lip and focused her eyes on the bookcase. “Mmm hmm.”
“The father’s a rich man, he’s done very very well for himself with that farm of his, but he’s strict and a tough disciplinarian. Nancy’s a good girl, though, so he doesn’t need to worry about her. She’s helpful and kind. Everyone loves her. She’s the type of girl who’ll go straight to heaven when she dies.”
“Mmm hmm.” Lots of people dying today.
Jumping up, he nearly spilled his water on the card but caught it at the last moment. “The mother, let’s call her Bonnie, doesn’t look happy. She’s got four kids, and her husband doesn’t pay attention to her anymore. He’s too busy with church and running the farm to take notice of his wife. Some days, Bonnie doesn’t even bother getting dressed.”
He’d named both the mother and the daughter. Highly unusual. Maybe he’d had an aunt named Bonnie, or a cousin named Nancy. You’d never know he was constructing a family from thin air. He talked as if he knew them well. Perhaps he’d imagined himself in a different, happier family than his own. Perhaps this wasn’t the first time he’d thought about Bonnie and Nancy. She checked her watch.
“You want an end?”
She nodded.
“Because they’re good people, they have nothing to worry about. The end.”
Scourge handed her the card, his face flushed and glowing. This being the final card, there was little risk of her contaminating the process any longer. She decided to venture a question. “What do you mean, because they’re good people, they have nothing to worry about?”
A wide smile on his face, he said, “I enjoyed this, Dr. Clancy. I really did.”
She tried again. “Why doesn’t this family need to worry?”
“Because they’re going to heaven—all of them.”