I have one more session before Christmas. I called Eric to schedule an extra one, then I wrote a list of things to talk about just to make sure we cover it all.
THINGS TO TALK TO ERIC ABOUT:
Me and Mark
Me and Brian
Me and Sarah
My mother
Going to Yvonne’s (maybe)
Reducing my fee (to $50?)
Stacey
Buying oranges in hardware stores
Eric’s going away. He says he told me but I don’t remember. He said it’s the same as my not remembering seeing him at Rockefeller Center.
“It’s not the same,” I said. “I didn’t see you, so I couldn’t remember seeing you,” I continued. “Why can’t you consider the fact that you might have forgotten to tell me?”
If things went on this way I knew we would spend the entire session talking about whether I’d forgotten or he’d forgotten.
“I’m scared,” I said.
He nodded.
“I mean I feel like someone else is walking around in my body. Like a seam opened and I slipped out of my life. I don’t feel like myself.”
I’d told him on the phone about Mark moving out so it would be one less thing I had to bring up in the session. So he’d have to think about it beforehand. Mark has been gone for two days, staying, he says, with Glenda and David, though he hasn’t been there once when I’ve called and he always calls me from the gallery. We’ve talked each day.
“Who do you feel like?” Eric asked. He shifted in his chair and crossed his legs. I wonder if he resented working on his day off.
“Moe,” I said.
He didn’t say anything.
“I wish you weren’t going,” I said.
“Are you afraid of something? Afraid something will happen?”
Something. “Could you leave a number?”
“Of course,” he said, “I’ll leave a number on my service. My colleague Raymond Stone will be available if you need to talk.”
Stone. I hated him already.
“Where are you going?”
“Cape Cod.” At least he didn’t ask why I wanted to know.
“Won’t that be too cold for the baby?” I asked. I’d read once about a baby being left outside on Cape Cod and freezing to death. When he didn’t say anything I said I was glad he’d gotten the heat fixed, but that I kind of missed lying on the couch under the blanket.
“Why don’t you lie down.”
It was 12:10. There were only forty minutes left. I laid down where I could keep my eye on the clock.
“Why don’t we try this?” he said. He shut the light and the clock disappeared.
I like it when he gets spontaneous. I could see his shoes, but couldn’t tell the color in the dim light. I could just about make out the outlines on the painting behind him. I could see the sail, the prow.
“Terry, what are you afraid of?”
“The dark.”
“What else?”
“Losing Mark.”
“What else?”
I wondered how long I could keep the rhyme going.
“A green shark, an aardvark. Petula Clark.”
This was stupid. I tried to remember my list. I liked being in the dark, though, where he couldn’t see me. It was like confession, just listening to his voice in the dark. I thought about this thing Sarah always says about integrity being what you do when you think no one is watching.
“It always feels like there’s someone watching me,” I said.
“Who is watching you?”
“Being alone,” I continued, ignoring him. “I’m afraid to be alone.” It felt like a contradiction. Then I started thinking how I’ve always felt like part of me was missing. That I’m only half of something. My dead twin. I took one of the pillows and held it to me.
“I’ve been going to Yvonne’s,” I said.
Eric didn’t say anything.
“I said, I’ve been going to Yvonne’s.”
“What do you mean?”
“What do I mean? I mean I leave here. I walk up to her apartment. I let myself in.” It was exhilarating. “I have her keys. Sometimes I just follow her.”
“How long have you been doing this?” He sounded alarmed. I love it when I surprise him. I wish I could have seen his face.
“Since October,” I said. “This is her scarf I’ve been wearing. I burned a hole in it last night.”
I could almost hear the gears shifting. Eric trying to figure out what to ask, what to say. I thought about that time I’d walked around his office—the time I snuck around his office and saw that picture of his wife and child on his desk. I always wondered if he knew, if he’d left me in there alone just to test me.
“Terry,” he began, “this is very serious.”
I wondered if he thought everything else I’d been talking about had been a big joke. I stuck out my tongue and crossed my eyes but I don’t think he saw. I held the pillow tight.
“What? Burning her scarf?”
“You cannot,” he continued, “break into someone’s apartment. You are breaking the law.”
I was actually making him lose his cool. He was almost scolding me.
“I’m wearing her underwear,” I said.
He didn’t answer. His right foot started tapping the rug. He leaned forward. I imagined his hands folded under his chin, praying like crazy. It was really quiet and then there was a long squeak when someone turned on the water in the next apartment.
I wondered if he could order me to stop or whether therapists have to stay in the realm of suggestion. If they’re bound to silence, like priests, or if they can go to the police.
“What do therapists do when their patients tell them they are contemplating murder?” I asked.
“What are you saying?” he asked. Now I knew he was thrown because he has to know I’d never contemplate killing Yvonne. Not seriously, anyway.
“Terry, listen to me. You’ve been anxious. Upset. People do things they wouldn’t ordinarily do when they are upset.”
I was getting him to talk a lot more than usual. It felt great to jolt him out of his careful questions and comments.
“You have got to promise to stop,” he said. “Immediately.”
I didn’t say anything. I could hear him trying to collect himself. I knew that later he’d think of lots of interesting questions he could have asked. Like did I think Yvonne was another part of me and did I feel more like myself when I was calling myself Yvonne. Maybe he’d regret going to Cape Cod just as things were getting interesting. Maybe he’d give me his phone number.
“Who else knows this?”
I’d thought of taking Brian over there. To fuck him in her bed. In the same bed she’s been fucking my husband. But I knew I wouldn’t. I knew he wouldn’t.
“Brian,” I said. “I took him there.” I didn’t know why I was saying it. Any of it. I started thinking maybe I was possessed.
“I don’t believe you,” Eric said.
Just like that. Like I’d said I’d never heard of the Beatles.
“Now just how much of this is true?”
He sounded angry.
“I thought,” I said, “that in terms of therapy, what a patient believes is true is as important as what is actually true.” I knew I had him.
“And what do you believe is true?”
I was tired, I was scared, and it was 12:30.
“It’s true I’ve been going to Yvonne’s,” I said. “Only Sarah knows.”
Eric turned on the light.
“Sit up,” he said.
I sat up. It made me think of Father Dugan. I wondered if he’d give me penance.
He was wearing the brown shoes.
“I am going to give you a phone number where I can be reached,” he said. He looked like he was thinking really hard. Like his mind was racing backward through all the textbooks he’d ever read, trying to figure out the right tack to take. “Please don’t call unless it is absolutely necessary. But I want you to call me if you are planning to go back to that apartment.”
I wondered if I should tell him that I was planning to go right after the session. Maybe he’d keep me there. But I thought he might not give me the number. I promised. Eric wrote the number down. I memorized it immediately—in case he took it back.