once, the plain face withered away; I was bathed in the cool, dark pool of my imagination wherein floated my dear patient; and I heard her therapist laugh and say:
Of course I can.
And the patient reply: I don’t know how to begin.
24.
Start anywhere, said the therapist. Go in any direction.
No, no. That’s what’s making me crazy, replied the patient. It keeps coming back to me in pieces, flashes. I thought that here—with you—here, the only place … I need to unravel it. Go in order. In my mind. In line. Straighten it out.
All right.
Make it coherent. It’s all incoherent.
All right.
The patient said nothing for some seconds.
It’s so noisy here, she said at last. Funny how you don’t notice it, and then you do.
A chorus of horns suddenly rose from the street.
Did I make that happen? asked the patient. You see, don’t you, how weird I am.
I see you are distressed.
Yes.
A long pause.
Distressed, said the patient.
Just start at the beginning, said the doctor.
But what is the beginning? My mother told me what she knows, but it’s not the beginning. It’s a middle. Somewhere in the middle of a middle. A long way from the beginning. I don’t know if I’ll ever find the beginning.
25.
They were in the den as before. It was the Sunday after Thanksgiving, early evening. The trees had lost their leaves but for a few ugly stragglers, “wrinkled shapes against the twilight,” said the patient, who then laughed at her attempted poetry.
We had the same seats, she went on. Mother on the recliner, me on the loveseat, the table full of glass figurines between us. The television was on—Miracle on 34th Street, that sentimental piece of crap. Can’t they even wait until December to trot out the crappy Christmas movies?
I’d held off saying anything, she went on. Maybe it was self-protective. I didn’t want a big blowup, and then still have to be there for three more days, or else have to change my flight, pack a bag, rush off in some noisy, dramatic scene. So if I was going to say something on this trip, it was now or never. Father and Lizabeth were at the mall. Mother and I were alone for the first time all weekend.
Earlier that day, we’d visited the Rushstons—you remember, my parents’ old friends. Mother was still all put together: tomato-red bouclé skirt, white silk blouse, pearls. She even kept on her high heels, Bruno Maglis, red fabric to match the skirt. She sat with her feet tucked under her—heels and all—smoking, sipping a cup of tea, watching that terrible movie as if she’d never seen it before. Never took her eyes off the screen. Maybe she was nervous, too. Yes, now that I think of it, I suppose she was as afraid as I was.
Afraid? asked the therapist.
To break … I was going to say, To break the ice. But the break would be more … thorough.
In what way?
With the whole conception of who I am … Was.
The patient stopped for several seconds, as if her silence could ward off what was about to happen.
Well, she said, rousing herself. So we come to the part of the movie where all the mail addressed to Santa Claus is brought into court, where Kris Kringle is on trial, or whatever the bearded fat guy’s name is. The post office has sent all the Santa mail to Kringle. Then the judge has to rule that, well, since the United States Post Office believes he’s Santa Claus, he really must be Santa Claus. And Mother starts to tear up. Then comes the part where the little girl gets her dream house with her dream parents, and the fat guy’s eyes are twinkling, and by then Mother is outright weeping.
And I was suddenly really pissed off—it came out of nowhere, bang, one minute I’m simply annoyed and then—what? Pissed as hell. There we were with a real-life drama between us, and she’s lost in this—what? This fantasy sorrow. That crap emotion. She never shows emotion, WASP that she is, except times like this: fake feelings, show feelings, canned tears.
So she’s crying, and she says to me: Honey, you’ll bring me the tissues.
The tissue box was on the bookcase, closer to her than to me, but she had to sit there and command me in her future imperative: You’ll bring me the tissues.
I went and picked up the box, but I didn’t hand it to her right away. I stood there with the box just out of