lose his license. Clearly, this morally bereft man took advantage of an emotionally fragile young woman who came to him for help.
April looks at my hands, which are clenched into fists. “It was partly my fault,” she says quickly. “I pursued him.”
April’s arm is touched. “No, it was not your fault,” she is emphatically told.
She will need more help to recover from her belief that she is to blame. There was an imbalance of power; she was sexually exploited. But for now she is allowed to continue with the story that weighs so heavily on her.
“And I didn’t just bump into him at a bar like I said,” she admits. “I had a big crush on him after that initial session. So I . . . I followed him one night after he left his office.”
The rest of her description of her encounter with the therapist matches her original telling: She saw him sitting alone at a table for two in a hotel bar; she approached. They ended the evening in bed at her apartment. She phoned and texted him the next day, but he didn’t reply for twenty- four hours. When he finally did, it was clear he was no longer interested. She persisted with more phone calls, texts, and invitations to meet. He was polite but never wavered.
April recounts her story choppily, with pauses in between her sentences, as if she is choosing each word with great care.
“He is an abhorrent person,” April is told. “It doesn’t matter who initiated things. He took advantage of you and violated your trust. What he did bordered on criminal.”
April shakes her head. No,” she whispers. “I also messed up.”
She can barely choke out her words. “Please don’t be mad at me. I never admitted this to you. I was too ashamed. But . . . he’s actually married.”
A sharp intake of breath accompanies the terrible revelation: She’s a liar.
The very first thing April did, before we even met in person, was promise to be honest. She signed an agreement to that effect when she became Subject 5.
“You should have revealed this to me much earlier, April.”
The counseling April received was predicated on the assumption that the man who spurned her after she brought him home to her bed was single. So many hours, wasted. Had she been forthcoming about the origin of their relationship, and his marital status, the situation would have been handled very differently.
April isn’t the victim, as was believed only moments ago. She shares culpability.
“I didn’t exactly lie to you, I just left that part out,” she protests. Incredibly, April sounds defensive now. She is shunning responsibility for her actions.
There are crumbs beneath April’s stool; she must have been aware that when she bit into a cracker, she scattered them. But she just left them, another one of her messes, for someone else to clean up.
My finger is placed beneath April’s chin and gentle pressure is applied so that her head is lifted and eye contact established. “That was a serious omission,” she is told. “I am deeply disappointed.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” April blurts. She begins crying again and wipes her nose on her sleeve. “I’ve wanted to tell you for so long . . . I didn’t know how much I’d like you.”
A frisson ot alarm sends a jolt through my body.
Her words are not logical.
Her anticipated feelings for me should not have dictated what she revealed about the man she slept with. There should have been no connection at all.
The nickname Thomas gave me years ago, the falcon, is significant now.
You can pick up on a seemingly throwaway comment by a client and trace it all the way back to the source of why they came in for therapy, even if they don’t realize it themselves, he said once, admiration ringing through his voice. It’s like you have X-ray vision. You see through people.
A falcon homes in on the slightest undulation in a field of grass; that is the signal it is time to swoop in.
April’s discordant words are the slight ripple in a verdant landscape.
She is considered more closely. What is she hiding?
If she is frightened, she will shut down. She must be coaxed into the illusion of safety.
My tone is gentle now; my utterance deliberately echoes hers: “I didn’t know how much I’d like you, either.”
Her wineglass is topped off again. “I’m sorry if I sounded harsh. This information just came as a surprise. Now, tell me more about him,” she is encouraged.