Fund. Which went well. Very well, actually. They were impressed with our models and immediately subscribed.
Wonderful! You must be so pleased, after all the arguments about …
The function on the third derivative.
The doctor laughed. Yes, that was it.
The patient shifted about her chair, then fell silent.
And there is something else? asked the therapist.
The patient took a breath, released it. A lot more happened on this trip.
Yes?
Well … since our business was finished so quickly, I decided not to come back right away. I … went to see my family.
The doctor hummed but said nothing.
You know how rarely I see them, said the patient. I talk to them on the phone maybe three times a year. Like I’ve told you. When they call, I figure someone must have died. So I don’t know what got into me. All I know is, I was free, not far away, and I went.
And? asked the doctor when the patient did not immediately go on.
And I asked my mother about my adoption.
Oh, my!
(Dr. Schussler must have jumped in her seat; her chair produced a squall of creaking leather; I myself could barely hold still.)
The patient said nothing more for several seconds.
And? the doctor prompted once more.
I can’t tell you what a bitch my mother was, said the patient.
17.
It was Sunday evening, said the voice I loved, a windy day, she went on. The patient was sitting with her mother in a room they called the den, a small addition whose walls were pierced on three sides by windows (“pierced by windows”: my patient’s lovely phrase). The trees had begun to turn. Fingers of drying leaves kept scratching at the window glass (“fingers of leaves”: also the patient’s beautiful words). Her mother sat on a recliner that faced the television; the patient across from her on a small sofa. Between them was a glass coffee table covered with delicate glass figurines and ceramics: a ballerina, an old woman selling balloons, a clown, a breaching whale, an owl, a rose, a ballet slipper.
Her mother had just come into the room and was still fussing with her skirt, trying not to wrinkle it as she settled into her recliner. When she was satisfied with her efforts, she said to her daughter:
You know, you’ll get me a glass of ice water.
It was her future imperative tense, the patient explained to Dr. Schussler. My mother foresees something that will occur in the future, and you have no choice but to enact it.
Her mother had come home from the beauty salon, where they had created for her a hard, round, fiercely yellow helmet that was supposed to be beautiful hair.
What do you think of it? asked her mother, gently patting her helmet with one hand as she received her daughter’s proffered ice water with the other.
Not too big? she asked.
Well, maybe a little, answered the patient.
Oh, I don’t think so. You know, we women don’t wear our hair loose and tousled like you girls.
We’re women, Mother.
Well, I think of you as girls. I can’t change the way I think. You’re my girl.
Your hair is fine, Mother.
Not too sprayed?
Your hair is fine, Mother.
Her mother said while lighting a cigarette: Today the dry cleaner told me I always look so nice. Not like the other women in their housedresses and curlers. I don’t understand how women can let themselves be seen like that.
Her mother was wearing a pearl-gray wool suit, lapis lazuli beads, a peacock brooch pinned to her shoulder: gold, inset with gemstones. The skirt was tight, to show off her trim figure.
You always look lovely, Mother.
There’s a certain illusion a woman has to maintain, dear. A little powder and paint goes a long way. Don’t forget that, darling. Remember that when you get married.
I’m never going to get married, Mother. You know that I—
Dammit! her mother said. We are not going to discuss that in this house! How many times do I have to tell you?
I wanted to kill her, the patient told her therapist. Really I did. At that moment I thought I would jump up and strangle her. The weight of all those lies, all those silences—I thought there was no way out but to kill her. I suppose I wanted a kind of revenge. How many years had I spent telling her she was beautiful, trying to fill that black-hole need in her—unquenchable, endless—meanwhile sparing her any little upset about me, about who I really was. Bringing up the adoption would hurt her back—that’s what I’m thinking now.