Maybe You Should Talk to Someon - Lori Gottlieb Page 0,127

all you were doing!” This was absolutely true, but Christina was shocked.

“He never told me that,” she said, bursting into tears. My father was floored until he realized that he wasn’t sure if he’d told me how he felt about me. Had he done it at all—or enough?

“So,” my father said outside the gym, “I want to make sure that I’ve told you how proud of you I am. I want to make sure you know.” He said it in such a shy way, obviously uncomfortable having this kind of interaction; he was used to listening to others but keeping his emotional world to himself.

“I know,” I said, because my father had communicated his pride to me in countless ways, though I wasn’t always listening as well as I should have been. But that day I couldn’t help hearing the subtext: I’m going to die sooner rather than later. We stood there, the two of us, hugging and crying as people passing by tried not to stare, because we both knew that this was the beginning of my father’s goodbye.

“As your eyes are opening, his are beginning to close,” Wendell says now, and I think about how bittersweet but true that is. My awakening is happening at an opportune moment.

“I’m so glad I have this time with him and that it can be so meaningful,” I say. “I wouldn’t want him to abruptly die one day and feel like it’s too late, that I waited too long for us to really see each other.”

Wendell nods, and I feel queasy. All of a sudden I remember that Wendell’s father had died ten years ago very unexpectedly. In my Google search, I’d come across his father’s obituary after I read the story of his death in his mother’s family interview. Apparently, Wendell’s father had been in seemingly perfect health when he’d collapsed at dinner. I wonder if my talking about my father this way might be painful for him. I also worry that if I say any more, I’ll give away how much I know. So I pull back, ignoring the fact that therapists are trained to listen for what patients aren’t saying.

A few weeks later, Wendell comments that for the past couple of sessions, I seem to have been editing myself—ever since, he adds, I sent him the Viktor Frankl quote and he’d mentioned his wife. He wonders (what would we therapists do without the word wonder to broach a sensitive topic?) how the mention of his wife has affected me.

“I haven’t really thought about that,” I say. It’s true—I’ve been focused on hiding my internet search.

I look at my feet, then at Wendell’s. Today’s socks are a blue chevron pattern. When I lift my head, I see that Wendell is looking at me with his right eyebrow raised.

And then I realize what Wendell is getting at. He thinks that I’m jealous of his wife, that I want him all to myself! This is called romantic transference, a common reaction patients have to their therapists. But the idea that I have a crush on Wendell strikes me as hilarious.

I look at Wendell, in his beige cardigan and khakis and funky socks, his green eyes staring back at me. For a second, I imagine what it must be like to be married to Wendell. In a photo I’d found of him and his wife, they were at a charity event, arm in arm and all dressed up, Wendell smiling at the camera and his wife looking at him adoringly. I remember feeling a twinge of envy when I saw that photo, not because I was envious of his wife but because they seemed to have the kind of relationship I wanted for myself—with someone else. But the more I deny the romantic transference, the less Wendell will believe me. The lady doth protest too much.

There are about twenty minutes left in the session—even as a patient, I can feel the rhythm of the hour—and I know that this façade can’t last forever. There’s only one thing to do.

“I Googled you,” I say, looking away. “I stopped stalking Boyfriend, and I ended up stalking you. When you mentioned your wife, I already knew all about her. And your mother.” I pause, especially mortified by this last part. “I read that long interview with your mom.”

I get ready for . . . I don’t know what. Something bad to happen. A tornado to enter the room and alter our connection in some intangible but