Chapter 1
The one upside of being a therapist is that everyone around you always assumes you have it all figured out.
Except, of course, your own therapist.
If I was in front of a patient, my hands clasped and sitting up straight, they would know I’m listening, engaged, and ready to help them conquer their problems.
But I’m sitting in front of Ari, and she knows that today it’s a tactic. It’s a way for me to stay quiet. She sees my thumbs gently circling each other and clocks that it’s a way for me to stay in motion unobtrusively.
“How was your holiday weekend?” I ask, hoping I can delay whatever Ari has for me on this Tuesday evening.
“It was fine,” she says without pause. “Anything happen over yours that you want to discuss?”
Ari tilts her head and levels her most patient stare at me. When she’s looking at me like this, she reminds me of my dog, George. Both are focused and unyielding, with wiry black hair sticking out without care. The only two creatures on earth who somehow see through my reserved facade.
Thank goodness one of them can’t talk.
Although that doesn’t help me right now, when I’m in front of the one who can.
“I had a barbecue with my parents and brother,” I answer, avoiding getting to today’s real topic. “And it was exactly as you’d imagine—mymom accidentally bought spicy sausages instead of hot dogs and left the ice cream out on the counter. So it wasn’t exactly a raging success, but we had fun.”
“I’m hoping that means you didn’t take on the meal yourself,” Ari says in her pointed way.
“Nope,” I reply quickly, leaving out that Ididhave that impulse. I wanted to take over the way I would’ve when I was a kid, whenever my hapless parents inevitably wandered away: picking up the tongs and standing awkwardly at the smoky grill so that my brother wouldn’t end up with only a bun for dinner. But Ari has taught me to use my ability to contain for my own good. So that wasn’t this weekend’s story, thankfully.
Instead I say, “My mom lit her illegal balcony grill; my dad cheered for her; she burned everything. And I just stood and watched.”
Ari cracks a smile because she, of course, is well aware of my parents’ ineptitude, so this back seat boundary drawing is considered a win. I know she’ll let it go as long as it isn’t hurting me.
I’m used to it at this point, so it rarely does.
“So. What’s got you all sullen today, Nora?” she asks, changing the subject now that she’s satisfied that my parents aren’t today’s problem, the dart she’s been aiming finally able to be let go.
“I’m not sullen.” I shrug. “I’m just tired.”
“If you say so,” she replies.
We sit like that for a few minutes. Ari is extremely capable of waiting me out.
In general, she’s much more talkative than the typical therapist (certainly leaps and bounds more than I am). She’s almost eighty and seems to have reached a stage of her life where she no longer cares to sit silently; she actually enjoys sharing an opinion more than most would. And that style works for me, I think because I’m the kind of person who needs the push. Since I never had pushy parents, Ari has actually been the perfect unsubtle bulldozer of a therapist for me.
But she can also go quiet when she wants to, and somehow because it’sher, it’s doubly effective.
Damn it.
I take a deep breath and think about my day. I think about the copyedits and the accompanying notes. I walked over here determined to finally tell Ari about J.
I like to believe that, in general, I’ve been a pretty honest patient. After all, what’s the point of individual therapy if you’re going to withhold?
In my work, with couples, there are all sorts of reasons for a patient to withhold. You may be reaching the inevitable end of a relationship, and you don’t want it to hurt more; you may notwantit to end, and you’re withholding a secret that would upend everything; or you’ve grown so distant that the idea of withholding is simply second nature. But as an individual, it’s just a waste of your own time to keep things from your therapist.
So I’ve shared my life with Ari. She knows everything about my bumbling family and my own need to prop everyone up. She knows how to encourage me to be less of an introvert. She’s seen my inadequate relationships. She’s even understanding of my codependence with George.
But I’ve never told her about J because it doesn’t seem relevant to my real life. He’s not in myactuallife.
Except maybe, after today, I want him to be.
“I’m not sullen,” I repeat, wondering if maybe saying it again will rev me up, an engine not quite turned on that’s trying to get into gear.
