When we cross the threshold to her office she stands with her hands on her hips and looks at me. “Aleksandr,” she says, not like an acknowledgment but like she’s trying to remind herself who she just picked up from the bus depot she calls an office lobby. “I know your work.”
She spins away and moves to a low, particle-board bookshelf that’s shoved against one wall, pulling aNational Geographicfrom a disordered stack, immediately starting to flip through its pages. She doesn’t need to, not really—I’ve only had one spread in there, a career highlight, photos I took at Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya three years ago. Even if it weren’t for what I’d seen there, even if it weren’t for the way I’d dreamed of that camp for months after, I remember every photograph I’ve ever had published. Because if it’s been published, that means I probably studied it for hours—either before I sent it, if I had the time, or after. “Meticulous,” Jae always says. “Butalso annoying.”
“This is my favorite,” she says, holding it out toward me, and I blink down at it quickly, pretty sure what I’ll see. And yeah, that’s the one, Jae’s favorite, and the editor’s favorite, and Kit’s favorite too—three kids, all Somali refugees, dressed in brightly colored clothes, too-big polo shirts and swim trunks cinched tight at their waists. Two sit on the red-orange, dusty ground, a dirty soccer ball between them, looking up at the third, who’s staring at the camera. Just after I shot it, the four of us kicked that soccer ball for almost two hours while they’d made me practice saying their names over and over, laughing when I’d intentionally confuse them. We’d played until a dust storm kicked up and drove us back into thin white tents.
“Good kids,” I say blandly, already moving my eyes around the office. The walls aren’t nearly as packed, but it’s messy in here, absentminded-professor messy, halfway-to-hoarder messy. It smells vaguely of bacon. I have a pointed, entirely unexpected longing for the prison-cell spareness of Peter Hiltunen’s office. “Where should I sit?” I ask, conscious of my height compared to hers. My lower back is dewy with sweat, and all I want is to getthis over with.
She grabs a stack of papers off a battered leather club chair and waves a short arm at it. “It reclines. If you want this to feel like a real head-shrink.”
When I sit in it, it creaks disturbingly, and it’s so shallow and low to the ground that I feel like my knees are half-tucked into my armpits. She’d only mentioned her brother coming here, but I wonder whether Greer has sat in this chair. I’ll bet it fits her body just so.
“I’ll stay this way,” I say, though she doesn’t seem to be paying attention. She’s getting herself settled in her own chair, some ergonomic thing that’s positioned in front of her messy desk, an iPad and a stylus in her hand, and reading glasses lifted from a beaded cord around her neck to perch at the end of her nose.
“I don’t like being called doctor, so you can call me Patricia. But not Patty, because I don’t like it and because it makes me thinkof hamburgers.”
I—what. The temptation to text Greer is overwhelming. “I prefer Alex.”
“Sure, sure,” she says, toeing off her shoes. I’m still staring at her mismatched socks—one pink, one black, when she speaks again. “Is it PTSD?” she asks, and I cough in surprise, thinking I had a few more seconds of her fidgeting and setting up over there, or at least some gentle lead-in. Maybe atell me about yourselfor awhat bringsyou here today.
“I—no. No, I don’t think it is.”
“Because I googled you too. You’ve been in some dicey situations. War zones.”
I shift, and the chair makes an elaborately flatulent sound.Great.
“Yes,” I say, once I’ve controlled my urge to either groan or bolt from the room. “But not much time in combat situations for me.” Barely any, actually, a choice I’d made after one too-close call in Afghanistan five years ago. One limit I’d put on my freedom since I’d started shooting internationally, and it’d been because of Kit, because I didn’t ever want her to get a call about me, my death a worldaway from her.
Still, I’d found a lawyer the next time I was stateside, had drafted a will that left everything to her. Just in case.
“Well anyway, PTSD can come from all kinds of things, not necessarily combat or otherwise dangerous or traumatic events. All kinds of symptoms associated with it too.”
“I have panic attacks,” I blurt. Not because I want to, but because I feel like I have to somehow get a word in here. “Shortness of breath. Sweating. Heart racing. Trouble swallowing.” I’ve listed it so mechanically, not like I’m a patient but like I’m the doctor, giving someone notes to transcribe or speaking into a recorder. “They’ve started recently.”
“How recently?”
The only thing stopping me from shifting again, from releasing some of my restless energy, is the memory of the noises this chair is capable of. I’ll probably break my jaw chewing this gum. “A couple of years ago.” Patricia raises an eyebrow, makes a note with her stylus.
But she doesn’t press me on it, at least not yet. “You chew the gum to help you?”
“What?”
She waves a hand, and there’s got to be twenty ultraslim silver bangle bracelets on her wrist, jingling as they resettle along her forearm. “Often helps people with nausea.”
“Oh.” Oddly, Idofeel less sick to my stomach than I did on the walk I tookhere. “Maybe?”
“Okay. So whathelps so far?”
Greer,I think. The immediacy of it, the solidity of it, thetruthof it surprises me. But I don’t dare say it. “Time. I wait for it to pass.”
“Do you drink? Take any medications?”
“No. Neither.” I’m particular about both, no surprise as to why, given my dad’s addictions. I open my mouth to say it, but close it again. Maybe we’ll come around to family shit, eventually.
She asks me a few more questions—when my last physical was, whether I have trouble sleeping, whether I’ve ever been treated for mental health issues before. When she finishes—a quick volley given my brief answers—she sticks her stylus between her temple and the frame of her glasses and then clasps her hands over the top of her iPad. “Okay. Tell me what made you come here today.”
Greer,I think again, but this time, it’s not the whole truth. I could’ve said no, same as I could’ve left the day after the wedding, as I’d originally planned. I could’ve kept quiet in Hiltunen’s office. I could’ve canceled anytime between when I made this appointment and now. But they’ve worn into me, these attacks. Beat me down. They’ve started coming when I don’t expect them, when I’m supposed tobe at my best.
“I need to fix this. I can’t do my job ifI’m this way.”
