I stop and get two coffees, but I still make it over to Patricia’s office early, the extra-dark roast I brought for her almost eye stinging in its strength as I walk into the waiting area, empty again with a note leaning against the salt lamp.GO ON BACK, it reads, and I’m starting to think the receptionist either doesn’t exist or hides in a secret compartment whenpeople come in.
As I make my way down the hall, I can hear Patricia’s brash voice, and I hang back, worried I’m catching her at the tail end of a session. In the lag I think through what I want to talk about today. I’m nervous enough that I rehearse it a little:I’ve been thinking about what I need to work on so I can be in a relationship. So I can be in a relationship and not feel so much pressure, so much obligation.
It’s not long before Patricia sticks her steel-topped head out of her door, her phone handset up to her ear and an annoyed expression on her face as she ushers me in.
“Put your wife on,” Patricia says into the phone, taking the coffee from me and raising her eyebrows in thanks. “I like her better.”
I hitch a thumb over my shoulder, gesturing back down the hall. I can look at that Bowie poster or any of the other weird shit that’s plastered out there while I wait. But she points at me and then points at the chair, a look on her face like thunder. I sit and feel bad for the wife,whoever she is.
“I’m coming on Saturday,” Patricia says into the phone, no gentle greeting if she’s got a new audience on the other end. “I’m happy to babysit but not for more than six hours. Much past that and I’m liable to drop him off at thefire station.”
There’s a screechy sound I can hear on the other end of the phone.
“Oh, relax. You’re just as bad as my son. Have a sense of humor. All right, give that baby a kiss for me. I’llsee you soon.”
She hangs up, and I don’t imagine she’s waited for a sign-off from the person I’m guessing is her daughter-in-law. She lets out an exasperated sigh and pulls the plastic lid off the coffee, taking a gulp that would burn a human woman’s throat. Patricia, obviously, is superhuman, part of an alien race that is comfortable not wearing shoes at their places of business.
“You don’t get a discount forbringing this.”
“I figured you didn’t work on the voucher system.” I settle further into the chair. I know how to move in it now so that it doesn’t make any gruesome noises. “So you’ve got kids?” I ask her without thinking, gesturing toward the phone.
“Just the one.” She grabs her iPad off her desk, settling it in her lap while she takes another drink of coffee. “I worried about raising a kid here, you know. He’s had it so easy! My grandkid’ll probably operate a cell phone before he talks. They live way out on the far west end of town, one of those big McMansions. Becca—that’s the wife—she wears stretchy pants every day and she’s got this ponytail that goesswish swish swish”—Patricia reaches a hand up to do an elaborateswishinggesture behind her head—“I guess because she wants to work out enough to get her ‘postbaby body’ back.”
Two weeks ago I might’ve shifted awkwardly at this point, but I know this is how it goes with Patricia at first. Three to seven of our fifty minutes are going to be spent on her being bizarre enough that there’s not much I can say that feels like oversharing.
“I’ve got news for her about what’s happened to her cervix, I’ll tell you what.”There it is.“You want kids?”
I don’t think before I move, and the chair breaks wind at me. I can’t believe I walked into this trap. “No.”
“No? You’ve never thought about it?”
Things have shifted so rapidly I feel like I’m getting the bends. I try to recover my plan—I’ve been thinking about what I need to work on so I can be in a relationship—but probably Patricia’s done some sort of fancy psychology training on me over the course of our sessions so I can’t avoidher questions.
“I’ve—no. I’vedoneit.” I’ve got a memory of changing Kit’s diaper when I was six years old that’s so acute it has an aromatic component. I open my mouth to get back on the plan, but Patricia speaks before I can.
“Do you think you’d bea good father?”
I clear my throat. “I don’t know. I don’t suppose I know much about what a good father is.” Henry, he seems like a good father. Greer’s dad too, even if his jokes are truly terrible. I swallow, stay still. There’s a packet of gum in my pocket that’s calling my name.
“Right, you mentioned your first panic attack was when your father was ill.”
Fuck it. I set aside my coffee, get out the gum. This is the shit no one understands about panic until it happens to them. That sometimes you’re just panicking about panic, about the thought of panic, about the memory of panic. Itfucking sucks.
“That was more about—it’s like I’ve told you. I get stressed when I feel stuck somewhere. Actually that’s what I wanted to—”
“You don’t think you had a reaction to your father having a stroke?”
“We’re not close.” That’s an understatement, obviously. I’ve spoken to him one time since the wedding and it was about whether I could float him a thousand bucks for a new transmission on his old Chevy. Since that car gets him back and forth to the only steady job he’s held during my lifetime, I’d wired it the next day, before he could even think of bothering Kit about it. “We’renothing alike.”
Patricia makes a noteon her tablet.
“We’renot,” I repeat.
For a few seconds it’s quiet, and I’d like to try again, to get back on track with my plan, but I’ve got a feeling if I do, it’ll seem suspicious somehow. It’ll seem like an admission of guilt for a crime I don’t even know if I’ve committed. When Patricia speaks, she does so carefully, extra calm. Suspicious calm.
“You mean because you don’t share in his more reckless behaviors?”
I snort dismissively. When I answer her, I have to try hard to keep my voice level, to keep my back against this chair. My instinct is to sit forward, to drive this point home with a voice like the ice I feel in my spine at this comparison even being suggested. “I’ve never gambled, not even once. You should see my savings account. Even that feels risky. If I had a mattress to stuff all my money in, I’d probably do that instead of take the chance that the bank goes under. My retirement plan is so conservative that my accountant gets indigestion when we talk on the phone every year.”
