“Okay, so you’re careful with money.”
It’s clear she’s not getting it. “Every drink I’ve ever had put in front of me, I’ve only taken two sips of, and that’s out of politeness. I hold my breath when someone near me smokes. I broke my collarbone in Namibia and didn’t take a single one of the painkillers I got prescribed.”
Patricia purses her lips, and I know that’s because we’ve had a version of this conversation about meds once before—my first session here, when I said I wasn’t ready to try anything pharmaceutical for the panic. She’d made a note about iton her tablet.
“So you don’t have your father’s addictions,” she says, finally, and it’s irritating how calm she’s stayed, when I’ve grown increasingly agitated.
“I don’t have any addictions.”
“You don’t think your work isan addiction?”
I blink. “No.”
“You don’t think there are any addictive qualitiesto your work?”
Blink, blink. “Like I’m an adrenaline junkie? No. I told you. My shoots aren’t all that dangerous.”
“You ought to judge that on a sliding scale. But anyways, it’s not necessarily adrenalinethat you’d be—”
“Let’s skip this part, Patricia. What do you think I’m addicted to? I want to know what I need to feel terrible about on the walk home from here.”
She only looks at me, a long, steady look, and I feel something heavy settle on my shoulders, a weighted cloak made up of a patchwork of memories. Just then, just with that swiping, thoughtless, dismissive remark, just for a moment—I soundedlike my father.
“I’m sorry,” I say, scraping a hand through my hair. “I’m sorry.Please go on.”
“Let’s think through it.” Her voice is still entirely calm, entirely unbothered. She holds up a loosely clenched fist, raises her thumb in the air. “You say you have trouble turning down work when it’s offered to you, even when you’re sleep deprived or ill.” Her index finger. “You feel that situating yourself in a single city as a home base would compromise your ability to travel as frequently as you do now.” Middle finger. “You admit to compulsively checking news feeds, and you have trouble accepting the quality of your work even after it’s published.” Ring finger. “You become irritable when someone suggests you take on fewer projects.” Pinky finger. “Your work has compromised important relationships in your life, including the one you have with your sister.”
There’s a dim light of recognition at that word,relationships, but I doubt I could get back to the plan if I tried. I’m in pure survival mode now, my mind racing to figure out the right thing to say so we can move on, so we can end this session. “So I’m a workaholic? That’s whatyou’re saying?”
She lowers her hand, shrugs. “There’s no real medical definition for workaholism. Certainly it’s possible to have addictive behaviors associated with work.”
“I don’t have addictive behaviors.” But even as I say it, I’m thinking about every single thing I’ve ever read about addiction. I’m thinking about every single time my dad thought he could stop after five dollars, ten dollars, twenty dollars. I’m thinking about every time I said,One more shot,one more job. I’m thinking about the way I feel when I’m out in the field, when I know I’m getting good pictures. I think about the way it makes me feel as though I could put off sleep fordays and days.
I want out of this room like I’ve never wanted anything in my life.
But Patricia, she only raises a steel-gray eyebrow at me, and I knowI’m locked in.
* * * *
Here’s what I thought the plan would be for the last night Greer and I have together before Kit gets home and we have to take this thing wide:
First, I’d stop at the grocery store on the way back from Patricia’s and buy ingredients for dinner, maybe some kind of pasta dish or a nice piece of fishif they had it.
Second, I’d get back to Kit’s and tidy up, light a few of the candles she keeps on her mantel, right underneath that big picture of mine she’sgot hanging up.
Third, I’d make the dinner so it’d be ready when Greer gets back from her class; I’d have a glass of wine poured for her andthe table set.
Fourth, I’d tell her about whatever plan I’d come up with for the two of us going forward, the one Patricia was supposed to helpme figure out.
Fifth through tenth was, in short, all sex related.
Instead, when Greer comes in through Kit’s front door I’m lying on the couch, no food or wine in sight, no candles lit, no attempt made to clear the half-read newspaper from this morning off the coffee table.
No plan.
“I’mprettysure,” Greer says, her voice cheerful behind me as she drops her bags in the foyer, “that Hiltunen has some suspicions about that black-and-white picture, like he recognizes your bare feet, somehow? But actually the lecture he had on photographing people was—” She breaks off, coming into the living room. “Oh.”
I sit up, scrub my hands over my face and through my hair. I’m sure I look like shit, which is appropriate given how I feel. I can’t quite say what I’ve done exactly in the hours since I left Patricia’s—a long run, an extended amount of time staring at that email from Jae, a shower that did nothing to calm me down or refresh me. I thought maybe I’d try for a nap, stretching out here on the couch while the sun went down, but mostly I just stared at the ceiling, and now I feel worse than I did when I started these feeble efforts at—what was that word again, from Patricia?Self-care?
