Lying on the Couch (31 page)

Carol nodded. "I understand."

"So, tell me about your marriage. How did it come about that you decided to marry and stay married for nine years to a man you detested?"

Carol followed her plan of staying close to the truth, and gave Ernest an honest history of her marriage, changing only geography and any factual details that might alert Ernest's suspicion.

"I met Wayne before I graduated from law school. I was working as a clerk in an Evanston law firm and assigned to a case representing Wayne's father's business, a highly successful chain of shoe stores. I spent a lot of time with Wayne—he was good-looking, gentle, devoted, contemplative, and poised to take over his father's five-million-dollar business in a year or two. I had no money at all and had accumulated enormous student loans. I made a quick decision to marry. It was a very stupid decision."

"How so?"

"After a few months of marriage, I began to see Wayne's qualities in more realistic ways. 'Gentle' I soon learned was not kindness, but cowardice. 'Contemplative' became monstrous indecision. 'Devoted' turned into clinging dependency. And 'rich' turned to ashes when his father's shoe business went bankrupt three years later."

"And the good looks?"

"A good-looking, poor male dolt plus a dollar fifty buys you a cup of cappuccino. It was a bad decision in every way—a life-wrecking decision."

"What do you know about making that decision?"

"Well, I know what it followed. I told you that my high school sweetheart. Rusty, dumped me in my sophomore year of college with no explanation. Throughout law school I kept steady company with Michael. We were a dream team; Michael was second in the class ..."

"How did that make you a dream team?" Ernest interrupted. "Were you a good student also?"

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"Well, we had a bright future. He was second in the class and I was first. But Michael ended up dumping me to marry the airhead daughter of the senior partner of New York's largest corporate law firm. And then, during my summer internship at the district court, there was Ed, an influential assistant to a district court justice, who tutored me on his office couch in the nude almost every afternoon. But he wouldn't be seen in public with me and, after the summer was over, never responded to my letters or calls. I hadn't gotten close to a man for a year and a half when I met Wayne. I guess marrying him was a rebound decision."

"What I'm aware of is a long skein of men who have betrayed you or abandoned you: your father, Jed—"

"Jeb. It's a ^." B, b, b, you jerk, Carol thought. She forced a friendly smile, "Think of b for brother—a two-syllable mnemonic. Or for betrayer, or bullshitter, or butcher."

"Sorry, Carolyn. Jeb, Dr. Cooke, and Rusty, and then today we add Michael and Ed. That's quite a list! I guess when Wayne came along you must have been relieved to find someone who seemed safe and reliable."

"No danger of Wayne abandoning me—he was so clinging he was scarcely willing to go to the bathroom without me."

"Maybe 'clinging' had an allure to it at the time. And this skein of male losers? Is it an unbroken skein? I haven't heard of any exceptions, any men who were good for you. And good to you."

"There was just Ralph Cooke." Carol hastened to move into the safety of deception. A few moments before, as he listed the men who had betrayed her, Ernest was beginning to stir up painful emotions just as he had last session. She realized she had to be on guard. She had never appreciated how seductive therapy was. And how treacherous.

"And he died on you," said Ernest.

"And now there's you. Are you going to be good to me?"

Before Ernest could answer, Carol smiled and posed another question: "And how's your health?"

Ernest smiled. "My health is excellent, Carolyn. I plan on being around a long time."

"And my other question?"

Ernest looked at Carol quizzically.

"Will you be good to me?"

Ernest hesitated, then chose his words carefully: "Yes, I will try to

be as helpful as I can. You can count on that. You know, I'm thinking of your comment that you were law school valedictorian. I had to almost tug it out of you. First in the class at University of Chicago Law School—that's no mean achievement, Carolyn. You take pride in that?"

Carol shrugged her shoulders.

"Carolyn, humor me. Please tell me again: How did you do scholastically in University of Chicago Law School?"

"Did pretty well."

"How well?"

Silence and then, in a small voice, Carol said, "I was first in my class."

"Come again. How well?" Ernest cupped his ear with his hand to indicate he could barely hear.

"First in my class," Carol said loudly. And added, "And editor of the law review. And no one else, including Michael, was even close to me." And then she burst out crying.

Ernest handed her a Kleenex, waited until the heaving of her shoulders subsided, and then gently asked: "Can you put some of those tears into words?"

"Do you know, do you have any idea, what vistas were open to me then? I could have done anything—I had a dozen good offers— I could have picked my firm. I could even have done international law, since I had a good offer to work in the general counsel's office of the U.S. agency for international development. I could be doing something very influential in governmental policy. Or if I had gone to a prestigious Wall Street firm, I'd be earning five hundred thousand dollars a year now. Instead, look at me: doing family law, wills, two-bit tax work—and earning peanuts. I've squandered everything."

"For Wayne?"

"For Wayne and also for Mary, who was born ten months after our wedding. I love her dearly, but she was part of the trap."

"Tell me more about the trap."

"What I really wanted to do was international law, but how can you do international work when you have a young child and a husband who's too immature even to be a decent househusband—a husband who freaks out if he's left alone a single night, who can't decide what to wear in the morning without a consultation with me first? So I settled for less, turned down my opportunities, and took an

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offer from a smaller firm to stay in Evanston so that Wayne would be near his father's headquarters."

"How long ago did you realize your mistake, did you know, really know, what you had gotten into?"

"Hard to say. I had my suspicions within the first couple of years, but there was an incident—the great camping debacle—that removed even the shadow of a doubt. That was about five years ago."

"Tell me about that."

"Well, Wayne decided the family should indulge in America's favorite pastime: a camping trip. I once almost died, in my teens, from a bee sting—anaphylactic shock—and I have malignant poison-oak reactions; so there was no way I could go camping. I suggested a dozen other trips: canoeing, snorkeling, inland waterway trip to Alaska, sailing in the San Juans, Caribbean, or Maine—I'm a good sailor. But Wayne decided his whole manhood was at stake and would have nothing else but a camping trip."

"But how could he expect you to go camping with a bee sting sensitivity? He expected you to put your life at risk?"

"He could only see that I was trying to control him. We fought pitched battles, I told him I would never go, and then he insisted on taking Mary without me. I had no problem with his going backpacking and urged him to go with some male friends—but he had no friends. I felt it was unsafe for him to take Mary—she was only four. He's so inept, so cowardly, that I feared for her safety. I believe he wanted Mary there for his protection rather than vice versa. But he wouldn't budge. Finally he wore me down and I agreed.

"And that's when things got bizarre," Carol continued. "First he decided he had to get in shape and lose ten pounds—thirty pounds would have been more to the point. Incidentally that's the answer to your question about good looks: he blimped up soon after our wedding. He started going to the gym daily to lift weights and lose weight, which he did, but then he threw out his back and gained the weight back. He'd get so anxious he'd often hyperventilate. Once, at the dinner honoring me when I made full partner in our firm, I had to leave to take him to the emergency room. So much for the macho camping trip. That's when the horror of my mistake fully dawned on me.

"Whew, what a story, Carolyn." Ernest was struck by the similarities between this account and Justin's story about his backpack-

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ing fiasco with his wife and twins. Fascinating to hear two such similar stories—but from very different perspectives.

"But tell me, when you really realized your mistake—let's see, how long ago was that camping trip? You say your daughter was four?"

"About five years ago." Every few minutes Carol pulled herself up short; despite loathing Ernest, she found herself engaged in his inquiry. Amazing, she thought, how bewitching the therapy process becomes. They can hook you in an hour or two, and once they have you they can do as they wish — get you coming every day, charge you what they wish, fuck you on their rug and even charge you for that. Maybe it's too dangerous to play myself honestly. But I have no other option —// 1 invented a persona, I'd be tripped up time and again by my own lies. This guy's a prick, but he's no dummy. No, I have to play myself. But careful. Careful.

"So then, Carolyn, five years ago you realized your mistake—yet you stayed in the marriage nonetheless! Maybe there were more positive parts of the marriage you haven't discussed yet."

"No, it was a hideous marriage. I had no love for Wayne. Nor respect. Nor he for me. I got nothing from him." Carol dabbed at her eyes. "What kept me in the marriage? Christ, I don't know! Habit, fear, my daughter—though Wayne has never bonded to her— I'm not sure . . . the cancer and my promise to Wayne . . . nowhere else to go—I've had no other offers."

"Offers? From men, you mean?"

"Well, no offers from men, for sure, and, please, Ernest, let's talk about that today—I've got to do something about my sexual feelings—I'm starving, I'm desperate in that area. But that's not what I meant just then—I meant no interesting professional offers. Not like those golden offers I had when I was young."

"Yes, those golden offers. You know, I'm still thinking of your tears a few minutes ago when we talked about being first in your class and about the unlimited career vista ahead of you ..."

Carol steeled herself. He's trying to get back in., she thought. Once they find the vulnerable area, they keep drilling into it.

"There's a lot of pain in there," Ernest continued, "about what your life could have been. I was thinking of that wonderful Whittier lyric: 'of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: it might have been.'"'

Oh no, Carol thought. Spare me. Now it's poetry. He's pulling out all the stops. Next, he'll tune up the old guitar.

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"And," Ernest continued, "you gave up all those possibilities for a life with Wayne. A bad bargain—no wonder you try not to think about it . . . you see the pain that comes up when we face it head-on? I think that's why you haven't left Wayne—it would have put the stamp of reality on it. There would have been no denying any longer that you gave up so much, your whole future, for so little."

Despite herself, Carol shivered. Ernest's interpretation rang true. Goddammit, get off my case, will youf Who asked you to pontificate on my lifef "Maybe you're right. But that's over; how can this help now? This is exactly what I meant by rummaging around in the past. What's past is past."

"Is it, Carolyn? I don't think so. I don't think it's just that you made a bad decision in the past: I think you're still making bad choices. Right now in your life today."

"What choice do I have? Abandon a dying husband?"

"It feels stark like that, I know. But that's the way bad choices are always set up—by convincing yourself that's there's no other choice to be made. Maybe that might be one of our goals."

"What do you mean?"

"Helping you to understand that maybe there are more possible choices, a wider range of choices."

"No, Ernest, it still comes down to the same thing. There are only two choices: I either abandon Wayne or stay with him. Right?"

Carol regained her composure: this invented Wayne was far removed from Justin. Still, watching Ernest try to help her leave him revealed his methods of brainwashing Justin into leaving her.

"No, not at all. You're making a lot of assumptions that aren't necessarily true. For example, that you and Wayne will always have contempt for each other. You've omitted the possibility that people may change. The confrontation with death is a great catalyst for change—for him, possibly for you. Possibly marital couple therapy might help—you mentioned you haven't tried that. Maybe there's some buried love that you or he might rediscover. After all, you have lived together and raised a child for nine years. How would it be for you if you left him or if he died and you knew you might have tried harder to improve things in your marriage? I'm certain you'd be better off feeling that you've left no stone unturned.

"And another way to look at it," Ernest continued, "is to question your basic assumption that accompanying him to the very end of his life is a good thing. Is that necessarily true? I wonder."

Lying on the Couch .-^^ ^°3

"It's better than for him to die alone."

"Is it?" Ernest asked. "Is it a good thing for Wayne to die in the presence of one who holds him in contempt? And still another possibility is to keep in mind that divorce need not be synonymous with abandonment. Is it not possible to imagine a scenario in which you build a different life for yourself, even with another man, and still do not abandon Wayne? You might even be able to be more present with him if you didn't resent him so much for being part of the trap. You see, there are all sorts of possibilities."

Carol nodded, wishing he would stop. Ernest looked like he could go on forever. She looked at her watch.