Other Women (49 page)

“You’re making it too complicated,” said Caroline.

“I have to go to Boston, and I’m scared stiff some psychopath will murder my sons. It’s as simple as that.”

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Hannah shrugged. Hardly anything was as simple as that. “Well, it’s certainly a valid fear, given the globe we inhabit. Whether you want a valid fear to incapacitate you is another question.” She glanced at the shawl above Caroline’s head, the many shades of purple, red, and orange fading into each other. Hard to believe the talented woman who wove it was the same woman who now sat on Hannah’s couch trembling with terror. Probably they weren’t the same woman. This Caroline was an impostor.

Hannah had to get rid of her so the real Caroline could return.

“What I want,” said Caroline, rubbing the bridge of her nose, “is not to live in a world in which maniacs murder the children they should be caring for.”

As she tapped her cigarette into Nigel’s stone, Hannah shook her head. Caroline had just gone cosmic. Hannah had offered an interShe’d offered sympathy. It sounded like time to get tough: “Well, my dear friend, you’ve been feeling pretty good for a long time now. I’d say you’re casting around for an excuse to feel bad again.” She paused, alarmed at her words. Caroline might get annoyed enough to throw off the mounting depression, or she might stomp out and kill herself. Hannah fought to maintain her composure and waited to hear what dreadful thing she’d say next. “Look, to make sense of this world, you have to have faith and humility. And I’m not sure you have either.” Wow, thought Hannah, watching Caroline carefully.

Caroline glared at Hannah through narrowed eyes..

Where did this woman get off? Caroline came in crisis-to her therapist, to her potential friend-and Hannah kicked her in the teeth. This was what you could expect from people. They all failed you in the end.

She’d known Hannah would eventually turn on her like all the others … .

The healthy part of her, the part that had been uncovered and strengthened during the past months, listened to these thoughts and recognized them as The Pattern, as repulsive as last year’s leftovers found moldering in a discarded refrigerator.

Hannah had just put responsibility for Caroline’s state of mind right where it belongedCaroline. If she wanted to feel better, she should proceed to feel better. Because she now knew how to. Otherwise she should shut up, enjoy feeling bad, and stop wasting Hannah’s time.

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Hannah watched Caroline’s face contort with some kind of inner struggle. Caroline’s eyes rested on the stone Venus. Maybe Caroline would throw it at her. Nobody had tried that yet. Hannah felt deterto provoke a definitive reaction: “Nobody ever said life was supposed to be easy.”

Hannah watched with surprise as a small smile spread across Caroline’s strained face, like the sun peeking through massed storm clouds. “What’s so funny?” Hannah felt herself smiling in response. The real Caroline had just returned from the gloom. The tightness around the mouth and eyes let up a bit.

“I’m trying to keep from saying, “I Never Promised You a Rose Garden,” was said Caroline.

“You didn’t succeed, did you?”

Caroline laughed. “You know, I always thought it was a question of achieving some permanent state of tranquillity.”

“Nirvana or something?” Even Caroline’s voice sounded different from a moment ago.

“Right, but it’s not. It’s more like learning to surf. The waves keep rolling in, each different from the last, and you have to ride them, instead of getting pounded to bits.”

“I agree.”

“Good. It must be right then.”

“Think carefully before you answer,” said Hannah.

“What’s the next question I’m going to ask?”

Caroline frowned, sorting back through the session, through past sessions. Hannah raised her eyebrows.

“You want to know if I ever tried to go back home once I left.”

“You may have your junior Therapist badge.”

“Junior?”

“Don’t get carried away or I’ll reject you. So what’s the answer?”

“I was just trying to remember. One night at Mass General I was in charge of the ER. I was terrified.

Arlene had just ditched me, and I felt as though I’d lost my magic amulet. Here I

was, responsible for all these potential crises.

A fiveyear-old girl was admitted with meningitis or something. She died in my arms at dawn, before the doctor on duty could get there. I still don’t know to what extent it was my fault. If at all. I guess I had a nervous breakdown.

Stopped working,

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stopped eating and sleeping, lay in my apartment all day with the shades pulled down listening on the news about the ghettos all across the country going up in flames. I developed this rash all over my body. I phoned my father and said I wanted to move back home. He said no because I’d already paid a half year’s rent on my apartment. I called my mother, and she said my father knew best. Then she went to bed in a depression.”

“So Arlene failed you. Then you failed that child. Then your parents failed you. Adults failing children. Do you see how that relates to the Jim Jones thing? And to your fears about leaving your sons? Leaving them evokes your own terror of being left.”

Caroline nodded doubtfully.

“When you were an infant,” said Hannah, “Daddy went to war, and Mummy withdrew into anxiety and depression. Leaving you feelundefended in a threatening world. Leaving you feeling all this disaster was somehow your fault. And you’ve lived in that atmosphere ever since. But Caroline …”

Hannah looked at her with urgency. “That’s all it is. It’s over now. You’re no longer a helpless infant. You’re a strong, competent woman who can defend herself.”

They sat in silence. Caroline looked across the parking lot, which was bordered by small dunes of the sand that had been spread on the ice that winter. During her months here nothing much had changed on the surface, yet underneath everything was different. She glanced at the aerial photo over the bookcase, isolating the veiled head from the cow pasture with ease. What a surprise to find you could shift the contents of your head like rearranging furniture in a room.

“So what have you discovered today?” asked Hannah.

“That I can come back home to Mommy if I want.”

“Yes. Good. And?”

A smile returned to Caroline’s face. “Now that I know I can, I don’t want to.”

“How do you feel?”

“Great.” Caroline stood up. “I can’t believe it. I’m fine.”

“No kidding?” Hannah couldn’t believe it either.

“You do good work.” Caroline stretched luxuriously, feeling her body relax for the first time in several days.

“I guess I do.” Hannah studied Caroline with amazement. Like Caroline’s waves, each person was different. She never knew exactly what would happen. This whole session was unexpected, but right.

Caroline had just come full circle.

Caroline did a double take as her eyes took in the shawl on the white wall above the couch. “It looks nice there,” she said with a pleased smile.

“It does, doesn’t it? I’ve had a lot of compliments on it.”

“Thanks.”

“Thank you. So when are you off to Boston?”

“Day after tomorrow.”

“What’s the course?”

“Didn’t I tell you? I’ve switched to the delivery room. It’s a refresher course.”

“That must be fun.”

“It’s only two floors up from the

emergency room, but it’s like another world.

Everybody’s so happy.”

“Do you think you can handle it?”

Caroline laughed. “It’s been a strain, but I’m getting there. I just got another job offer, so I can always leave.”

“Oh yes? What job?”

“My old weaving teacher in Boston wrote and asked me

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teach at her craft school.”

“How nice.”

“Yes, it is. But I like Lake Glass.”

Hannah nodded, trying to be impartial on the topic of Caroline’s whereabouts in upcoming years.

“Are you staying with your parents in Boston?”

Caroline nodded.

“How will that be?”

“Fine, I think. It’ll be interesting to see if I can behave like an adult around them now that I’m nearly middle-aged.”

Caroline paused at the door. Would Hannah still want to have lunch, or had Caroline just failed the friendship test? She looked at Hannah, the blue of her eyes exaggerated by a blue

turtleneck. Carowanted a chance to know the woman underneath all the roles

Caroline had imposed on her. But probably she blew it by crawling in here in pieces. She recognized The Pattern revving up. Just because she’d asked for help didn’t transform her into a repulsive toad.

“I want to point out,” said Hannah from her chair, “that you stood up and are walking out my door before your hour is up. Once again, I’d like to ask who’s doing the leaving.”

Caroline paused, hand on the doorknob. She turned to look at Hannah with a wry smile. “A bit more practice and I’ll have it down pat. his Hannah grinned. “Why don’t you call me in a few months?” She wondered who Caroline would become now that she was giving up trying to be how she thought other people wanted her to be.

“I will. But for lunch or for an appointment?”

“We could do either. But I can’t do both at once.

So you’ll have to decide which.”

“Lunch,” said Caroline hesitantly. Lunch was the point of no return, but what if she needed to return?

“Okay. Fine,” said Hannah with resignation. The last thing in the world she wanted was someone else to miss. But it would be like not drinking from fear of a hangover. And she was never one to pass up a martini. She stood up and slipped on her shoes.

They walked outside into the yard together. The lake spread out below them, a soft pewter color under the overcast sky. All the ice had melted. Summer was coming. They heard a clamor in the trees borthe yard. Looking up, they saw that the branches, swollen with new buds, were filled with chattering yellow evening grosbeaks, fresh back from more balmy lands, sporting their jaunty masks like revelers returning from a Caribbean carnival.