What you need to know:
Jennifer and Rick have an emergency session with their couple’s therapist after Rick makes up a story about her son being molested. Rick is unable to express empathy for Jennifer’s reaction, which is based on her own history of such abuse. He is taken into a private meeting with the therapist, who discovers that there’s a deeper issue going on.
Chapter Nine
The Empathy Hiccup
Rick loads his bike into the back of the SUV. I drive us home. Silent. Baffled.
It’s late spring but we’re still in the time of violent rain blasts that turn to hail then shift just as quickly into blinding sun breaks. Winter refusing to give up despite spring rising in her abundant glory.
One such storm has passed. The road wet. The sky heavy with thunderheads. On both sides of the road flowers bloom in even this dank part of town. Lilacs. Roses. Rhododendrons. Azaleas.
When brought back into the session, Maxine said that “our Rick” would be starting a new form of individual therapy. “To help him with this empathy hiccup.”
“Empathy hiccup?” I asked, easing myself into the chair across from him. “What does that mean?”
Rick sat studying his hands. The wad of tissue was gone.
Maxine wrote a few keywords on a sticky note, then passed it down to me. “Look these up,” she said, “I’ll see you guys next week.”
The note read “empathy diversion” and “early child development.”
I now hold the steering wheel at ten and two, focus on the flow of traffic. The stop lights. This turn. That turn. Now and again, I feel Rick looking at me. Once, I hear him sniff. A quick glance his way. Yes, he’s crying. Again. This softens me, as tears should soften any human being but I don’t reach over, squeeze his hand, offer tissues from the box I keep under my seat for the kids. I can only keep my eyes on the road, turn on my signal, execute a careful right turn.
The northeast section of Portland slides past. Whole Foods. The UPS Store. Goodwill. Fred Meyer. Stumptown Coffee. Starbucks Coffee. Peete’s Coffee. Sidewalk pedestrians walk this way and that, some weave around the street people who hold up signs that read: Need to get stoned. And, Help a guy out. And, Anything helps.
Rick sniffs. Clears his throat. Sniffs again.
I pull in front of the house, shift into park, set the brake.
I could leave him. Move. Start over, I finally think. Opening the door, I step onto the street, slam the door, grab my purse and messenger bag from the backseat, slam the door closed again.
I look up and down the block, jog across the empty street, cut through a narrow passage between the bumpers of two parked cars, continue along the sidewalk.
“When are you coming back?” Rick calls after me.
I shove my hands deep into my pockets. Walk faster.
“Jennifer?” he calls.
At the corner, I turn.
It’s a long class that afternoon. Fran at my side wearing an impossibly soft cashmere turtleneck tunic. Over this a brocade scarf. Very chic.
She looks at me, several times, watchful, worried, attentive.
I mentioned, before class, that if she could stay after, it would mean the world to me. She, of course, agreed.
St. Francis, I think. The best and kindest of people.
The writers read their pages aloud, oh so hopeful, but in my current state of mind, each is a mess of exposition that only irritates me. What’s wrong with these people? I ask myself, embittered at them, at the world. I wish I had a red pen. If I did, I would shred their pages with brutal edits, line the margins with question marks, suggest they start again, or give up writing altogether.
Rather than torpedo my livelihood, I speak in a modulated, reasonable voice, taking them back to the basics of the scene: “We need to remember to start with location and set up the space as you might if you were the director of a play or a movie. The mind is an image-building machine. Give it something to work with and you engage both hemispheres of the reader’s brain…”
A couple argue that writing scenes takes “so long” and “is exhausting.” One woman wants me to “prove” that other writers, published writers, create scenes.
Keeping my cool, I haul out novel after novel, memoir after memoir, short story collection after short story collection, and go through, line-by-line, page-by-page, until Fran gently points out that we running over the set time.
The students, freed from my perfectionistic tyranny, hurry out of the room.
Fran closes the door, gives me a hard look. “Okay. What the heck is going on?” she asks. “Did someone die?”
I wave her aside, re-open the door. “Hold on,” I say.
In the mini-kitchen shared by those who rent office space in the house, I pull out a cheap but well-chilled bottle of Prosecco there to celebrate with the students who finish manuscript draft, or get something published, or manage to secure a literary agent.
Back in my office, Fran sits waiting at the table she’s tidied of wayward pens and papers. She’s stacked all the books I used for examples into a pile.
Taking up two tea cups, I pop the cork, pour a shot of Prosecco into each. The sweet bite of cheap alcohol.
Fran waves off her cup. “I’m good,” she says.
I drink mine, that softening effect of the alcohol hitting my bloodstream fast thanks to an empty stomach.
“He has no empathy,” I say, tugging out a chair, sitting down.
“Who? Wait. What?” Fran sits forward, elbows on the table.
I toy with the idea of emptying the rest of the Prosecco into my cup or drinking it straight from the bottle, but only turn my cup around and around on the table. The rough sound of ceramic on wood.
“Hold on. Back up,” Fran says. “Start at the beginning.”
I repeat everything that happened this week, including today’s session.
“Personality disorder,” I say. “‘Fixable…over time.’ He’s starting intensive therapy with one of her partners. Twice a week.”
Fran takes her mug, studies the contents, then throws back what I’ve poured. Taking the bottle, she pours herself a bit more. The fizzy sound rises. The pop of bubbles. I cannot help but love her more in that moment.
She sets the cup down, wipes the back of her hand over her mouth. “At least you know what it is now.” Sitting back in her chair, she adjusts her scarf around herself, tucks her arms under. Cozy. Safe.
I take the bottle, tip the last of it into my cup, set it down carefully on the damp ring it left on the table. Rather than drink, I once more turn the cup around and around.
“Rick didn’t seem remotely surprised or insulted by this…what? Diagnosis?”
Fran lifts a shoulder slightly as if she has no idea what to call Maxine’s conclusion.
“He sat there looking sheepish as if he already knew. I mean, if someone told me I had a personality disorder, I’d be stunned, amazed, worried.”
“You don’t have a personality disorder,” Fran says.
I look hard at her. “According to Maxine, people involved with each other, romantically, have equally matched neurosis. Maybe I do, but I don’t know.”
“Listen to me. You’re fine. He’s the one who has the issue. So?” Fran asks. “What now?”
I look at her for a long moment. “I can’t raise children with someone who has a personality disorder,” I say. “I can’t.”
“Obviously.”
“But what? Leave?”
Fran uncrosses her legs, recrosses the other way, uncomfortable in that way of someone who knows she should not get involved. It’s one of those unspoken rules. Don’t take sides when a couple is in trouble. Remain impartial. Leave it to the experts.
“Well, you’ve got him in the basement for now,” she finally says. “Why not just keep that going? Live together but separate until he figures himself out?”
“Figures himself out,” I say, mostly to hear myself say the words.
“He needs to do his work. Let him.”
I touch the edge of the dining table before me. It’s a dark-stained antique. Old and solid. Then look at Fran.
“I have to tell Steve.”
In this realization, the tenderer emotions I’ve held down rise but I will not, I tell myself, be anything like Rick. Swallowing the lump in my throat that will certainly lead to tears, I can only shake my head because I’m sure Steve’s going to be so pissed.
“Well. Yeah,” she says. “He’s not oblivious to the situation you’re in. Just explain it and you guys will work it out.”
I look at her again. “Right. That’s right.”
It’s quiet between us then, the sound outside like a helicopter. Thwack. Thwack.
We both look up at the box-beamed ceiling, listen to what is probably a hospital run, or maybe a news crew hurrying to some disaster.
“Someone’s having a bad day,” Fran says, looking at me again, a slight smile on her gamine face.
I don’t want to laugh, but I do. She chuckles as well, rests a hand on mine.
“This is going to work out. You’ll see,” she says.
I want her to promise it’s true but know better than to ask for that kind of guarantee. Nothing is promised in this life other than death.
Next:
Jennifer needs to talk to her son (and Steve) about the diagnosis. Will they need to stay with Steve until Rick undergoes therapy? If they come back with their mother, will they be safe?
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I am totally in. What I would like to see is more of the visceral Jennifer. What's going on at your gut level. "I have to tell Steve" is a great line, how does that realization affect you inside? Is it a cold realization, a new turn of the knife, a cramp in your belly?
Great stuff, Jennifer!