“Why would you make it up?” Sam asks.
“You’re the doctor. You tell me.”
“Okay. You’re not making it up. Rather, it’s an experience you’ve had to suppress, even in the moment, dealing with the fear of knowing you and your sister were in the house alone. As the oldest, you were in charge, which heightened the anxiety. It’s natural for the brain to shut down in some ways during traumatic moments like these, suppress the memory so that it can’t be easily accessed.”
“Traumatic?” Her voice is strained. “Isn’t that a little much?”
“No, I don’t think so.” Sam pauses, and his tone takes on a more gentle quality when he speaks. “I’ve been working in the field of childhood trauma for most of my professional career, and trust me, trauma comes in many forms.”
I imagine what he looks like right now. At ease in his chair, his legs crossed, his fingers tented in front of his mouth.
“Let’s talk a little bit more about your childhood,” he quietly suggests. “What was it like in your house?”
I close my eyes. My house? I ask. It was a disaster. I left as soon as I could. I do this sometimes, I pretend it’s me down there, sitting across from Sam on the couch, admitting to things I’ve never told him.
I hate to say this, Dr. Statler, but I haven’t been completely forthcoming with you, I would say.
For instance?
For instance, I’m not the self-assured person I portray, the one with the sunny background and two devoted parents. In fact, my parents hated each other, and neither had any idea what to do with me.
I want to believe that he wouldn’t be mad. Instead, he’d suggest we explore why I felt the need to lie to him. After a good forty-five minutes discussing it, we’d agree that I wanted to believe the lies I’ve told him. In fact, there’s nothing I’ve ever wanted more than to be part of a happy family, so I devised an alternative reality.
It wasn’t my intention to lie to him. After all, if there’s anyone equipped to handle the truth of a messy childhood, it’s the man who coauthored “Stored Childhood Trauma and Symptom Complexity: A Sample of 1,653 Elementary Students,” appearing in the January 2014 issue of the Journal of Personality and Psychology. But then I met him, and he was so accomplished and impressive—a PhD, a teaching position at Bellevue Hospital—and what was I going to do, tell him the truth?
“This was useful,” Sam says. “Let’s be sure to come back to this next week.”
Startled, I open my eyes and look at the clock on the floor beside me. It’s 10:46. We’re one minute over the end time of Numb Nancy’s session. I’d lost myself daydreaming.
“It’s crazy,” Nancy says with a laugh, sounding a little less numb. “I came in here today thinking I had nothing to say.”
“Always my favorite kind of session,” Sam says. “I know it’s not easy, but it’s good to delve into this.”
As I hear Sam lead her into the waiting room, I wonder if I’ll ever be brave enough to tell him the truth and finally show someone who I am.
Because if not Sam, who?
Chapter 7
Sam parks, flustered, forty minutes late to meet Annie. She’s coming from visiting his mother, and he texted her a half hour ago that a patient had run late and he was on his way, but in reality he was at home, waiting to intercept the mail. Still no paperwork from Rushing Waters, granting him power of attorney over his mother’s accounts. He dashes across the street into the restaurant. A four-piece jazz ensemble is playing in the corner, doing nothing for the headache he’s been fighting since lunch, and he notices the fireplace in the back, the French doors open to a stone terrace lit with clear lights and scattered with the leaves that have begun to fall.
Sam can’t believe this is the same place that was once the Howard Family Restaurant, the shabby diner at the edge of town where everyone gathered after school, where the girls would chain-smoke Salem Slim Lights and dip their french fries into a shallow bowl of ranch dressing as he looked on, deciding which among them to pursue next. It was now Chestnut, owned and operated by some guy from California, on his way to his first Michelin star, chicken on the menu for $31.
Sam scans the room for Annie, praying to God none of his patients are here. A woman in a navy suit with a baby strapped to her chest is surrounded by a crowd in the dining room. That must be her: the mayoral candidate hosting this meet-and-greet. A thirty-three-year-old mother of newborn twins, vying to become the first woman elected mayor of Chestnut Hill. Annie suggested they come.
Sam feels on edge and makes his way to the bar for a double whisky, noticing a blond woman with wiry arms in a black sleeveless dress eyeing him from the corner seat, a coy smile on her face. Sam nods and looks away, knowing nothing good ever comes from a woman flashing that kind of smile, and spots Annie talking to an elderly couple near a table set with coffee. She’s wearing a baggy linen dress that still somehow shows off her curves, and he feels a flash of heat, remembering last night. He went to the gym to work off the stress—two phone calls from credit companies and a letter from a debt collector—and the house was dark when he got home. Five minutes later the doorbell rang, and he opened the door to find Annie standing on the porch, wearing bright red lipstick. “I’m sorry to bother you,” she said, that look in her eyes. “But my car broke down nearby, and my phone is dead. Can I use yours to call my husband?”
She stepped inside and looked around, complimented him on the lovely decor.
“I can’t take the credit,” he said. “My wife’s the one with taste.”
She nodded, trailed her fingers along the leather sofa, and examined the painting above the fireplace, which she’d bought herself from an artist in Bushwick before leaving New York. “What a shitty day I’ve had,” she said. “Any chance you want to pour me a drink?”
She was naked a half hour later, didn’t even make it to the bed.
“The chase,” that’s what she calls it, introduced him to it early on in their relationship, at the wedding he’d been shopping for at Brooks Brothers. She approached him at the dessert table as the evening drew to a close, introduced herself as if they’d never met. Her name was Lily, she said. She was a distant cousin of the groom’s, visiting from Boise, where she raised sheep and sold hats she knitted herself. He played along, offered to share a cab with her. She chatted with the driver, telling him she’d never been to the city before, never seen so many people in one place, Sam’s hand up her skirt the whole time.
It quickly became a regular thing. The hot waitress. The accountant with a dark side. She was astonishingly good at it: surprising him, imagining different characters, role-playing them to perfection, leading Sam in a slow dance toward the inevitable finale: mind-blowing sex with a stranger of sorts.
Annie Potter, his gloriously sexy, brilliant wife.
He waits until the older couple walks away before crossing the room and approaching her. “Sorry I’m late,” he says, kissing her.
“Are you late?” she asks, avoiding eye contact. “I hadn’t noticed.”
“You okay?”
“I’m fine.”