Page 6 of The Therapist

She’s in a bad way and who knows what decision she will make in such a state.

It’s important that she calms down before she leaves here.

I would hate to send a distressed patient back out into the world without at least trying to help them.

‘Please come into my office and we can talk for a bit.’ I try really hard not to let her hear the disappointment in my voice.

This is my break and I wanted some time off.

I have a full patient list but I can feel that I’m being pulled into this.

I’ll just talk to her until she can think straight and then suggest a new therapist.

The woman looks at me and then back at Ben. She seems to be considering the possibility that Ben will relent but he won’t meet her gaze, instead looking down at his shoes. Her tears won’t stop coming and she blows her nose again and then nods.

I can see the relief in Ben’s face. He wants someone else to deal with this problem.

I’m angry with him for not handling this better but I can’t let this woman leave in the state she’s in.

One of the worst things about being a therapist is my inability to leave my patients at work.

I worry about them all the time, so much so that SueEllen and I have come up with a plan for fifteen minutes each day where I worry about everyone I have seen that day without trying to stop myself.

Having official worry time does help me focus on Iggy better after I’m done.

I know why I worry so much, of course.

Before I was a therapist, before university, I was a normal person.

A friend. Just someone who should have listened to someone in my life – but didn’t.

I chose not to listen because I was busy with my own life.

I chose to turn away. It could be argued that I was too young to know what I was doing or that I was a teenager and so naturally selfish, but it’s something I will always regret.

And because of that, I will always worry about all my patients – about anyone who opens up to me.

Even if I really wanted to – and I do – I don’t have the ability to leave this alone and let this woman get on with the rest of her day.

I won’t be able to focus until I know she’s okay.

And some small part of me is intrigued. She’s so beautiful.

I just know she was the most popular girl at her school, the one with every boy’s attention, the one every girl wanted to be and every boy wanted to date, and yet here she is, crying in my practice because her life is a mess.

I turn and she follows me into my office. I gesture to the sofa and then I go to close the door as she sits down. Ben is still standing in reception and he mouths, ‘Thank you,’ and I shrug. I don’t have much choice.

‘I’m Lana,’ I say, sitting down in front of the woman, who is dabbing at her face. She has stopped crying so that’s something.

‘Sandy. Has Ben told you about me?’ she asks. She is dressed in a navy-blue jumpsuit, an outfit that would make me look like an overgrown toddler but one that is casually elegant on her. This is not someone who has ever obsessed over her weight.

I bite down on my lip, debating what to do. Ben should not have been discussing her with me but perhaps if she feels I know some of what is wrong, she will understand that another therapist can easily help her.

‘He told me that you are struggling in your marriage. And I’m sure that if you want him to, he will be able to talk to whoever your new therapist is and explain everything so you don’t have to feel like you’re starting again.’

‘And I’m sure he told you that I’m in love with him.’ Her voice is tight with anger. She crosses her arms over her chest, her chin jutting out. It’s a lightning-quick transformation and something I take note of.

I deliberately relax in my chair, letting my arms rest by my sides. ‘He told me you have some feelings for him but I know that he also explained about transference.’

Sandy nods her head. ‘He did, so I don’t know why I can’t still work with him.

It’s not like I’m going to attack him.’ She smiles ruefully and I can’t help but return her smile.

Her smile lights up her face and I can imagine that her whole path through life has been eased by that smile.

I remind myself again that she is here because she is in trouble.

Her smile has not made her life perfect.

‘No, but it may interfere with your therapy.’ I don’t mention Ben’s feelings for her, of course.

She shrugs her shoulders. ‘Maybe…’ She looks around my office, her eyes focusing on the wall where my degrees and extra diplomas are all hung in matching wooden frames.

‘Maybe you can…’ She shrugs again. ‘I don’t know.

Can you help me? I mean can you treat me?

’ She looks back at me, her eyes wide. ‘I…don’t want to start again and maybe if I like…

give Ben permission, he can tell you everything?

It won’t be the same as starting with someone completely new.

I think…it would be easier.’ She leans back against the sofa, more relaxed now.

‘Well,’ I hesitate, not wanting to say yes.

‘How about this… We can have a quick chat now and you can tell me as much or as little as you want and then I will give you a list of names of people who may be able to help, other therapists. But if you don’t want to talk to them, then you can talk to me.

’ This is not what I want. I don’t need more work.

But I do want to know who gave her that black eye.

Kirsty will have to squeeze her into my schedule somewhere. I can see that she is not going to want to find another therapist.

‘I don’t want to talk to anyone but Ben, but at least if it’s you, I mean, you’re part of the same…’ She gestures around the office. ‘I feel like I’ve spilled enough secrets.’

‘The best person to tell your secrets to is a therapist. I promise I won’t tell anyone else. But I need to tell you that if I feel you are in danger or you are a danger to others, I have to report it to the police.’

‘Okay’ –she waves her hand – ‘Ben gave me that whole speech when I started seeing him. But can you…listen first, just listen. I’m not’ – she shakes her head – ‘not ready for…’ She waves her hand again without telling me what it is she means.

‘I’m going to listen, I promise you,’ I reassure her.

She takes a deep, shuddering breath and dabs at her eyes again. ‘God, it’s so complicated… My husband… Things are not good between us. I think he’s gaslighting me, making me think I’m crazy, you know?’

‘How does he make you think you’re crazy?’

‘He tells me he’s coming home at a certain time and then doesn’t. He tells me I’ve had too much to drink when I know I haven’t. He tells me that I agreed to things like where to eat or what to do with the kids when I know he’s never mentioned anything. He’s trying to drive me crazy.’

‘Does he…hurt you?’ I ask.

‘What? No, no, nothing like that. I guess you could call it emotional abuse.’

I wait for a moment and then she laughs. ‘Oh this’ – she gestures to her eye – ‘I walked into a door.’

‘Okay,’ I reply. I don’t believe her but then why would I? And I can see from the way she is looking at me that she doesn’t really want me to believe that clichéd excuse.

‘He says that I drink too much, and I know that I should cut down, I know I should, but life is so… Everything is so hard, you know, like every day is…’ She stops speaking and I wait for her to tell me what she is thinking.

Softly, she says, ‘Do you ever get the feeling that you’re just waiting for death?

I mean barely getting through one day and then the next day and just waiting for it to all be over? ’

I can hear her pain but I don’t answer her because she’s looking at the picture I have on the other wall in my office of a beach in the sunshine with bright blue, white-crested waves lapping at the shore.

A little girl is digging in the sand with a pink bucket and matching spade.

It was painted for me by a friend of mine, Amy, as a present for when I opened my own practice.

‘My daughter, Lila, loves the beach.’ She takes a deep breath. I can see that she’s calmer, which is better for her. I’m not going to ask about how much she drinks. Not yet. ‘My husband is the one who drinks too much and sometimes he…’

‘Sometimes he…?’

She frowns. ‘I’m not…ready to talk about everything. I barely know you.’ She seems angry at me and I take note of that. There is obviously a lot more going on here than just gaslighting.

‘Do you still love him, your husband?’ I ask her, sitting forward in my chair.

‘I do. I know that I have a thing for Ben, but I also know why that happened. I love my husband, Lana, and I wish I didn’t but I really, really do. I’m thirty-six. I don’t want to have to start again.’

Outside the office I hear the phone beginning to ring and then I hear Kirsty answer it, ‘Calm Minds Clinic, hold please.’

I can’t help thinking that this woman’s life should have been perfect.

I know that beauty doesn’t guarantee anything but even now, at my age, I cannot help but envy her looks.

She’s as old as I am but she looks much younger, even with the black eye.

If she can’t have the perfect life, what hope is there for anyone else?

‘Why don’t you start at the beginning?’ I tell her as I remind myself that I can’t be ‘Lana the woman’ now. I need to be ‘Lana the therapist’, neutral, unemotional and certainly not jealous of another woman’s looks.

I listen while she talks, letting her tell me the story of her marriage, of how she met and fell in love with her husband.

After half an hour, I know that I need to stop her because I have another patient coming soon.

‘We can meet again,’ I say. ‘I’ll talk to Kirsty and get her to contact you with a time.’

‘Thank you,’ she says as she stands, ‘thank you so much.’ She clutches her matching navy bag. ‘At least you’re prettier than Ben.’ She laughs and I am at once flattered and concerned. It’s an odd thing to say to your therapist.

I stand as well, deciding to ignore the remark, opening my office door as she throws her crumpled tissue into the garbage bin by the door.

The waiting room is empty; my next client has, thankfully, not arrived yet.

‘Kirsty will be in contact,’ I tell Sandy.

Closing my office door, I take a deep breath and then I look down at my garbage bin where Sandy has thrown her tissue. Something seems off and I bend down to get closer, actually picking up the tissue she was using, even as my stomach churns at the idea of what I’m doing.

There are marks on the tissue, not only the black streaks of running mascara from all her tears but blue, yellow and purple smudges as well. From her eye make-up? Surely, I would have noticed purple? I study the tissue. Where did all the colour come from? She only dabbed at her eyes.

I screw up my face and drop the tissue back in the bin, using the hand sanitiser on my desk quickly.

There’s no way that black eye was fake – is there?