Early Warning

“I did serve, though not in a combat capacity. I had asthma. However, psychiatric work was service.” Now that his treatment plan had proceeded to greater intimacy, Dr. Smith sometimes offered little nuggets of personal information. Andy knew that they were supposed to help her see him as more human — a man with an inner life and a history, vulnerable and worthy of compassion. His mother, for example, had been an exceptionally cold woman, heavyset and determined; one of his earliest memories was of helping her unlace her corset. But this old fact was not dramatic. Though it had been frightening at the time to see her flesh billow forth, with therapy he now pondered all of his memories with equal disinterest, which was not lack of interest, but a state of emotional remove. What was there to learn from these episodes? If he had persisted in endowing them with the emotions that they aroused at the time, then he could learn nothing from them. Such was his goal for her, too. “You keep coming back to this topic, Mrs. Langdon. The young man was killed months ago.”

“Janet wrote me about it again. I guess she told one of the girls at her school that she would rather it was her who died, and the girl told one of the teachers.”

“Are you worried?”

“I’m not worried that she’s going to do anything, but…”

Now he stood up and went to his mat, where he assumed his cross-legged position. He had made it absolutely clear that he did not love her — love was neither his purpose nor his aim (he was, after all, a married man), and if she were to fall in love with him (impossible, Andy thought), then it would be his job to deflect and analyze those feelings as a variety of transference. For now it was sufficient that she almost always had an orgasm, and, with increasing frequency, they had simultaneous orgasms. Simultaneous orgasms were a learned behavior, just like any other. So, indeed, was love.

“But what?”

“But I think her reaction is extreme. I’ve always thought she was rather remote.”

“We see in others what we feel in ourselves, Mrs. Langdon. When you’ve tapped your own passions, perhaps you will understand your daughter’s.”

He waited for a moment, then said, “Now, in series of tens, I want you to tighten your pubococcygeus muscle.” He began to count, and Andy, still lying on her back, did her best, though he went a little fast for her. He counted three sets, and then said, “You may rest.” Next he had her straighten and bend her left leg ten times, then her right leg, then her left leg, then her right leg again. He said, “Turn over.” She turned over. He said, “Now tighten your gluteals.” He counted to ten three times. This was easy for her — she had been improving her posture since she was ten years old and first heard the word “posture.” When he finished counting, she sat up. “I don’t know what to say to comfort her. If I say nothing, she says I don’t care, and if I say something, whatever it is, she says I don’t know what I’m talking about.”

He was still cross-legged, still hairy, still self-possessed. He said, “What have you said?”

“My sister-in-law and her husband let those children run wild. It seems to me that, if they had exerted a little control, he might have had more direction, and this wouldn’t have happened. I guess that was exactly the wrong thing to say to Janet. I mean, I actually criticized her aunt Lillian and uncle Arthur, which is not to be done.” Andy knew she sounded a little incensed.

“I thought you were a believer in fate, Mrs. Langdon.”

“Yes, but—” Andy fell silent, momentarily startled. And it was true: a year ago, she would have viewed such a thing quite differently. Even as recently as September, she had told Janet that Tim’s death was meant to be. Now, five months deeper into her treatment, she couldn’t help seeing cause and effect, paths not taken, things that could have turned out in another way.

Dr. Smith looked at his watch, then rose to his feet without his hands touching the floor. It was this act that held her whenever she wavered in her dedication to her treatment. He went to his book and said, “We can take up this topic again.”

Andy sat up and reached for her clothes and her handbag. She said, “Friday.” He gazed at her expectantly while she put on her brassiere and underpants. She rummaged her bag for her checkbook. He handed her a pen. She wrote him a check for five hundred dollars. About this, as about everything else, he was very strict. He often said, “It may have seemed to you when you were a child that your father was a kind man, but his kindness, so called, had no direction, did it? And so, as a woman, you are untrained and adrift.” As she handed him the check, Andy couldn’t help agreeing.

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