Melancholy Baby

“Yes,” he said.

“Do you remember the station?”

“No, not really,” Mr. Markham boomed. “I worked at several.”

“You don’t remember where you worked?”

He smiled sadly and shook his head.

“I, we, neither of us has much of a memory for things. I’m sure we must seem stupid to you.”

They didn’t seem stupid. They seemed dishonest. But I knew if I stuck at it, all I would get was endless reaffirmation of their dishonesty. I smiled at them both.

“And since Chicago?” I said. “What have you been working at since Chicago?”

“Oh, I work from home.”

“Really,” I said. “What kind of work?”

“I manage our portfolio,” he said. “The Internet makes it so much easier to do.”

“You live on your investments?”

“Yes. I made some wise” — he chuckled — “perhaps lucky, investments when we were in Chicago and...” He shrugged modestly.

“And you’ve lived off it ever since?”

“George is very good at investing,” Mrs. Markham said.

“I’ll bet he is,” I said.

We stood. We walked to the door. We shook hands. They stood in the doorway as I walked down the front walk toward my car.

They looked entirely forlorn.

George is very good at investing, I thought, my ass!

8

Dr. Copeland had abandoned me to a female shrink in Cambridge, and now, looking for a parking space on Linnaean Street, I was on my way to my first appointment. I was carefully dressed for the event in a Donna Karan pinstriped suit. Nothing flashy. We were going to be two professionals, talking.

Like everywhere else in Cambridge, it is hard to park on Linnaean Street, and like every other appointment I ever had, I was late. I finally squeezed my car in near a hydrant and walked very fast. Her office was on the first floor of a big white Victorian with a porch. I had all the instructions. Enter without knocking, take a seat in the waiting room on the left.

There was a white-sound machine in the waiting room. And a stack of New Yorker magazines. The room had probably once been a parlor, and a big green-tiled fireplace took up much of one wall. There was a mirror above the fireplace, and I made sure my hair was neat and my lipgloss wasn’t too glossy. Then I sat and picked up an issue of The New Yorker and opened it in my lap so I could avoid eye contact with any client that might go past me.

A door across the hall opened, and then the front door opened and closed, and then I heard a voice.

“Miss Randall?”

I stood up quickly.

“Yes,” I said.

“Hi,” the voice said, “I’m Dr. Silverman.”

I put my magazine down on the table. She gave me a little beckoning gesture and led me into her office, gestured me to a chair, closed the office door firmly, and went around her desk and sat. The first thing I noticed was how good-looking she was, and how subtly well dressed she was. How understated but careful her makeup was. She seemed like a woman. I felt like a girl.

“Tell me why you’re here,” Dr. Silverman said.

“My husband, my former husband, is remarrying.”

Dr. Silverman nodded.

“Has it happened?”

“It’s about to.”

“And you feel bad?”

“It is breaking my heart,” I said.

“Are you suicidal?” she said.

I paused and thought about it.

“No,” I said. “I’m just very, very unhappy.”

“We should be able to improve that,” she said.

I nodded. I could feel the tears again. Isn’t this wonderful — go to see a new shrink and start to cry thirty seconds after you meet her.

“What is your former husband’s name,” Dr. Silverman said.

“Richie.”

“Tell me about you and Richie,” she said.

I began. Halfway through, I started to cry. I tried to swallow it. I couldn’t. Dr. Silverman pushed a box of Kleenex across the desk to me. I used them and talked and cried and talked until Dr. Silverman said gently, “We’ve run out of time for today.”

I nodded and made a weak attempt at pulling myself together.

“Do you see any hope for me, doctor?”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Dr. Silverman said.

The cliché annoyed me.

“No,” I said. “We wouldn’t want to do that.”

“Next week, then?” she said. “Same time?”

“Would it be better if I came more than once a week?” I said.

“Would you like to?” Dr. Silverman said.

“I am not going to continue to be the sniveling reject I feel like right now,” I said. “I am going to beat this thing. I am going to get well.”

“Why don’t you come in on Monday, then,” Dr. Silverman said. “And Thursday.”

“I will.”

She wrote out a little appointment card for me. I took it and put it in my purse with my gun.

“We’ve been divorced five years,” I said. “We’ve both had other relationships. Why is this so hard?”

“We’ll see if we can find out,” Dr. Silverman said and stood and walked me to the door.

9

I was feeling a little less disintegrated as I went out to Taft to talk with Sarah. It wasn’t that Dr. Silverman had done anything much but listen and say noncommittal things. But I felt, somehow, a little safer.