Carol nodded her agreement throughout my speech, well before I was done, bobbing her head like a doll with a spring for a neck. It was annoying, conveying a blind desire to please rather than genuine agreement. “Great, okay, that’ll be fine,” she said all at once when I paused.
“I’ll discuss with Dr. Bracken who should be his therapist and then Gene could meet—” I stopped because Carol had her hand up, like a student eager to be called on.
“Gene told me he really wants you to be his doctor,” she smiled at me regretfully, head cocked to one side, as if to say — What can you do? In fact, she was making a demand. Here was the source of his passive-aggression. “Of course it’s not up to us. I explained that to Gene. After all we’re not paying, and I’m sure you’re very busy, but don’t you think it’s a good idea for him to have a doctor he likes?” Gene stared straight down at the floor, embarrassed. She grimaced helplessly as if she were also embarrassed.
“It’s more than a good idea,” I said. “It’s necessary.”
Carol nodded and smiled approvingly at me. She glanced at Gene. He still had his head down. “You see,” she said to him. “I told you there was nothing to worry about.”
“But Gene hasn’t met any of the other therapists. He might like someone else even better.”
Carol’s eyebrows came down to frown, her wide mouth shrank into a pout. “He couldn’t like anyone better than you,” she said. “He was completely comfortable with you.”
“It’s not really my decision to make unilaterally. I have to discuss it with Dr. Bracken.”
Carol’s hand was up again. “Enough said,” she said. “I’m sure it will work out.” She leaned so far forward she seemed almost to be on my desk. “One other thing,” she lowered her voice, although not enough for Gene to be excluded. “We haven’t told Gene’s father about this and I don’t think it’s a good idea to tell him about Gene coming three times a week. Not for a while. I only bring it up because if you send any mail or need to phone about Gene I’d like you to send it to my office or call me there, okay?” She put on her mask of a regretful smile again. Her hands went up and out to show her helplessness, her embarrassing, but inescapable need.
I smiled. A woman asking me to keep a secret. How was that for a change of pace? “In that case, I’m afraid Gene won’t be able to come here.” I felt as if I were mimicking her phony smile of regret, so I cleared my throat and tried to look solemn.
Her eyebrows were way up, her mouth was open. “Really?” she said with so much feeling and emphasis that it was comic.
“If Gene were an adult, it would be different. But he’s a minor and it’s the law that we must have parental consent to treat him. Of course no one outside of his father or you has to be told. And everything he says to me is confidential, including from you and his father. The only way I can make an exception is if there’s a compelling reason to keep it from his father.”
“There is.” She was very earnest now, jaw set, eyebrows in a line, her voice grave. She didn’t seem to have any neutral expressions; they were all violent. “He really really wouldn’t approve. He doesn’t believe in psychiatry.”
“That’s not enough for the law. There would have to be, at least from you, a statement that his father is abusing Gene or threatening him in some way. Is that the case?”
She shook her head vigorously. “No, no, but he wouldn’t allow it. So Gene couldn’t come anyway. So there’s no point in telling him. Anyway, I’m his mother. You have my consent.”
“I’m sorry. If you look at the form you were given — do you have it?”
“What?” She looked down at her purse. “Oh. Yes.”
“Both parents have to sign. It’s the law, as I said before, unless you’re alleging abuse. You’re not, correct?”
She had gone blank. She did have an expressionless expression. She didn’t move or speak.
“If Mr. Kenny,” I continued, “wishes to discuss Gene’s treatment with Dr. Bracken, I’m sure she can allay his anxieties. Gene is unhappy and needs some help. It won’t last forever, there’s no charge, and there’s no social stigma. Besides, outside of his immediate family, no one needs to know.”
“Okay,” she said abruptly. “I’ll tell him and he’ll sign the form. I’ll take care of it.” She was stern and displeased with me, her former pliancy and eagerness now as foreign to her facial terrain as water in a desert. “When should Gene come?”
“Well, how about Monday at four-thirty?”
“And you’ll be his doctor?” Her question was almost a reprimand.
“As I said, I’ll have to consult—”
“I’ll call Dr. Bracken. She’s the one to bother about all this. I shouldn’t bother you.” She stood and said, “Let’s get out of Dr. Neruda’s hair, Gene.”
Gene got to his feet immediately. Carol moved back to him, put her hand on his shoulder and pushed him at me. “Goodbye and thank you, Dr. Neruda,” she said to me in a loud slow beat, obviously prompting Gene to repeat the phrase.
“Thanks,” Gene mumbled.
“Shake Dr. Neruda’s hand,” she prompted.
Head down, Gene offered a limp hand.
“Do you want to shake my hand?” I said. What was I doing?
Carol goggled at me. Gene looked up, directly into my eyes. That was a first. His were shining. He smiled with his version of his mother’s wide mouth; broadly, but not a cartoon. “No,” he said.
“Then let’s skip it,” I said. “See you on Monday.”
Carol’s shoulders went way up. “Okay,” she said, and the shoulders dropped. “Thank you very very very much,” she added in a breathless whoosh.
I bought a sandwich from an all-night deli on Sixth Avenue, came back to our stoop, and ate half while waiting for Susan to finish with her last patient before tossing it. I didn’t have much of an appetite; anyway, the pastrami was dry and fatty. She came out a little after ten and glanced at me, surprised. “I thought you’d gone.”
“I fucked up,” I said.
She locked the door behind her and studied the dark building lovingly, the way a mother might regard her sleeping child. This look was the only pride I ever saw her take in her creation. (It was quite an achievement. People who normally wouldn’t, received first-rate therapy for little or nothing; and she had raised the money to open another clinic in Brooklyn just that month.) When she turned back to me, she hurried down the steps, taking my arm. “I don’t believe it,” she said.
“I had my worst session ever.”
“Tell me.” I reported my reaction to Gene and his mother while we walked north on Fifth to Susan’s loft on Sixteenth Street. I wasn’t anywhere near done by the time we reached her place. She invited me up. I declined, worried I’d disturb her husband, Harry. “He’ll be asleep,” she said. She was right. We sat at the butcher block table near the wall of windows at the front of her loft so our voices wouldn’t disturb Harry — there was only a half wall to seal off the bedroom at the rear.
Susan listened patiently, making no comment during my account of the session. She surprised me with her first question. “Do you usually ask patients to move to the couch so fast?”
I thought about it. “No. Sometimes not for several sessions.”
She nodded as if she had assumed that. “So?”
“I don’t know. He was upset and uncomfortable physically. He really didn’t want to look at me. I thought we’d never get going. He was so preoccupied about avoiding …” I trailed off. I knew she was asking for a deeper meaning, not this surface explanation.