Lizzie looks at me like she can see my thoughts. We can park exactly where they want us to, she says, and carry all your shit for two miles, or we can park where we need to park, and assume the police have higher priorities this time of night; what’s your pleasure? You know I get bitchy when I’m nervous, I say, just ignore me. She does.
* * *
At Coney Island, the air is smoky and salty and the sand looks like ashes. Lizzie walks confidently past a few small bonfires: schoolkids, new lovers. I follow her to a secluded area behind a large Dumpster that seems misplaced. Lizzie says, You can leave your stuff here. Then, for about thirty minutes, we go back and forth from our spot to the car, where there’s a trunkful of planks. Then Lizzie starts the fire.
While I’m taking everything out of the bags, Lizzie says, You really mean it this time. Lizzie’s instruction was Bring everything your addiction finds inspiring. So I packed bags and bags of inspirations: everything the men had ever given me, pictures where we look happy, private journals with too much truth. Then I thought, Do better do better do better, so I added DVDs we watched together, the lace bra that opens from the front — anything that held a memory.
I’m happy that Lizzie has noticed my effort, and I say, I’m done, Liz, I’m done; no more married men. Then I say I’m done one more time, to make sure. By now the bonfire is something that can harm. Lizzie starts ripping things, and with her eyes she says, You do the same. I do. I know we have to make everything small before we burn it; one of the principles of the Brinn Method is Graduality, which means breaking down any Significant Action into several mini-actions whenever possible. When we’re done she says, I can’t do any burning for you. I start feeding the fire — carefully at first, but then it gets wild. I’m jumping in the air, attacking the bonfire from all directions, screaming. The fire eats away at my fantasies, and the smoke that it feeds back to the air feels sober.
* * *
When Lizzie asks if I’m ready, I assume she means am I ready to go home, and I say yes. She says, Then we should get started. I give her a look that says I don’t understand, and she says, Listen to me: What’s the one thing we’ve been ignoring all this time, the missing variable in your addiction’s equation? What’s our oversight? (A big part of the Brinn Method is finding oversights.) I say I don’t know. Lizzie looks at me. Think, she says. I can’t think. I say I don’t know. She says, The kids. I say, The kids? and she repeats, The kids; most of your men had kids, but we never bothered with that, it seemed immaterial. That’s our oversight! she declares, and I can tell she’s been waiting for this moment for days.
Lizzie reaches for one of the bags, takes out a big brown envelope, and starts handing me photographs. I’m sitting on the sand and she’s standing close to me, studying my reactions. In the photographs, random children play or cry, unaware of the camera. I look up at Lizzie and say, I don’t get it. What’s not to get? she asks; these are the kids. I still don’t quite understand, but then I see him — the kid with the cards, from the eye doctor, only he looks older than I remember, and there are no cards in this picture. Instead, there’s a dog, and he seems to be talking to it. I think, This can’t be right. I look at Lizzie, then at the picture again. Lizzie looks pleased, almost smug. I say nothing for a few minutes, and stare at the blackness of the water. Lizzie is giving me the time that I need, because she thinks I’m making progress.
Then she says something about talking to the photographs, apologizing to the children, but I can’t really hear her. I get up, shake the sand off. Where did you get these? I ask her. I have my ways, she says, and smiles. I look her straight in the eye. Where did you get these? I ask again. Now she can see that there is no progress at all. What’s your problem? she asks; you know how much effort, not to mention money, I had to put in to get these? You think it’s easy? I don’t think it’s easy at all, I say; I think it’s fucked up. Lizzie looks at me. Are we regressing back to Resistance, she asks, is that what’s happening? I want to know how you got these, I tell her for the third time, but this time there’s more weakness than threat in my words.
The soles of my feet are numb now. I can’t stand, and I don’t want to sit back down. I need to go home, I tell Lizzie. Not before we do this, she says. I shake my head no, slowly. Then I look right at her and say, I don’t give a fuck about these kids. I didn’t make them. Get their fathers to apologize to them, not me.
There is madness in her eyes and I think she might hit me, but she says nothing and then puts the photographs back in the envelope, the envelope back in the bag.
On the drive back to the city we are silent, but when we get to my block Lizzie says, You weren’t ready; it’s my fault. All of a sudden I have the urge to ask her if she called Oz to come over the other night after the bar. I want to suggest that maybe she has problems of her own, and that maybe she should focus on those for a while. But I figure whatever I say, I’m likely to regret it in the morning. When I’m about to enter my building, Lizzie honks, and I know she wants me to turn around and smile; I walk in without looking back.
4. Grief
Two weeks later, Lizzie and I are splitting a tuna sandwich and a lemonade on St. Marks, and she’s holding the lemonade and taking fast, short sips, because she never had any siblings and isn’t good at sharing. I let her, and focus on the tuna sandwich until she says, Hey, leave some for me. I look at her and feel the itch of confession. Lizzie’s way of dealing with the bonfire night has been to pretend it went well; even without completing the evening’s full program, as far as she’s concerned, we were ultimately successful. She’s been carefully constructing her sentences around now that you’re clean. Soon, I know, if I don’t stop the charade, she will start planning my 100 Free Days Celebration. I say, These past few weeks … you don’t know the whole story. Then I ignore her face and tell her about the man on the plane. She’s taking a deep breath. And since the bonfire? she asks. I tell her there have been two men since the bonfire, even though there’s only been one; I need her to lose hope. One was a grief client, I say, the other a regular at the coffee shop I go to who told me he was getting married in three days. Lizzie says, Okay, okay, and nods slowly many times, until it gets irritating. I say, I think the worst part is, I don’t regret it. Lizzie gives me the Lizzie look. I say, I just don’t, and shrug.
* * *
A woman comes into my office. She has beautiful eyes, but where they meet the rest of her face you can see fatigue. She says, I think I’m addicted to my grief. Grief is a very addictive substance, I say. We are not supposed to say things like that, but I don’t care. She seems surprised, like she expected me to say something else entirely, or maybe just offer her a glass of water. She asks about studies, and I understand: she wants printed data, black ink on stapled paper. Everyone does. I say, Suppose some research has been conducted, suppose proof exists that grief is one of the most dangerous drugs out there, that tens of thousands of Israelis abuse it every day; do you really think the government would let that information out? She looks at me like she doesn’t understand, but I know that she does. You have to go slowly with these people; they are not always ready to know what they already know.
We are quiet for a few seconds until suddenly she says, Everyone is an addict, then. My clients often exaggerate, once they see my point. Well, not everyone, I reply. I want to focus on her personal grief now, but she repeats her statement, and there is conviction in her tone, like she has slammed some door I can’t see: Everyone is an addict. I say, Addiction is a serious matter; you are belittling it when you put it this way. If anything can be an addiction, she says, then everyone is an addict. Please stop saying “everyone is an addict,” I say. I should point out the flaws in her logic, but somehow I can’t. Instead, my brain fills with words that can hurt her, words like wrinkles and faded. She smiles and looks at the wall behind me, and I get a strange feeling, like part of me has been sleeping this whole time. I turn around to see what it is she’s looking at, but it’s all white. I say, I think our time is up.