Page 5 of The Therapist
And then he stands and grabs the teddy away from Lila. I wait and watch, interested to see how this goes for him. I know he would like to wake up to a quiet kitchen with two angelic children sitting at the table, eating their breakfasts. He would like me to be more involved, more present. But you can’t have everything. He has me and he should be ecstatic every day.
He takes the teddy to put it back in Lila’s room as the child begins to wail.
‘Great, just great,’ I shout, watching his shoulders tense. He makes things worse and then he tries to blame me for the chaos. If he would accept that mornings are loud and messy, this would all be easier, but he keeps trying to fix things. I hate the mornings as well and try to leave him to deal with them as much as possible.
‘Shut it,’ he says, looming over me, and I feel my heart race. I can’t push him too far. He’s too big, too strong, and he could really hurt me. I know that. And I also know that if he did hurt me, he would find a way to make it my fault, because everything is my fault. Maybe it is? That’s part of the toxic dance: the lying. He lies; I lie –but who lies more?
Yesterday I spent the afternoon making burgers, applying myself to the domestic task with as much enthusiasm as I could muster, which was not very much at all.
‘Why are we eating this?’ he said when he sat down at the kitchen table, after the children had finally been sent off for their television time and things were blessedly quiet.
‘That’s what you wanted,’ I replied. ‘You asked me to make burgers. When we spoke on the phone – you called me from work.’
‘Bullshit,’ he snapped, ‘you said we were having pasta.’ Such anger over a meal choice and so obvious that it had nothing to do with the food at all.
I knew he was searching for something to get angry over the moment he walked through the door with hunched shoulders and his square jaw more tensed than usual. But it was such a weird thing to get upset over that I laughed and then I had to keep quiet because I could see how irate he was. I did make up the phone call about burgers to upset him. I do that sometimes. But last week he made up a story about my agreeing to take thecar in for a service, and I never would have agreed to such a thing, unless I was drunk, in which case he shouldn’t have asked me until he knew I was sober and concentrating. Maybe I like upsetting him but maybe he likes upsetting me too. He has his side of the story and I have mine. Maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle but maybe there’s no truth at all. ‘Just eat it,’ I said and he did, even as he drank one beer after another, knowing that I would comment on that, knowing it would lead to a fight.
‘You’re an alcoholic,’ I yelled at him last night.
‘That’s rich coming from you,’ he sneered, pointing to my full wine glass. Alcohol dulls the senses and I need mine to be as dulled as possible to survive this life.
‘Shut it,’ he repeats now as I hold my breath in the messy kitchen. I drop my gaze as he waves a fist at me, the teddy in his other hand making him seem ludicrous.
He moves away from me and violently stuffs the teddy down into the backpack. It’s not even 8 a.m. and I can see that he wishes the day was over and he was back in bed already. Lila stops crying abruptly in the way that she can and she sits down on the floor, patting the teddy stuffed down in her bag, her thumb going into her mouth.
She looks like me – not as pretty of course but that may change over the years. She has golden-brown hair and a heart-shaped face and the same green eyes. Felix is like him, blond with blue eyes and a square jaw. He looks exactly like his father and I can’t abide the child’s crying or maybe I just can’t abide him, the little boy who trapped me here, whose first breath meant the end of my life as I wanted it to be.
‘You’re such a gorgeous family,’ strangers will tell us at the park when we are all together, and I must admit that I get a kick out of that. We are gorgeous. Picture-perfect in every way.
But scrape the surface only a little and there are things no one wants to see.
I wish I wanted to be here, and maybe if he and I could find a way to be better as people, it would be fine. After a glass or two or three of wine, I always feel hopeful that the two of us can change and life can turn into the fairy tale it was supposed to be. But then I sober up and he’s yelling or lying about something and that hope feels misplaced.
‘I need to get out of here,’ he says, picking up his briefcase as he heads into work, where he will sit behind a desk and try to convince people to buy the shitty mattresses his company makes. He’s failing. I know he’s failing. There are rumblings about the business closing down, something to think about for me. I don’t work. Caring for these children and this house and holding on to what beauty I can is enough work for me. With each passing year, more exercise, more complicated skin routines and more effort are required to look the way I used to look, and I am losing that battle.
Turning away from the children, I pour myself a cup of coffee and take a sip. How much would a facelift cost? Exactly how much?
I hear the sound of the garage door closing and I know he’s gone.
Slamming my cup down on the counter, I yell, ‘Get dressed and into the car, both of you.’ And they listen. They always listen when he’s not here. Despite how big he is, how scary he can be, they adore him, want to be with him, push his boundaries, knowing that he will give in on bedtime and television time and exactly how many treats are allowed. I’m not like that.
I need to get them to school, get them out of my hair, and then I will make myself beautiful. I will perfect my mask so that I can go in today and see my therapist. I will sit on his sofa and let him look at me as I speak. This thought cheers me, even without the help of a glass of wine.
I do a quick clean-up of the kitchen, stopping in front of a cupboard to look at the large blue cookie jar I have stored on a high shelf. I feel a little shiver run through me at what I have in there and at what it means for my future.
Because I can feel it getting closer now. I can feel the day is coming when I show the world exactly what my dear husband is really like, exactly who he is. And what a day that will be.
THREE
Lana
I show Elizabeth and her husband, Jack, out of my office and close the door on them gratefully.
They were my fifth session of the day. A married couple trying to regroup after Elizabeth had an affair.
Now I have an hour to eat a late lunch and get ready for my last patients of the day. I always like to start my break with a ten-minute meditation and stretch.
I lie on the floor of my office with my legs up against the wall and close my eyes, breathing deeply and relaxing my shoulders.
