“Autophobia,” Martie marveled, with more fascination and less angst than seemed appropriate, as though the psychiatrist had cured her simply by putting a name to the affliction.
Maybe the Valium accounted for it.
Even as Dusty wondered at Martie’s response, he realized that he, too, was smiling and nodding.
Dr. Ahriman would make this trouble go away.
“Statistically speaking,” Ahriman said, “it’s incredible that your best friend
“Connection? How so, Doctor?” Dusty asked, and that small inner voice of reason couldn’t resist remarking on his tone of voice, which was not unlike that of a twelve-year-old boy posing a question to Mr. Wizard, on the now- canceled children’s television program that had once endeavored to find the fun in science.
Ahriman steepled his fingers under his chin, looked thoughtful, and said, “Martie, you’ve been bringing Susan here for a year now—”
“Since she and Eric separated.”
“Yes. And you’ve been Susan’s lifeline, doing her shopping, other errands. Because she’s shown such little apparent progress, you’ve become ever more worried. As your worry grows, you begin to blame yourself for her failure to respond quickly to therapy.”
Surprised, Martie said, “I do? Blame myself?”
“As much as I know about you, it appears to be in your nature to have a strong sense of responsibility for others. Perhaps even an excessive sense of responsibility.”
Dusty said, “The Smilin’ Bob gene.”
“My father,” Martie explained to Ahriman. “Robert Woodhouse.”
“Ah. Well, what I think’s happened is that you’ve been feeling as though you’ve somehow failed Susan, and this sense of failure has metastasized into guilt. From the guilt comes this autophobia. If you have failed your friend, whom you love so much, then…well, you begin telling yourself that you evidently aren’t the good person you thought you were, possibly even a bad person, but certainly a bad friend, certainly that at least, and not to be trusted.”
Dusty thought the explanation seemed too simple to be true — and yet it rang with a convincing note.
When Martie met his eyes, he saw that her reaction was much the same as his.
Could such a weird, complex affliction befall someone overnight, someone previously as stable as the Rocky Mountains?
“Only yesterday,” Ahriman reminded Martie, “when you brought Susan for her appointment, you took me aside to tell me how worried you were about her.”
“Well, yes.”
“And do you recall what else you said?” When Martie hesitated, Ahriman reminded her: “You told me that you felt you had failed her.”
“But I didn’t mean—”
“You said it with conviction. With anguish. That you failed her.”
Thinking back, she said, “I did, didn’t I?”
Unsteepling his fingers, turning his hands palms up as though to say
“I need some good news,” Martie said, though she’d not appeared distraught at any moment since entering the office.
“Finding the root of the phobia, the hidden cause, is often the most difficult phase of therapy. If your autophobia arises from this guilt about Susan, then we’ve leaped over a year of analysis. Better yet, what you have is less a genuine phobic condition than…well, call it sympathetic phobia.”
“Like some husbands get sympathetic cramps and morning sickness when their wives are pregnant?” Martie suggested.
“Exactly,” Ahriman affirmed. “And a sympathetic phobia, if that is what you have, is infinitely easier to cure than a deeper-rooted condition like Susan’s. I all but guarantee you won’t be coming to me for long before I’m done with you.”
“How long?”
“One month. Perhaps three. You must understand, there’s really no way to fix an exact date. So much depends on…you and me.”
Dusty leaned back in his chair, further relieved. One month, even three, was not such a long time. Especially if she experienced steady improvement. They could endure this.
Dr. Ahriman was a great psychiatrist. Dr. Ahriman would make this trouble go away.
“I’m ready to begin,” Martie announced. “Already this morning, I saw our internist—”
“And his opinion?” Ahriman wondered.
“He thinks we should take the necessary steps to rule out brain tumors, that sort of thing, but more likely than not it’s a matter for therapy, not medicine.”
“Sounds like a good, thorough physician.”
“I’ve had some tests done at the hospital, everything he wanted me to have. But now…well, nothing’s for sure, but I think this is where I’m going to get help.”
“Then let’s proceed!” Dr. Ahriman said brightly, with an almost boyish enthusiasm that Dusty found heartening because it seemed to be an expression of dedication to his work and confidence in his skills.
Dr. Ahriman would make this trouble go away.
“Mr. Rhodes,” the psychiatrist said, “traditional therapy is, of course, a process requiring confidentiality for the patient if he — in this case, she — is to be forthcoming. So I’ll have to ask you to adjourn to our outgoing waiting room for the rest of this session.”
Dusty looked at Martie for guidance.
She smiled and nodded.
This was a safe place. She would be all right here.
“Of course, sure.” Dusty rose from his chair.
Martie handed her leather jacket to him, which she had removed upon entering the office, and he put it over his arm with his coat.
“Right this way, Mr. Rhodes,” Dr. Ahriman said, crossing the large office toward the door to the outgoing waiting room.
Scaled clouds, as greasy and sour-gray as rotting fish, seemed to be foul ejecta spewed out by the rolling Pacific, clotted on the heavens. The coaly veins in the water were varicose and more numerous than previously, and large sections of the sea were fearfully black to Dusty’s eyes if to no other’s.
His brief ripple of disquiet at once smoothed away as he turned from the enormous window and followed Dr. Ahriman.
The door between the mahogany-paneled office and the outgoing waiting room was surprisingly thick. As tightly fitted as a Mason-jar lid, it produced a soft pop and a sigh when opened, as though a vacuum seal were being broken.
Dusty supposed that a serious door was required to protect the doctor’s patients from eavesdroppers. No doubt the core of it was composed of layers of soundproofing.
The honey-toned walls, black-granite floor, and furnishings in this second waiting room were like those in the larger, incoming lounge at the main entrance of the suite.
“Would you like Jennifer to bring you coffee, cola, ice water?” Ahriman asked Dusty.
“No, thank you. I’ll be fine.”
“Those,” Ahriman said, indicating a fanned array of periodicals on a table, “are current.” He smiled. “This is one doctor’s office that isn’t a graveyard for the magazines of prior decades.”
“Very thoughtful.”
Ahriman placed one hand reassuringly on Dusty’s shoulder. “She is going to be fine, Mr. Rhodes.”
“She’s a fighter.”
“Have faith.”
“I do.”
