more than twelve feet square, painted dove-gray and lit by a single overhead milk-glass fixture.
A white door took up a quarter of the rear wall. The other walls were bare except for a single lithograph: A softly colored mother-and-child scene that had to be Cassatt. The print was centered over a rose-colored, gray- piped loveseat. A pine coffee table and two pine chairs created a conversation area. Bone-china coffee service on the table. Woman on the couch.
She stood and said, “Hello, Dr. Delaware. I’m Gina Ramp.”
Soft voice.
She came forward, her walk a curious mix of grace and awkwardness. The awkwardness was all above the neck- her head was held unnaturally high and tilted to one side, as if recoiling from a blow.
“Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Ramp.”
She took my hand, gave it a quick, gentle squeeze and let go.
She was tall- had at least eight inches on her daughter- and still model-slender, in a knee-length, long-sleeved dress of polished gray cotton. Front-buttoned to the neck. Patch pockets. Flat-heeled gray sandals. A plain gold wedding band on her free hand. Gold balls in her ears. No other jewelry. No perfume.
The hair was medium-blond and starting to silver. She wore it short and straight, brushed forward with feathered bangs. Boyish. Almost ascetic.
Her face was pale, oval, made for the camera. Strong, straight nose, firm chin, wide gray-blue eyes stippled with green. The pouty allure of an old studio photo replaced by something more mature. More relaxed. Slight surrender of contour, the merest sag at the seams. Smile lines, brow furrows, a suggestion of pouch at the junction of lips and cheek.
Forty-three years old, I knew from an old newspaper clipping, and she looked every day of it. Yet age had softened her beauty. Enhanced it, somehow.
She turned to her daughter and smiled. Lowered her head, almost ritualistically, and showed me the left side of her face.
Skin stretched tight, bone-white and glassy-smooth. Too smooth- the unhealthy sheen of fever-sweat. The jawline sharper than it should have been. Subtly skeletal, as if stripped of an underlying layer of musculature and refurbished with something artificial. Her left eye drooped, very slightly but noticeably, and the skin beneath it was scored with a dense network of white filaments. Scars that seemed to be floating just beneath the surface of her skin- a suspension of threadworms swimming in flesh-colored gelatin.
The neck-flesh just below the jaw was ruled with three ruddy stripes- as if she’d been slapped hard and the finger marks had lingered. The left side of her mouth was preternaturally straight, offering harsh counterpart to the weary eye and giving her smile a lopsided cast that projected an uninvited irony.
She shifted her head again. Her skin caught the light at a different angle, and took on the marbled look of a tea-soaked egg.
Off-kilter. Beauty defiled.
She said to Melissa, “Thank you, darling,” and gave a crooked smile. Part of the left side didn’t smile along.
I realized that- just for the moment- I’d blocked out Melissa’s presence. I turned, with a smile for her. She was staring at us, a hard, watchful look on her face. Suddenly, she turned up the corners of her mouth, forced herself to join in the smile-fest.
Her mother said, “Come here, baby,” and went to her, holding out her arms. Hugging her. Using her height to advantage, cradling, stroking Melissa’s long hair.
Melissa stepped back and looked at me, flushed.
Gina Ramp said, “I’ll be fine, baby. Go on.”
Melissa said, “Have fun,” in a voice on the verge of cracking. Gave one more look back and walked out.
Leaving the door open. Gina Ramp walked over and closed it.
“Please make yourself comfortable, Doctor,” she said, readjusting the tilt of her face so that only the good side was visible. She gestured toward the china service. “Coffee?”
“No, thanks.” I sat in one of the chairs. She returned to the loveseat. Sat perched at the edge, back straight, legs crossed at the ankles, hands in lap- the identical posture Melissa had adopted at my house yesterday.
“So,” she said, smiling again. She leaned forward to adjust one of the teacups, spent more time at it than she had to.
I said, “Good to meet you, Mrs. Ramp.”
A pained look fought with the smile and won. “Finally?”
Before I could answer, she said, “I’m not a terrible person, Dr. Delaware.”
“Of course you aren’t,” I said. Too emphatically. It made her start and take a long look at me. Something about her- about this place- was screwing up my timing. I sat back and kept my mouth shut. She recrossed her legs and shifted her head, as if in response to stage direction. Showing me only her right profile. Stiff and defensively genteel, like a First Lady on a talk show.
I said, “I’m not here to judge you. This is about Melissa’s going away to college. That’s all.”
She tightened her lips and shook her head. “You helped her so much. Despite me.”
“No,” I said. “Because of you.”
She closed her eyes, sucked in her breath, and clawed her knees through the gray dress. “Don’t worry, Dr. Delaware. I’ve come a long way. I can handle harsh truths.”
“The truth, Mrs. Ramp, is that Melissa turned out to be the terrific young woman she is in good part because she got a lot of love and support at home.”
She opened her eyes and shook her head very slowly. “You’re kind, but the truth is that even though I knew I was failing her, I couldn’t pull myself out of my… out of it. It sounds so weak-willed, but…”
“I know,” I said. “Anxiety can be as crippling as polio.”
“Anxiety,” she said. “What a mild word. It’s more like
I said nothing.
She went on: “Do you know that in thirteen years I never attended a single parent-teacher conference? Never applauded at her school plays or chaperoned field trips or met the mothers of the few children she played with. I
“Has she given any indication of that?”
“No, of course not. Melissa’s a good girl-
She leaned forward again. “Dr. Delaware, she puts on a brave front- feels she always has to be grown up, a perfect little lady.
I said, “I’m not going to sit here and tell you you gave her the ideal upbringing. Or that your fears didn’t influence hers. They did. But throughout it all- from what I saw during her therapy- she perceived you as being nurturant and loving, giving her unconditional love. She still sees you that way.”
She bowed her head, held it with both hands, as if praise hurt.
I said, “When she wet your sheets you held her and didn’t get angry. That means a lot more to a child than parent-teacher conferences.”
She looked up and stared at me. The facial sag more evident than before. Shifting her head, she switched to a profile view. Smiling.
“I can see where you’d be good for her,” she said. “You put forth your point of view with a… force that’s hard to debate.”
“Is there a need for us to debate?”
She bit her lip. One hand flew up and touched her bad side again. “No. Of course not. It’s just that I’ve been working on… honesty. Seeing myself the way I truly am. It’s part of
“I’m sure you know how ambivalent she is about going away to college, Mrs. Ramp. Right now she’s framing it
