'He came recommended-highly recommended-from one of the doctors at Foothill. And I thought he was pretty smart myself, at first. He spent a couple of weeks with Reggie, not telling me anything, then called me in for a conference and told me how Reggie had serious problems because of the way he'd grown up. Said it was gonna take a long time to fix it but he would fix it. If Whole list of /s. 'I didn't put any pressure on Reggie to perform. I respected Reggie as a person. Respected his con/aenliahty. I said whats my part in all this?
He said paying the bills and minding my own business. Reggie had to develop his own responsibility-long as I did it for him he'd never straighten out. Not that he kept what I said to him about Reggie confidential. Two years paid that faker and at the end of it I got a boy who hated me because of what that man put in his head. It wasn't till later that I found out he'd repeated everything I'd told him.
Blown it way up and made it worse.'
'Did you complain?'
'Why? I was the stupid one. For believing. You wanna know how stupid? After... after Reggie... after he had his... after he was... gone-a year after, I went to another one. Of your crowd.
Because my supervisor thought I should not that she'd pay for it.
And not that I wasn't doing my job properly, cause I was. But I wasn t
sleeping well or eating or enjoying anything. It wasn't like being alive at all. So she gave me a referral. I figured maybe a woman would be a better judge of character.... This joker was in Beverly Hills. Hundred and twenty an hour. Inflation, right? Not that the value went up. Though in the beginning this one seemed even more on the ball than the first one. Quiet. Polite. A real gentleman. And he seemed to understand. I felt... talking to him made me feel better.
In the beginning. I started to be able to work again. Then.
She stopped, clamping her mouth shut. Shifting her attention from me to the walls to the floor to the handkerchief in her hand.
Staring at the sodden cloth with surprise and revulsion.
She dropped it as if it were lice-ridden.
'Forget it,' she said. 'Water under the dam.'
I nodded.
She tossed the handkerchief at me and I caught it.
She said, 'Baseball Bob,' with reflexive quickness. Laughed. Shut it off.
I put the handkerchief on the table. 'Baseball Bob?'
I hung up. She remained on her feet.
'That second therapist,' I said. 'He abused you, didn't he?'
Abuse?' The word seemed to amuse her. 'What? Like some kind of abused child?'
'It's pretty much the same thing, isn't it?' I said. 'Breaking a trust?'
'Breaking a trust, huh? How about blowing it up? But that's okay. I learned from it-it made me stronger. Now I watch myself.'
'You never complained about him either?'
'Nope. Told you I'm stupid.'
'I--'
'Sure,' she said. 'That's all I needed, his word against minewho're they gonna believe? He'd get lawyers to go into my life and dig it all up about Reggie. Probably get experts to say I was a liar and a rotten mother...' Tears. 'I wanted my boy to rest in peace, okay? Even though...'
She threw up her hands, put her palms together.
'Even though what, Vicki?'
