He dropped me home at one-forty p.m. Allison hadn’t called my cell and there were no messages on my machine.
In five minutes, she’d be between patients. I watched the clock, had a cold cup of coffee, phoned her office when the big hand touched the nine.
“Hi,” she said. “I’m in the middle of something, promise to call as soon as I can.”
“Emergency?”
“Something like that.”
“We’re okay?”
Silence. “Sure.”
It was seven-thirty when I heard from her.
“Emergency resolved?”
“This morning Beth Scoggins went into a changing room at work and locked herself in. It took awhile before anyone noticed. When they found her she was sitting on the floor, curled up, sucking her thumb. She was unresponsive, had wet her pants. The manager dialed 911 and the ambulance took her to the U. They gave her a physical and a tox scan, then some psych residents tried out their interview skills on her. Finally, she let someone know I was her therapist and an attending psychiatrist called me. It was him I was talking to when you phoned. I canceled my afternoon patients and went over there, just got back to the office.”
“How’s she doing?”
“Still regressed but she’s starting to talk. About things she never talked about before.”
“More about Daney or- ”
“I can’t get into it with you, Alex.”
“Sure,” I said. “Allison, if I had anything to- ”
“She’s obviously been sitting on a mountain of issues- a volcano. I was probably too laid-back, should’ve worked harder at opening her up.”
Same thing, nearly word for word, that Cherish Daney had said about Rand.
This was different. Allison was trained. Cherish had been running with scissors.
Or maybe not.
My head flooded with what-ifs.
I said, “I’m sure you handled it optimally.” That came out hollow.
“Whatever. Listen, I’ve got to phone all those cancellations, rearrange my schedule, extend my hours, then go back to the hospital. It’s going to be awhile before we can… socialize. Don’t even suggest to Milo that he’ll ever have access to this girl.”
“It’s not an issue.”
“I know what’s at stake, Alex, but we’re on opposite sides on this one. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it has to be.”
Three hours later, she was at my door, dangling her car keys. Her hair was tied up in a careless way I’d never seen before, black as the night sky behind her. One of her stockings sported a run from knee to mid-calf, the polish on some of her nails was chipped, and her lipstick had faded. A picture I.D. badge was clipped to the lapel of her black cotton suit. Temporary privileges, Department of Psychiatry. Her eyes, always deep-set, were captives in fatigue-darkened sockets.
She said, “I haven’t meant to be distant. Though I still have problems- big problems- with the whole deception thing.”
“Have any dinner yet?”
“Not hungry.”
“C’mon in.”
She shook her head. “Too tired, Alex. I just wanted to say that.”
“Come in anyway.”
Her chin trembled. “I’m exhausted, Alex. Won’t be good company.”
I touched her shoulder. She edged past me as if I were an obstacle. I followed her into the kitchen, where she tossed the keys and her purse on the table and sat staring at the sink.
She refused food but accepted hot tea. I brought a mug with some toast.
“Persistent,” she said.
“So I’ve been told.” I took a chair across from her.
“It’s ridiculous,” she said. “I’ve had patients go through worse than this. A lot worse. I think it’s a combination of this particular patient- maybe I let the countertransference get out of hand- and your being involved.”
She raised the mug to her lips. “When I met you, what you do… it turned me on. The whole police thing, the whole heroic thing- here was someone in my profession doing more than sitting in an office and listening. I never told you this, but I’ve had hero fantasies of my own. Probably because of what happened to me. I guess I’ve been living
What “had happened” to her was sexual assault at age seventeen. Warding off attempted robbery and gang rape years later.
She eyed her purse and I knew she was thinking about the shiny little gun. “What you do
“Like deception.” And holding down a woman’s ankles so a detective can hog-tie her.
Her eyes turned the color of gas jets. “You flat-out lied to her, Alex. A girl you didn’t know, with no consideration of the risks. I’m sure most of the time it’s no big deal, just a fib in the service of law enforcement and no one gets hurt. This time… maybe in the long run it
She put the mug down. “I keep telling myself if she was this close to the edge she would’ve been tipped over eventually. Maybe it’s my ego that’s wounded. I got caught unawares…”
I touched her hand. She didn’t touch back.
“Deception’s okay for Milo, I understand the kind of people cops come into contact with. But you and I took the same licensing exam and we both know what our ethics code says.”
She freed her hand. “Have
“I have.”
“And?”
“I’m not sure my answer’s going to make you happy.”
“Try me.”
“When I see patients in a therapeutic setting, the rules apply. When I work with Milo, the rules are different.”
“Different how?”
“I’d never hurt anyone intentionally, but there’s no promise of confidentiality.”
“Or truthfulness.”
I didn’t answer. No sense mentioning the man I killed a few years ago. Clear self-defense. Sometimes his face came to me in dreams. Sometimes I manufactured the faces of his unborn children.
“I don’t mean to attack you,” said Allison.
“I don’t feel attacked. It’s a reasonable discussion. Maybe one we should’ve had earlier.”
