Sing You Home

I shut off the music.

When I first started working with Lucy and she behaved like this, I saw it as a challenge I had to overcome, the same way I faced challenges with all my other patients. But after months of progress… this feels like a personal affront.

Freud would call that countertransference. Or in other words, what happens when the therapist’s emotions get tangled up with a patient’s. I am supposed to step back and wonder why Lucy might try to elicit this anger in me. That way, I regain control of the emotions in our therapeutic relationship again… and, more important, I discover another missing piece of the puzzle that is Lucy.

The thing is, Freud got it all wrong.

When Max and I first met, he took me fishing. I’d never been, and I didn’t understand how people could spend entire days bobbing around on the ocean waiting for a bite that never came. It seemed silly, an utter waste of time. But that day, the striped bass were running. He baited my hook and cast the line and showed me how to hold the fishing rod. After about fifteen minutes, I felt a tug on the line. I’ve got one, I said, excited and nervous. I listened to Max carefully as he told me what to do-move rhythmically and slowly, never let up on the pull of the line-but then, suddenly, it went slack. When I reeled in, the bait was gone, and so was the striper. I was utterly deflated, and in that moment I understood why fishermen would wait all day to catch something: you have to understand what you’re missing before you can really feel a loss.

That’s why Lucy’s boycott of this session hurts so much more than it did at the beginning. I know her now. I’ve connected with her. So her withdrawal isn’t a challenge; it’s a setback.

After a few minutes, I turn off the music, and we sit out the rest of the session in silence.

When Max and I were trying to have a baby, we had to see a social worker at the IVF clinic-but I don’t remember the questions being anything like the ones that Vanessa and I are hearing now.

The social worker’s name is Felicity Grimes, and she looks like she didn’t get the memo that the eighties are over. Her red suit jacket is asymmetrical, with enormous shoulder pads. Her hair is piled so high it could function as a sail in the wind. “Do you really think you’ll stay together?” she asks.

“We’re married,” I say. “I think that’s a pretty good indicator of our commitment.”

“Fifty percent of marriages end in divorce,” Felicity says.

I am nearly certain that, when Max and I met with the social worker, she didn’t question whether or not our relationship would stand the test of time.

“That’s true of opposite-sex marriages,” Vanessa says. “But gay marriage hasn’t been around long enough to really have any statistics. Then again, considering the lengths we had to go to to get married, you could argue we’re even more committed than the average straight couple.”

I squeeze Vanessa’s hand, a warning. I’ve tried to explain to her that, no matter how stupid the questions get, we have to just stay calm and answer them. The objective here is not to wave a rainbow banner. It’s to get a social worker’s check mark, so that we can move on to the next step. “What she means is that we’re in this for the long haul,” I say, and smile tentatively.

We had to fight the clinic director to begin the process of in vitro-in spite of the fact that a court order held the frozen embryos in limbo. She agreed to allow us to get the psychological components completed, and then-if the court ruled in our favor-to start Vanessa immediately on the drug regimen. But, she pointed out, if Max wanted Reid and Liddy to have the same privilege, she would have to give it to them.

We have already explained to the counselor how we met, how long we’ve been together. “Have you considered the legal ramifications of being same-sex parents?”

“Yes,” I say. “I’ll adopt the baby, after Vanessa gives birth.”

“I assume you both have powers of attorney?”

We look at each other. Unlike straight couples, if I were in a car crash and dying, Vanessa wouldn’t have the rights as my spouse to sit by me at the hospital, to make the decision to turn off life support. Because our marriage isn’t federally recognized, we have to jump through all these extra legal hoops to get the same rights-1,138 of them-that come naturally to heterosexual couples who get married. Vanessa and I had been planning to sit down with a bottle of bourbon one night and ask each other questions no one ever wants to have to answer-about organ donation and hospice care and brain death-but then we were served with a lawsuit and, ironically, asking a lawyer to draft a power of attorney was moved to the back burner. “We’re in the process of getting that taken care of.” It’s not a lie if we meant to do it, is it?

“Why do you want to have a child?” Felicity asks.

“I won’t speak for Vanessa,” I say, “but I’ve always wanted one. I tried for almost a decade, with my ex- husband. I don’t think I’ll feel complete if I don’t have the chance to be a mother.”

The social worker turns to Vanessa. “I see kids every day at work. Some of them are shy, or funny, or complete pains in the neck. But every single one of them is living proof that, at one point, their parents believed they’d have a future together. I want to have Zoe’s baby so that she can grow up with two mothers who have moved heaven and earth to bring her into this world.”

“But how do you feel about being a parent?”

“I’m obviously fine with it,” Vanessa says.

“Yet you’ve never expressed a desire to have a child before now…”

“Because I wasn’t with a partner I’d want to have kids with.”

“Are you doing this for Zoe, then, or for yourself?”

“How can you ask me to separate those?” Vanessa says, exasperated. “Of course I’m doing it for Zoe. But I’m also doing it for me.”

Felicity writes something down on her pad. It makes me nervous. “What makes you think you’d be a good parent?”

“I’m patient,” I reply. “I have a lot of experience helping people with problems express themselves in a different way. I know how to listen.”

“And she loves harder than anyone I’ve ever known,” Vanessa adds. “She’d do anything for her child. And I- well, I’m a school counselor. I have to believe that will come in handy eventually with my own kid.”

“She’s also smart, confident, and empathetic,” I say. “An amazing role model.”

“So Ms. Shaw-you work with teenagers. Did you ever babysit when you were younger? Have any younger siblings you helped raise?”

“No,” Vanessa says, “but I’m pretty sure I can Google how to change a diaper if I get stumped.”

“She’s also funny,” I interject. “Great sense of humor!”

“You know, I’ve come across a few teen mothers during my career,” Vanessa points out. “They’re close enough to childhood to remember it intimately, but I wouldn’t say that makes them better equipped for parenting…”

Felicity looks up at her. “Are you always this sensitive?”

“Only when I’m talking to someone who’s a-”

“What else?” I say brightly. “You must have some other questions for us.”

“How are you going to explain to your child why she has two moms, and no dad?” Felicity asks.

I was expecting this question. “I’d start by telling her that there are lots of different kinds of families, and that one isn’t any better than another.”

“Children, as you know, can be cruel. What if a classmate makes fun of her for having two mothers?”

Vanessa crosses her legs. “I’d go and beat up the kid who teased her.”

I stare at her. “You did not just say that.”

“Oh, fine. We’d deal with it. We’d talk our kid through it,” Vanessa says. “And then I’d go beat up the bully.”

I grit my teeth. “What she means is that we would speak to the bully’s parents and try to explain a way to get their child to be a little more tolerant-”

The phone rings, and the social worker answers it. “I’m sorry,” she says to us. “Will you excuse me for a moment?”

As soon as Felicity Grimes steps out of her office, I turn to Vanessa. “Really? Did you really just say that to a social worker who is going to decide whether or not we get to use these embryos?”

“She’s not deciding. Judge O’Neill is. And besides-these questions are ludicrous! There are plenty of deadbeat dads in the world who are reason enough to glorify lesbian parents.”

“But the social worker has to give us the green light before the clinic will start any procedure,” I point out. “You