change that, he figured, and so, as he had often done in the past, he asked, “How was work today?”
Cathy put down her reader. “Fine.” She paused. “Toby brought in fresh strawberries.”
Peter nodded.
“But,” she said, “I left early.”
“Oh?”
“I, ah, went to see a counselor.”
Peter was surprised. “You mean like a therapist?”
“Sort of. She works for the Family Service Association — I found them using directory assistance.”
“Counselor…” said Peter, chewing over the word. Fascinating. He met her eyes. “I would have gone with you, if you’d asked.”
She smiled briefly but warmly. “I know you would have. But, ah, I wanted to sort some things out for myself.”
“How did it go?”
She looked at her lap. “Okay, I guess.”
“Oh?” Peter leaned forward, concerned.
“It was a little upsetting.” She lifted her gaze. Her voice was small. “Do you think I have low self- esteem?”
Peter was quiet for a moment. “I, ah, have always thought that perhaps you underestimated yourself.” He knew that was as far as he should go.
Cathy nodded. “Danita — that’s the counselor — she thinks it’s related to my relationship with my father.”
The first thought in Peter’s mind was a snide comment about Freudians. But then the full measure of what Cathy said hit him. “She’s right,” Peter said, eyebrows lifting. “I hadn’t seen it before, but of course she’s right. He treats you and your sister like crap. Like you had been boarders, not his children.”
“Marissa is in therapy, too, you know.”
Peter hadn’t known, but he nodded. “It makes sense. Christ, how could you have a positive self-image, growing up in an environment like that? And your mother — ” Peter saw Cathy’s face harden and he stopped himself. “Sorry, but as much as I like her, Bunny is not, well, let’s say she’s not the ideal role model for the twenty- first-century woman. She’s never worked outside the home, and, after all, your father doesn’t seem to treat her much better than he treated you or your sister.”
Cathy said nothing.
It was obvious now, all of this. “God damn him,” said Peter, getting to his feet, pacing back and forth. He stopped and stared at the Alex Colville painting behind the couch. “God damn him to hell.”
CHAPTER 8
Tuesday was the standard night for Peter and Sarkar to have dinner together. Sarkar’s wife Raheema took a course on Tuesdays, and Peter and Cathy had always given each other time to pursue separate interests. Peter was more relaxed this evening, now that he’d decided not to discuss Cathy’s infidelity with Sarkar. They hashed through more prosaic family news, international politics, the Blue Jays’ stunning performance and the Leafs’ lousy one. Finally, Peter looked across the table and cleared his throat. “What do you know about near-death experiences?”
Sarkar was having lentil soup this evening. “They’re a crock.”
“I thought you believed in that kind of stuff.”
Sarkar made a pained face. “Just because I’m religious doesn’t mean I am an idiot.”
“Sorry. But I was talking to a woman recently who had had a near-death experience. She certainly believed it was real.”
“She have the classic symptoms? Out-of-body perspective? Tunnel? Bright light? Life review? Sense of peace? Encounters with dead loved ones?”
“Yes.”
Sarkar nodded. “It is only when taken as one big thing that NDEs are inexplicable. The individual components are easy to understand. For instance, do this: close your eyes and picture yourself at dinner last night.”
Peter closed his eyes. “Okay.”
“What do you see?”
“I see me and Cathy at the Olive Garden on Keele.”
“Don’t you ever eat at home?”
“Well, not often,” said Peter.
“DINKs,” said Sarkar, shaking his head — double income, no kids. “Anyway, realize what you just said: you picture yourself and Cathy.”
“That’s right.”
“You are seeing yourself. The image you conjure up isn’t from the point of view of your eyes, a meter and half off the floor or however high up they are when you’re sitting down. It’s a picture of yourself as seen from outside your own body.”
“Well, I guess it is, at that.”
“Most human memory and dream imagery is ‘out of body.’ That’s the way our minds work both when recalling things that really happened and in fantasizing. There’s nothing mystical about it.”
Peter was having another heart-attack kit. He rearranged the slices of smoked meat on the rye bread. “But people claim to be able to see things they couldn’t possibly have seen, like the manufacturer’s name on the light unit mounted above their hospital bed.”
Sarkar nodded. “Yeah, there are reports like that, but they aren’t crisp — they don’t stand up to scrutiny. One case involved a man who worked for a company that manufactured hospital lighting: he had recognized a competitor’s unit. Others involve patients who had been ambulatory before or after the NDE and had had plenty of time to check out the details for themselves. Also, many times the reports are either unverifiable, such as ‘I saw a fly sitting on top of the X-ray machine,’ or just flat-out wrong, such as ‘there was a vent on the top of the respirator,’ when in fact there was no vent at all.”
“Really?”
“Yes,” said Sarkar. He smiled. “I know what to get you for Christmas this year: a subscription to the
“What’s that?”
“A journal published by the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. They blow holes in this sort of thing all the time.”
“Hmm. What about the tunnel?”
“Have you ever had a migraine?”
“No. My father used to get them, though.”
“Ask him. Tunnel vision is common in severe headaches, in anoxia, and lots of other conditions.”
“I guess. But I’d heard that the tunnel was maybe a recollection of the birth canal.”
Sarkar waved his soup spoon in Peter’s direction. “Ask any woman who’s had a baby if the birth canal is even remotely like a tunnel with a wide opening and a bright light at the end. The baby is surrounded by contracting walls of muscle; there’s no tunnel. Plus, people who were delivered by Caesarean section have recounted the NDE tunnel as well, so it can’t be some sort of actual memory.”
“Hmm. What about the bright light at the end of the tunnel?”
“Lack of oxygen causes overstimulation of the visual cortex. Normally, most of the neurons in that cortex are prevented from firing. When oxygen levels drop, the first thing to cease functioning is the disinhibitory chemicals. The result is a perception of bright light.”
“And the life review?”
“Didn’t you take a seminar once at the Montreal Neurological Institute?”
“Umm — yes.”
