The man lifted his bloodshot gaze to Ben’s. “Grief. Regret. Fury. I don’t know, but something for God’s sake!”
Ben jumped on the last. “Fury? That’s a strong emotion, Rick. One of the strongest.”
His patient stared blankly at him. “Fury? I didn’t say that.”
“You did.”
“I couldn’t. I loved my mother.”
“Actually, it’s quite understandable that you might be angry. Even furious.”
“Really?” The man looked relieved. “Because she’s gone?”
“Could be that. Maybe in part.” Ben folded his hands in his lap, schooling his features to neutrality. “Could be other things as well.”
“What things? What are you suggesting?”
“Think about it, Rick. You tell me what things.”
Ben sat back, waiting, silent. Giving his patient time to consider the question, then to fill the quiet that screamed to be broken. Someday, he believed, Rick Richardson would fill that quiet. And the noise would be deafening. Frightening. Ben had glimpsed a simmering rage in this man, a rage directed at women. It had emerged in the recounting of a routine argument with his wife; his attitude toward his boss, who happened to be a woman; in word choice; body language; subtle shifts in facial expressions when talking about women.
Ben suspected the true source of Rick Richardson’s pain and rage was his controlling and abusive mother. A fact his patient was as yet unwilling—and unable—to admit. Now that she had passed, with nothing resolved between them, those feelings of rage most probably would worsen. They could turn inward. Or outward.
Either way, Ben feared they were in for some rough sessions ahead.
“She was a good mother, Dr. Walker,” Rick said suddenly, tone defensive. “A very good mother.”
“Was she?”
Rick shot to his feet, fists clenched at his sides, vein popping in his forehead. “What the hell is that supposed to mean! You didn’t know her! You don’t know anything about our relationship or the kind of person she was!”
“I know what you’ve told me,” Ben murmured. “And I’d really like to know more.”
Rick stared at him a moment, then jerked his gaze away. “I don’t want to talk about her right now.”
Ben watched as his patient began to prowl the room. “Why not?” he asked.
Rick whirled to face Ben. “Because I don’t. Isn’t that good enough for you? Why do you have to pick at me like that? Pick, pick pick. Just like my wife. Just like my moth—fuck.”
“Did your mother pick at you?”
He flushed. “I said, I don’t want to talk about her.”
“Fine. We have a few minutes left, you tell me what you do want to talk about.”
Predictably, his patient chose the less emotionally charged subject of his job. While he talked, he continued to prowl about the room. Ben followed the man’s movements; as he did he caught a glimpse of himself in the antique, three-by-five-foot gilt-framed mirror that hung directly across the room from him. The mirror had been an outrageous indulgence, a recent gift to himself to celebrate taking on his twenty-fifth patient.
Twenty-fifth patient. Eighteen months ago he had been with a thriving psychiatry group in Atlanta, a partnership offer on the table. He had chucked it all to follow his elderly mother to New Orleans.
Her move had been a shock. She had just picked up and gone, insisting afterward that it had been his idea. Ultimately, Ben had seen her behavior as a blessing—and a wake-up call.
His mother’s bizarre behavior had forced him to slow down and take a long look at her. When he had, he’d realized something was wrong with her, something more than absentmindedness. Test results had proved him right—she had been suffering with the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease.
The realization had stunned him. It had made him feel as if he’d been an inattentive, ungrateful son—and a fool as well. He was a doctor, for God’s sake! He should have seen what was happening to her before she’d gotten so far gone. For years she had confused people and events; she had forgotten appointments and special occasions. But then many people forgot things.
At least that’s what he had told himself. Until her behavior had forced him to face the truth.
Six months after arriving in New Orleans, Ben had convinced her she would be happier—and safer—living in a semi-independent living facility.
“I fantasized about dying again.”
Ben sat up straighter, instantly one hundred percent focused on his patient, annoyed with himself for having let his mind wander. “Tell me about it, Rick.”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“If that was true, you wouldn’t have mentioned it. Did you fantasize about ending your own life? Or did you simply picture the world without you?”
“I just…faded away. I was there, then gone.”
A trickle of relief moved through Ben. No clinician worth his salt took a patient’s thoughts of death or dying lightly. However, as such thoughts went, fading away set off far fewer alarms. Also, Rick had experienced similar fantasies before, always during times of great emotional stress.
“And how did that make you feel?” Ben asked.
“Angry.” Rick stopped pacing. He looked at Ben, his handsome face twisted with some strong emotion, though Ben wasn’t sure whether pain or fury. “Nobody seemed to notice or care. They went right on with the party.”
The party. Life. Ben understood. He leaned forward in his seat. “I think it’s interesting that in many ways this fantasy mirrors your feelings about your mother’s death. Your ambivalence and anger. Your isolation. Think about that this week. We’ll talk about it during your next session.”
Ben stood, signaling that their time was up. He walked Rick to the office door, wished him a good week and said good-night.
He watched his patient exit the waiting room, then returned to his desk, smiling with anticipation. Rick had been his last patient of the day. After he reviewed the notes from their session and straightened up his desk, the weekend was his.
He planned to spend all of it working on his book, a nonfiction tome on the effects of early-childhood trauma—particularly physical, mental and sexual abuse—on personality.
The idea for the book had been born during his first year as a practicing clinician, from the hours he had volunteered at the free clinic in Atlanta. The idea had solidified the following year, when he’d joined the Peachtree Road Psychiatry group. The patient demographic couldn’t have been more different than that of the free clinic’s, yet he saw the same manifestations of childhood trauma on the personalities of individuals from both groups.
He had realized two things. The first was that child abuse crossed all social, economic and racial lines. The second was that the effects of that abuse could be seen in a predictable pattern of adult pathologies. He had begun researching the work of scholars in the field and immersing himself in the case studies of other clinicians.
Only after that research had begun to stack up and take shape had Ben realized he wanted to write a book on the subject. He wasn’t breaking any new ground, his certainly wouldn’t be the first book detailing the adult pathologies of childhood trauma and it wouldn’t be the last. It would, he hoped, be the first written for the masses, one that spoke to Jane and John Q. Reader. His ultimate goal: to educate and to heal.
Once begun, the book had become his obsession, one he devoted as much time to as he could.
On