“Why do I let them get away with it?” Doing something, anything, couldn’t be worse than the fury I felt when I did nothing.
“One of these days, Charlie, I’m not going to be such a pushover.”
I sipped my tea, trying to calm myself. As if to bolster my spirits, a fish jumped. Pleasure splashed through me. When I was a child, I used to spend hours pretending to be a fish. I’d hurl myself out of the lake into the warm air, then let myself crash down into the waiting water and watch a billion pellucid air bubbles explode in front of my open eyes.
“Fish” my parents called me. Later, they would go fishing and smash their catch over the head with the end of a paddle.
Such contradictions baffled me as a child. I’d spent years sorting them out in my analysis with Rudi. Rudi. I couldn’t think of her without feeling a softness in my chest. I wondered how she was. My therapist for years, and later on, when that part of my life was over, she’d become an elderly mentor and friend. I missed her. A year ago she’d given in to her daughter’s persuasion and gone to live with her in the city. Although I loathed the idea of it, Rudi was aging. Every few weeks I telephoned and with each call, her frailty seemed to increase. As did my anxiety. I still needed her. The last time we had spoken, she had sounded weak and vulnerable. Ever since, I’d felt a vague sense of panic, as if I were out in the middle of a lake on an air mattress that was losing its air.
To this day, I can’t eat fish of any kind. When my grandson, Luke, catches one, I always want to put the glistening beauty back in the water where it belongs. But even there, the fish aren’t safe. A few years ago, officials put signs along the public wharfs warning people of the level of poison in each species. Those signs made me burn with anger. I cursed the culprits who were polluting the lake and vowed to stop them. But who was there to fight? What was I supposed to do, scream at every motorboat on the lake? Blow up every malfunctioning septic system? Depressing as it was, I had to accept that the enemy wasn’t a person, it was a way of life, as embedded in the culture as gum in a child’s hair.
Charlie banged his tail on the table leg and laid his blond head consolingly on my leg. I slid my palm along the velvet smoothness of his forehead. Heavily, I stood up. “Come on, Charlie, we’ve got Madge this morning.”
I confronted the clothes in my closet, considering the various possibilities. Everything felt so staid, so conservative. Who was the person who wore these clothes? Reaching for a forest-green sweat suit I had bought on impulse the week before and not yet worn, I headed for the bathroom.
My face, round as the moon, stared back at me from the mirror. I have always been told I have a kind face, one that engenders trust. But the face that stared back at me this morning had a precarious, doubtful look. The kind that a mother gives her child when she’s not sure she’s happy with what she sees.
I am losing myself. Like a piece of fruit that’s been left out too long, my face is wrinkling and surrendering its shape to the laws of gravity. My jaw, for example, appalls me. Look at the way the skin sags there, drooping from the bone like a wet towel. Jowls are what I can look forward to next.
Only my eyes offer solace. Frog-green with flecks of dark brown, I’ve always liked my eyes. A client of mine, Norman, said they were “ferocious”.
“They go with that name of yours – Jessie Dearborn James. You sound more like a cowgirl than a psychotherapist,” Norman had said.
I smiled and began applying face cream. As if the cream were going to do any good.
Positioning my fingers in front of my ears, I pulled my skin tight. A younger, fresher face sprang out from the folds of my own. I bet Madge would have a face lift if she could afford it. She wouldn’t have qualms.
I stared at myself unhappily. What’s happening? I don’t like my clothes, I don’t like my face …
Slowly, as in the fairy story of the Princess and the Pea, I groped under my psychological mattresses for the cause. In terms of career, things were excellent. I was a respected psychotherapist with a waiting list of people who wanted to work with me. It hadn’t been easy going back to school, but I had obtained the necessary degree. I was proud of that.
On the home front, things were better than ever with the kids. Ted was managing both his own business and his life as a single parent to Luke. And Robyn was finally home. After being away for over five years, she’d flown in from Sri Lanka a week ago. I had hardly recognized her at the airport. I must have expected her to look older. More mature. But with long dark hair and thin, girlish body, she looked like a teenager. She still wore nothing but black, but now she had a tiny sapphire stud in the side of her nose.
She looks punkish.
Oh, stop. She’s home. At last. Maybe now the healing can begin.
The phone rang and I scooted into my office so I could listen to the message as it was delivered to my answering machine. I didn’t want to pick it up unless I had to.
“Jessie,” the voice hesitated. “It’s Officer Tamlin. Jack.” He paused, then spoke forcefully as if my machine might put up an argument. “I’m going to cancel my appointment this week. I think I’m all right now. I mean, I’m driving and everything. I don’t want to take up any more of your time.”
I smiled wryly at his choice of words. Why couldn’t he just say he didn’t want to come? Why did he have to make it sound like he was concerned about my time?
Jack Tamlin had come a long way. Employed as one of the town’s police officers, he’d been in a gruesome car accident a few months ago. His fellow officer had been killed and Jack had almost lost his leg. When Jack recovered and returned to work, he discovered he was unable to drive a car without shaking like a puppy. Embarrassed and ashamed, he had called me. After a few weeks of therapy, he was driving with confidence again. The last time he’d been in, he’d reported that now when he drove, his palms didn’t even get sweaty.
“You know how grateful I am,” Jack continued into the machine. “I just don’t think I need therapy anymore.”
I shook my head. For some people, often men, the idea of being in therapy was so threatening, had such a damaging effect on their self-esteem, they only submitted themselves to the process out of dire necessity. These were the ones who showed up late so they wouldn’t run into anyone they knew in the waiting room. And they terminated therapy as soon as possible.
“Heaven’s be that you might come to therapy because you enjoy it,” I said aloud, “because it’s gratifying to get to know yourself.”
Seeing the light flash on my machine, I flicked back the tape. How had I missed a call? It must have come in late yesterday afternoon. I’d been out until after midnight the night before and hadn’t bothered checking the messages until now.
The crisp, cheery voice of the health clinic’s receptionist told me to call her back. “Just when you get a moment,” she said, obviously trying not to cause alarm.
Drats. They were closed on Wednesday mornings. Now I was going to have to wait until later to find out the results of those tests. But something must be wrong or they wouldn’t have phoned.
Feeling unsettled, I went back into the bathroom and faced myself again. I was frowning, so the crease lines around my lips and eyes were even deeper now. There was no doubt about it, a face lift would snug things up nicely.
No.
I hated the idea of giving in to the image makers. Wasn’t cosmetic surgery the very antithesis of what I believed in? I, whose profession it was to dig into the realms of truth. Surely that necessitated the honouring of one’s various bulges and blotches.
It did. It had to. It was important that people respect their aging process. After all, aging is part of life. I told that to clients all the time, believed it myself and tried to model it.