“I’d really rather you didn’t-”
“Bill,” she stopped him, her green malachite eyes determined. “We’re at a crossroad right now. If we can tap into your subconscious, we can allow you to fully come to terms with your guilt. Your recovery requires it. You don’t have to have a breakdown this year.” She paused and gave him a reassuring smile. “The hypnotherapist is very good,” she added. “I’ve been working with him for years.”
The idea of opening himself up to hypnotism troubled him. He had told Elaine only part of what happened with his mother. Only a small part of it. Still, it was more than he had ever told anyone, even his father. All Susie knew about it was his mom was dead.
He wasn’t sure if he could bear Elaine finding out the other part. And there were other reasons. Like Dr. Eli Woodcock. Years ago, he was seeing him in Cambridge and after six months of pressing he submitted to Woodcock’s requests and allowed himself to be hypnotized. Afterwards Woodcock dropped him without explanation. He refused to say a single word about it. He didn’t need to, though; the look on his face told the story.
But still, if she was right and this was the answer, how could he turn it down? Resistance fizzled out within him. Like a dying ember buried in snow. He told Horwitz to go ahead and make the arrangements, that three o’clock would be fine. As he started to get up, he stopped himself and gave the therapist a sheepish smile.
“You know, I haven’t eaten anything all day,” he said. “Want to get something?”
She seemed taken aback by his offer. She noticed her tape recorder still running and reached over and turned it off. “I don’t know if it would be a good idea,” she started, her peaches and cream complexion quickly turning a warm pink. “And you’re married-”
“I’m not asking you on a date,” Shannon said.
“I don’t know.” She hesitated, the warm pink now brightening into a deeper red.
“I feel good around you,” Shannon explained. “I guess right now I don’t know if I can handle being away from you. At least for the next few hours.”
She sat studying her patient, the little resolve in her eyes weakening. After a long silence she nodded. “I am hungry,” she admitted.
“Then let’s go.”
“How about I meet you in a half hour?” she asked. She suggested a restaurant on Harvard Street in Brookline and Shannon agreed. He didn’t know the place, but it didn’t matter. She could’ve suggested a soup kitchen and it would’ve been fine with him. As long as she was going to be with him. He left her office feeling a little funny inside, but also feeling hopeful, maybe even upbeat.
Shannon had the restaurant sized up as soon as he stepped inside it. A yuppie hangout with overpriced drinks and mediocre food. The type of place that put sun-dried tomatoes in everything and offered more types of pasta than anyone would ever care about. He sat down at the bar and studied the liquor bottles lining the back wall. He was surprised to find he didn’t want to sample any of them. The bartender, a beefy, football player-type with a crewcut and a thick, red neck, asked him what he wanted.
Shannon thought about it.
“What can I get you?” the bartender repeated, annoyance straining his smile.
“A beer,” Shannon found himself saying. “A Bud.”
When Elaine Horwitz showed up twenty minutes later, Shannon was still drinking from the same bottle. He almost didn’t recognize her. She’d gone home and changed and had put on a tight-fitting green dress and black stiletto high heels. Shannon had seen her dressed up before but not to this extent. And she looked different out of the office. More curvy, more sexual.
He called out to her. She turned, caught sight of him and started to grin. Then she spotted the beer bottle in his hand.
As she approached him, Shannon noticed she had on a richer shade of lipstick than usual. As she got closer, he could smell the Giorgio perfume from her skin.
“Do you think that’s wise?” she asked, her voice subdued, her eyes focused on the beer bottle.
Shannon held the bottle up to the light and studied it casually. “It’s the only one I’ve had,” he said, smiling. “And it’s the only one I’m going to have.”
He left the unfinished bottle on the bar and led her back to the front of the restaurant. There, a young girl wearing way too much gold costume jewelry showed them to a table. Shannon sat to the side of his therapist. She still seemed subdued.
“Why did you do that?” she asked.
“To see if I could,” he told her matter-of-factly. “You know, I’m not an alcoholic. During most of the year I can walk away just as easily after one drink as I can from half a dozen.”
“But you told me you don’t drink except before your breakdowns?”
“I stopped a few years ago.” Shannon looked away from her and started to pick at a fingernail. “It made my wife nervous and after everything I’ve put her through…” He let the sentence die as a soft growl in his throat.
“You’ve put her through a lot?”
“Yeah, I’d say so.”
“How do you feel about her?”
He glanced up and caught the tension in her face. There was more to the question than a therapist trying to treat a patient. He started laughing.
“I really don’t know,” he admitted after a while.
He leaned back in his chair and thought about it. It was a good question. He used to love his wife, he knew that, and he was also pretty sure she used to love him. Now, sometimes he’d look at her and know she was only a coin flip away from leaving him. The sad part was he’d just as soon give her the damn coin. Even though Susie never blamed him outright for what happened, even though she’d make a point of insisting it wasn’t his fault, he knew deep inside she blamed him for everything. And she had every right in the world to. The problem is, over the years all the blame and apologies tend to wear thin, eroding little pieces of you. Shannon had a good idea what was dead inside and what was quickly dying. He didn’t know, though, what, if anything, was still kicking and breathing. He told Horwitz about it, he even told her how the sex between him and Susie had the last few years become both infrequent and joyless.
As Elaine Horwitz listened her face took on a soft glow.
“You’ve opened up more tonight than the nine months you’ve been seeing me,” she said after Shannon had finished. As she talked she leaned forward and her knee momentarily pressed against his. She let the contact linger for a long heartbeat before pulling back, all the while smiling a sly Cheshire cat smile. Shannon felt a rush of excitement. Simply caused by her knee touching his. The thought of it made him dizzy. Then he thought about Susie and felt ashamed.
He got to his feet and mumbled something about having to make a phone call and that he’d be right back. He then headed to the front door, stopping to ask the girl with the fake jewelry to leave a message with his date that something had come up and he had to leave.
Even if he didn’t know what was still between him and Susie, he knew she hadn’t deserted him yet. That as bad as things had gotten she’d stuck with him.
Shannon walked almost blindly towards his car and was halfway there before he felt the cold air biting through his shirt and realized he’d left his coat in the restaurant. He slowed for a second and then kept walking. Then he sped up his pace.
He could always buy another coat.
Susie was waiting for him at home, watching TV. She observed him quietly until he sat next to her. Then she told him Joe had called and that she had been worried sick about him. He explained how he’d spent the afternoon with his therapist, that she’d thought he had a breakthrough and wasn’t going to black out this year or any year. When he was done he could tell she didn’t believe a word of it. He couldn’t blame her since he didn’t, either.