As I got free of Yuri (or mostly free), he began to seem less real. It was as if he was fading (like an old photograph) before my eyes. He was there (moving around the house, eating dinner with us, sharing my bed), but not really there. He had become his own ghost to me. The shade of Yuri. I was sad that he had died, though it bothered me that, though dead, he continued to assert his needs. Look how I’m suffering, his shadowy presence announced. You must help me, this ghost insisted, you must take care of me. Even if I wanted to help him (if only to like myself better), what could I do for him? He was no longer real. I tried to be kind, but it made him angrier. (His grievance occupied the house like an overstayed guest.) There was nothing I could do.
Our friend Peter says that I take pleasure in being the bad person in the movie of our lives. Maybe so. The bad person’s secret is that she is really better (more audacious, more interesting, more alive) than the so-called good person. She makes it possible for the good person to take satisfaction in his goodness.
I’ve been seeing Carroway for almost a year, not counting the August Yuri, Rebecca and I spent on the Vineyard. I’ve been seeing him for a year but rarely more than once a week. (Thursday is our day.) So I am taken aback when he calls to ask me to meet him at his studio this (Saturday) afternoon. It requires making last minute arrangements for Rebecca and lying to Yuri, neither of which I like to do. Still, it is a habit I have difficulty denying myself. If I can get a sitter, I tell Carroway, I’ll be there at two o’clock.
Arrangements fall into place with ominous ease. Yuri, who has had a patient cancel, agrees to take Rebecca to The Museum of Natural History. Have agood time, he calls to me as I go out the door. Someone taps at the window. I turn and wave to the house, stumble, nearly fall over backwards. (All my loved ones, I think.)
I am a few minutes early, arrive before Carroway. Let myself in with my key. The loft seems smaller now that I am used to it, less imposing.
Without taking off my coat, I look at the painting on Carroway’s easel (it’s one Carroway’s been unable to solve) and I see with absolute clarity where it fails. It asks to be made right. At first, holding the brush an inch or so from the canvas, I pantomime revising it.
The right hand is badly drawn. I paint on his picture, improve it just enough to show him how it might be made better.
When I hear someone on the steps, I put down the brush (clean it), make myself at home on my side of the loft. (I will tell him before he discovers what I’ve done.)
Carroway, wearing dark glasses, comes in in long nervous strides. He goes up to the painting without acknowledging my presence. “Hey, it’s beginning to look like something,” he says without irony.
I come over to him, still not out of my coat. I kiss him on the side of the mouth. “I know what it needs,” I say.
“It needs what we all need. It needs some loving,” he says, moving away from me. He takes off his leather jacket and hangs it carefully on the brass coat tree. I put my coat on the branch below.
“You look like you haven’t been sleeping,” I say.
“Anna Marie’s been on my case,” he says “I got like two hours of shuteye last night, if that.”
I hold out my hand to him. “Tell me about it, baby,” I say.
“You look sensational, babe,” he says, still glancing at his unfinished painting. “I don’t want to talk about it this minute, okay? Would you make us some coffee?” He won’t look at me.
I know what’s coming and I’m not prepared to handle it.
“I almost wrote you a letter,” he says. “You know the paint looks like it’s still wet. I think the fucking super comes in and fucking works on my paintings when I’m not around.”
“You’re not around right now,” I say.
“Yeah,” he says. “I feel wired. You’re asuper-smart lady, Adrienne. Classy and super-perceptive. It really knocked me out that someone like you was interested in me. Look, babe, why don’t we sit down on the red couch. Okay?”
“I prefer to stand,” I say.
We are sitting on the red leather couch when he tells me that he has promised Anna Marie not to see me again. They, Carroway and Anna Marie (and God knows who else), are going to evaluate what they have together. They need to find out if their marriage can be saved.
I offer no reaction. “I wish you luck,” I say.
“That’s a classy thing to say,” he says with worked up sincerity. He squeezes my arm. “It’s dangerous, Adrienne, for me to sit too close to you, you know?”
There’s more. He offers me the compensation of saving my own marriage which he knows (he says) to be important to me. (It’s over, I say to myself. And still it seems wrong.) Who does he think he’s talking to?
I am at the coat tree, though I don’t remember getting up from the couch. When I try to put on my coat the arm holes seem to have disappeared. “I’m going,” I announce, though the floor holds me in place.
“I felt very sexy when I came here,” I say.
“You looked terrifically sexy,” he says, noticing me for the first time. (I believe him even though I know he lies.) I hurry to the door, my coat over my arm. My hand on the door knob (which won’t turn), I remember something I forgot to tell him. “You’ll never have with Anna Marie what you had with me,” I say.
When Carroway opens the door for me, I spike him with an elbow (my worst moment). And hurry away. Panic chases me down the stairs.
Yuri and Rebecca are playing a board came called Othello at the kitchen table when I come in. I mumble something and go upstairs.
I am lying in bed with the covers over my face. I hear the door open. I imagine Yuri is looking into the bedroom, staring at me. (Why doesn’t he say something?)
Rebecca clears her throat to get my attention. “Is that you, Bee?” I hear myself say. “Mommy’s not feeling well. Come over and give me a hug.”
Rebecca takes a long time to approach. She lifts the covers, kisses the top of my head. We both laugh. I put my arms around her. say “Mommy loves you.”
“Are you going to sleep?” she asks. “Daddy wants to know what your plans are.”
“Does he?” I say. “You tell him if he wants to know, he can ask me himself.”
I close my eyes to shut out the light. When I open them I see Yuri standing in the doorway. He does not look friendly. “Rebecca said you wanted to see me,” he says.
I prop myself up to look at him. (He seems less shadowy, more in focus.) “How are you, Yuri?” I say, my voice miles away. “I’ve hardly noticed you in the past couple months. How have you been holding up, baby?”
He sits down at the foot of the bed. (It is odd how touched I am by him.) “You can come closer,” I tell him.
“I know you’re involved with someone,” he says, his voice pitiless. “I want to know who it is.”
I press my face to the pillow. “What?”
“I want to know what’s going on?” he says.
“Doesn’t it matter to you that I’m very upset,” I say into the pillow. “Please, honey. I’ll talk to you tonight after Rebecca goes to bed.”
“You’ve put me through hell,” he mutters. (I think it is what he says.) He goes out the door and closes it with a bang. (My head splits.) He betrays me by missing the point. He is having an affair with his suffering.
Seven
Counter-Transference
As my marriage deteriorated, I became increasingly distracted with my patients. Drifting off into fantasy, confusing details and names, falling into private obsession. I found myself identifying with the mistreated lovers of certain women patients, with one in particular.