By the Time You Read This

27

DR. BELL CAME OUT of the downstairs bathroom drying his hands. There had been no need to scrub up, he wasn’t a surgeon, but it was a habit he had got into long ago, during his medical training. Whenever he was about to see a patient, he washed his hands. He kept the mildest soap possible for this purpose: Caswell-Massey glycerine soap, faintly scented with almonds.

It was a ritual that helped him feel in control, and he needed it now, because lately his mind seemed somehow not entirely his own. Maintaining his equanimity was becoming harder and harder, and unwanted thoughts were intruding into his mind. These days he found himself clenching his hands, ready to batter some of his patients into submission.

He called out Dorothy’s name, but then he recalled she was out for the afternoon, he couldn’t for the life of him remember where. Old age creeping up.

He opened the door into the “public” part of his house. Melanie was seated in her usual spot, although not in her usual depressed posture. She was reading a Toronto Life she must have brought with her. Dr. Bell took the New Yorker.

Melanie was so absorbed in the article, she didn’t even look up right away. Bell suspected she was in a comparatively good mood. An interest in the outside world was always a sign of abatement in depression.

“Hello, Melanie,” he said.

“Oh, hi.” She stuffed the magazine into her knapsack and followed him into the office.

“Is it okay if I sit there for a change?” She pointed to a chair beside the couch.

“Of course.”

Melanie plunked herself down in the chair. “Just seeing that couch, I suddenly felt depressed, and I thought, why not sit somewhere else—somewhere you might sit if you weren’t depressed.”

“I see.”

“I mean, I get so tired of myself. So tired of my moaning and groaning. And I think part of it is I see myself as this pathetic person—a hopeless patient wailing on the shrink’s couch—and I thought, why don’t I just not do that for a change.”

“A fresh perspective, so to speak.”

“Exactly. Yeah. I feel good today. Better, anyway.”

“So I see. Is that why you asked for this extra session?”

“Uh-huh. I have something important to tell you, but first I just want to tell you the normal stuff.”

“By all means. Bring me up to date, Melanie.”

Brighter affect was evident in every aspect of her behaviour. Great actors understand the physiognomy of the emotions instinctively. Bell was an expert partly by instinct and partly by long study. Young Melanie was at this moment almost a cartoon of—happiness was not the word—but a mixture of relief and excitement. It was visible in the unaccustomed animation of her features: the twin commas of her eyebrows riding high above her glasses instead of in their usual furrowed V. It was there in the bigger gestures: the small hands flying away from her body, this way and that, as she described her week to him. It was there in the loose-limbed way she crossed one leg over the other, ankle on thigh, not her usual defensive clench. She bounced one knee up and down as she talked. He felt a surge of frustration and rigorously suppressed it.

“I actually managed to read a whole novel in the past couple of days,” Melanie said. “You know, I was way behind in my English Lit survey, but I just suddenly got so into it. It was this E. M. Forster thing, and I just didn’t want it to end. I loved the characters, I loved his descriptions, and I loved not thinking about myself for a change.”

“You turned your mind to things other than yourself.”

“Exactly. And the amazing thing was that it was so easy.”

She sat forward and swung her long hair to one side. Hair that had been freshly washed, Bell noted. The drowned-rat look was now a pentimento beneath the eager face before him.

“The amazing thing about reading that book—which I had been putting off and putting off because I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to follow it and it would end up depressing me—the amazing thing is that it was easier reading it than not reading it. You know what I mean? I was in such a state about getting behind and about putting it off and waiting for just the right time to start and feeling so guilty and depressed. But once I started, it just went great.”

“That’s good to hear,” Dr. Bell said. “Do you have any idea what accounts for the change?”

“That’s the funny thing. Because what happened to me was something that should have upset the hell out of me, but it didn’t. I mean, it did, but not in a way that depressed me. I haven’t told anybody about this, and …”

Bell waited.

Melanie let out a deep breath, small shoulders dropping. “I haven’t told my mom. I haven’t told Rachel …”

Rachel was her sometime best friend and current roommate. Melanie had already told Bell lots of things she had never divulged to Rachel, or to her mother for that matter, and she would tell him this too.

“I saw The Bastard,” she said.

“You did? You saw your stepfather?”

“Former stepfather. I can’t call him that. I’ll just keep calling him The Bastard, which is what he is.”

“Call him what you like. But I thought he had moved away.”

“He did—not very far. To Sudbury.”

“Where did you see him?”

“At Algonquin Mall. He was coming out of the Radio Shack. I was just coming out of the Shoppers Drug Mart, and he was coming out of Radio Shack. I can’t believe he’s back in town.”

“And yet you said it made you happier?”

“Did I?” She looked at him blankly for a moment. “I guess I did.”

“This was the man who molested you repeatedly. Used you as his sex toy for years and years. Can you think why it made you happy to see him?”

“I expressed myself badly. It didn’t make me happy to see him. In fact, it felt like a kick in the belly at first. I literally almost doubled over. But then I followed him. He didn’t look at me. And maybe he wouldn’t have even recognized me if he had. But I followed him out into the parking lot. And I watched him get into his car. There was no one else in it. I wrote down his licence plate number.”

“Why did you do that?”

One of the hands stopped its fluttering. “I don’t know. I didn’t think about it. I just did it. I took out my pen and wrote it down on my hand. Isn’t that weird?”

“You think it’s weird?”

“Well, not weird maybe. But it was just completely instinctive. And my heart was hammering away the whole time.” She thumped her small fist up and down on her sternum. “Boom. Boom. Boom. I could actually hear it. And when he drove out of the parking lot, I followed him. Isn’t that wild?”

“Go on.”

“I followed him home. He’s living in this completely suburban-looking brick house. Big garage and all. I watched him park in the driveway. I just stopped a little way back on the road and pretended to, like, look around, as if I was trying to find an address or a street or something, but I saw him go into the house. So I know where he lives now. At first I was gonna call Mom and tell her all about it, but then I decided against it. It would just upset her too much. She can’t bear to hear his name as it is.

“So I didn’t call Mom, I just went straight back to the rooming house and put on the new Radiohead CD. I just sat on the end of my bed and listened to it right through from beginning to end.”

“What were you thinking while you did that?”

“Nothing. I don’t think I was thinking anything whatsoever.”

“How were you feeling?”

“Good. Better, anyway. Like—I don’t know—as if this huge rubber band that had been squeezing the life out of me had suddenly been undone somehow. Like I could breathe again.” She looked at Bell, eyes searching his face. “Why would that be?”

“Well, on one level, you liked him, remember?”

“I suppose.”

“He was very seductive. He got you to like him, to trust him. He took you to these great places.”

“That’s true. He took me to WonderWorld.”

“And to see the Musical Ride, you told me. Things a little girl was bound to love.”

“That’s not why I felt good after I saw him, though.”

“Why, then? Can you tell me?”

He knew why, of course. Sighting her stepfather would have done two things for Melanie. First, he would be cut down to size; he would no longer be the giant monster of her imagination. He had become a human being, a man who buys his batteries at Radio Shack, who gets into his car in a parking lot like anybody else. This was good, Bell could work with this. It wasn’t the setback he’d feared. But there was something else she was struggling now to articulate.

“Did your stepfather see you?” he asked. “You said you followed him out into the parking lot. Did he see you?”

“No.” Spoken emphatically. Not a trace of doubt.

“You saw him, but he didn’t see you. How did that make you feel?”

“Like I had an advantage.”

Bell nodded.

“It was like I was watching a bird or something. I mean, I was frightened. My heart was pounding, like I said. But part of me was not scared at all. In fact, part of me felt pretty good.”

“Like he was a bird,” Bell said, “and you were a …”

“Cat,” she said.

“A hunter,” Bell said.

“Exactly. Not the hunted, for once.”

She flopped back in her chair, pleased with herself, hands open, relaxed. Let her have her triumph. Next thing you know, she might even have a plan of attack. Totally out of character. It wouldn’t change the ultimate outcome, though. The whole art of therapy was to help patients see their choices, allowing them to pick the right one.

Bell would gently bring her to a point on the precipice where she could see that, yes, one step and all that pain would cease. To do that he would have to keep calm, yet once again the biochemicals of anger were making his heartbeat tachy, his respiration rapid and shallow. He had a sudden vivid image of slapping Melanie across the face, the scarlet imprint of his hand on her cheek, but he took a deep breath and held it at bay.

“Are you thinking of hunting your stepfather in some way, now?”

“As we’re sitting here now, I’m starting to feel awfully angry at him. I wouldn’t mind an apology from him. Some acknowledgment that he hurt me.”

Pretty feeble, considering that Melanie had already told him things that would put her stepfather in prison for years. If she chose to become a huntress, she could get her apology and a good measure of revenge as well. But then that would reduce her own guilt and depression, and that wouldn’t do. She would just become a perpetual whiner and a burden to everyone. For now he let her natter on about letters she might write, calls she might make, but they would have to go over those early events in more detail.

“Our time is almost up for today,” Bell said when she finally slowed down.

“I know. I always start to feel lousy when the hour’s almost up.”

“A couple of points I want you to think about before next time. First, you didn’t write me the note you promised.”

“The suicide note? I forgot all about it. I mean, after I saw my stepfather I really didn’t think about it again.”

“You were thinking of what you might say to him.”

“I still am.”

“We can talk about that. But first I want you to write that note. If you want to vanquish your depression, it’s crucial to articulate it. One must name the beast, so to speak.”

“I’ll do it. I promise.”

“Second thing. You’re feeling an advantage over your stepfather at the moment, that you might be able to wring an apology out of him. It might even be a good thing to do. I can find you a dozen textbooks that would say exactly that. But let’s not rush into it.”

“Why not? Don’t you think he should apologize for what he did? Look at me. I’m eighteen years old, and most days I can barely get up in the morning. Half the time I’m thinking I’d be better off dead.”

“If I were a surgeon, would you want me to rush an operation?”

“No.”

“If you had a tumour, would you want me to cut short your chemo-therapy? Even if it nauseated you?”

“No, but I’m not sure this is like that …”

“Well, let’s leave it all up to you, Melanie. You’re the surgeon here, not me. I’m just advising you that it might be better if we examine exactly what your stepfather did to you. In detail.”

“Tell you the exact details? Oh, God. Now I do feel nauseous.”

“As long as you don’t articulate them, they will continue to have power over you. Also, you may be somewhat confused over just what he has to apologize for, just what he’s guilty of. I’d like to see you absolutely clear on these matters.”

“I know you’re right. It makes perfect sense, but …”

“But?”

“I was feeling so good when I came in. And now I feel so lousy.”

“Self-knowledge is rarely good news. But you’re a strong young woman.”

“I don’t think so. Right now I feel horrible.”

“So.” Bell stood up. “Next time we’ll have a lot to talk about. We’ll have your note, and we’ll have a precise history of what you did with your stepfather. You can write that out too, if you like. It might be easier than saying it face to face, though of course we’ll have to talk about it.”

“I don’t think I can say some of the things he did to me.”

“There’s absolutely no rush,” Bell said. “We’ll go at your own speed and no quicker.”

Melanie gathered up her backpack and got to her feet. The energy had drained out of her; the drowned-rat look was back.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll see you next time, I guess.”

“Bye-bye, Melanie.”