Hanging Time

47

Jason checked the clock as Milicia gathered up her things. His face was rigid. She was taking a lot of time to get organized. He willed himself to appear relaxed and neutral at her resistance to leaving. Daisy was Jason’s next patient. He hoped she and Milicia wouldn’t meet in the waiting room. Daisy would be disturbed by Milicia.

Finally Milicia was on her feet, but she wasn’t happy. Only seconds before she had been calm, as if a great pressure inside her had finally eased. Now she was hurt and angry again because Jason wouldn’t drop everything and take care of her now that he understood the true nature of her crisis. She felt he had tricked her into going to the police alone. She was furious, but there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. Daisy was probably sitting in his waiting room already, and she was by no means his last patient.

He glanced down at his appointment book. Tuesdays he had patients until eight-thirty at night. The only thing that would stop him from seeing them was an actual medical emergency. One of them getting shot or hit by a bus. A suicide crisis. An accident where blood was flowing all over the ground. Nothing else.

Once a very sick patient he was visiting in the hospital became suicidal during the visit. Jason had stayed at the hospital until the patient was stabilized. He got back to his office an hour and a half later. While he was gone, the patient whose session he missed had become hysterical waiting outside his locked office door, knocking and getting no answer.

He had planned to come right back, had left the lights and the radio on in the office. The patient, a woman, saw the crack of light under the door and heard the radio. She fantasized that Jason was in there, had had a heart attack, and would die if the doorman didn’t break down the door to save him. The doorman wouldn’t do it. A male patient confronted by a locked door would probably have shrugged and left. But his woman patient never really felt safe with him after that.

Jason watched Milicia turning things over in her mind. How she would handle this apparent betrayal on his part, how she would manage the police. Jason was intensely aware in those moments that he didn’t fully understand this situation, had no idea what was really going on.

There are so many levels to the relationship between psychiatrist and patient, so many secret recesses of the mind where events and feelings were processed but never fully explored no matter how many hours are scheduled.

Jason knew most people couldn’t make connections between things, and even when they could, human communication was an iffy undertaking at best. From the first moment he saw her, Jason knew Milicia was not like anyone else. It was more than her extraordinary presence. He couldn’t place her, couldn’t define her, wasn’t sure of her purpose, her character. His method was always to let the patient inform him of these things. But every time he saw or spoke to Milicia, something totally unexpected came out of left field. This was an uncommon thing. Very rarely did he remain perplexed for very long. With Milicia he had been perplexed ten whole days. That was as long as he had known her.

In psychiatric time ten days was nothing. Jason kept wondering if there was something he should have picked up right away from the very incomplete picture Milicia gave him when they met the first and second times.

He had a feeling of helplessness as she left the office. It was another one of those occupational hazards that went with being a shrink. He couldn’t be with his patients when they made their actions. He couldn’t stop them or help them, or rewrite the story as it was happening. He could only discuss it with them afterward.

Milicia walked out of his office to talk to the police about murder. Jason knew the procedure because he had been there, knew the precinct, knew how the detectives, particularly April Woo, would deal with her. He was deeply involved and yet he had to miss it.

Daisy came into the waiting room. Jason had heard the door open and close. Daisy was always difficult, a challenge.

He nodded at Milicia as she went out the door. She didn’t look back. If she didn’t call him to tell him what happened, he wouldn’t call her. April would no doubt fill him in.

The brass bull clock on his bookshelf hit the quarter hour with a tiny click. He waited until he was certain Milicia was gone, then came out of his office, prepared for Daisy, smiling slightly and looking as if nothing important had happened to him in a long time.