Melancholy Baby

23

“I could never understand why he loved her,” I said. “She was so dumb and bossy and... what... self-centered, I guess.”

Dr. Silverman was wearing a gray suit this morning, with a black turtleneck sweater.

“Tell me a little more about her,” Dr. Silverman said.

A regular damn chatterbox today.

“My father pretends she’s smart. He always acts like she’s a wonder if she, you know, cooks a lamb chop, or finds her keys, or buys some cheap piece of fabric for the couch. He always acts as if no one else could have done it.”

“It must be annoying.”

“It is,” I said. “And she always sort of acts like she’s won some sort of contest when he does it.”

“Maybe she has,” Dr. Silverman said.

“With me?” I said.

“You think?” Dr. Silverman said.

“Yes. With me and my sister. For Daddy.”

Dr. Silverman nodded. She appeared to understand everything. Of course, that could be training rather than truth. Still, there was a great deal of warmth in her. I could feel it. And distance, too. I couldn’t quite understand how she was both at the same time. She waited.

“Elizabeth is older,” I said. “She didn’t like me. I’m sure she resented me for being born.”

“How do you get along now?”

“We don’t. We are connected because we’re, you know, sisters. But we still don’t really like each other.”

“Why?” Dr. Silverman said.

“Why?”

She nodded.

“She’s so much like my mother, I suppose. And more than anything else, she thinks you are a failure if you are not with a man.”

“Is she with one now?”

“Too many,” I said. “She’s divorced. She’s desperate. She’ll sleep with the first guy who offers.”

“How about you?” Dr. Silverman said.

“After my divorce? No. I handled that pretty well. I slept with men if I liked them, and not if I didn’t.”

“Until recently,” Dr. Silverman said.

“Yes.”

We were quiet.

“Now I don’t sleep with anybody.”

Dr. Silverman was quiet. I was quiet. It wasn’t so hard being quiet as it had been.

“How did you compare,” Dr. Silverman said.

“To my mother and sister?”

She nodded. I smiled.

“Favorably,” I said.

“Talk about that,” she said.

“I was always good at things. I was an athlete. I rowed in college, single sculls. My father taught me how to shoot. I liked to go to ball games with him. I liked to talk about his work. My father was a cop. A captain when he retired. He used to take me in to work sometimes. I was kind of funny. I had dates. I was popular in school. My grades were okay. Not like Elizabeth’s. She got all A’s every year. It impressed the hell out of my mother, but I sort of knew, and I think my father did, that grades are mostly bullshit. I got B’s and C’s without trying very hard.”

“It sounds like you were close to your father.”

“Yes.”

Then Dr. Silverman said, “Did your father prefer you?”

“You mean over my sister?”

“Or your mother,” she said.

I was quiet again, thinking about the answer. It wasn’t that I didn’t know the answer. It was trying to say it without sounding like a jerk. Finally, I settled for sounding like a jerk.

“He liked me best,” I said.

Dr. Silverman nodded. We were quiet again. I felt very heavy inside.

“Are we getting oedipal here?” I said.

“What do you understand by the term ‘oedipal’?”

“Kill my mother and marry my father... symbolically of course.”

“Do you think we’re getting oedipal?” Dr. Silverman said.

“Hey,” I said. “You’re the oedipal expert.”

Dr. Silverman smiled.

“He liked you best,” she said.

“Yes.”

“That could be quite burdensome for a young girl. Particularly if her mother was problematic.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” I said. “I wanted to kill my mother and marry my father? That’s so trite.”

“I normally try to avoid using terms like ‘oedipal,’ ” Dr. Silverman said. “It is merely a label, and as such is not very useful.”

“Then why the hell are we talking about it.”

Dr. Silverman smiled and didn’t answer.

“Because I introduced the damn term,” I said.

“I think you did,” Dr. Silverman said.