Split Image

49

I'VE BEEN THINKING?" said.

Dr. Silverman nodded and cocked her head slightly, ready to listen.

"We talked a while ago about being incomplete," Sunny said.

"We talked of how you felt incomplete," Dr. Silverman said.

Sunny nodded.

"Anyway," she said, "I was thinking of my mother and sister."

Dr. Silverman gave a small encouraging nod.

"Your sister is older?" she said.

"Yes, and she's a mess, like my mother," Sunny said. "You know what they're like, I've told you about them."

"Might be useful to talk about them again."

"You've forgotten?" Sunny said.

"I do forget things," Dr. Silverman said. "But in this instance it's more of a therapeutic tool. If you reexamine the same thing in a different context, new things sometimes appear."

"My mother knows very little, and fears many things. But she pretends to know a lot and fear nothing."

"That must be difficult for her," Dr. Silverman said.

"It makes her hysterical much of the time," Sunny said. "Although of course she would deny it."

Dr. Silverman nodded.

"And my sister is much like her. She doesn't know much, either, but she substitutes beliefs. She believes in having gone to a good school. She believes in being with a man who's gone to a good school… and has prestige… and money."

"And that has not worked out for her."

"No, she's gone through husbands and boyfriends and careers without any success in any of them."

"So what she believes hasn't worked for her," Dr. Silverman said.

"God, no," Sunny said. "She doesn't believe in anything real. But her failures have simply made her more entrenched in her silliness. Both of them are, like my father says, often wrong but never uncertain."

"Is she hysterical much of the time as well?"

"Absolutely."

"Would she admit it?" Dr. Silverman said.

"Absolutely not," Sunny said.

They sat quietly. Dr. Silverman was as pulled together as always: dark skirt, white shirt, very little jewelry, conservative heels. Probably part of the work wardrobe. Don't distract the patient. Her makeup was subtle and quiet. Her nails were manicured and polished.

"They're emotionally disheveled," Sunny said.

Dr. Silverman nodded.

"And they were my role models growing up," Sunny said.

"So you assumed that all women were emotionally disheveled?"

"I didn't want to be like them," Sunny said.

"Who did you want to be like?"

"My father. I don't mean I wanted to be a man. I mean I didn't want to be disheveled."

Dr. Silverman nodded.

"What part did your father play in all this?" she said.

"He took care of them," Sunny said. "Still does. Maybe he enables them, I don't know."

"Why do you suppose he takes care of them?" Dr. Silverman said.

"He's stuck," Sunny said. "He loves them."

"And he loves you," Dr. Silverman said.

"Yes, but he doesn't take care of me."

"Tell me again why your marriage broke up," Dr. Silverman said.

"I guess we were just too different. I mean, my father's a cop. His father's a crook."

"So what drew you to him?"

"He was so complete, and he loved me," she said.

"But Richie wasn't in the family business, you told me."

"No," Sunny said. "I believe that he wasn't."

"So why did you break up?"

Sunny sat silently, looking at Dr. Silverman. The question was simple enough. Why did we break up? The silence lengthened. Dr. Silverman didn't seem uncomfortable. She simply sat back in her chair and waited. She trusts me to get this on my own.

"Jesus Christ," Sunny said.

Dr. Silverman cocked her head and looked attentive.

"It's because he's complete," Sunny said. "Because he's like my father, and it made me feel like my mother and sister."

Dr. Silverman smiled. Good girl, Sunny said to herself.

"His virtue is his vice," Dr. Silverman said.