The Halo Effect

13

On the other side of the world from my office at the Butterfield Institute lay the women’s state penitentiary in upstate New York. Almost three hours from the city, the redbrick building sat at the bottom of a hill on a lonely stretch of road near a state park. Every Thursday morning Simon Weiss, a fellow therapist at the institute, and I drove there. Between us we met with anywhere from two to six patients, prostitutes who had either requested to see a therapist or who were required to see one.

This gig started as part of my graduate-school work, but I kept doing it, because I was still innocent enough, or dumb enough, to think that I might actually make a difference. And Simon, who was one of my closest friends, in addition to being an associate, had been doing it with me for the past year.

Since the first prostitute’s killing, the women were angrier and sadder than usual. Worried about their friends on the outside and about themselves when they would be released.

As Simon navigated the city traffic we shared office gossip and then fell into a companionable silence. I was looking out the window, but I could see him in my peripheral vision.

Between the curly, dirty-blond hair, dimples and lively blue eyes, and a mind that leaped ahead when other people were still trying to figure out what direction to take, he was impressive. But it was more than that. He had that rare male attribute: he loved women. He loved to talk to us, spend time with us, listen to us and bond with us. Sometimes, when we were out having a drink, along with a heart-to-heart, he joked that he was a chick with a dick.

“You know, you are really quiet,” he said.

“How does that make you feel?”

He laughed. It was our joke, the jargon we used on each other. We made each other laugh by dipping into patient-doctor talk. One day we’d have to dig deep and find what we were covering up with all the teasing. But I was hoping it wouldn’t be for a while.

“Seriously,” he said, “what’s going on?”

“I have a patient who missed an appointment yesterday and didn’t call. I hate to admit it, but I have a feeling that something might be wrong.”

“Did you call her?”

“I tried to. Late yesterday afternoon. I wasn’t sure I should.”

“Why?”

“I don’t usually.”

“But she’s special?”

I nodded.

Simon smiled. Every once in a while, a patient got to me the way Cleo had. But it had been a long time.

“She didn’t call back?”

“No.”

“Who is it? Cleo Thane?”

I nodded.

During weekly meetings, all ten therapists at the institute discussed their respective patients, so they all knew about Cleo.

“When is she scheduled to come in next?”

“Monday. I’m assuming she got a job that took her out of town.”

“Is that all that’s bothering you?”

Simon had been a friend for a long time. “My divorce came through last week.”

“And you waited a whole week to tell me.” For a moment I was embarrassed.

“Morgan?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not yet. I just want to be in denial that anything in my life has to change any more than it already has.”

“Change is not always bad.”

“I know that professionally. But on a personal level, let’s just say I am not yet convinced.”

We were out of Manhattan and on the highway heading toward the George Washington Bridge. In the sunlight the metal girders and trusses gleamed and the Hudson River glinted.

“It looks like a postcard, doesn’t it? All that blue sky and green trees and that gigantic bridge,” he said.

“From a distance it’s easy to see things in symmetry.”

He reached out and took my hand and held it on the seat between us. I relied upon all of my training and insight and intuition to figure out if this touch was the same as the million touches he had given me over the past five years. He was a physical person, and hugs and brotherly kisses and things like holding my hand to make me feel as if we were connected were just how we were.

But now I was divorced. And he was a flirt. And what would have been innocent before could be interpreted differently now. His skin was warm and his fingers were long and strong. What would happen if I moved my fingers against his? If, instead of letting my hand lie limp in his, I pressed my fingertips into his? What would it feel like to channel energy into the touch? To use the proximity of our hands to give him a message? To say to him with my flesh that I wanted more?

I would ruin a wonderful friendship. Of that I had no doubt. If I was going to experiment with a side of myself that had been dormant for too long, it was not going to be with someone I sat across a conference-room table from several times a week.

The sun was coming through the window and making me warm. I shifted in my seat and extracted my hand.

As if nothing had happened, because it hadn’t, Simon put his hand back on the wheel. We drove another few minutes before he asked me something I was surprised we’d never covered in all our hundreds of hours of conversation.

“Why do you do this prison work?”

“Because of ‘grace.’”

He knew my shorthand for “There but for the grace of God go I.”

There were too many things I’d seen that made me stop, catch my breath and be grateful that I was not there and that was not my life. Dulcie had picked up on it and sometimes came home from school with a “grace” story.

“That is a wonderfully Morgan thing to say.” Simon smiled.

In my lap, I put my right hand over my left and let my fingers play with one another.

But you can’t make a connection with your own skin.