The Venus Fix

Seventy-Eight

Nina wasn’t in her office when I went looking for her. The lights were off and her door was closed. I thought she had patients that night until nine. Back at my desk, I called her at home, and then on her cell phone. But she didn’t pick up. Restless, I shut off my own office lights and left.

The street lamps cast a soft glow over the snowdrifts. I stood on the steps of the institute and let the freezing air wash over me, breathing it in, letting it dissipate the lingering smell that overheated rooms get in the winter. I knew that I should turn around, check that I wasn’t being followed, but I refused to give in to paranoia.

I walked to the corner, not sure what I should do. Go home? Get something to eat? Keep calling Nina? Try Noah?

No. I couldn’t see him or talk to him. Not until I knew what to do about the CD. I wouldn’t be able to hold back from telling him what I’d found out. One look at me and he’d guess that I was keeping something back. I knew I was going to have to tell him, but I needed Nina to help me figure out how I could do that without risking or compromising Amanda.

I hailed the first cab I found and gave the driver the theater’s address. I knew Dulcie was coming home over the weekend, but I needed to see her sooner.

I stood in the back of the theater and watched my daughter up on the stage. The Secret Garden was a seemingly innocent story. A child reading it can’t guess at the hidden messages that I, as an adult and a psychotherapist, saw so clearly.

Did Dulcie understand the metaphor of the overgrown garden, untended, unruly, abandoned? Did she guess that it represented a woman’s sexuality, ignored by all who passed the high, ivy-covered walls?

Dulcie stood inside the garden set, showing it to the young man for the first time. My daughter’s face shone with delight-a delight that was not hers but belonged entirely to the character she portrayed. How did she do that? What metamorphosis did she put herself through to become the fictional Mary Lennox?

Against my will and wishes, I wasn’t seeing Dulcie on the stage but Amanda and Simone, undergoing their own metamorphosis.

The audience broke out in applause for my daughter and she preened.

What did the boys do for the two girls who stripped down and played at being lovers so well it became true?

Dulcie didn’t skip a beat as the applause finally died down, and she returned to the scripted dialogue.

I needed to know I could protect her from what Amanda’s and Simone’s parents had not been able to protect them from.

Backstage, I wrote my daughter a note, telling her how proud I was of her, how much I loved her performance, how happy I was she was coming home on Sunday, and that I missed her. Beside the note, I laid a bouquet of pink sweetheart roses I’d bought for her at the deli around the corner from the theater.