Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!

Mommies and Daddies

New York City

1975

At her next session with Dr. Diggers, Dena figured she might as well ask her about it and at least get something for her money.

“Let me ask you something, Dr. Diggers. Is it normal for people to keep having the same dream all the time?”

Dr. Diggers thought: This is the first real question Dena has asked. “Yes. Why?”

“I was just wondering. I keep having the same stupid dream.”

“How long?”

“What?”

“How long have you been having this dream?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Since I was a child. I can’t remember. Anyhow, it’s always pretty much the same. I see this house and it has a merry-go-round in the front yard or sometimes in the backyard, but sometimes it’s in the house, and I want to go in but I can’t find the door.”

“Can you see yourself in the dream?”

“No, I just know that it’s me, but I don’t see myself. Anyhow, I just wonder what the stupid thing means. Or if it means anything.”

“I wonder if you wonder,” Dr. Diggers said.

Dena said, “What is that supposed to mean?”

“I think on some level you know you just don’t want to look at it. How did you feel about losing your father?”

Dena rolled her eyes. Here we go again. Ask a simple question and get some psychobabble questions back. “I’ve told you a hundred times, I didn’t feel anything. I never knew him; it didn’t affect me at all. Look, I’m not here to whine about my childhood.”

“I know, you just come here for the candy. Now, for the hundredth time, what was your mother like? How would you describe her?”

“Oh … I don’t know.”

“Try.”

“It’s just a stupid dream.”

“Was she a loving mother? Mean? What was your impression of her?”

Dena started to tap her foot, irritably. “I’ve told you … she was just a mother, two eyes, two ears. What was your mother like?”

“My interview. Do you think maybe you left something unsaid—before she died?”

Dena moaned. “Why does everything have to be so damn shrinky? I don’t think that you understand that a person can get on with her life without being analyzed to death. I’m not saying some people don’t need it, but I’m not one of them. I am not some weak, damaged, little person unable to function. I am just under a lot of pressure at work right now, and it has nothing to do with any deep-seated secrets locked away in my psyche, and you didn’t answer my question.”

“What question?”

“What was your mother like?”

“She had fourteen ears and twelve legs and was polka-dotted. You know, Dena, you are harder than a hickory nut to crack, but I will. You seem determined not to tell me one thing about yourself but I am not giving up. You can bat those big blue eyes at me all you want, I’m not giving up. You have finally met your match.”

Dena laughed. She liked Dr. Diggers in spite of herself. “Do any of you psychiatrists ever get shot?”

“Oh, yes, I have to frisk my patients all the time.”

Later, when she was leaving, Dr. Diggers went with her to the door. As Dena was putting on her coat she said, “By the way … I broke up with J.C.”

Dr. Diggers said, “Oh.”

“Yes. He was a nice guy. But he got too serious.”

As Dr. Diggers locked the door behind her, she almost wished she could call Gerry and tell him, but she couldn’t. Dena was her patient. Besides, she knew that he was better off not knowing that Dena had broken up with her boyfriend. It would be better for him to forget Dena. She could not hold out any hope there, at least not at the present time.

Diggers rolled into the kitchen, opened the oven, removed her dinner, and chewed thoughtfully while she ate. She had her doubts if Dena would ever be able to find a man she would allow herself to love. Right now, the girl was still looking for that daddy she never had. Oh, Lord, thought Elizabeth Diggers, daddies—aren’t they a dangerous lot? If you love them too much they can ruin you for life, or if you hate their guts, it can mess you up. And in Dena’s case, they can mess you up even when they were never there.