Exit Strategies

by Catherine Todd

  I laughed. “Sounds like a good basis for a Monty Python skit,” I said. I wanted to relax, but I still felt very shy with him, the way I had in the grocery store. He was never in a million years going to bring them up, I was sure, but he knew things about me that no one else did. He knew that I’d faked orgasm for two years before Richard left. He knew about my affair. He knew how vulnerable I was and how insecure I’d felt about my ability to make a life for myself without a husband. In short, he was aware of all the things I hoped no one would ever find out.

  Besides, how can you not feel wary when someone knows your darkest and most intimate secrets and you know next to nothing about him? The only really personal things I knew about Mark were that his wife had died of breast cancer at age thirty-four, which was very sad, of course, but could hardly be counted as his fault. And that some sultry Dark Lady knew him well enough to call him Marky. In a relationship of therapist and patient, even when it’s in the past, the balance of power is permanently skewed, unless you can get him to confess to a previous episode of erotomania or an excessive enthusiasm for feet.

  If Mark had a lascivious interest in my shoes, which were perfectly serviceable Cole Haans, he certainly hid it well. He also looked too tired to be caught in the toils of obsessive love for anything other than his coffee. Still, you never know. Everybody is somebody with a past.

  “TIA,” Mark said, interrupting my speculations.

  “Pardon?”

  “TIA. Transient ischemic attack. That’s what they think your mother might have had. It’s like a mini-stroke of a brief duration. She might have felt dizzy and fallen, or her leg might have been temporarily weak.”

  “What do the tests show?”

  “Inconclusive,” he said. “But she has high blood pressure and a partially blocked carotid artery, so it’s certainly a possibility. She might need an endarterectomy to unblock the artery. Julie will talk to you about it. How has she been acting at home?”

  “Sort of listless, to tell you the truth. I’ve tried to interest her in going out, in joining groups or clubs or something that would give her a chance to socialize with someone other than the three of us, but she fights me every time I suggest anything. She watches a lot of TV.” I sighed. “I don’t suppose that’s a medical condition.”

  “Depends on what she watches,” he said. “Seriously, she might be clinically depressed or something like that. I’d mention it to Dr. Bryan.”

  “I think,” I said, trying to explain it to him, “that most of it is that she hates being old.” Also, she hated not being the center of someone’s universe, as she had been for my father. But it seemed a betrayal to tell him that.

  He nodded. “The Golden Years are definitely overrated,” he said. “The prospect of prune juice cocktails and a fixation on roughage is enough to depress anyone. Not to mention dentures, hip replacements, and Depends.”

  “You surprise me,” I told him.

  He looked pleased. “Why is that?”

  “You’re a psychiatrist. Aren’t you supposed to make people feel better about things?”

  He smiled. “I try to help people cope. I don’t try to change the facts. People do that on their own. If people took an unflinching look at the way things really are instead of spinning little stories for themselves to help sugarcoat reality, a whole lot of the world would have trouble getting out of bed every morning.”

  I stared at him, trying to decide what he was really saying. “How do you get out of bed in the morning, feeling that way?”

  He grinned. “One leg at time. That’s what I’m talking about. You adjust, according to the circumstances. Some things can’t be helped, you know that.”

  I knew that. “But—”

  “What? Did you think that because of what I do I don’t mind when I can’t remember where I put my keys or that the print on the Thomas Guide has suddenly shrunk? I’m not immune.”

  “You sound like a candidate for Dr. Crystol,” I told him. I had just realized, hearing even Mark Lawrence—M.D., Ph.D., and extremely centered human being—complain about the depredations of age, why Taylor was so excited about the economic possibilities of Bobbie’s appeal.

  Mark was frowning.

  “Oh, sorry,” I said. “I just came from hearing her speak tonight, so she was on my mind. She’s—”

  “I know who she is,” he said shortly.

  “You don’t approve,” I observed.

  “I wouldn’t put it like that.” After the comradely chat we’d been having, his manner suddenly seemed stiff and reserved.

  “She’s a client,” I explained. “My client.”

  He nodded. “That’s great,” he said neutrally.

  “It is, actually,” I told him. “It could mean big things for the firm.”

  “Great,” he said again.

  I felt annoyed. I wanted his approval, and he wasn’t giving it. I knew I wasn’t supposed to need his approval, but I still wanted it. So much for eight thousand dollars’ worth of therapy. “Mark?”

  He smiled pleasantly. “Yes?”

  “Level with me.”

  “I thought I had.”

  “Is there something I should know about Bobbie Crystol?” I persisted.

  He sighed. “Oh, Becky.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose with his fingertips. “I don’t mean to rain on your parade. It’s just that I have reservations about this whole anti-aging thing.”

  “Reservations.” The word had an ominous ring.

  He looked unhappy. “I know. I’ve just been complaining about it myself, but the gist of this movement seems to be that aging is some ghastly but treatable disease—like typhoid or the Black Plague. Find the magic bullet—the penicillin or the Salk vaccine—and pow! you’re cured. A whole industry has grown up around a lot of unorthodox remedies, a number of which are medically questionable, to say the least.” He shook his head. “It’s just that I find it disconcerting to see all these people who won’t buy a blender without checking Consumer Reports stampeding toward health regimens that are unproved and possibly dangerous.” He shrugged.

  “That’s fair enough,” I told him.

  “Also,” he said, warming to his subject, “as a psychiatrist I feel more than a little uncomfortable with some of the mind-body nonsense I’ve heard spouted. I mean, of course the mind has an effect on the body; I’d be out of business in a week if that weren’t the case. But some of these guys seem to be suggesting that the patient is responsible for his own illnesses because of spiritual or metaphysical failures. That’s dangerous and cruel.” He spun the saucer around and around under the cup. “Christ, there are people who claim they can heal you over the phone just by intuiting your emotional state. It’s smart marketing, actually. You change your emotional biography, and you get better. If you don’t, it’s your own fault. The practitioner can’t lose.”

  “Look,” I said to him seriously, “I’ve been around Bobbie Crystol long enough to see that she’s an egomaniac who’s probably skating on thin ice scientifically. But I thought that if people want a little feel-good therapy to delude themselves into thinking they’re going to live longer or sexier or whatever, where’s the harm? We’re helping her set up what she calls a longevity spa in Mexico. It’s really big business, in the legal sense. What I guess I’m asking is, do you know anything derogatory about her personally?”

  “Derogatory in what sense?”

  “In the sense that I’d want to reconsider representing her. Seriously derogatory.”

  He looked pained. He hesitated and then shook his head. I wondered if he was going to say something else but decided against it. “Cautionary maybe, but not derogatory. Not if that’s the test. If that’s what you want.”

  That “if that’s what you want” stung me. “I’ve worked so hard to make a success of myself, Mark; you know that. This business could make my entire career.”

  He gave me one of his noncommittal Freudian nods. “Just watch yourself, that’s all,” he said finally. “Please.”r />
  Chapter Fourteen

  The phone jarred me into consciousness after less than four hours of sleep. My heart was still pounding from an excess of caffeine and stress, and my mouth tasted like rust. My mind trailed along behind my body into wakefulness.

  “Hello?” I said, not optimistically.

  “This is Dr. Bryan,” said the crisp voice on the other end of the line.

  I attempted to sit up rapidly and bumped my shin on the bedside table. I tried not to yell into the phone. “Is my mother all right?” I asked, after a moment.

  “She’s fine. She’s resting. I’m sorry I missed you last night. Dr. Lawrence said he talked to you.”

  “He did. He’s an old friend,” I added by way of explanation, knowing how much doctors hate to poach on their colleagues’ territory, in this case, information.

  “That’s what he said. I gather he told you we might want to operate?”

  “On the carotid artery? Yes, he did.”

  “Well, Dr. Van Gelder, the neurosurgeon, and I have conferred, and we feel it’s probably not necessary at this time. Her blockage is about fifty percent, which we feel is not life-threatening. We’d like to monitor the situation with Doppler tests and revisit this again in about three months.”

  “Why not just do it now if she’ll need it eventually?”

  There was a moment of silence. “There are certain risks involved. The operation itself could trigger a stroke. And at her age…”

  “I see.”

  “Will you be visiting her today?” Dr. Bryan asked me.

  “She’s not coming home?”

  “She’s complaining of dizziness. We’d like to keep her another day, just to be sure. After that…You will be coming in?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Then I’ve arranged an appointment for you with our patient advocate, Nancy March. She’ll talk to you about arranging for your mother’s release. Is ten all right?”

  She made it sound as if Mother’s parole officer would be checking her out of the Big House. “Fine,” I said.

  “How’s Grandma?” Allie asked me when I came into the kitchen. She still had her pajamas on and was carrying around a piece of dry toast. The words Is that all you’re having for breakfast? leaped immediately to mind, but I didn’t utter them. There ought to be parental merit badges for omissions.

  “She’s fine,” I said. “They decided not to operate.”

  I expected the worried look to vanish, but it didn’t. “Mom, can I go with you today to the hospital?”

  “Sure,” I said. “I’ll pick you up right after school.”

  She frowned. “I don’t feel like going to school.”

  “Honey, you can’t do any more for her right now. She’s in good hands. I expect she’ll be coming home in a day or two.”

  She looked at me, and her eyes filled with tears. “Mom?”

  “Yes?”

  She hesitated. “I’m not sure I want her to come home.”

  Oh, Christ, what was I going to do with a confession like that? There were some things I didn’t want to know.

  She sighed noisily. “I’m afraid, Mom.”

  “Afraid?” I asked, as gently as I could.

  “I’m afraid something will happen again. I didn’t know what to do, Mom. I didn’t know how to help her. What if something happens again and I don’t know what to do and she dies and it’s all my fault?”

  I let out my breath in relief. It was fear, not resentment. I could deal with fear. “Allie, you did absolutely the right thing. You called Louise, didn’t you?” I put my arm around her shoulders but she pulled away.

  “Yes, but I didn’t know what to do,” she said again. “I mean, should I do CPR? I learned it in school, but it’s not the same when it’s somebody you know. I didn’t know if I should move her. I just let her lie there, Mom. I couldn’t think. After a while I thought of calling Mrs. Kennedy, but I don’t even know how long it was, I was so scared.”

  This time she did accept my embrace. She said into my collarbone, “I’m so sorry, Mom.”

  My heart twisted. I stroked her hair. “It’s okay. There’s nothing to apologize for. When these things happen, you just do the best you can, that’s all. You did fine.”

  I wondered if I’d been beguiled by my daughter’s confident demeanor into giving her too much responsibility for her age. Maybe it hadn’t been fair to load so much onto her shoulders. Maybe I’d been unrealistic too. My mother had been such a formidable presence in my life for so long that I’d never really expected her to become fragile and dependent, despite the obvious evidence before my eyes.

  “Grandma’s eighty,” I told Allie. “She’s been lucky so far. But at that age, things can happen. It’s not anyone’s fault.”

  She looked at me without comprehension. The decay and indignities of age were too many decades in the future for true understanding. When you’re young, everything is fixable.

  “We could take a first-aid class,” she said. “Like the ones they have at school. Only this would be for old people’s problems.”

  “Great idea,” I told her. “For the record, Allie, I think you’ve been really terrific about this whole thing.”

  “Oh, Mom,” she said, squirming. But I knew she was pleased.

  My mother was sufficiently recovered to be directing the placement of floral tributes with obvious relish. “Not there,” she told the nurse, raising the head of her bed the better to scrutinize the operation. “I want to be able to see the irises when I’m lying down. And move that big one”—she pointed at a huge spray of orchids and freesias that would not have been out of place at the funeral of a much-lamented head of state—“into the corner. The boy tripped on it when he brought in my breakfast.”

  I walked in and kissed my mother’s cheek. “Feeling better?” I asked her.

  A wary look settled over her face. “Maybe a little,” she said reluctantly.

  “You look good,” I told her, although in truth she didn’t. I was so used to seeing her with makeup that her pallor without it was a little alarming.

  “My back hurts,” she said. “And so does my head.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. I looked around the room. “Wow. Who are all these flowers from?’

  “I don’t know,” she said, brightening. “They’ve just brought them in. Maybe you could hand me the cards.”

  “Sure,” I said. I reached over and plucked the envelope from a perfect basket of spring flowers in blue and purple and yellow. The principles of flower arranging had always eluded me, but I knew art when I saw it. I handed my mother the card.

  “Could you read it?” she asked. “The light’s a little dim in here, and I have a headache.”

  “Oh,” I said, smiling with pleasure, “it’s from the partners at the firm.” Wendy picked these out, I thought.

  “The firm?”

  “My law firm,” I told her. “Roth, Tolbert and Anderson. You remember.”

  “Of course I remember,” she snapped. “That’s very nice. What about that one?” She pointed at the huge floral spray in the corner. “Who sent me that? It must have cost a fortune.”

  I opened the envelope and took out the card. It said:

  Be strong. I care.

  BOBBIE CRYSTOL

  I read it aloud to my mother.

  “Who the hell is Bobbie Crystol?” she asked.

  Nancy March, the patient advocate, was not impressed with my elder-care arrangements.

  She fixed me with a piercing gaze made more formidable by her electric blue contacts. She was at least fifteen years younger than I was, a freshly minted MSW without a heart. I still felt as if I’d been summoned to the vice principal’s office and found wanting.

  “You can’t expect a teenage girl to be responsible for an elderly person,” she said. “It might be convenient, but it isn’t suitable.”

  I tried to keep a rein on my irritation. “It’s worked for us for a long time. It’s only now, when my mother has had these
health problems, that it’s become an issue.”

  She tapped the desk with the edge of her pen. “I don’t mean to sound unsympathetic. I know what a burden caring for elderly parents can be, particularly when you’re working. But your mother is having dizzy spells, and frankly, she’s a bit confused. I don’t think you should have been trusting her to take care of your house.”

  “Actually, I take care of my house,” I told her. She made it sound as if my mother had been some sort of indentured servant.

  “That’s not what she says,” she suggested.

  I sighed. “She might be prone to exaggeration.” How could I explain my mother and a complicated forty-year relationship in some way that this judgmental creature, decades from any such situation herself, could understand? I felt defensive, and I didn’t want to give her any information in case she used it against me or against my mother. I needed to know what her agenda was first.

  I suddenly realized I was thinking like a lawyer, a goal I had always professed to seek. I didn’t feel comforted. Be careful what you wish for.

  “Why don’t you tell me a little more about your mother?” she said. “What sort of activities does she engage in? Does she get any exercise? How much does she go out? Does she have friends? That sort of thing,” she said encouragingly.

  I was not deceived. She disapproved of me, I could feel it. She would disapprove even more when she unearthed the truth—that my mother’s principal activity was watching television. I suppose it was only fair; I disapproved myself.

  “Umm,” I said. “Actually, she favors passive entertainment.”

  She leaned forward eagerly, a hound on the scent. “Passive entertainment?”

  I leaned away from her automatically. “Yes,” I agreed.

  “And that would be…?”

  “The opposite of active,” I said sincerely.