Lost in the Reflecting Pool

by Diane Pomerantz

  Charles turned from his computer and glared at me. “I think she’s just a typical eleven-year-old girl going into adolescence. That does not constitute a psychological problem that requires psychotherapy.”

  “Charles, she has been through, and is going through, a lot. She’s a really sensitive kid, and she’s at a very vulnerable age. My illness, moving, changing schools, and the changes that our family is going through are major for all of us. They’re having an effect on our daughter.” As much as I tried to remain calm, I knew the intensity in the tone of my voice was increasing.

  “She’s fine. You call yourself a child psychologist? You’re driving us into financial disaster. All you want to do is spend money. Why don’t you just spend more time with your children?” he yelled, then added, “I want to go to bed. This is the end of the discussion. Please go upstairs.”

  I breathed deeply, turned, and walked upstairs. We were not yet separated, which meant I was not yet obligated to get his permission to do what I wanted to do in terms of medical treatment for the children. I was going to find someone who took insurance so that Elli had someone with whom to talk. It might not be the person I would choose if I had unlimited resources, but I was going to do it anyway, despite Charles. I was a child psychologist. I did know what I was seeing. My daughter needed some help.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  ONLY AS I SAW MY MARRIAGE FALLING APART DID I really begin to think about and feel the physical consequences of my disease. More and more, I felt deformed, and it was hard to separate my distorted self-image from the profound sense of rejection that I experienced. One thing was certain for me: I would not leave my marriage before I had reconstructive surgery. I didn’t know what lay ahead for me, financially or in any other way. Physically, I was determined to feel whole.

  The actual reconstructive surgery had neither the drama nor the intensity of the surgeries of the previous year, although the place and many of the players, including me, were the same. Actually, I wasn’t the same now. Two weeks after my diagnosis, a little over a year earlier, I had written a letter to an old friend: I’m also very lucky to have Charles, who is a wonderful partner and friend and parent. Our whole experience with infertility took its toll on our relationship, but in this past year we have been able to do some real healing. I am truly thankful that we are sharing our lives together.

  Looking at that letter now, I realized how much denial I had been in as I’d tried to confront my diagnosis, and even during the previous years of my marriage. True, the problems had worsened since then, and they were to become even more pronounced, but at that time I’d needed not to see what I’d really known was there.

  When I awoke from surgery, out of recovery and back in my room, I realized that my dad, who had brought me to the hospital, was gone. The surgery had happened at eight in the morning; by the time I opened my eyes, I could see through the window that the December sky was black. The room was empty, and the only sound was the slow and steady drip of the IV.

  A nurse walked in and asked if I wanted a heated blanket. I nodded and smiled, remembering how soothing those blankets felt when they came out of the warmer. I put a hand to my chest tentatively. Even through the bandages, I felt the curves of symmetry. I left my hand on my chest and enjoyed the feeling of my body, of my heartbeat, through my fingers. At that moment, I knew that my decision to do the surgery had been the right one. I felt like a whole person again. I had trusted myself. I knew I needed to feel this way when I left my marriage.

  An unappealing tray of yellow broth and jiggly green Jell-O sat on the bed stand next to me, and my stomach quivered. I reached over to put the stainless-steel cover over the dishes, to hide them from view. I didn’t want that visual unpleasantness to disrupt the calm I was feeling at that moment. As I stretched out my arm to reach the tray, I felt the first sharp pains in my chest and abdomen. I flinched quickly and drew back toward the pillow, catching my breath.

  Just then, Charles walked in, carrying a Christmas shopping bag. For an instant, my feelings toward him began to soften. I thought of all the years that he had brought me flowers, and I smiled.

  “My patient gave this to me today,” he began. “It’s not anything I want, so I thought I’d bring it here to brighten up your room.”

  “Thanks,” I said, as he handed me the bag and I unwrapped the first of two ceramic figurines. I knew which patient had probably given this gift to him. Dara had been giving Charles ceramic painted statues every Christmas for years. They were usually dogs or cats or elves or gnomes, sometimes Santa himself.

  The first figurine I unwrapped, as I sat there in my hospital gown, with my IV pumping, was an Irish setter. His only remarkable feature was his wings. He was an angel. I sighed. “Thanks. It’s cute.”

  It was clear that Charles had already opened and rewrapped both of these, so he knew what they were. It was upon opening the second statue, which was larger and heavier, that I found my head becoming light. As I unwrapped it, I could see out of the corner of my eye that Charles had started to unpack the bag I had brought to the hospital. I felt my chest tightening. I didn’t want him going through my things. He kept looking at his watch. I continued to unwrap the object. I found myself confused by what I held in my hands. It was an old, gray, and wrinkled woman in ragged clothes. She had a crumpled shopping bag at her feet and sat on a dark, broken wooden bench. On her back were wings.

  Where could someone even find such a thing? I would later wonder. But at that moment, my only thought was, My husband has brought a bag-lady angel to his wife’s hospital room to make it look cheerful. This after she has gone through a year of treatment for cancer and her doctors have predicted that she has a very poor prognosis.

  Charles picked up the statues and placed them on a table by the window, near the pictures of the children that I had packed.

  “Thanks for setting up the room, Charles,” I said flatly. I closed my eyes and tried to meditate.

  “It’s what I’m good at,” he replied, as he went on chatting mindlessly but not really engaging directly with me at all.

  Feeling very tired and really wanting him to leave, I did not open my eyes and finally fell asleep. When I awoke a while later, he was gone.

  When it was time for a shift change, a new nurse came in to introduce herself and noticed the statues on the table.

  “What in the world are these?” she asked.

  “My husband thought they would cheer me up.” I smiled weakly.

  “Do you like them?” she asked, and I shook my head no. “They’re bizarre. They need to be out of sight. How about I put them in one of these drawers, and when you leave, you can take them”—she paused—“if you want them, or you can throw them out. Not that I’m suggesting anything.” She smiled.

  MY five days in the hospital passed quickly. Although the recovery from this surgery was supposed to be difficult, I had a relatively easy time. The side effects from the painkillers were the worst problem I had, and when those were stopped, I felt fine. I had a sense that my body was whole again. The children and I called back and forth, my dad and my friends visited, and Charles came once or twice, but there was no connection between us.

  On day five, December 21, Susan and Peg came to pick me up and take me home. I don’t think Charles even offered. As we were packing up my things, I took the figurines from the drawer where they had been since the night the nurse had placed them there. Both women looked shocked when they saw the statues, which I had begun to put in my bag.

  “What are those?” Peg asked, with horror in her voice.

  “A gift from Charles, to brighten up the room.” I chuckled.

  “Well, you sure as hell are not taking those with you,” Susan said. She took them from my hands and threw them in the trash can.

  “That is so perverse. He is so sick and so toxic for you!” Peg added.

  The bag lady and Irish setter angels were thus left behind. I would later regret that I had not taken them with me. I would have lov
ed to be able to take them to court, in an attempt to show how sadistic and crazy Charles was. Perhaps it also was a way to prove to myself that what I was experiencing was really happening.

  I arrived home and found the house empty, except for Knaidl, who happily licked and nuzzled me. After I settled in, Susan and Peg left, and the echoes and chill of the house enveloped me. Immediately, anger at Charles overcame me. My breath was shallow, my palms were wet, my head was light, and my thoughts were dark. I felt such hatred for him, for his desertion, for his sadistic callousness. I recalled his saying to me, just a week before the surgery, when I confronted him about how he dismissed me, acted as if I didn’t exist, “What do you expect me to be, Jesus Christ?”

  “No, I expect you to treat me with the same compassion that one would show toward another human being, especially one who is the mother of your children and whom you have shared twenty years of your life with. That is what I would expect, even if the ‘love’ is gone.”

  “You don’t know me at all. Once I make the decision, I have the capacity to completely cut someone out of my life.” He said this as if it were an admirable trait. As if being able to split off parts of his experience was a healthy way to cope with life.

  That conversation, as well as visions of the bag lady and dog angels, flooded me, and I wanted to scream. I tried to meditate, I did scream, but it hurt too much, so I cried and fell asleep.

  I woke up a couple of hours later when Elli, Sam, and Camille walked in.

  “Momma’s home, Elli,” Sammy called, as he jumped on the bed where Knaidl and I had been sleeping.

  Afterward, Camille took Elli and Sam out to choose a few movies that we could all watch together over the next couple of days.

  Charles arrived home around seven-thirty. We had already eaten, and Camille had left. The kids, Knaidl, and I had a bowl of popcorn and were sitting on my bed, watching Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, when Charles walked in. Sam lunged at him, so happy he was home, and Elli continued to watch the movie.

  “I love this movie,” he said, as he pulled up a chair. “I hope you guys are helping your mom. She’s got to rest for the next few days, okay?”

  “We know, Dad.” Elli’s eyes never left the screen.

  “I know you do, but I want to make sure that your brother does, too.”

  Charles had not even asked how I was feeling, let alone acknowledged my presence, since he had walked into the room.

  After the kids were in bed, he walked through the bedroom where I was reading.

  “I take it everything went okay with your discharge today?” he asked casually.

  “Uh-huh, yes, it was fine, thanks for asking,” I replied, trying to keep my distance. Yet his polite distance always drew me in. It always felt like an invitation to try to break through the wall. I would always wind up talking too much, saying things I should have left unsaid. This time, though, my anger was still close to the surface.

  “I didn’t bring those statues home,” I told him.

  “They certainly weren’t great works of art.” He laughed disdainfully.

  “No, they weren’t. I’m sure there could be a lot of therapeutic material to go over with a patient who gave those particular statues as a gift,” I said. Then I continued, “They really were kind of perverse.”

  I saw an almost imperceptible smile at the corners of his mouth. “Perverse?” he questioned. “What do you mean?”

  Perhaps the smile indicated his anxiety. I suppose my saying his “gift” was perverse disturbed him. Charles was never one to acknowledge that, just maybe, something he had done was wrong or inappropriate.

  “Well, I believe that angels are divine beings,” he said, after a long pause.

  “Yes, I agree. Angels can be divine and beautiful beings—just not when they’re a bag-lady angel and a dog angel. They lose some of their divinity and beauty when they are brought to someone who has been confronting death and is in the hospital.” This time, I looked directly at Charles as I spoke.

  He turned and walked out of the room and retreated to the basement.

  Sleep did not come easily to me that night. Physical discomfort and strange dreams made me fitful. I awoke at 3 a.m. with images of being in a room near Harvard Square, listening to loud, disturbing music with violent lyrics. The thought that crossed my mind as I drifted back to sleep was that at least the music was a more controlled and sublimated way to express how angry I felt.

  I awoke again briefly at four-thirty with a feeling of dread. I felt as if I were falling into the depths of the abyss, alone and abandoned but knowing that I needed to protect myself. Again sleep overcame me.

  At five-thirty, there were more disturbing images. This time, they were more directly about my relationship with Charles and how unsafe I felt in relation to him, how deeply I believed he could not be trusted.

  It was 6:10 a.m. when Charles came into the bedroom and walked over to the bed. I must have just fallen back to sleep when I opened my eyes and saw him looming over me.

  “Good morning,” he said, very formally, and then paused. His tension was palpable. “I want you to know that my caseload is going down. It’s ten hours below what it was the third week in November.”

  “The first two weeks of December, your caseload was quite good, as I recall. Thirty-one to thirty-three hours isn’t bad,” I countered.

  His breathing quickened. “We’re going to be in financial disaster again. We need to make plans now for sources from whom to borrow. We have got to work together on this.”

  All I could think was, We need to work together? All I want is to get out of this marriage.

  “You had the surgery; you caused this problem,” he said.

  I was stunned. He had all kinds of personal luxuries: gym equipment, a gym membership, air-flow machines, leather journals, rock gardens, plants. His office was becoming increasingly lush. His children, on the other hand, didn’t have money for groceries, and not because I had chosen to have surgery. He rejected every suggestion I made to reduce expenses.

  I said, “Why not rent the two offices upstairs so the rent on the building will be less?”

  He said, “It will negatively change the energy of the building.”

  When he finally stopped badgering me, I was spent. He left for his DC office, not taking any lunch with him.

  My dad arrived with bagels for all of us and then took the kids to school. I called Dr. Putman. She was pretty upset that Charles was putting me through this right after having major surgery.

  My sense of reality was being tested constantly. Who was this person I had been with for all these years? Had I ever known the real Charles? Maybe not. Maybe only at this point of real life crisis was I seeing his true self—and it was crumbling.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  THE CLOCK SAID 9:00 A.M. AND THE ONLY SOUND I could hear was that of the wind howling. Icicles glistened in the sunlight through the shutters and dangled like crystal needles on the branches. Every few moments, they made a tinkling sound as the wind blew them and they shattered against the windowpanes.

  It was December 24, the first day of winter break. I was sure that Elli was still asleep and surprised that I hadn’t heard a sound from Sammy. It was the first morning since I’d gotten home from the hospital that Charles had not pounced upon me, like a lion in wait, at the crack of dawn. I knew he must have left already; he was never home this late. I still wasn’t able to move very quickly, but I was more mobile than I had anticipated. I put on my robe and walked out into the family room.

  “Hi, Momma. Come sit here next to me,” Sam said, as he pushed a spoonful of Cheerios into his mouth. “Did you sleep good, Momma? Poppy came over and made us breakfast and said we could watch TV, but he wanted us to let you sleep, so we did.” He smiled proudly.

  “This guy is the best, and so is his sister, who is still asleep,” said my dad, sitting on the couch, drinking the cup of coffee he had made for himself. “Did you sleep well, honey?” he asked, lookin
g at me with questions I knew he was not asking directly.

  “I’m better than I thought I’d be. I’m a little stiff and sore, but I thought I wouldn’t be able to move, and I’m moving.” I smiled as Sam jumped up to hug me.

  “Dad, I made plans for Sammy to spend the day at Colin’s house today. Elli is going to go over to Jillian’s house. I think you’ve been to both places before; will you be able to drive them there? Their parents have already said they’ll bring them home after dinner.”

  “Sure. You know I’d do anything for you, dear, anything . . . ,” he started singing.

  “Poppy, stop. You sound awful,” Sam teased, and we all laughed. Laughing hurt, so I had to stop.

  My dad and I walked into the kitchen alone, and he said, “I guess this stuff happens all the time, Di. There was a story in the paper this morning about a psychiatrist who was sued for breaking up someone’s marriage.” My dad shook his head. “I thought Charles was a smart man.”

  I smiled. “Me, too.” I got up to get the paper but couldn’t find it. “I guess he was smart enough to take the paper with him so that I wouldn’t see the story.” I shrugged.

  We sat and chatted for a while, until Elli appeared, still sleepy-eyed. Even with her blond bedhead, she was an absolute beauty. I just wished she didn’t seem so sad.

  “Hi, Poppy. Why are you here so early?” she asked, as she hugged him and then sat down at the table and poured herself some cereal and milk.

  “Because I wanted to bring my most beautiful granddaughter something I knew she would like.” He went over to the refrigerator and got out Elli’s favorite chocolate, cream-filled Krispy Kreme donut and put it down in front of her, smiling broadly.

  “Oh, I love you, Poppy! It’s my favorite!” Elli quickly took one more spoonful of cereal, put the bowl and spoon in the dishwasher, and then, with great drama, took her first bite.