Silent Partner

by Jonathan Kellerman

  Apple drawings.

  And three beds arranged parallel to one another, as in a bunk room. Or ward: the first two were hospital setups with push-button position controls and chromium swivel tables.

  The nearest one was empty save for something on the pillow. I took a closer look. It was a toy airplane—a bomber, painted dark, with a forward-slanting M on the door.

  In the second, a crippled woman lay under a cheerful quilt. Immobile, gape-mouthed, some gray streaking her black hair, but otherwise unchanged in the six years since I'd last seen her. As if disability had so dominated her body it rendered her ageless. She took a deep sucking breath and air came out in a squeak.

  A waft of perfume filtered through the new-car ambience. Soap and water, fresh grass.

  Chapter

  35

  Sharon sat on the edge of the third bed, hands folded in her lap. A smile, tissue-thin, graced her lips.

  She wore a long white dress that buttoned down the front. Her hair was combed out, parted in the middle. No makeup, no jewelry. Her eyes purplish in the light of the dome.

  She fidgeted under my stare. Long fingers. Arms smooth as butter. Breasts straining against the dress. Silk. Expensive, but it resembled a nurse's uniform.

  “Hello, Alex.”

  Shirlee Ransom's swivel table held tissues, a hot water bottle, a mucus aspirator, a water pitcher, and an empty drinking glass. I picked up the glass, rolled it between my palms, and put it down.

  “Come,” she said.

  I sat down next to her, said, “Risen like Lazarus.”

  “Never gone,” she said.

  “Someone else is.”

  She nodded.

  I said, “The red dress? Strawberry daiquiris?”

  “Her.”

  “Sleeping with your patients?”

  She shifted so that our flanks touched. “Her. She wanted to hurt me, didn't care she was hurting others in the process. I didn't know a thing until the cancellations started pouring in. I couldn't understand it. Everything had been going so well—mostly short-term cases, but everyone liked me. I phoned them. Most of them refused to talk to me. A couple of wives got on, full of rage, threatening. It was like a bad dream. Then Sherry told me what she'd done. Laughing. She'd been staying with me, had taken my office key and made a copy. Used it to get into my files, picked out the ones who sounded cute, offered them free follow-up visits and . . . did them, then dumped them. That's the way she put it. When I was calm enough, I asked her why. She said she'd be damned if she'd let me play doctor and lord it over her.”

  She placed her hand on my thigh. Her palm was wet. “I knew she resented me, Alex, but I never imagined she'd carry it that far. When we first got together, she acted as if she loved me.”

  “When was that?”

  “My second year of grad school. Autumn.”

  Surprised, I said, “Not the summer?”

  “No. Autumn. October.”

  “What was the family business that prevented you from going to San Francisco?”

  “Therapy.”

  “Conducting or receiving?”

  “My therapy.”

  “With Kruse.”

  Nod. “It was a crucial time. I couldn't leave. We were dealing with issues . . . It really was family business.”

  “Where were you staying?”

  “His house.”

  I'd gone there, looking for her, watching Kruse's face split in two. . . .

  Have a nice day . . .

  “It was pretty intense,” she said. “He wanted to monitor all the variables.”

  “You had no trouble sleeping there?”

  “I . . . No, he helped me. Relaxed me.”

  “Hypnosis.”

  “Yes. He was preparing me—for meeting her. He thought it would be a healing process. For both of us. But he underestimated how much hatred remained.”

  She stayed calm but the pressure of her hand increased. “She was pretending, Alex. It was easy for her—she'd studied acting.”

  Some gravitate to the stage and screen. . . . “Interesting career choice,” I said.

  “It wasn't a career, just a fling. Just like everything else. First she used it to get close to me, then again to target what she knew was dearest to me: you; then, years later, my work. She knew how much my work meant to me.”

  “Why didn't you get licensed?”

  She tugged her earlobe. “Too many . . . distractions. I wasn't ready.”

  “Paul's opinion?”

  “And mine.”

  She pressed against me. Her touch felt burdensome.

  “You're the only man I've ever loved, Alex.”

  “What about Jasper? And Paul.”

  The mention of Kruse's name made her flinch. “I mean romantic love. Physical love. You're the only one who's ever been inside of me.”

  I said nothing.

  “Alex, it's true. I know you suspected things, but Paul and I were never like that. I was his patient—sleeping with a patient's like incest. Even after therapy stops.”

  Something in her voice made me back off. “Okay. But let's not forget Mickey Starbuck.”

  “Who?”

  “Your co-star. Checkup.”

  “Was that his name? Mickey? All I knew about him was that he was an actor whom Paul had treated for cocaine addiction. Back in Florida. I've never been to Florida.”

  “Her?”

  She nodded.

  I said, “Who cast her?”

  “I know what it looks like, but Paul thought it might be curative.”

  “Radical therapy. Working it through.”

  “You'd have to see it in context, Alex. He'd worked with her for years without much success. He had to try something.”

  I looked away, took in my surroundings. Hooked rug on the blue carpet. The samplers spouting truisms. No goddam place like home.

  Spaceship homey. As if extraterrestrials had swooped down on a specimen-hunt, plundered Middle America of its clichés.

  When I turned back, she was smiling. A shiny smile. Too shiny. Like glaze before crackling.

  “Alex, I understand how strange all this must sound to you. It's hard to sum up so many years in just a few minutes.”

  I smiled back, let my confusion show. “It's overwhelming—the dynamics—how it all fits together.”

  “I'll do my best to clear it up for you.”

  “I'd appreciate that.”

  “Where would you like me to start?”

  “Right at the beginning seems as good a place as any.”

  She put her head on my shoulder. “That's the problem. There really is no beginning,” she said, in the same disembodied voice she'd used years ago, to talk about the death of her “parents.” “My primal years are a blur. I've been told about them, but it's like hearing a story about someone else. That's what therapy was about, that summer. Paul was trying to unblock me.”

  “Age regression?”

  “Age regression, free association, Gestalt exercises—all the standard techniques. Things I've used myself with patients. But nothing worked. I couldn't remember a thing. I mean, intellectually I understood the defensive process, knew I was repressing, but that didn't help me in here.” She placed my hand on her belly.

  “How far back could you recall?” I asked.

  “Happy times. Shirlee and Jasper. And Helen. Uncle Billy told me you met her yesterday. Isn't she an exceptional person?”

  “Yes, she is.” Yesterday. It seemed like centuries. “Does she know you're alive?”

  She winced as if bitten. Hard tug on the lobe. “Uncle Billy said he'd take care of it.”

  “I'm sure he will. What were you and he talking about at the party?”

  “Her. She was forcing herself on me again—dropping in at all hours, waking me up, screaming and cursing, or crawling into bed with me and mauling me, trying to suck my breasts. Once I caught her with scissors, trying to snip off my hair. Other times, she'd arrive stoned or drunk on her daiquiris, get sick a
ll over the place, lose bladder control on the carpet. I kept changing the locks; she always found a way to get in. She ate pills like candy.”

  Old scars between the toes. “Was she shooting dope?”

  “She used to, years ago. I don't know, maybe she started again—cocaine, speedballs. Over the years, she must have overdosed at least a dozen times. I had one of Uncle Billy's doctors on call twenty-four hours a day, just for pumping her stomach. By the day of the party she'd really deteriorated and was trying to take me down with her. Kept saying we were going to be eternal roomies. I was scared, just couldn't handle it anymore. So I asked Uncle Billy to handle it. Even after all she'd put me through, it was rough, knowing she'd be put away. So seeing you there at the party really lifted my spirits. A week before, I'd been at Paul's house and Suzanne was doing the calligraphy for the invitations. I saw your name on the list, felt such a surge of feeling for you.”

  She took my hand and ran it down toward her mons. I felt heat, heaviness, the soft mesh of pubic hair through silk.

  “I hoped you'd attend,” she said. “Checked a couple of times to see if you'd RSVP'd, but you hadn't. So when our eyes met I couldn't believe it. Destiny. I knew I had to try to make contact.” She kissed my cheek. “And now you're here. Hello, stranger.”

  “Hello.” I sat there and allowed her to kiss me some more, run her fingers through my hair, touch me. Endured it and kissed back and knew how hookers feel. Sweat broke out on my forehead. I wiped it on my sleeve.

  She said, “Would you like water?” Got up and poured me some from Shirlee's pitcher.

  I used the time to clear my head. When she came back I said, “Was Paul treating you for anything other than unblocking the past?”

  “Actually it didn't start out as real therapy—just clinical supervision, the usual stuff about how my feelings and communications style affected my work. But as we got into it, he could see that I had . . . identity problems, a poor sense of self, low self-esteem. I felt incomplete. And guilty.”

  “Guilty about what?”

  “Everything. Leaving Shirlee and Jasper—they're darling. I really cared for them, but I never felt I belonged to them. And Helen. Even though she'd basically raised me, she wasn't my mother—there was always a wall between us. It was confusing.”

  I nodded.

  “That first year of grad school,” she said, “there was a lot of pressure, being expected to actually help other people. It terrified me—that's why I broke down in practicum. I guess, down deep, I agreed with what the others were saying, felt like an impostor.”

  “Everyone feels that way at first.”

  She smiled. “Always the therapist. That's what you were that night. My rock. When I saw your name on the party list I guess I thought history might repeat itself.”

  I said, “Before you met Sherry—before you knew about her—did you ever fantasize about having a twin?”

  “Yes, all the time, when I was a child. But I never gave much credence to that. I was the type of kid who fantasized about everything.”

  “Was there one twin image that kept recurring?”

  Nod. “A girl my age who looked exactly like me, but was confident, popular, assertive. I named her Big Sharon, even though she was exactly my size, because her personality loomed. Paul said I saw myself as puny. Insignificant. Big Sharon stayed behind the scenes but she could always be counted on to help when things got rough. Years later, when I took my first psych course, I learned that kind of thing was normal—kids do it all the time. But I was doing it even into adolescence, even in college. I was embarrassed about it, afraid I'd talk in my sleep and my roommates would think I was weird. So I made a conscious effort to get rid of Big Sharon and finally grow up. Eventually, I managed to suppress her out of existence. But she came out under hypnosis, when Paul was probing. I began talking about her. Then to her. Paul said she was my partner. My silent partner, hanging around in the background. He said everyone has one—that's really what Freud was getting at with ego, id, superego. That it was okay to have her—she was nothing more than another part of me. That was a very affirmative message.”

  “And in autumn he decided to introduce you to your real silent partners.”

  She tightened. The glazed smile took hold of her face again.

  “Yes. By then the time was right.”

  “How did he arrange it?”

  “He called me into his office, said he had something to tell me. That I'd better sit down—it might be traumatic. But it would definitely be significant, a growth experience. Then he hypnotized me, gave me suggestions for deep muscle relaxation, transcendent serenity. When I was really mellow, he told me I was one of the luckiest people in the world because I had a real silent partner—two partners, actually. That I was one of three. Triplets.”

  She turned, faced me, took both my hands in hers. “Alex, all those feelings of not being complete—the attempt to fill the hole with Big Sharon—had been my subconscious mind not allowing me to forget, despite the repression. The fact that I'd been able to talk to Big Sharon in therapy was a sign to him that I'd reached a higher level, was ready to get in touch with my identity as one third of a whole.”

  “How'd finding out make you feel?”

  “At first it was wonderful. A wave of happiness washed over me—I was drunk with joy. Then, suddenly, everything got cold and dark and the walls started closing in.”

  She wrapped her arms around me, held me tight.

  “It was unreal, Alex—unbelievably horrible. As if someone was stepping on my chest, crushing me. I was sure I was about to die. I tried to scream, but no sound came out. Tried to stand up and fell, began crawling toward the door. Paul picked me up, held me, kept talking in my ear, telling me everything was all right, to breathe slowly and deeply, get my breathing rhythmic, it was just an anxiety attack. Finally I managed to do it but I didn't feel normal. All my senses were stuffed. I was ready to burst. Then something came out, from deep inside of me—a terrible scream, louder than I'd ever screamed before. Someone else's scream—it didn't sound like me. I tried to step away from it, sit in the therapist's chair and watch someone else scream. But it was me and I couldn't stop. Paul clamped his hand over my mouth. When that didn't work, he slapped my face. Hard. It hurt but it felt good, if you can understand that. To be cared for.”

  “I understand,” I said.

  She said, “Thank you,” and kissed me again.

  “Then what?”

  “Then he held me till I was calm. Stretched me out on the floor and let me lie there and put me deeper in hypnosis. Then he told me to open my eyes, reached into his shirt pocket—I can still see it: he was wearing a red silk shirt—and handed me a snapshot. Two little girls. Me and another me. He said to look on the back, he'd written something there. I did: S and S, Silent Partners. He said that was my catechism, my healing mantra. And the photo was my icon—he'd gotten it for me to keep. When in doubt or troubled, I should use it, fall into it. Then he told me to fall into it then and there and began telling me about the other girl. That her name was Sherry. She'd been his patient for years, long before he met me. The first time he saw me, he thought it was her. Meeting both of us was a miracle—miraculous karma—and his goal in life since then had been reuniting us into a functioning unit. A family.”

  “How long had he kept her existence from you?”

  “Just a short time. He couldn't tell me about her until she agreed. She was his patient—everything was confidential.”

  “But to get her to agree, he must have told her about you.”

  She frowned, as if working on a difficult puzzle. “That was different. Ours was a supervision therapy—he viewed me as a fellow professional, thought I could handle it. It had to start somewhere, Alex. Breaking the circle.”

  I said, “Of course. How did she react to learning about you?”

  “At first she refused to believe him, even after he showed her a copy of the photo. Claimed it was trick photography, took a long time to ac
cept the fact that I existed. Paul told me she'd been raised without love, had trouble bonding. Looking back, I realize he was warning me, right from the beginning. But I was in no state to consider negative input. All I knew was that my life had changed—magically. Triplets, the empty vessel filled.”

  “Two out of three,” I said.

  “Yes, a moment later I realized that and asked about my other partner. He said we'd gone far enough, ended the session. Then he served me herb tea and a light dinner, had Suzanne give me a massage, drove me home and told me to try on my new identity.”

  “Home,” I said. “Who gave you the house?”

  “Paul did. He told me it was a rental property of his that no one was using and he wanted me to live in it—I needed a new place for my new life. This one was perfect for me, harmonious, in synchrony with my vibrations.”

  “Same with the car?”

  “My little Alfa—wasn't that a cute car? It finally gave out last year. Paul said he'd bought it for Suzanne but she couldn't learn to drive a stick shift. He said after everything I'd been through, I deserved a little fun in my life so he was giving it to me. It wasn't till later, of course, that I learned he'd been serving as a conduit—but he did put everything together, so in a sense, everything did come from him.”

  “I can see that,” I said. “What happened once you got home?”

  “I was exhausted. The sessions had taken a lot out of me. I got into bed and slept like a baby. But that night I woke up in a cold sweat, panicky, having another anxiety attack. I wanted to call Paul, was too shaky to dial the phone. Finally I managed to breathe myself calm, but by then my mood had changed—I was really depressed, didn't want to speak with anyone. It was like falling head-first into a bottomless well—falling endlessly. I got under the covers, trying to escape. For three days I didn't dress or eat or get out of bed. Just sat staring at that snapshot. The third day was when you found me. When I saw you I went crazy. I'm sorry, Alex. I lost control.”

  She touched my cheek.

  “Don't worry,” I said. “Long forgotten. What happened after I left?”