by Jodi Picoult
He grins, like a shark. “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet, sugar,” he says.
On Friday, Lucy is fifteen minutes late for our session. I decide to give her the benefit of the doubt, since we have been moved to the photography studio on the third floor—a room that I didn’t even know existed. “Hi,” I say, when she walks in. “You had trouble finding it, too?”
Lucy doesn’t answer. She sits down at a desk, takes out a book, and buries her nose in it.
“Okay, you’re still mad at me. That’s coming through loud and clear. So let’s talk about it.” I lean forward, my hands clasped between my knees. “It’s perfectly normal for a client to misinterpret a relationship with her therapist—Freud even talked about it being a key to finding out something from your past that’s still upsetting to you. So maybe we can look constructively at why you want me to be your friend. What does that say about who you are, and what you need right now?”
Stone-faced, she flips a page.
The book is a collection of short stories by Anton Chekhov. “You’re taking Russian lit,” I surmise. “Impressive.”
Lucy ignores me.
“I never took Russian lit. Too much of a wimp. I have enough trouble understanding all that stuff when it’s in English.” I reach for my guitar and pluck out a Slavic, minor run of notes. “If I were going to play Russian literature, I think it would sound like this,” I muse. “Except I really need a violin.”
Lucy slams the book shut, shoots me a look of death, and puts her head down on the desk.
I pull my chair closer to her. “Maybe you don’t want to tell me what’s on your mind. Maybe you’d like to play it, instead.”
No response.
I reach for my djembe and put it between my knees, tilted so that she can drum on it. “Are you this angry,” I ask, striking it lightly, “or this angry?” I smack it, hard, with my palm.
Lucy continues facing in the opposite direction. I begin to play a beat, thump-thump-thump-THUMP, thump-thump-thump-THUMP.
Eventually, I stop. “If you don’t want to talk, maybe we’ll just listen today.”
I set my iPod on the portable speaker system and begin to play some of the music that Lucy has reacted to before—either positively or negatively. At this point, I just want to get a rise out of her. I think I’ve finally cracked her shell when she sits up, twists in her chair, and digs in her backpack. A moment later, she comes up with a ratty, crushed tissue.
Lucy tears off two tiny scraps of the tissue. She balls them up and sticks them in her ears.
I shut off the music.
When I first started working with Lucy and she behaved like this, I saw it as a challenge I had to overcome, the same way I faced challenges with all my other patients. But after months of progress . . . this feels like a personal affront.
Freud would call that countertransference. Or in other words, what happens when the therapist’s emotions get tangled up with a patient’s. I am supposed to step back and wonder why Lucy might try to elicit this anger in me. That way, I regain control of the emotions in our therapeutic relationship again . . . and, more important, I discover another missing piece of the puzzle that is Lucy.
The thing is, Freud got it all wrong.
When Max and I first met, he took me fishing. I’d never been, and I didn’t understand how people could spend entire days bobbing around on the ocean waiting for a bite that never came. It seemed silly, an utter waste of time. But that day, the striped bass were running. He baited my hook and cast the line and showed me how to hold the fishing rod. After about fifteen minutes, I felt a tug on the line. I’ve got one, I said, excited and nervous. I listened to Max carefully as he told me what to do—move rhythmically and slowly, never let up on the pull of the line—but then, suddenly, it went slack. When I reeled in, the bait was gone, and so was the striper. I was utterly deflated, and in that moment I understood why fishermen would wait all day to catch something: you have to understand what you’re missing before you can really feel a loss.
That’s why Lucy’s boycott of this session hurts so much more than it did at the beginning. I know her now. I’ve connected with her. So her withdrawal isn’t a challenge; it’s a setback.
After a few minutes, I turn off the music, and we sit out the rest of the session in silence.
When Max and I were trying to have a baby, we had to see a social worker at the IVF clinic—but I don’t remember the questions being anything like the ones that Vanessa and I are hearing now.
The social worker’s name is Felicity Grimes, and she looks like she didn’t get the memo that the eighties are over. Her red suit jacket is asymmetrical, with enormous shoulder pads. Her hair is piled so high it could function as a sail in the wind. “Do you really think you’ll stay together?” she asks.
“We’re married,” I say. “I think that’s a pretty good indicator of our commitment.”
“Fifty percent of marriages end in divorce,” Felicity says.
I am nearly certain that, when Max and I met with the social worker, she didn’t question whether or not our relationship would stand the test of time.
“That’s true of opposite-sex marriages,” Vanessa says. “But gay marriage hasn’t been around long enough to really have any statistics. Then again, considering the lengths we had to go to to get married, you could argue we’re even more committed than the average straight couple.”
I squeeze Vanessa’s hand, a warning. I’ve tried to explain to her that, no matter how stupid the questions get, we have to just stay calm and answer them. The objective here is not to wave a rainbow banner. It’s to get a social worker’s check mark, so that we can move on to the next step. “What she means is that we’re in this for the long haul,” I say, and smile tentatively.
We had to fight the clinic director to begin the process of in vitro—in spite of the fact that a court order held the frozen embryos in limbo. She agreed to allow us to get the psychological components completed, and then—if the court ruled in our favor—to start Vanessa immediately on the drug regimen. But, she pointed out, if Max wanted Reid and Liddy to have the same privilege, she would have to give it to them.
We have already explained to the counselor how we met, how long we’ve been together. “Have you considered the legal ramifications of being same-sex parents?”
“Yes,” I say. “I’ll adopt the baby, after Vanessa gives birth.”
“I assume you both have powers of attorney?”
We look at each other. Unlike straight couples, if I were in a car crash and dying, Vanessa wouldn’t have the rights as my spouse to sit by me at the hospital, to make the decision to turn off life support. Because our marriage isn’t federally recognized, we have to jump through all these extra legal hoops to get the same rights—1,138 of them—that come naturally to heterosexual couples who get married. Vanessa and I had been planning to sit down with a bottle of bourbon one night and ask each other questions no one ever wants to have to answer—about organ donation and hospice care and brain death—but then we were served with a lawsuit and, ironically, asking a lawyer to draft a power of attorney was moved to the back burner. “We’re in the process of getting that taken care of.” It’s not a lie if we meant to do it, is it?
“Why do you want to have a child?” Felicity asks.
“I won’t speak for Vanessa,” I say, “but I’ve always wanted one. I tried for almost a decade, with my ex-husband. I don’t think I’ll feel complete if I don’t have the chance to be a mother.”
The social worker turns to Vanessa. “I see kids every day at work. Some of them are shy, or funny, or complete pains in the neck. But every single one of them is living proof that, at one point, their parents believed they’d have a future together. I want to have Zoe’s baby so that she can grow up with two mothers who have moved heaven and earth to bring her into this world.”
“But how do you feel about being a parent?”
“I’m obviously fine with it,” Vanessa says.
“Yet you’ve never expressed a desire to have a child before now . . .”
“Because I wasn’t with a partner I’d want to have kids with.”
“Are you doing this for Zoe, then, or for yourself?”
“How can you ask me to separate those?” Vanessa says, exasperated. “Of course I’m doing it for Zoe. But I’m also doing it for me.”
Felicity writes something down on her pad. It makes me nervous. “What makes you think you’d be a good parent?”
“I’m patient,” I reply. “I have a lot of experience helping people with problems express themselves in a different way. I know how to listen.”
“And she loves harder than anyone I’ve ever known,” Vanessa adds. “She’d do anything for her child. And I—well, I’m a school counselor. I have to believe that will come in handy eventually with my own kid.”
“She’s also smart, confident, and empathetic,” I say. “An amazing role model.”
“So Ms. Shaw—you work with teenagers. Did you ever babysit when you were younger? Have any younger siblings you helped raise?”
“No,” Vanessa says, “but I’m pretty sure I can Google how to change a diaper if I get stumped.”
“She’s also funny,” I interject. “Great sense of humor!”
“You know, I’ve come across a few teen mothers during my career,” Vanessa points out. “They’re close enough to childhood to remember it intimately, but I wouldn’t say that makes them better equipped for parenting . . .”
Felicity looks up at her. “Are you always this sensitive?”
“Only when I’m talking to someone who’s a—”
“What else?” I say brightly. “You must have some other questions for us.”
“How are you going to explain to your child why she has two moms, and no dad?” Felicity asks.
I was expecting this question. “I’d start by telling her that there are lots of different kinds of families, and that one isn’t any better than another.”
“Children, as you know, can be cruel. What if a classmate makes fun of her for having two mothers?”
Vanessa crosses her legs. “I’d go and beat up the kid who teased her.”
I stare at her. “You did not just say that.”
“Oh, fine. We’d deal with it. We’d talk our kid through it,” Vanessa says. “And then I’d go beat up the bully.”
I grit my teeth. “What she means is that we would speak to the bully’s parents and try to explain a way to get their child to be a little more tolerant—”
The phone rings, and the social worker answers it. “I’m sorry,” she says to us. “Will you excuse me for a moment?”
As soon as Felicity Grimes steps out of her office, I turn to Vanessa. “Really? Did you really just say that to a social worker who is going to decide whether or not we get to use these embryos?”
“She’s not deciding. Judge O’Neill is. And besides—these questions are ludicrous! There are plenty of deadbeat dads in the world who are reason enough to glorify lesbian parents.”
“But the social worker has to give us the green light before the clinic will start any procedure,” I point out. “You don’t know how to play this game, Vanessa, but I do. You say anything and do anything you have to in order to get her to sign off on us.”
“I’m not going to let someone judge me just because I’m gay. Isn’t it bad enough that our relationship is being dragged through the court system? Do I really have to sit here and smile while Pam Ewing here tells me I can’t be both a lesbian and a good parent?”
“She never said that,” I argue. “That’s just what you heard.”
I imagine Felicity Grimes listening in on the other side of the door, and putting a big red X through our file. Couple can’t even see eye to eye during an hour-long interview. Unfit to parent.
Vanessa shakes her head. “I’m sorry, but I won’t play this game like Max did. I can’t pretend to be someone I’m not, Zoe. I spent half my life doing that.”
In that moment, the anger I feel toward Max bubbles up like blisters on my tongue. It is one thing for him to take away my right to use these embryos. It’s another thing to take away what makes me happy.
“Vanessa,” I say, “I want a baby. But not if it means losing you.”
She looks up at me as the social worker sails through the door again. “My apologies, again. Everything looks good on my end.”
Vanessa and I look at each other. “You mean we’re done?” I ask. “We passed?”
She smiles. “It’s not a test. We don’t expect you to have the right answers. We just want you to have answers, period.”
Vanessa stands up and shakes the social worker’s hand. “Thank you.”
“Good luck.”
I gather my coat and purse, and we walk out of the office. For a moment, we just stand in the hallway, and then Vanessa grabs me and hugs me so hard I am lifted off my feet. “I feel like I just won the Super Bowl.”
“More like the first game of the season,” I point out.
“Still. It feels good to have someone say yes instead of no.”
Her arm is draped over my shoulders as we walk down the hall. “For the record,” I say, “when you went to beat up that hypothetical bully? I may not have wanted to tell the social worker, but I would have been right behind you.”
“That’s why I love you.”
We’ve reached the elevator, and I press the button. When the bell sounds, Vanessa and I step away from each other.
It’s second nature.
It’s so that the people inside have nothing to stare at.
On Tuesday mornings I go to a hospice and do music therapy with people who are dying by degrees. It is brutal, soul-draining work. And yet, I’d far rather be there than sitting next to Angela Moretti again, this time for a hearing on an emergency motion that was filed by Wade Preston just before the close of business last night. Angela is so angry, in fact, she’s not even making lawyer jokes at Preston’s expense.
Judge O’Neill stares daggers at Preston. “I have before me an emergency motion filed by you asking to disqualify Angela Moretti as Zoe Baxter’s attorney, and a Rule Eleven motion to strike this motion, filed by Ms. Moretti. Or, as I like to call it, a whole bottle of Excedrin before noon. What’s going on, Counselor?”
“Judge, I take no pleasure in bringing this information to the court. But as you can see from the attached photograph, which I’d like to enter as Exhibit A, Ms. Moretti is not only a lesbian sympathizer . . . she is engaged in this deviant lifestyle herself.”
He holds up a grainy eight-by-ten that shows Angela and me, embracing. I have to squint to figure out where on earth this was taken. Then I see the chain-link fence and the lamppost and realize it is the high school parking lot.
Angela and I didn’t have a scheduled meeting that day.
Which means Preston has had someone following me.
Wade Preston shrugs. “A picture’s worth a thousand words.”
“He’s right,” Angela says. “And this fallacious photo speaks for itself.”
“If this is what they’re willing to do in public, imagine what they do in private . . .”
“Oh, my God,” Angela mutters.
“It’s a little late to start praying now, darlin’. Clearly the defendant and her attorney are embroiled in an improper relationship that’s in violation of the ethical rules governing attorneys in the state of Rhode Island,” Preston says.
Ben Benjamin slowly comes out of his seat. “Um, actually, Wade? In Rhode Island, you can have sex with your client.”
Preston whips around and looks at him. “You can?”
I blink at Angela. “You can?”
Benjamin nods. “As long as it’s not in lieu of legal fees.”
Undaunted, Preston faces the judge again. “Your Honor, Rhode Island notwithstanding, we all know there are ethical standards in the practice of law, and a counselor would have to be morally bereft to have a relationship with a client th
at crosses the boundaries of propriety as indicated by Exhibit A. Clearly, Ms. Moretti is not fit to represent her client impartially in this matter.”
The judge turns to Angela. “I assume you have something to add here?”
“I absolutely, unequivocally deny that I am having an affair with my client, whose wife is sitting behind me even now. What Mr. Preston’s paparazzi witnessed was an innocent embrace that followed a meeting with my client, when she became distraught after learning about Wade Preston’s attempt to distort justice by filing a motion to appoint a guardian ad litem for zygotes. Although I completely understand why Mr. Preston would not recognize common human kindness when he sees it—since that presumes he is indeed human—he has completely misinterpreted the situation. In addition, Your Honor, this begs the question why there was someone taking a photograph of my client in the first place.”
“She was in a public place, in a parking lot, in plain view,” Preston argues.
“Is that a wedding ring you’re wearing?” the judge asks Angela.
“Yes.”
“Are you married, Ms. Moretti?”
She narrows her eyes. “Yes.”
“To a man or a woman?” Wade Preston interrupts.
Angela rounds on him. “Objection! This is completely unsupportable, Your Honor. This is slander and defamation—”
“Enough,” Judge O’Neill roars. “Motion denied. I’m not awarding counsel fees or sanctions to either party. Both of you, stop wasting my time.”
The minute he is off the bench, Angela crosses to the plaintiff’s table and shouts up at Wade Preston, who is at least eight inches taller than she is. “I swear, you malign my character like that again and I’m going to slap a civil lawsuit on you so fast you’ll be knocked into next week.”
“Malign your character? Why, Ms. Moretti, are you suggesting that being homosexual is an insult?” He tsks. “Shame, shame. GLAAD may have to revoke your lifetime membership card.”
She jabs a finger into his skinny lapel and looks like she’s going to breathe fire but, suddenly steps away and holds up her palms, a concession. “You know what? I was going to say fuck you, but then I decided I’d just wait for the trial to start, so you can go fuck yourself.”
