Family Therapy
Gathered
together in her office, we are a mysterious centrifugal force dispersed around
the bland interior. Earlier, each of us
had a separate session of our own. Now,
the therapist sits in our circle, trying for eye contact to reassure us that
she is with us for the long haul.
To be here, my husband needed to inform his secretary
to hold this time open, to arrange a continuance on the Haythorpe case, to
leave work without a bulging briefcase that keeps him in our downstairs study
past my bedtime, preparing briefs and citing precedent past
To be here, our daughter had to deign to emerge from
her bedroom whose canopied bed is hung with mosquito netting she refuses to
discuss, emerge from behind dark glasses, from under headphones, arms crossed
over a
To be here, our son was subjected to another fatherly,
lawyerly outburst no longer effective, although my husband hasn’t figured this
out yet, so I threatened cancellation of the DSL line, and the withdrawal of
help with college applications scattered around his bedroom where he sleeps
beside his monitor, all lights on.
To be here, I needed to make the appointments, write
my husband a reminder, watch my daughter write the time and place on the palm
of her hand, and stick a post-it on my son’s computer. I needed to leave my rosewood desk where I
write my weekly column on new restaurants, to forego meditation, to leave my
book on the guest room bed, where I frequently sleep or daydream of the ghost
who wanders through the house, long skirts swishing against hard-edged Danish
furniture, lantern held yearningly high in her search for something or
someone. I needed to entice the family
to assemble, cajole us to arrive today at the same time to hear just where we
go from here.
But first, the therapist says, she has
one other thing to say. Then she laughs,
a tinkly laugh she surely would have stifled had she realized how dismissive
she sounds about the only thing she could have said to send us out of her
office forever, not cured—cured of what, anyway?—but a family again.
Giggling, my daughter rises to
announce, “That settles that.” Her
brother follows her out the door asking, “Was it pearly white?” and then their
father stands and looks around as if precedent has somehow failed him, but
he’ll give it another chance. He follows the kids, calling, “Let’s all go to
lunch.” The therapist is clearly feeling
left out, but what can I do but eventually pay her bill? As I gleefully join my family, I replay what
the therapist said, moments ago, when we were still gathered in her circle,
before we became a family again, hysterical with complicity and relief.
She said, “Before we begin, I want
each of you to know: you have all seen
the ghost.”
Copyright © 2005 Pamela Painter