Not exactly complete. A unit. One. We’re the we in my life, if that makes any sense.” The first thing I’d done on arriving at Foote’s house had been to scrutinize the premises for any sign of a dog. I’d found none, unless you count the possibility of a kennel run in progress.
“Does it make sense to you?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“And is there room for another person there? In that we?"
“Not just anyone. But yes, there is. The right one.”
“I’d suggest that you let people know that.”
Close to the end of the fifty-minute hour, we made another appointment. The “session,” as Rita, my therapist friend and second-floor tenant, calls such meetings, had been different from what I’d expected. Unlike movie psychiatrists, Dr. Foote didn’t have a foreign accent and didn’t ask weird or corny questions about my father and mother. Rita does have a foreign accent—New York—and she’s obsessed with parents. Mine, I might add, were not the reason Rita had talked me into seeing Dr. Foote. Rather, Rita had argued that the combination of my head injury and the loss of my relationship with Steve were too much for me to bear by myself. I’d countered with a lot of claims about dogs, friends, and relatives, but Rita, who understands me, had pointed out that if Rowdy or Kimi had suffered a concussion and a traumatic loss, and had sporadic memory problems and early-morning insomnia, I wouldn’t hesitate to seek professional help. According to Rita, I should be as good an owner of myself as I was of my animals.
As I was passing through Dr. Foote’s waiting room on my way out, the door to the outside opened, and two thoughts leaped to my consciousness. The first was that since the bland-looking fortyish man who entered the waiting room was evidently Dr. Foote’s next patient, he must be totally out of his mind. The second was Rita’s assurance that seeing a therapist was invariably proof of sanity, not madness. The man’s appearance and demeanor supported Rita’s view. He was about five ten and had light brown hair, blue eyes, and a fading tan. Not that the mad are necessarily tall or short, pale or dark, but if they look and act like some of the obviously deranged people who hang out in Harvard Square, they seem anything but ordinary. Dr. Foote’s patient wasn’t wearing jingle bells, hadn’t embroidered bizarre words on his clothing, and didn’t shout or whisper to imaginary listeners. On the contrary, he was well groomed and wore a dark business suit, and he dealt with the awkwardness of confronting a possibly insane person, namely, me, by nodding his head almost imperceptibly and giving a slight, formal smile. With equal courtesy, I returned the acknowledgment. What are manners for, after all? Disguising embarrassment, among other things. You’d have thought we were in the waiting room of a V.D. clinic.
Chapter 5
Subj: Your referral
From:
[email protected] To:
[email protected] -----------------------------
Hi Rita,
I tried to call to thank you for the referral, but your line was busy. In any case, thanks for referring Holly Winter. I really appreciate this gesture of confidence. As we discussed, I have a strong interest in neurology, as well as in loss, grief, and attachment, and always welcome referrals where these and other issues are paramount.
The plans for the new kitchen and baths are taking shape. David and I are very excited about the project. You'll have to come and have a drink with us when all the work is done.
Once again, many thanks for the interesting referral. I still have a few hours open I'd like to fill, so bear me in mind!
Best,
Vee
Chapter 6
Male dogs strut around and even roll onto their backs in public without visibly blushing at the prospect of embarrassing remarks about whatever surgery they may or may not have had. The canine inability to wish for medical privacy is not limited to males. If Kimi, for example, felt the need to consult a mental-health professional, and if her dog-psychiatric records eventually fell into her paws—or were dropped there by Rita—she wouldn’t object to my publishing them in Dog’s Life magazine or otherwise letting everyone on dog’s green earth read them. I, however, belong to a lesser species and am thus tempted to suppress documents I acquired months after they were written. Alternatively, I could annotate them at length. As it is, I’ll limit myself to a single
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