finally said. “It’s all about fault.”
“Do you know that a young child assumes that he is the cause of everything? It’s a normal stage of development.” I often get pulled into trying to educate Morrie about basic human psychology. The information usually rolled off him like rain from a slick metal roof. “What did you think was your fault when you were a kid?”
“I told you. Everything.”
“Everything like?”
Morrie gave a disgusted snort. “Like my dog left fur all over the furniture. Like I got dirty and needed a bath. Like my mother needed to drink too much. Like my father had to work so hard to pay the bills. Like my brother died.”
I questioned my memory. “You have a brother?”
“I don’t have a brother,” he said. “He’s dead.”
“Hello, Morrie,” I said. “We’ve been together for five years. You’ve never mentioned a brother.”
“There’s nothing to mention. He doesn’t interrupt my life.”
These moments happen with Morrie, head-on collisions of our internal realities. The messages he leaves me, announcing himself—This is your patient, Morris Viner—as if we’re strangers, are a prime example. It’s a constant struggle for a human being, even for a psychoanalyst, to keep in mind that the other person has a separate and distinct subjectivity, that we each occupy a unique mental world. Our minds default to the assumption that The Other operates like we do. Morrie runs on very different psychic software. His inner life is about numbers, routine, repetition, compartmentalization. About anything but emotion or meaning. These moments are my signal to go back to the beginning.
“I need to know the story of your brother,” I said.
“Dr. Goodman, this is not what is coming to my mind. This is what’s coming to your mind.”
“You’re right. This is one of those important emotional things we need to pay attention to.”
“I’ll give you two minutes. Then we’re talking about what I want to talk about.” Morrie set the timer on his oversized, multifunction watch. “I was three when he was born. He didn’t grow right. He had asthma, and one of the attacks suffocated him. That’s enough.”
“Two minutes aren’t up,” I said. Everything about Morrie fell into place for me, and I, perhaps for the first time, felt tender toward him. “No wonder you constantly worry about getting cheated. And about fault.”
“I have no idea what you are talking about, Dr. Goodman.” His right foot, wagging a hundred miles an hour, suggested otherwise.
“You had a sick baby brother who demanded all the attention. When he died, your parents were devastated. Your mother drank to drown her grief, and your father buried himself in his work. No one had time for a lonely little boy.”
Morrie’s jaw twitched. “Are you going to raise your fee in January? I need to know. My trust officer has to plan the withdrawals for next year.” His watch buzzed.
“Did you hear anything I just said?” I asked.
“Your time is up, and our time is up.” Morrie sat and stacked the pillows in descending order by size as he did at the end of each session. “The Simpsons start at five. I don’t like to miss the beginning.”
Chapter Six
The garbled message on my machine was from the San Antonio Police Department. I replayed it five times, trying to distinguish the undistinguishable, trying to hear above the worried ringing in my ears. “Please return the call,” a male voice said. Detective Somebody. Something like Slater. Something about a suicide.
So. Howard’s death had been ruled a suicide. An odd sense of relief swept through me, as if I’d known it all along. I dialed the number right away. A chirpy female answered the phone. “San Antonio Police Department.”
“Detective Slater, please.”
“No Slater in the directory.”
“I might have the name wrong. I’m returning a call from a detective. Something about a suicide.”
“Suicide is Homicide,” she said. “I know who you want.”
I heard a click, then a man said, “Slaughter.”
“What?”
I felt a little crazy. Like some queasiness had taken over my head. I saw Howard’s workshop. I saw it in red. Slaughter. And then the kosher slaughterhouse where my father once worked appeared in my mind. It was an ugly job, but it seemed to suit my dad. He’d do in one domesticated victim after another, while arguing Torah with the shocet above the grinding of the machinery and the hiss of the water hose. My own analyst, Dr. Bernstein, found this bloody bit of my father’s story fascinating, said he’d never heard of such a clear example of counterphobic reaction to castration anxiety. At eight, I’d been equally intrigued, my curiosity urging me to the slaughterhouse against my mother’s strictest prohibition. Slaughter. I’d hear the complaining cows corralled in the back, not yet knowing how much they had to complain about. I’d stand all-eyes in the doorway, taking in the ritual. The process was oddly soothing: the coaxing of the leery but obedient animal, the quick slit of the throat, the hoisting of the carcass. All predictable. No surprises. Not at all like home.
“Detective Slaughter,” the man said. “Homicide.”
“This is Dr. Goodman,” I said, putting the emphasis on doctor to steady myself. “Returning your call.”
“Yeah. You have a patient Allison Forsyth?”
“I’m a psychiatrist.” I stalled. “I can’t reveal the names of my patients.”
“Well, this particular Allison Forsyth jumped off a very tall building earlier today. Didn’t survive to tell the story. Her husband said you were treating her. I’m in charge of the case. I’d like to talk to you. Get some things straight.”
He means Howard, I thought. Howard is the one who died. Allison can’t be dead. We have an appointment tomorrow. And the next day. A chill started at the base of my spine and rolled to my scalp.
“I could come tomorrow morning,” I heard my voice say.
“I’m here at dawn. Beat the I-10 traffic, you know.”
“Eight-fifteen?” I calculated I could drop the kids off, go straight downtown on San Pedro and be back for John Heyderman’s ten o’clock session.
“Police headquarters is on Nueva, west of the Courthouse. You can bypass the security booth. Homicide is down the first hall on the right.”
I wrote the directions in my appointment book using my favorite pen. Then, to try to make what he’d said real, so I would remember what I wanted to deny, I crossed out Allison’s name on my schedule: Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday. And Friday. The thin blue lines I drew in a shaky hand underscored the empty eight o’clock slots formerly reserved for Howard’s name. I willed the action to make me feel. Something.
