Night Road(84)

Dr. Harriet Bloom took a seat opposite Jude. She was as austere as her office—steel-gray hair, an angular face, and dark eyes that noticed everything. Today she was wearing a houndstooth sheath with black hose and fashionable black pumps.

When Jude had first folded under Miles’s relentless pressure to “get help” and “see someone,” she’d visited a string of psychiatrists and therapists and counselors. At first her sole criterion had been their ability to dispense prescription drugs. In time, she’d weeded out the touchy-feely purveyors of hope and the idiots who told her boldly that someday she would smile again. The minute someone told her that time healed all wounds, she got up and left.

By 2005, only Harriet Bloom remained—Harriet, who rarely smiled and whose demeanor hinted at a personal understanding of tragedy. And she could prescribe drugs.

“What?” Jude said again, shivering.

“We both know what day it is.”

Jude wanted to make a smart comeback, but she couldn’t. All she could do was nod.

“Did you sleep last night?”

She shook her head. “Miles held me, but I pushed him away.”

“You didn’t want comfort.”

“What good is it?”

“Are you going to do anything to mark the anniversary?”

The question made Jude angry, and anger was good, better than this free-falling despair. “Like send balloons up to her? Or sit by that granite stone in the grass where her body is? Or maybe I should invite guests over and celebrate her life … which is over.”

“Sometimes people find comfort in such things.”

“Yeah. Well. I don’t.”

“As I’ve said before, you don’t want comfort.” Harriet wrote something on her notepad. “Why do you keep coming to me? You control your feelings so tightly we can hardly make progress.”

“I come to you for drugs. You know that.”

“How are you doing, really?”

“Tonight will be … bad. I’ll start remembering her, and I won’t be able to stop. I’ll think that Miles was wrong. That she could have gotten better, or that if I’d kissed her she could have woken up like a Disney princess. I’ll imagine that I should have tried mouth-to-mouth or pounded on her heart. Crazy things.” Jude looked up. Tears blurred Dr. Bloom’s sharp face, softened it. “I’ll take some sleeping pills, and then it will be tomorrow, and I’ll be okay until Thanksgiving, and then Christmas, and then … her birthday.”

“Zach’s birthday.”

She flinched at that. “Yeah. Not that he celebrates it anymore, either.”

“When was the last time your family celebrated anything?”

“You know the answer to that. We’re pod people like in that body-snatcher movie. We only pretend to be real. But why are we rehashing all of this? I just want you to tell me how to get through today.”

“You never ask me about tomorrow. Why is that?”

“What do you mean?”

“Most patients want to learn how to live. They want me to make a map that they can follow to get them to a healthy future. You simply just want to survive each day.”

“He-llo. I’m not bipolar or schizophrenic or borderline. I’m sad. My daughter died, and I’m devastated. There’s no getting better.”

“Is that what you want to believe?”

“It’s the way it is.” Jude crossed her arms. “Look, you’ve helped me, if that’s what this is about. Maybe you think I should be doing better by now, maybe you think six years is a long time. But it’s not, not when your child died. And I am doing better. I grocery shop. I cook dinner. I go out with girlfriends. I make love to my husband. I vote.”

“You didn’t mention either your son or your granddaughter.”

“It wasn’t meant to be an exhaustive list,” Jude said.

“Are you still stalking Grace?”

Jude pulled her scarf off. She was hot now, sweating, in fact, and the scarf was choking her. “I don’t stalk her.”

“You stand in the trees and watch her at that after-school program, but you won’t hold her or play with her. What would you call it?”

Jude started to unbutton her coat. “Man, it’s hot.”

“When was the last time you held Grace? Or kissed her?”

“Really. It’s an oven in here…”

“It’s not hot.”

“Damn menopause.”

“Jude,” Harriet said with an irritating patience. “You refuse to love your granddaughter.”

“No,” Jude said, finally looking up. “I can’t love her. There’s a difference. I’ve tried. Do you really think I haven’t tried? But when I look at her, I feel … nothing.”

“That’s not true, Jude.”

“Look,” Jude sighed. “I get what you’re doing. We’ve done this dance for years. I tell you I can’t feel, and you toss back that I don’t want to. My brain is the boss. I get it. I do. The old me would have been certain you were right.”

“And the new you?”

“The new me is living. That’s enough. I don’t burst into tears when I see pink anymore; I can start my car without crying; I can look at my son and not be angry at him. Sometimes I can look into his eyes without even thinking about Mia. I can pick my granddaughter up from school and give her a bath and read her a bedtime story, all without crying. You know how much progress this is. So can we just, for now, forget the next step and let me get through this day?”