The Schopenhauer Cure(27)

“Right. Thanks,” said Gill, who shot a quick look at Philip and added, sotto voce, “Whoa, that was fast,” and then returned to his narrative. “Well, Rose has an idée fixe that her father sexually molested her when she was young. She can’t let it go. Does she remember any sexual event happening? No. Witnesses? No. But her therapist believes that if she’s depressed, fearful about sex, has stuff like lapses in attention and uncontrollable emotions, especially rage at men, then she must have been molested. That’s the message of that goddamned book. And her therapist swears by it. So, for months, as I’ve told you ad nauseam, we’ve been talking about little else. My wife’s therapy is our life. No time for anything else. No other topic of conversation. Our sex life is defunct. Nothing. Forget it. A couple of weeks ago she asked me to phone her father—she won’t talk to him herself—and invite him to come to her therapy session. She wanted me to attend, too—for ‘protection,’ she said.

“So I phoned him. He agreed immediately. Yesterday he took a bus down from Portland and appeared at the therapy session this morning carrying his beat-up suitcase because he was going to head right back to the bus station after we met. The session was a disaster. Absolute mayhem. Rose just unloaded on him and kept on unloading. Without limits, without letup, without a word of acknowledgment that her old man had come several hundred miles for her—for her ninety-minute therapy session. Accusing him of everything, even of inviting his neighbors, his poker chums, his coworkers at the fire department—he was a fireman back then—to have sex with her when she was a child.”

“What did the father do?” asked Rebecca, a tall, slender, forty-year-old woman of exceptional beauty who had been leaning forward, listening intently to Gill.

“He behaved like a mensch. He’s a nice old man, about seventy years old, kindly, sweet. This is the first time I met him. He was amazing—God, I wish I had a father like that. Just sat there and took it and told Rose that, if she had all that anger, it was probably best to let it out. He just kept gently denying all her crazy charges and took a guess—a good one, I think—that what she is really angry about is his walking out on the family when she was twelve. He said her anger was fertilized—his word, he’s a farmer—by her mother, who had been poisoning her mind against him since she was a child. He told her he had had to leave, that he had been depressed out of his gourd living with her mother and would be dead now if he had stayed. And let me tell you, I know Rose’s mother, and he’s got a point. A good one.

“So, at the end of the session he asked for a ride to the bus terminal, and before I could answer, Rose said she wouldn’t feel safe in the same car with him. ‘Got it,’ he said, and walked away, lugging his suitcase.

“Well, ten minutes later Rose and I were driving down Market Street, and I see him—a white-haired, stooped old man pulling his suitcase. It was starting to rain, and I say to myself, ‘This is the shits.’ I lost it and told Rose, ‘He comes here for you—for your therapy session—he comes all the way from Portland, it’s raining, and goddamnit I’m taking him to the bus station.’ I pulled over to the curb and offered him a lift. Rose stares daggers at me. ‘If he gets in, I get out,’ she says. I say, ‘Be my guest.’ I point to Starbucks on the street and tell her to wait there and I’ll come back in a few minutes. She gets out and stalks off. That was about five hours ago. She never did show up at Starbucks. I drove over to Golden Gate Park and been walking around since. I’m thinking of never going home.”

With that, Gill flopped back in his chair, exhausted.

The members—Tony, Rebecca, Bonnie, and Stuart—broke out into a chorus of approval: “Great, Gill.” “About time, Gill.” “Wow, you really did it.” “Whoa, good move.” Tony said, “I can’t tell you how glad I am that you tore yourself loose from that bitch.” “If you need a bed,” said Bonnie, nervously running her hands through her frizzy brown hair and adjusting her goggle-shaped, yellow-tinted spectacles, “I’ve got a spare room. Don’t worry, you’re safe,” she added with a giggle, “I’m far too old for you and my daughter’s home.”

Julius, not happy with the pressure the group was applying (he had seen too many members drop out of too many therapy groups because they were ashamed of disappointing the group), made his first intervention, “Strong feedback you’re getting, Gill. How do you feel about it?”

“Great. It feels great. Only I…I don’t want to disappoint everybody. This is happening so fast—this all just happened this morning…I’m shaky and I’m fluid…don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“You mean,” said Julius, “you don’t want to substitute your wife’s imperatives with the group’s imperatives.”

“Yeah. I guess. Yeah, I see what you mean. Right. But it’s a mixed bag. I really want, really really need this encouragement…grateful for it…I need guidance—this may be a turning point in my life. Heard from everyone but you, Julius. And of course from our new member. Philip, is it?”

Philip nodded.

“Philip, I know you don’t know about my situation, but you do.” Gill turned to face Julius. “What about it? What do you think I should do?”