Harold Edison’s call came much sooner than Susan had expected, that very night in fact. Really, he was meeting expectations she had not had since the immediacy of childhood when she demanded, and sometimes got, instant results.
He asked if she could bring her daughter to meet him and she hesitated for a few seconds, wondering how long it would take her to convince Andrea, but then decided, why not, and made an appointment for the next afternoon.
When he agreed to the two o’clock time she suggested she could not help saying, “Do you have many clients?”
“Not more than I can be effective with,” he answered with a chuckle. “And most take away a solution or tools. I encourage independence.”
“Oh, I see.” She didn’t really.
“See you both tomorrow. And if your daughter balks and needs more time then call and we’ll make it a day or two later.”
As she hung up she wondered if it were so obvious that she had not yet consulted Andrea about her visit to him. It took her more than an hour to convince her daughter. She did it over the phone because if she went to her house she knew Andrea would keep getting up to do something or other and scattering all Susan’s convictions. On the telephone she had to listen. Finally she simply wore her down. Andrea was too tired and too angry to argue clearly and her distress was all carefully controlled under a social façade. Susan couldn’t have put this into words but she felt it and in spite of her daughter being nearly forty she did a mother-knows-best on her.
“I’ll pick you up at one-thirty, then.”
“Well, okay, but come by Jean’s house. I’ll take the kids there, it’s the only place I feel safe leaving them. They’ll have to miss swimming, I guess. What if he follows us?”
“Then he’ll know where we’re going,” Susan said matter-of-factly but not really calmly. She did not think Tom was dangerous but Andrea's paranoia had a way of quickly affecting her.
As she got into bed that night, still on her own side after six years of widowhood, she patted the empty space beside her. She wondered what her husband would have thought of Harold Edison.
* * *
“Where are we going, Mother?,” Andrea asked when Susan turned the car down the narrow lane.
“Hush, don’t distract me. There should be a place to park somewhere near – ah, there it is.”
“I can’t get out,” Andrea said in a peevish tone. Susan obediently started the car again, backed up, waited until her daughter disembarked and then parked again. Really, she would like to slap her at times.
They made their way through the twig gate and Andrea followed her mother without comment or interest in her surroundings until they got near the cottage. Then she did stop and look at the water flowing over rocks imitating perfectly a section of stream.
Harold, who had been waiting for them in one of the chairs in the garden room came to greet them. “Would you like to sit outside?” he asked Andrea who had glanced at him, shaken his hand while introduced, and then turned her eyes back to the water.
“I’m allergic to wasps, “ she said.
Susan’s palm itched again to slap.
Inside Harold had turned the two wing chairs so they faced the other seating in the room. Susan made for one of them, knowing how comfortable they were, but Andrea chose a wooden chair almost off to the side and perched stiffly on the edge of it. Harold sat on the sofa, a rotund piece of furniture upholstered in what looked like hessian.
Susan, observing them all as if from a distance as they got settled because it made her feel in some way distanced – as perhaps Andrea was wishing by choosing the unchummy chair – thought what a strange trio they made, Harold, bent forward, elbows on lap staring at his hands with fingers slowly twisting, Andrea, upright and silent, the ten or more pounds she had put on since the marriage break-up straining her clothing unprettily and Susan wishing she would at least make an effort and keep her knees together, and she, sitting like some grand dame at an afternoon’s entertainment waiting for the music to start.
As she glanced at her daughter looking so unlovely, Harold’s question about Andrea perhaps having another man touched her mind and this time she did not dismiss it but considered the fact that Andrea had suddenly, a year or so ago, begun to take very good care of herself, grooming, exercise, had seemed to become happier. Then, several months back, all this had changed. Now Susan realized it was before the marriage broke up, not after. Almost as if there had been somebody and that had broken up and then Andrea had shoved away Tom… Oh, what a notion, she thought and pushed it away as Harold was asking Andrea.
“Are you here under duress? I don’t wish you to stay if it is too wrong for you.”
“Well I am certainly not here of my own choosing,” she replied, “but my mother seems to think you can help me and – convinced” (Susan was sure she was about to say “forced”) “me to come.” She was staring at his fingers making slow rhythmic patterns with each other.
Susan wished now she had thought to mention to Andrea that Harold had some rather unusual mannerisms. She was afraid her daughter would suddenly stand up and walk out if she felt his behavior too strange. Once she had come home from a children’s party because the girl’s father had kept clicking his teeth.
“Will you let me try to help?”
After a few long moments Andrea gave a sigh, relaxed back into her chair, crossed her ankles. Her shrug was graceful and her smile charming if not very deep. “As you wish. What have I got to lose?”
He began to question her in much the same way he had done with Susan the day before. Details and details. Definition of terms – stalker, abuse, reasonable expectations. Her feelings, her perception of the children’s feelings, an attempt to elicit from Andrea how her husband felt. To this Andrea merely said, “Tom is no longer my husband except in the eyes of the law and I want that changed.”
“There is someone else.” Harold did not ask, he stated.
“There – is – no – one – else.” Andrea’s words were stones dropped without room for doubt.
“No longer.” Harold said, staring at her.
She stared back and said nothing. Oh god, Susan thought, and wondered who it had been. It would occur to her later that there had been no pussy-footing around about the “someone else” referring to Tom’s situation.
Harold went back to asking how they had met but Andrea would have none of that either, saying, as she had the first time, “I don’t want to go into that, I don’t think it has anything to do with this, there is no chance for reconciliation.”
He acknowledged her perception. “Just so you are clear on this. Then tell me what you envision five years down the road.”
Both Andrea and Susan looked a bit startled by the question but it seemed to perk Andrea up and she began to thoughtfully pursue the query out loud. Susan was listening with interest but her glance strayed out the window.
Harold cupped a hand at Andrea as if he were about to catch a ball, “Sorry to interrupt for a moment. Susan, would you like to make some tea. Everything is on the counter.”
She would. She could still hear what was said and she did not feel she was being got out of the way. And she was thirsty.
The kitchen was marvelous, not that she had expected anything ordinary after the rest of the house. Again the intriguing roof line opened the space to light and sky and here the back wall was mostly glass with the row of Douglas fir outside seeming to be indoors. Or the kitchen to be outdoors. Really, he was a nature fanatic. Her ire was not with the fact of this, she quite liked it, but more to do with the cost and her being charged such a high fee when he obviously didn’t need it. In financial concerns logic deserted her.
The counters and floors both seemed to be old bricks set in old wood. As she waited for the kettle to boil she gave curious scrutiny to the appliances which were a brilliant yellow and looked like cubes of sun had fallen through the trees. They looked painted. She’d never thought of painting a stove and refrigerator. The sink looked like poured cement. The kettle was boiling and she had to end her pleasant surveyance. And she hadn’t really paid attention to Andrea’s plans for the future. Maybe she didn’t really want to know. She didn’t look forward to being part of any more disharmony.
As Susan carried in the tea tray Andrea stood up and said, “I need a washroom”. She ignored her mother’s glance pleading for a little more decorum and followed Harold’s pointing in the direction of the requested room.
Andrea was back out before tea was all poured and Susan was glad she hadn’t done a long sulk in the bathroom, a favored ploy of hers as a teenager, those few years when they had tried living at a posh address and had cut down on house space to afford the neighborhood. Andrea and her younger sister had then shared a bedroom because their father needed the third bedroom for his den. For those two years Andrea seemed to have spent a lot of time locked in the downstairs bathroom: the house had had three bathrooms and a three-car garage. Poor kid, Susan now thought with the clarity of hindsight, she must have been miserable and that bathroom her only privacy.
They drank the tea and ate the delicate cookies, spoke of general things and Harold said the kitchen appliances were indeed painted with a marine paint and the bricks were from the Esquimalt lagoon. Andrea was not talkative but at least she was not making sarcastic comments, another of her defenses.
“I’ll call you as soon as possible,” he said as he was walking them toward the gate, then he scooped a cat up and draped it around his neck. He looked rather endearingly absurd. Susan did not know whether to sigh or to laugh so she did both. Andrea gave her the look she frequently received from her mother when Susan wanted her to behave. Susan behaved and left on a formal note whereas she would have liked to reach out for a handshake, or, even, a hug. Really, now.
Two days later Andrea called. Susan had been anxious, impatient, but also rather confidently expectant. Andrea sounded bored. Susan wondered what she was afraid of. “That Harold Edison has made an appointment for tomorrow at two. He wanted to know if you would be there and how I felt about it if you were and I said I thought you’d want to be since you were paying for it and would like to see where your money was going.”
“Oh, dear, that was a bit crass of you.”
“I guess it was. Sorry. I don’t know what you think he will accomplish – and if he asks me any more questions I will likely scream, but – I have said I’d keep the appointment. See you tomorrow.”
Susan noticed but did not comment on the dusty appearance of Andrea’s car the next day. At least Andrea was wearing make-up and her hair looked reasonable.
This time they both practically marched down the brick path. A ten-foot waterfall could have appeared in the stream bed and they likely would not have noticed.
Harold was waiting for them in the doorway and moved aside to let them through. Susan went first and saw before Andrea did but when her daughter was several feet into the room she suddenly saw Tom and hell happened. Tom was seated on one of the wing chairs and he started to rise, a pained look on his face, but Andrea had gone to pieces. Her hands, clenched to fists, she raised to either side of her face, strangled “No!” ‘s came out of her mouth and she turned blindly to the door. Harold had closed the bottom half as he came in and she, not realizing this, fell across it.
Tom had started forward but stopped at a look from Susan; Harold was now between them moving to help Andrea but she had pushed herself upright, turned back into the room and her voice found volume. “No,no, no!!!!” she was screaming with her eyes tightly shut. Susan moved toward her and tried to take her arm but Andrea flung her off with such force Susan staggered and Harold steadied her.
“No! No! No!” The shouting continued.
Harold spoke, not loudly, but with great precision and force. His words became almost tangible. “Andrea, listen to me. Now. I want you to listen to me. Now. Andrea. Listen to me.”
She stopped sputtering out the negatives but her breath was noisy and she kept her eyes closed.
“I have talked to Tom at length. He agreed to go and see my sister-in-law who is a clinical psychologist. After their session she assured me that he is not a threat to you and your children. He is going crazy over losing you and agrees he has resorted to behavior that you have identified, quite correctly, as stalking. You are going crazy over unresolved differences and lifestyle and expectations. And guilt. This is all understandable. A solution is possible. Not a reconciliation, unless you change your mind and agree to one. But this is not necessary. The present situation is intolerable and getting worse. A solution is possible.”
His voice was hypnotic, soothing. “A solution is possible.” As he repeated this Andrea opened her eyes and Tom closed his.
No one spoke. Andrea looked at Harold and he nodded at her. She frowned and her mouth turned down as if she were about to cry.
“That’s exactly what you need,” he told her gently but as she realized what he meant she clenched her teeth and breathed heavily through her nose. Cry? Not she. Never. It made her too vulnerable.
“My dear strong Scorpio,” Harold murmured at Andrea with a bit of a smile and Susan felt a lump suddenly come into her throat and tears rise in her eyes. Really. She wished they could all sit down but Harold seemed to have them in some sort of static spell as he continued, “Tom, you have agreed to continue to see my sister-in-law?” Tom nodded. Andrea would not look at him but she caught the gesture.
“Andrea, I suggest you see a psychiatrist for yourself. You will all benefit from help. This is a family affair.” He gazed at Susan for a moment but she pointedly ignored the implication. She wanted to give him a nod of approval, to show she understood the situation was all about them, but he did not seem to be willing to go along with this. Then she started as her daughter gave a “Harumph!” like a fishwife.
“He only has to see a psychologist; why do I have to see a shrink?” The attempt at humor tore Susan’s heart.
“Because you need someone skilled in physical medicine as well. I detect a substance dependency of some sort, likely sleeping pills or tranquilizers or a combination of both, very understandable and commendable, in a way, knowing you have been looking for something to ease your pain rather than hiding it” – Andrea was staring at him as if frozen – “and a psychiatrist in our culture is the closest we get to someone allowed to treat both your body and mind and hopefully, give a thought to soul.”
Tom started to say something, stopped to clear his throat so the words could come out, said, “I’ll pay for all this.”
“Well, that’s a very kind offer, “ Susan began but Andrea looked at her and said helplessly, “Oh, mother.”
Harold had put his hands to his face and was now massaging his eyebrows, back and forth, with his bent index fingers. Susan swallowed the bewilderment and anger she felt at Andrea’s words to her and focused on the very odd mannerisms of this man.
Then he suddenly ceased and said, in his normal voice, “Well, that’s that. I wish you all the very best of luck. This is both an end and a beginning.”
Tom moved to leave, shaking Harold’s hand as he passed him. Andrea had moved away from the door and would not look at him as he left.
After Tom had gone Andrea walked across the polite noises of thanks and goodbye which her mother was making and some indirect reference to the consultation fee, in case Tom did not mean those so far to be taken into account and Harold’s equally awkward reply to this latter point … Andrea walked up, stood for a moment in front of him, then gave him a fierce, quick hug before walking out.
Susan followed her daughter but not before she gave Harold an unfathomable look. He felt it was a cross between wanting to tear away his face or perhaps hug him as well. Either made him extremely uncomfortable. He thought her noble ancestors might have understood her look – and applauded it.
When they had all gone he went out and stood by the stream, hands folded in front of him. Water was so cleansing.
He had had enough of being a fly on the wall as far as knowing what his clients were thinking and was ready to go back to life from his perspective. He started at a fast trot up to the main house and catching sight of Polly in the kitchen window he bellowed out to her to put the kettle on.
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