This Will Never Stop by Joan Spilman

Author:Joan Spilman [Spilman, Joan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781796051445
Publisher: Xlibris US
Published: 2019-08-13T04:00:00+00:00

Time passed. The trees lost their leaves, snow fell, and I shed skin after skin. Things I thought I’d never admit, I told him. I even told him about the voice. That was my worst secret, but oddly enough, he wasn’t interested. I brought it up again, but he interrupted.

“Believe me, that odd bit of hyperactivity wasn’t the reason you started drinking.”

“But I heard—”

“Carmen, I’m more interested in your formative years.”

It wasn’t easy walking through my past, but it was harder walking through my mother’s. All roads led back to her, and I didn’t know where she’d been. The only thing I could tell Dr. Talbot about her personally was that she’d had a mother and a stepsister, and her mother had given her a big barn of an armoire, which she gave to me after my marriage.

“That’s it?”

I nodded. He tapped his pencil lead repeatedly against his pad, the way he did when he was going to tell me something I didn’t want to hear.

“I know you have no reason to feel kindly toward your mother, but something must have hurt her very deeply when she was young.”

“Why ever would you say that?”

“Because she’s kept her past hidden with such intensity she has to be hiding a trauma that she doesn’t want to revisit. There’s a child still hiding in that big barn of an armoire, afraid to come out again.”

I thought a long moment and remembered the sound of her steps, her demands, the force of routines and shook my head. “My mother is invulnerable.”

“Maybe now.” Lyle never argued or dismissed mu opinions. “But she wasn’t born with all that arsenal.” Then he added, “Imagine her a child.”

I drew such a complete blank that Lyle laughed at my expression.

“Just keep trying.”

“I’ll do that.” I rose; our session was over.

I looked back as I headed for the door and then stopped. I’d noticed something curious on his neck during our session, and I wanted to know what it was. A raised place, darker than his skin. Had I done that during my delirium tremens? I had to know. I walked behind his desk and touched the spot.

He jumped. I dropped my hand and put it back, but this time, I didn’t press.

“Did I do that?”

“No, your delirium tremens was months ago.”

“What is it, then?”

I didn’t remove my hand because he’d moved his to cover mine. I may not get this next part right, Lorraine, because although we were talking, the words didn’t mean much. Something was passing between us. It was like the tug I’d felt with your grandmother, a palpable force, but the pressure I’d used on her had been a warning: Keep out. I wanted this man in.

“It’s an infected hair. A boil. Black men get them a lot.”

“Can I … help you?”

“No, my barber will take care of it.”

I left him sitting there. Or most of him because for the rest of the night, I felt like I had a little of Dr. Lyle Talbot’s skin. I wondered what I’d felt like to him.

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