Jonathan Kellerman - Silent Partner

Sharon: “What?”

“Nothing.”

Sharon: “What did you feel, Jana? When you saw what was happening to your sister?”

“Nothing.” Pause. “Bad.”

Sharon: “Very bad?”

“A… a little bad.” Angry expression. “But it was her own fucking fault! Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time, right? She shouldn’t have gone if she didn’t want to play, right?”

Sharon: “Did she have a choice, Jana?”

Pause. “What do you mean?”

Sharon: “Did J. have a choice about going to the party?”

Long silence.

Sharon: “Jana?”

“Yeah. I heard you. First I thought yeah, sure she did- everyone has a choice. Then, I…”

Sharon: “What, Jana?”

“I don’t know- I mean I really don’t know her. I mean we’re exactly the same but there’s something about her that… I don’t know. It’s like we’re- I don’t know- more than sisters. I don’t know what the right word is, maybe part- Forget it.”

Pause.

Sharon: “Partners?”

Jana, startled: “I said forget it, enough of this shit! Let’s talk about fun stuff, what I was doing at the fucking party.”

Sharon: “All right. What were you doing?”

Jana, baffled; after a long silence: “I don’t… remember. Aw, it was probably boring anyway- any party she’d go to had to be.”

A door had been opened; Sharon restrained herself from nudging it further. She let Jana ramble on, waited until all her anger dissipated, then ended the session, certain that a breakthrough had taken place. For the first time in more than three years, J. had allowed the twins to coexist. And had offered a new clue: The word partner seemed to have strong emotional loading. Sharon decided to pursue that, brought it up the next time she hypnotized J.

“What’s that, doctor? What did you just say?”

Sharon: “Partners. I suggested that you and Jana are something more than just sisters. Or even twins. Perhaps you’re partners. Psychological partners.”

J. is thoughtful, silent, starts to smile.

Sharon: “What’s funny, J.?”

“Nothing. I suppose you’re right- you usually are.”

Sharon: “But does it make sense to you ?”

“I suppose so, though if she is my partner, she’s certainly a silent one. We never talk. She refuses to talk to me.” Pause. Her smile widens. “Silent partners. What business are we in?”

Sharon: “The business of living.”

J., amused: “I suppose so.”

Sharon: “Would you like to talk more about that? About being a silent partner?”

J.: “I don’t know. I guess so… Maybe not. No. She’s so rude and unpleasant, I really can’t tolerate being around her. Let’s change the subject, if you don’t mind.”

J. didn’t show up for the next session, or the next. When she finally reappeared, two months later, she seemed composed, claimed her life was going great, she just needed a tune-up.

Sharon resumed hypnotherapy, continued her attempt to get the “twins” to meet. Five more months of frustration, during which Sharon began thinking of herself as a failure, wondered if J.’s needs couldn’t be better served by another therapist, “one with more experience, perhaps a male.”

But Kruse encouraged her to continue, advising still more reliance on nonverbal manipulation.

Another month of status quo and J. disappeared once again. Five weeks later she materialized, bursting into the office while Sharon was seeing another patient, calling that woman a “fucking wimp,” telling her, “your problems don’t mean diddly,” and ordering her out of the office.

Despite Sharon’s attempt to take charge of the situation, the other patient ran out crying. Sharon told J. never to do that again. J. became Jana and accused Sharon of being “an evil and selfish cunt. You’re a fucking manipulating cunt out to get everything I own, everything I am. All you want to do is bleed me fucking dry!” After threatening to sue Sharon and ruin her, she stormed out of the office.

And never returned.

End of treatment. Time for the failing therapist to ruminate.

A hundred-page discussion section. A hundred pages of Monday-morning quarterbacking. The end point: Sharon’s realization that her attempt to reconcile J. and Jana had been doomed to failure at the outset because the “twins” were “intractable psychic enemies; the triumph of one necessitated the death of the other- a psychological death, but one that had to be so vivid, so decisive that it might have been a literal demise.”

Instead of seeking integration, she realized now, she should have worked at strengthening good J.’s identity, teamed up with the good twin to destroy the “destructive, flagrantly disturbed Jana.”

“There’s no room,” she concluded, “in this young woman’s psyche for any type of partner, let alone the conflictual, silent partners represented by the splits of her personality. The nature of human identity is such that the business of living is, must be, a solitary process. Lonely at times, but enriched by the strength and satisfaction that comes from self-determination and a fully integrated ego.

“Alone, we’re born; alone, we die.”

One hell of a case. If there had ever been a case.

I knew J. I’d made love to her, danced with her out on a terrace.

I knew Jana, too, had watched her throw strawberry daiquiris against a fireplace, wiggle out of a flame-colored dress and do with me what she wanted.

A chapter on the psychology of twins, yet never once had Sharon acknowledged in print that she had a twin. Her own silent partner.

Denial? Deceit?

Autobiography.

She’d delved into her own tormented psyche, created a phony case history and passed it off as doctoral research.

Working it through. Some sort of avant-garde therapy?

Just like the porn loop.

Kruse had been her chairman.

It stank of Kruse.

But what of Shirlee? The real silent partner. Had Sharon abandoned her to a silent, dark world?

And who the hell was “Jasper”?

And deep thanks to Alex, who, even in his absence, continues to inspire me.

Demure, passive, ladylike “J.” Old-fashioned views about sex and romance… though she’d been sexually active with a man she cared deeply about… the relationship ending after intrusion by Jana.

I hefted the dissertation. Four hundred-plus pages of soul-dredging, pseudoscholarship. Lies.

How the hell had she gotten away with it?

I thought I knew a way to find out.

Before I left, I called Olivia’s office.

“Sorry, darling, system’s still down. Maybe by the end of the day.”

“Okay, thanks. I’ll call you later.”

“One more thing- that hospital you were looking for in Glendale? I spoke to a friend of mine, used to work at Glendale Adventist. She said there was a place on Brand named Resthaven Terrace that closed down just recently. She used to consult to them, doing their Medi-Cal management.”

“Closed down completely?”

“That’s what Arlene said.”

“Where can I reach Arlene?”

“St. John’s, in Santa Monica. Assistant director of social services. Arlene Melamed.”

She gave me the number and said, “You’re really hot to find this Shirlee gal, aren’t you?”

“It’s complicated, Olivia.”

“It always is with you.”

I called Arlene Melamed’s office and used Olivia’s name to get through her secretary. Seconds later, a woman with a strong voice said, “Mrs. Melamed.”

I introduced myself, told her I was trying to trace a former patient who’d been at Resthaven Terrace.

“Treated when, Doctor?”