Robert Sawyer - The Terminal Experiment

Cathy was immobile.

“It’s a common enough scenario, I’m afraid. Low self-esteem has always been a big problem among women, even today.”

Still immobile, except for chewing her lower lip.

“You have to realize that you are not worthless, Cathy. You have to recognize the value in yourself, see in yourself all the wonderful qualities Peter sees in you. Peter doesn’t put you down, does he?”

“No. Never. As I said, he’s very supportive.”

“Sorry to have to ask again. It’s just that women often end up marrying men who are like their fathers, just as men often end up marrying women who are like their mothers. So Peter isn’t like your father?”

“No. No, not in the least. But, then, Peter pursued me. I don’t know what kind of man I was looking for. I don’t even know if I was looking at all. I think — I think I just wanted to be left alone.”

“What about the man you had the affair with? Was he the kind of man you were looking for?”

Cathy snorted. “No.”

“You weren’t attracted to him?”

“Oh, Hans was cute, in a chubby way. And then was something disarming about his smile. But I didn’t go after him.”

“Did he treat you well?”

“He was a smooth talker, but you could tell it was all just talk.”

“And yet it worked.”

Cathy sighed. “He was persistent.”

“Did this Hans remind you of your father?”

“No, of course not,” Cathy said immediately, but then she paused. “Well, I suppose they have some things in common. Peter would say they’re both dumb jocks.”

“And was Hans good to you during your relationship?”

“He was terrible to me. He’d ignore me for weeks on end, while he was presumably involved with someone else.”

“But when he came back to you, you’d respond.”

She sighed. “I know it was stupid.”

“No one is judging you, Cathy. I just want to understand what went on. Why did you keep going back to Hans?”

“I don’t know. Maybe…”

“Yes?”

“Maybe it was just that Hans seemed more the kind of guy I deserved.”

“Because he treated you terribly.”

“I guess.”

“Because he treated you like your father.”

Cathy nodded.

“We have to do something about your self-esteem, Cathy. We have to make you realize that you deserve to be treated with respect.”

Cathy’s voice was small. “But I don’t…”

Danita let out a slow, whispery sigh. “We’ve got our work cut out for us.”

Later that evening, Peter and Cathy were sitting in their living room, Peter on the couch and Cathy alone in the love seat across the room.

Peter didn’t know what was going to happen, what the future held. He was still trying to deal with it all. He’d always tried to be a good husband, always tried to show a genuine interest in her job. There was no reason to change that, he figured, and so, as he had often done in the past, he asked, “How was work today?”

Cathy put down her reader. “Fine.” She paused. “Toby brought in fresh strawberries.”

Peter nodded.

“But,” she said, “I left early.”

“Oh?”

“I, ah, went to see a counselor.”

Peter was surprised. “You mean like a therapist?”

“Sort of. She works for the Family Service Association — I found them using directory assistance.”

“Counselor…” said Peter, chewing over the word. Fascinating. He met her eyes. “I would have gone with you, if you’d asked.”

She smiled briefly but warmly. “I know you would have. But, ah, I wanted to sort some things out for myself.”

“How did it go?”

She looked at her lap. “Okay, I guess.”

“Oh?” Peter leaned forward, concerned.

“It was a little upsetting.” She lifted her gaze. Her voice was small. “Do you think I have low self-esteem?”

Peter was quiet for a moment. “I, ah, have always thought that perhaps you underestimated yourself.” He knew that was as far as he should go.

Cathy nodded. “Danita — that’s the counselor — she thinks it’s related to my relationship with my father.”

The first thought in Peter’s mind was a snide comment about Freudians. But then the full measure of what Cathy said hit him. “She’s right,” Peter said, eyebrows lifting. “I hadn’t seen it before, but of course she’s right. He treats you and your sister like crap. Like you had been boarders, not his children.”

“Marissa is in therapy, too, you know.”

Peter hadn’t known, but he nodded. “It makes sense. Christ, how could you have a positive self-image, growing up in an environment like that? And your mother — ” Peter saw Cathy’s face harden and he stopped himself. “Sorry, but as much as I like her, Bunny is not, well, let’s say she’s not the ideal role model for the twenty-first-century woman. She’s never worked outside the home, and, after all, your father doesn’t seem to treat her much better than he treated you or your sister.”

Cathy said nothing.

It was obvious now, all of this. “God damn him,” said Peter, getting to his feet, pacing back and forth. He stopped and stared at the Alex Colville painting behind the couch. “God damn him to hell.”

Tuesday was the standard night for Peter and Sarkar to have dinner together. Sarkar’s wife Raheema took a course on Tuesdays, and Peter and Cathy had always given each other time to pursue separate interests. Peter was more relaxed this evening, now that he’d decided not to discuss Cathy’s infidelity with Sarkar. They hashed through more prosaic family news, international politics, the Blue Jays’ stunning performance and the Leafs’ lousy one. Finally, Peter looked across the table and cleared his throat. “What do you know about near-death experiences?”

Sarkar was having lentil soup this evening. “They’re a crock.”

“I thought you believed in that kind of stuff.”

Sarkar made a pained face. “Just because I’m religious doesn’t mean I am an idiot.”

“Sorry. But I was talking to a woman recently who had had a near-death experience. She certainly believed it was real.”

“She have the classic symptoms? Out-of-body perspective? Tunnel? Bright light? Life review? Sense of peace? Encounters with dead loved ones?”

“Yes.”

Sarkar nodded. “It is only when taken as one big thing that NDEs are inexplicable. The individual components are easy to understand. For instance, do this: close your eyes and picture yourself at dinner last night.”

Peter closed his eyes. “Okay.”

“What do you see?”

“I see me and Cathy at the Olive Garden on Keele.”

“Don’t you ever eat at home?”

“Well, not often,” said Peter.

“DINKs,” said Sarkar, shaking his head — double income, no kids. “Anyway, realize what you just said: you picture yourself and Cathy.”

“That’s right.”

“You are seeing yourself. The image you conjure up isn’t from the point of view of your eyes, a meter and half off the floor or however high up they are when you’re sitting down. It’s a picture of yourself as seen from outside your own body.”

“Well, I guess it is, at that.”

“Most human memory and dream imagery is ‘out of body.’ That’s the way our minds work both when recalling things that really happened and in fantasizing. There’s nothing mystical about it.”

Peter was having another heart-attack kit. He rearranged the slices of smoked meat on the rye bread. “But people claim to be able to see things they couldn’t possibly have seen, like the manufacturer’s name on the light unit mounted above their hospital bed.”

Sarkar nodded. “Yeah, there are reports like that, but they aren’t crisp — they don’t stand up to scrutiny. One case involved a man who worked for a company that manufactured hospital lighting: he had recognized a competitor’s unit. Others involve patients who had been ambulatory before or after the NDE and had had plenty of time to check out the details for themselves. Also, many times the reports are either unverifiable, such as ‘I saw a fly sitting on top of the X-ray machine,’ or just flat-out wrong, such as ‘there was a vent on the top of the respirator,’ when in fact there was no vent at all.”