Christian Kiefer - The Infinite Tides

Hoffmann asked him if there had been much contact with Barb and so Keith told him that she had filed for divorce and that he had gone to the bank soon after to change his accounts, effectively removing her access to his paycheck.

“That must have been difficult,” Hoffmann said in response.

“Difficult? Not really.”

“No? How would you describe it then?”

“Well, not difficult,” Keith said.

“You’re going to have to give me more than that.”

“It’s a logical outcome.”

“Divorce?”

“Yes, divorce.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“I’m not sure what you’re asking me.”

“I’m asking you how you feel about your wife filing for divorce.”

“Confused.”

Hoffmann was quiet on the other end of the phone, across those hundreds of miles of landscape. Then he said, “How so?”

“I don’t know.” He paused. Then said, “I don’t know what else to say.”

“That’s all right. I’ll wait,” Hoffmann said.

Keith stared into the vacant space before him. The eggshell paint on the walls. The kitchen island with its clear plastic wrapper. “OK, well, I felt good about changing the bank account because it seemed like something I could do without her. But also I felt, I don’t know, a little guilty about it. Like I shouldn’t have done it.”

“Why not?”

“Because she’s my wife. Was my wife, anyway.”

“The term you’re looking for is ex-wife,” Hoffmann said.

“Ex-wife,” Keith said. The words sounded strange to him. “OK.”

“She is your ex-wife now,” Hoffmann said. “Or she will be soon enough. Legally, I mean. She’s filed to legally dissolve your marriage. Is that confusing?”

“No.”

“But that’s the term you used.”

“It just feels weird. Her moving on. But it makes sense.”

“Moving through .”

“What does that mean?”

“It means it might be more helpful if you thought of moving through your experiences rather than moving on. It’s not like you’re going to forget the time you spent with her or the experiences you shared with her or with your daughter. Those will always be a part of who you are.”

Keith did not respond.

“Anyway, congratulations,” Hoffmann said.

“For what?”

“For taking charge of your situation and doing something about it. It’s a good step forward.”

“A step forward toward what?”

“Toward moving through this experience.”

He did not respond for a long moment. Then he said, “This is the kind of thing you say that I never understand.”

“Oh?” Hoffmann said. He sounded genuinely surprised and concerned. “I didn’t know you were having trouble understanding. What part of it are you having trouble with?”

“The whole thing. Moving through my experience? What does that mean?”

“Well, it’s going to mean different things to different people. To me it might mean figuring out what’s going to be next and taking some positive steps toward it. Or developing some new goals and working toward them. That sort of thing.”

“My goal is going back to work.”

“That’s a professional goal, yes, but there are personal goals as well.”

Keith did not answer for a moment. Already he had said more than he was comfortable with, the conversation wobbling out onto some uncharted plane the structure of which he could not determine. “I know that,” he said at last. “I guess I just don’t think in terms of personal goals.”

“Why not?”

“Because my professional goals have been the ones that I’ve needed to work on. The personal stuff just happens. It’s not something that you work toward. There’s not even an endpoint.”

“I disagree.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“What about your grieving process?”

He could not help but sigh audibly into the phone. “What about it?” he said.

“That could be a goal.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“That’s an example of an experience you’re moving through.”

“You mean with the steps or stages or whatever they are?”

“That’s one way, yes. Do you think that would be useful?”

“No,” he said flatly.

“Can I ask why?”

“Because I don’t need someone else’s steps to work through. I’m sad that she’s gone. I wish she was still here but she’s not. She’s never going to be. I don’t need a twelve-step program to help me realize that.”

“That might be true,” Hoffmann said. “People deal with grief differently. There’s no right way. Some studies suggest that many people are resilient and come through loss on their own and are fine. Others need a more structured approach to it.”

“That’s what I mean,” Keith said. He was irritated now, bordering on real anger, and even as he spoke he could feel part of him quietly urging himself to calm down, knowing that losing his temper would not help anything. But it was too late for that. “You think you have it all programmed but it’s not like that. There’s no sequence to it so there can’t be any goddamn steps. So we talk and you act like you’re reminding me that my daughter’s dead and my marriage is over and then you ask me how I feel. I feel sad. All the goddamned time. So why do you keep asking me?”

“Because you don’t sound sad to me,” Hoffmann said. “You sound angry.” In contrast to Keith’s elevating volume, his voice displayed the same calm composure it always had.

“I am angry. What’s the goddamned point of this? What’s the point of dragging up everything again and again and again?”

“The point is not being angry anymore,” Hoffmann said.

Keith was silent, silent for a long time. He could feel gravity pulling him toward the center, toward the iron center of the planet. One hand held the telephone to his face; the other trembled against his chest.

“I can hear that you’re upset,” Hoffmann said, “and I know this is difficult. But there’s a concrete goal here. There really is.”

When Keith spoke again his voice was quiet, nearly a whisper: “All I want to do is get back to work,” he said. “That’s what I miss. If you want to help me then help me do that.”

“That’s what I’m doing,” Hoffmann said.

Keith said nothing. He wanted to simply hang up the phone but did not do so. The conversation had turned in on itself like an endless loop and he knew that no matter what he said it would simply swing back around to him again. It was maddening and reminded him of just how much he disliked these kinds of interactions. Personal conversations of any kind were like numeric fields that appeared to be equations but which were impossible to solve and were therefore no equations at all, the algorithm looping back upon itself once more. “OK,” he said, “then what do I have do for you to give Mullins a clean bill of health?”

“That’s not something I do.”

“Then you’re not helping me.”

“You misunderstand,” Hoffmann said. “It’s literally not something I do. That’s not part of why we’re talking and I wouldn’t give Jim Mullins that kind of information even if he asked. I’m just here to help you through your daughter’s death, your divorce, and yes some stuff related to work if that’s what we need to talk about. I’m trying to help you work through your experiences and I hope that will result in easing your migraines. That’s all I’m here for.” There was a pause and Keith wondered if Hoffmann was waiting for him to respond but before he could say anything the psychiatrist’s voice continued: “Look, Keith, I get a sense that you don’t want to do this anymore. You certainly have that right. But I want you to think about why you don’t want to do it. Is it just because it’s hard to talk about these things? Because avoiding talking about them isn’t going to make it any easier for you. So what do you really want to do?”