Rafael Yglesias - Only Children

“Me too.” Rachel laughed, leaning toward him, touching his arm, trying to move in closer. “Me too,” she kept saying, unloading her furniture into his emotional apartment, claiming the drapes, the rug were just like hers. “Me too,” she said. Peter had talked about Rachel’s claims of duplication in therapy.

(“She wants to be close to you in every way,” Kotkin said.

(“Yeah, but it’s so adolescent, like teenage love, or even teenage friendship,” Peter answered, expressing a judgment he hadn’t known he felt.

(“You prefer distance,” Kotkin said.

(“Give me a break. I prefer difference. Isn’t that what the relationship between men and women is about? Difference?”

(“I hope so,” Kotkin said with a mock sigh of despair.

(That was funny. Was therapy supposed to be funny?)

“You’re not defensive,” Peter argued to Rachel. “You’re insecure.”

“It’s the same thing,” Rachel complained, hurt, grabbing her furniture protectively.

“Yeah, the cause, I guess. But mostly you want approval. I want to hide.”

“What does she say about me?” Rachel asked.

“Nothing. She doesn’t say things. She asks questions.”

“I love you. Have you told her I love you?”

“Now you want approval from my shrink.”

This degenerated into a fight. Rachel ended up crying. “I can’t go on seeing you until you straighten out whether you’re going to stay married or not.”

Peter agreed. That made Rachel angry. He had seen her act resentful, dented, her head drooping, her arms closed, hiding her chest, but this was different. Her shoulders, usually slumped, got square, her arm gestures strong — she looked unpleasantly masculine. “Diane’s your mommy. You’re scared to leave her because she takes care of your life. Keeps everything in order. I’m your bohemian fling.”

Peter understood now that Rachel hoped for marriage or a commitment like it, that she had expected his therapy to make him feel that his marriage to Diane was an illness, or a symptom of an illness. This discovery had none of the shock of revelation; rather, it was like noticing a color in familiar wallpaper, seeing something close by, always there, but previously ignored. He was offended by Rachel’s presumption.

(“Aren’t you flattered?” Dr. Kotkin asked.

(“Flattered?”

(“That a bright, successful, attractive woman wants you?”

(“She’s not that attractive,” Peter said, and laughed sheepishly at his cruel joke.

(“If she were more attractive, would you be flattered?” Dr. Kotkin asked, suddenly stripped of her sense of humor.

(“No. Of course not. I’m just not flattered.”)

He was bored. Rachel believed she was very important in his life. Obviously that was her problem. Unless Peter gave her absolute confirmation, she would forever be unloading her things into his soul, matching her fabric to his, lighting the same areas, completing his set of china. If she couldn’t possess the thing of him— marriage — she wanted to own his feelings.

Rachel yelled at him. She told him she couldn’t see him for a while. Peter looked downcast, but was secretly thrilled. One less cloying person.

(“I want you to get rid of them.”

(“Get rid of who?”

(“In our first session you asked what I wanted from you. I want you to get rid of all of them. My mother, my father, my stepmother, my stepfather, Larry, Diane, Byron, Rachel. Get rid of them.”

(“And then what will happen?”

(“Then I’ll be happy. I’ll buy a Winnebago and drive to Wyoming and live free and wild.”

(“How can I get rid of them?”

(He took that one seriously. His legs felt stuck to Kotkin’s couch. His head sank into the pillow. He closed his eyes and the lids burned. “Make me not care about them. About what they say. Or what they want. Or what I owe them.”

(“And if you didn’t care about all that, then you’d be free of them?”

(“Wouldn’t I?”

(“I don’t know. Is that what you’re saying?”

(“What do you think? Or will you really never tell me what you think?”

(“I think all of this talk about getting rid of them are made-up feelings.”

(Peter tried to raise his head, but the weight of his soul held him down, vulnerable to her omniscient voice. “You do!”

(“I don’t think you want to be free of them. I think you make that up. You bring it to me because you think it’s naughty, and that’s fine. You can come here and say naughty things. You want your wife and son dead. You don’t want to see Rachel. Maybe some of these things you do want. But that’s not why you’re saying it.”)

That was thrilling. Therapy was more fun than life. He was glad not to have to see Rachel for a while. He could see Kotkin instead.

NINA TOLD Luke the truth. She explained that she had to go to school to learn how to make designs, that she wanted to do something, the way Daddy did something.

“But you take care of me,” Luke said.

She didn’t tiptoe. She said she had to do something besides be a mommy. She contradicted Eric’s halting, guilty speech of the previous night. Eric had told Luke that Mommy had to work, that people worked to make money, and money was needed to live. That wasn’t the truth. Nina couldn’t bear to hurt Luke — and pretend the hurt wasn’t intended. She didn’t bother to explain her logic to Eric; it wouldn’t be logic to him.

Luke’s blue jewels, shimmering with emotion, bravely held her in their light, wanting to know more. “What kind of designs?” he asked.

She showed him the dresses in her closet to illustrate. Luke made a game of it. He ran into the ocean of hanging fabrics, their hems washing over his head, waves of silk and wool and cotton. “Soft,” he said for the silk.

“Right, that’s silk.”

“Scratchy!”

“That’s wool.”

Luke paused under the cotton dress. His head popped inside, then appeared again. “Soft and scratchy. Like a towel.”

“Right! Very good description, Luke. That’s cotton. Towels are made of cotton.”

Luke ran into her legs and hugged her knees. “Mommy,” he said in his sweet, high trill, singing to her. “Mommy.”

“You want to see where I’ll be going?”

Luke looked shocked, as if she had offered something forbidden. He nodded cautiously, afraid of the admission. She took him to FIT and pointed to the featureless, undesigned buildings where her classes would be. After that, they ate in a coffee shop, a room of trapped air that had been heated and reheated. Its only color was a dull red — the vinyl booths, the pointless glass-colored panels, even the waiter’s jackets. Nina thought it funny that this masterpiece of ugliness was so near the Fashion Institute.

Luke adored the coffee shop. He smacked his lips with each sip of his chocolate milk shake, and exclaimed about each glass horror, each phony wood panel, and was delighted by the plastic container of artificial maple syrup made in the shape of a bear.

They took a taxi home. Luke’s energy waned, and with it, the props for his courage collapsed. The blue jewels’ glint was dulled by water, he leaned his head against her soft breasts, no longer hard with his sustenance, no longer able to soothe every hurt. He cried softly into her lap. She stroked his head and said nothing. Nothing she could say would be true.

Her head throbbed. She loved him, but she wished he would stop. Each tear burned her skin. Each sob punctured her heart.

And was it worth it? Was she really going to make something of her attempt at a career? The chances she would land any kind of job were probably slight. She had never really finished anything. Except for Luke, what crop had she sown and harvested?