A. Homes - In A Country Of Mothers

The buzzer went off. “Yes,” Claire said in a distant voice.

“It’s Jody Goodman.”

Claire had completely forgotten that she’d switched Polly and her would-be husband — if only he’d make a commitment — to another time. Good, she thought, pressing the button that unlocked the front door. Jody will make me feel better.

“M y mother wants me to fly to L.A. next week,” Jody said.

“And?”

“I don’t want to go.”

“Because of the flying?”

“Flight 206. It sounds like a number you hear on the news when they talk about the worst aviation disaster in history. ‘Flight 206, originating in Washington, D.C., bound for Los Angeles, crashed today, killing all aboard.’ I can’t do it.”

“The plane isn’t going to crash. You’re rerouting your anxiety.”

“That’s really brilliant,” Jody said, and when she saw Claire looked hurt, she apologized. She’d never worried about hurting a shrink’s feelings before. She hadn’t figured they were exactly human.

“What could you do to make this work?” Claire asked. “Could you take some Valium?”

Jody shook her head.

“Why not?”

“Don’t you know that’s why so many people die in these things? They’re too stoned or drunk to get up and walk out.”

Claire laughed. “If you’re serious about going to school out there, you should definitely take a look. That way, if you decide to go, you’ll be more comfortable in the fall. It’ll seem familiar.”

“I am going,” Jody said. “I have to go. Nine million people apply to film school and only about two get in.”

“You must be very talented.”

Jody shrugged. She usually hated it when people complimented her, but Claire had a way of doing it that actually made her feel good. When Claire said something, Jody believed it.

“It’s nice of your mother to go with you. Is she always like that? Is she especially nice?”

“Ellen says so,” Jody said.

“Who’s Ellen?”

“My friend. She lives in my building, grew up where I grew up. Like I was saying,” Jody said, pausing for effect, “Ellen says I should be happy that my mother and I get along.”

“And?”

“That’s it. Mostly Ellen talks about herself.”

“Oh. I was hoping you’d tell me a little bit about your mother, your family.”

“The family’s a push-and-pull thing,” Jody said. “They want me to grow up and be independent, but they also want me to stay with them — not at home, just on their level. Then there’s the idea that I should go off and do everything, fulfill all of everyone’s undone dreams. But they’re also afraid I’ll go too far and I won’t need them anymore.”

“Is that possible?”

“I dunno, I haven’t gone anywhere yet.”

“You’re here.”

Jody laughed. “I have this vision that I’ll be called home like a kid out late on a summer night. My mother will open the front door to New York City and yell, ‘Jody, come home.’ I’ll be outside playing. I won’t turn around. I won’t answer. She’ll call me at the office. ‘Jody, come home.’ I’ll be waiting in a movie line. ‘Jody, come home, it’s eight-thirty, I’m running your bath.’ At a restaurant. ‘Jody, get in this house right now.’ After a while, I won’t have any friends left, they’ll be repulsed by me and my family. No one will want to play with me. And I’ll be torn between staying with my ex-friends, even though I’m unwanted, and going home to be plunked into a vat of Mr. Bubble and left there till I’m all shrivelly.”

“What an imagination,” Claire said, clearly enjoying herself. “Now, tell me something else about your family.”

There was a shift between Claire’s listening for pleasure and her determination to gather information for purposes that weren’t entirely clear.

“I don’t know what to say,” Jody said, instinctively withdrawing, shrugging in apology. “Sometimes, with people I like or people who I want to like me, I get very quiet. With people I don’t care about, I’m a regular Chatty Cathy.” Jody was quiet.

“Does that mean you care about me?” Claire asked.

Jody glared at her. She didn’t care about her, didn’t know her well enough to have any particular feelings about her. Shrinks always did that — insisted that you care about them, that you secretly loved them — but Jody never had. Maybe that’s why she was still the way she was.

“You don’t have to worry about saying something that will scare me away.”

“Yeah, right,” Jody said.

Claire smiled. “It’s true. I can take it.”

Jody allowed herself to make eye contact for a fraction of a second. Claire’s eyes were green and encouraging. She looked, and like an idiot let herself be seduced. Claire actually could take it, she thought. She felt like she’d never been in a room with a woman so strong. Jody had the urge to say “Here’s my life” and dump it on her lap like a knotted necklace. Here, fix it for me, make it good again.

“When you tell someone something,” she said, “what you tell them doesn’t just belong to you, it also belongs to the person listening. People say certain things because they want something back from the listener, something in exchange.” Jody stopped herself.

“If you’re right, then you must want something from me,” Claire said. “The question is what.”

Jody shrugged and ignored her. “Most people give what comes easiest.”

“You didn’t answer my question. What do you want from me?”

“Nothing,” Jody said. “I wasn’t talking about you. It has nothing to do with you. You’re the shrink, not a person. You can’t want something from a shrink.”

“Hostile,” Claire said. “Very hostile.”

“Maybe.”

“People want things from their therapists all the time,” Claire said. “Approval, love, attention.”

They were silent. Jody stared at the tan wall. Like everything else in the office, it was the color of a desert — a person could get lost.

“We were talking about your family,” Claire said.

“Yeah, I was about to tell you a secret. It’s not really a secret,” Jody said. “It’s something everyone knows, everyone except you.”

“I’m listening.”

“I had a brother,” Jody said. “He died six months before I was born. There was something wrong with his heart, a defect. He’d been sick since he was a baby.”

“That’s very sad.”

“I was adopted,” Jody said. “After my mother had him, she couldn’t have any more children, so they brought me in to replace him.”

Claire lifted her eyebrows as if to ask whether this was fact or fiction.

“It’s true,” Jody said, surprised that Claire was looking at her like she didn’t already know. She’d imagined that as soon as she’d called for an appointment, Claire had called Barbara, who’d told her everything. What did shrinks say to each other? It sounded like a joke, but what was the punch line? Time’s up for today.

“Tell me again,” Claire said, picking up her legal pad. “How old was the child?”

“Nine,” Jody said.

“And how old were you when you were adopted?”

“Brand-new.”

“Months, weeks?”

“Days.” Jody glanced at Claire, whose eyes were red, as if she’d been crying. Jody made the shrink cry. She’d hardly said anything. “It’s nothing, I swear,” she added, laughing nervously.

“I’d like to see you again tomorrow,” Claire said.

Jody couldn’t believe it. She’d thought she’d been torturing Claire, and now Claire wanted to do it again tomorrow. Why not? There was something about throwing all this emotional information around without having any idea where it would land that was invigorating and kind of scary. Cheap thrills, only it wasn’t so cheap.