Get Me Out of Here (29 page)

Days passed.

The afternoon sky had turned a gray midnight blue, torrential rains pelting against Dr. Padgett's office window like tiny daggers, vivid streaks of lightning flashing across the horizon, splitting the sky in pieces. Fear shook me with every boom of thunder that rattled the windows, leaving me almost breathless. The sky. The storm. The therapy office. Therapy. Waiting to be struck. Nowhere to hide. From the storm. From Dr. Padgett. From myself.

“I just don't know if I can do this,” I said, voice quivering on the edge of panic. “I've been thinking about it. I'm just not sure.”

“Do this?” he asked calmly, as if unaffected by the storm or the intensity of the moment. “What do you mean by that?”

“This business of letting go. I'm not sure if I can. I'm not sure if I want to. And, quite frankly, I'm not sure if I even know how. I've told you everything I can possibly remember from my childhood. I've been more honest than I've ever been with anyone in my life. What more do you want from me?”

“You've been as open as you've been able to at this point,” Dr. Padgett said, walking over to the windows to shut the blinds and block out the flashes of light, “but a part of you still holds back. You've taken down many of the walls that surround you, but there is still one at your core that you keep barricaded—a part of yourself you won't allow yourself to reveal.”

“Say it in English, Dr. Padgett. You're being way too vague. You keep telling me what I ought to do, but you never tell me
how
.”

“You can't get to the deepest issues, Rachel, unless you let go entirely. Take down all the walls. Until you are willing to trust me completely. But there's still a part of you that fears the vulnerability of doing that.”

“Don't you think that fear makes sense?” I asked him. “Can nothing be mine and just mine? On the one hand you claim the ultimate goal of therapy is for me to become independent. On the other hand you want me to be totally vulnerable to you, to depend on you. It's a big contradiction. What the hell do you want from me?”

“Without one,” he answered deliberately, “the other can't exist. You've never trusted anyone completely, which should be a normal phase of development for a child. You've never felt safe enough to do that. But if you don't go through that phase of total trust, of total vulnerability, you can never grow to independence. A large part of you does trust me, and I know that. But a part of you doesn't. And as long as it doesn't, it won't reveal itself, and fears and anger will stay buried.”

“It isn't natural!” I cried. “Not natural at all. No one in their right mind would leave themselves open like that!”

“A child does. She has to. It's the only way she can learn how to trust.”

“Well, there you have it then. I'm not a child. In case you didn't notice, I turned thirty-one years old a few weeks ago.”

“The part that won't let go to trust
is
a child.”

“You've got a lot of nerve, do you know that?” I shook my head in disgust. “You expect me to rip myself open and just sit here and bare my soul. Would you completely expose yourself and leave yourself wide open?”

Silence.

“You don't answer my question because both of us know what the answer is. You wouldn't because you don't have to. You don't have to do anything here. I'm supposed to tell you everything; you don't tell me a damned thing. What in the hell makes you so worthy of trust anyway?”

“That's something you have to determine on your own: whether or not you are completely safe here. From our very first sessions, Rachel, I've never asked you to blindly trust me. I've encouraged you to be as skeptical as you need to be, to question me at every turn. Ultimately you have to be the one who determines if I'm safe to trust. When you are ready to do that, you will. But there's nothing I will say to try and convince you. Trust is given, not coerced.”

“Great,” I quipped sarcastically. “‘Trust me.’ Famous last words. Walk to the end of the plank with a blindfold on and just hope that somehow everything's going to work out. Hope that I won't be shark bait. No guarantees, mind you. Just ‘trust me!’”

“You're afraid.”

“Of
course
I'm afraid, you fool! Who wouldn't be? Trusting completely is an invitation to be burned.”

“In your past experiences, yes,” he said, ignoring my insult. “Which is why you have to learn that trust doesn't universally lead to being burned. Sometimes it leads to feeling even more loved, safer, and more secure than before.”

“But don't you see? It
hurts
to trust. It already hurts to need you, to trust you as much as I do.”

“Why?”

“Because, once I open up, I can be burned at any time. I could let go, and you could decide to quit seeing me. Or go start a practice in a different city. Or maybe get in a car wreck, go nuts, even die! Do you have any idea how much that would fuck me up? Do you have any idea what you're asking me to do?”

“Yes, I do know what I'm asking you to do. That's why I'm saying that you shouldn't trust me because I tell you that you need to, but because you've looked at the history of this relationship and drawn your own conclusions. It's painful and it's hard, but it's necessary. If it weren't in your best interest, I wouldn't even bring it up.”

The sharp crackle of a nearby lightning strike and a pounding, shaking jolt of thunder rumbled the room.

“I don't know. I'm going to have to think about this a helluva lot more.”

“Take all the time you need. I'll be here for as long as it takes.”

Driving home in the storm, windshield wipers barely keeping up with the wall of rain, I found myself praying to God to take me right then if I were destined to be devastated anyway.

How am I supposed to trust this man, I asked the skies, when I can't even trust You! Where were You the first time I trusted when I was a kid, when I was supposed to trust? You sat back and watched me get screwed! And didn't do a thing
.

Do me a favor, God. If I decide to trust Padgett, and I'm destined to get screwed again, strike me dead right now! Take me! Because if I do let go, and I get burned, I'm not going to take the pain of being burned twice. If that's my fate, You may as well strike me dead this minute, or I'll just do the job myself later
.

I'm sitting on the front porch of my childhood home, grown, but still living there with my parents. A sleeping bag and overnight case are parked next to me on the wicker chair as I wait for my ride to show up. I don't want to go, but Mom insisted. The man's rich and successful, and she says it's high time I learned how to be rich and successful. “You don't turn down an invitation to a mansion on the North Side,” she said. So, despite my own reluctance, here I am, sitting alone, waiting
.

A black stretch limo pulls up, complete with mirrored one-way windows and a mustached driver clad in uniform and cap. As he places my bags in the trunk, I can see my mother peeking through the living room window, happy to be rid of me once again
.

She's right about one thing. Dr. Padgett's place is certainly a mansion. It's a replica of a European castle with a stone wall and gated entry, a long road leading to a circular driveway, and a plush, immaculately kept meadow of a lawn punctuated by colorful flowering gardens and gazebos. Dr. Padgett greets me with his customary welcoming smile. He's wearing a baby-blue Polo golf shirt and khaki shorts. He shakes my hand and then gives me a warm hug. The implications of the moment finally hit me
.

I've been touched. I've been invited to his home, his private life, to be like his real daughter. A dream come true! Excitement and anticipation fill me as I realize I'm no longer limited to just the therapy hours. He'll be there for me all the time
.

I follow him into the mansion to meet his family. A matronly woman with gray, thinning hair; thick, knotted hands; and a mossy-toothed smile emerges from the parlor
.

“This is Anita, my wife,” Dr. Padgett says
.

At first I thought she was the maid, having expected the doctor's wife to be an aristocratic goddess. What she lacks in presence, however, she makes up for in warmth and sincerity, making me feel welcome
.

Dr. Padgett invites me to drive tee shots out on the grounds with him, but I decline not being much of a golfer. I'm more interested in exploring this man's castle, his family, his lifestyle, the parts of his life I've never seen
.

A husky teenage girl with frizzy, strawberry blonde hair and a sea of freckles invites me into the lower-level rec room. Husky, actually, is a generous term. The girl is fat and plain with the glassy eyes and pale complexion of a veteran partygoer. She's as friendly and warm to me as her mother, opening the refrigerator to pull out a few beers. She's probably not a day over fourteen, and it's not even noon yet. But I accept one anyway
.

Turning on some acid rock music, she returns with a small mirrored tray filled with lines of cocaine, politely offering me a shortened straw. I decline. I want to keep my wits about me as I observe the other side of Dr. Padgett. She's not offended by my refusal, instead cleanly snorting a few lines herself
.

“So Dad brought you by for a visit, huh?”

“Yes, he wanted me to be like part of the family.”

She rolls her bloodshot eyes
.

“Typical,” she says. “Good old Dr. Compassion, saving the world again.”

Her voice drips with angry sarcasm
.

“Does he do this a lot?”

“Oh yeah. He brings his patients here a lot. Watches them walk around in awe; these people worship him.”

My heart sinks. Somehow I'd deluded myself that his invitation had set me apart, made me special
.

“He is a great guy, don't you think?” I ask her
.

She rolls her eyes again
.

“So he's got you fooled too, eh?” she laughs, shaking her head. “God, what a prick. Come on, Rachel, I'll introduce you to my brother.”

Dr. Padgett's son is sitting out on the huge screened-in porch with a panoramic view, leaning back on the padded wicker couch, eyes glued to MTV, not bothering to turn around at the sounds of our footsteps. He's a suburban parent's worst nightmare—hair shaved to the skin on one side, hanging down past his ears on the other, feathered earrings dangling from both ears, acne scarring his face, and a tattoo on his left arm. His eyes are glazed as the tiny burned end of a joint smolders in the ashtray
.

At that moment Dr. Padgett comes in through the back door, face flushed from activity, wearing the same greeting smile he had when I'd first arrived, the one from the beginnings of sessions
.

“So you're meeting the family?” he smiles at me
.

“Yes, they've been very nice.”

He moves directly in front of the couch, deliberately obstructing his son's view of the television
.

“Paul,” he says, still smiling, “did you finish your overdue science project yet?”

Paul says nothing, just glares at his father
.

“You're pushing your luck with the extension, you know,” Dr. Padgett says, his smile now clearly forced from the strain of knowing he is being observed
.

“You were gonna help me, remember?” Paul finally speaks in a voice saturated with resentment
.

“Well, you know I've been busy with my patients,” Dr. Padgett replies, the smile no longer concealing the anger in his eyes. It's a phony and none-too-convincing facade for my benefit
.

“When aren't you, Dad? How come all of a sudden you give a shit today? Is it because you have one of your precious little psychos here?”

The sarcastic jabs bounce back and forth, raising the tension in the room to a crescendo. Dr. Padgett is restraining himself but is slowly and obviously losing control
.

Finally the sharp crack of his hand slapping his son's face ends the argument
.

“Damnit,” he says underneath his breath and through clenched teeth, “you worthless little piece of shit. Act straight, will you?”

“Go ahead, Dad, beat the shit out of me! Why not? Why don't you let your little patient here see the real you?”

For some reason I feel I have to cut in and defend the man who's shown me nothing but kindness for as long as I've known him
.

“He's always been good to me.”

“Yeah, you and all the others. Dr. Wonderful. King of the Lost Causes. You're just the next experiment, the next big challenge. Just wait. He'll give up on you too, leave you hanging. Just like he has with us, just like he has with all the others. He does pretty damned well on his fees, wouldn't you say?”

There's another slap—harder this time. And another. Then a fist blow to Paul's stomach, knocking him to the ground. Then kick after kick after kick to the stomach, the head, the groin, until Paul is silent, lying there bleeding
.

I run out of the place, vomiting. My fantasy dream has turned into a nightmare. I can't stay there. I can't go home. I just keep running
.

Another rousing shake from Tim made me realize that it had only been a dream. Yet the anger I felt for Dr. Padgett did not fade, as if the whole scene had really happened. I chose not to mention this to Tim, who himself had tired of awakening to a wife embittered at him for something that had happened in a dream. The fine line between conscious and subconscious, already blurred, was obscured again.

Thinking rationally, I realized that my dreams were rarely the premonition variety of biblical fame but the embodiment of my deepest fears. A small part of me, however, wanted to cling to this dream as tangible evidence of the danger and folly of letting go of the last remaining walls and trusting Dr. Padgett. Granted, there was no proof whatsoever that even the most minute aspects of the dream could be true. But, I reminded myself, there was also no proof that it was false. For as long as I had been seeing Dr. Padgett, there was very little that I knew about him outside of therapy. It was the most diabolical of conspiracy theories: all of the “history” of therapy, all his kindness and patience had been a deliberate act to set me up, to persuade me to let go and be vulnerable, and then to render a crushing blow. Why? Because he hated me. Which only made sense. There was plenty to hate. No one knew that better than me.

My next session was like an FBI interrogation, a no-holds-barred inquisition in an attempt to unearth some sordid alter ego that lay hidden and dormant behind the blank screen, in the “other life” in which Dr. Padgett would not include me. In typical fashion he refused to confirm, deny, or directly respond to any of my inquiries. Not only would I be forced to judge for myself whether he was worthy of trust, I would have to judge for myself whether or not he was a murderer, rapist, child molester, or any of the many other accusatory labels I hurled his way. He was implacable as always.

It figured. Both Tim and Dr. Padgett had been put on trial before for the actions and contents of dreams. It had always unnerved Tim, but Dr. Padgett must have been a tested veteran since he showed not a shred of emotion.

True to his word, the therapist was not going to lobby for his cause or campaign for my trust. I would have to make this conclusion, like so many others, on my own.