Theory of Remainders

This publication is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. This work is protected in full by all applicable copyright laws, as well as by misappropriation, trade secret, unfair competition, and other applicable laws. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any manner without written permission from Winter Goose Publishing, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. All rights reserved.

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Theory of Remainders

COPYRIGHT © 2013 Scott Dominic Carpenter

Hardback: 978-0-9889049-0-3

Paperback: 978-0-9889049-1-0

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013931120

Cover Art by Winter Goose Publishing

Photograph by Paul Carpenter

Typeset by Michelle Lovi

Published in the United States of America

Other Books By Scott Dominic Carpenter

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This Jealous Earth: Stories

Nonfiction

Aesthetics of Fraudulence in Nineteenth-Century France: Frauds,
Hoaxes and Counterfeits

Reading Lessons

Acts of Fiction

“No mortal can keep a secret”—
Sigmund Freud

One

The more a patient cried out for his attention, the less Philip Adler was inclined to give it. Right now, for example, he sat slouched in his chair, his back to the desk, his chin resting on his palm, fingertips lost in the nap of his salt-and-pepper beard. He was contemplating the empty stares of three masks mounted on the wall over his couch—an African scowl with its mouth open in a hoot, a sand-colored Japanese Noh face, and a South American fox with a narrow snout.

Below them, hunched at the far end of the sofa, sat a glowering sixteen-year-old girl, her skeletal joints jutting beneath a black T-shirt and black skinny jeans. Even her hair was dyed black, and coal-like mascara ringed her narrowed eyes. Wrenched toward the end table, she held her crossed arms tight against her fists.

When she darted a glance in Philip’s direction, he dropped his gaze to the notepad on his thigh and began rounding out a doodle of bulging shapes, which he now enhanced with—why not?—tentacles. He shaded the curves with cross-hatching.

He wasn’t insensitive to Melanie Patterson’s plight. To the contrary. But if she wished to speak, it had to be because there was something to say. He didn’t want her playing to his curiosity. It needed to be about her and not about him.

So far they’d gone thirty minutes without Melanie uttering a word. He’d always considered sessions a bit like chess games where the patient played white—with the obligation of the first move. For now he continued etching thin strokes with his pen. Drawing relaxed him, easing the pressure that formed low in his chest every time he dealt with adolescent girls in his practice.

By the time Melanie broke the silence, he was zeroing in on completion of the artwork.

“You’re
not
my fucking father, you know,” she sneered into the arm of the sofa.

His pen paused. Her phrase had punched down the clock, and now it was his turn. He let half a minute pass before leaning forward in his seat, arching a bushy eyebrow. “You’re right about that,” he nodded. “I’m not your father.” Just a pawn. One space. He settled back in his chair. Her move.

Melanie emitted a snort of disdain and twisted even further away, glaring at the end table where a book about lighthouses and an untouched glass of water rested by a sculpture of an African woman. From this angle Philip could see the marks on her rail-thin forearm where she’d been cutting herself.

No, he certainly was not Melanie’s father. Oh, he had met Neil Patterson, all right, a conspicuously jocular man who had done all the talking while his round-shouldered wife sat with her purse clutched in her lap. Patterson had stepped up and pumped Philip’s hand at the introductions, his eyes thinning while he parsed the doctor’s name. Then had come the explanation about his daughter’s
issues
, the wink as he complained about
kids today
, the wag of the head over the lack of self-discipline. He and Cindy had done everything for Melanie!

Bluster. The real problem, Philip had understood immediately, was this man, the one falling all over himself to come across as normal, better than normal, indeed, superb in his Brioni suit and Moreschi shoes. And yet there wasn’t a chance in hell that this CFO of a newly listed technology firm would kick his feet up on a psychiatrist’s couch. It was bad enough having his daughter in treatment. It was the wife who had pushed for it, and only after Melanie’s first hospitalization.

Since Philip wouldn’t have access to the source of the problem, he worked indirectly with its effect: this troubled girl, clenched with anger and fear, who, after six weeks still didn’t know if she could trust him. Until and unless Melanie decided to open up, he wouldn’t be able to help her—which he could do precisely because he was not her father. No more than he was anyone else’s.

He winced. The knot in his gut was back and the doodling no longer sufficed to soothe him. His eyes wandered over a collection of pre-Columbian vessels—chubby little pottery monsters. Above them hung a pair of paintings that squawked with color. Near the corner, a glass cabinet held terra cotta figurines, after which came the polished stones, three potted plants, the plush drapes.

Usually this office served as a machine for the imagination, but today it felt musty and staid. What drew his eye instead was the window. The office faced north, and down past the highway, beyond the park, the wings of sailboats fluttered on the surface of the Charles River under a blue sky. A motorboat chugged down the middle. People had left their offices early, were getting a head start on the weekend. People for whom free time was a blessing.

Melanie shifted on the couch and dug her foot into the fringe of the Persian rug. Still she didn’t speak. That was fine by him. He was an expert at waiting. Besides, time had a different value inside these four walls, and silence wasn’t always empty. Some patients needed to build up to speaking, the way you take a running start before a leap. They’d hold out until the very end, delaying until it was almost too late, when any new topic would have to be left for the next session. He called it the Columbo moment—that instant when the patient, one foot out the door, paused, scratched behind his ear, and turned back around.
You know
, he’d say,
there’s just one little thing that bothers me
. . .

Melanie grunted with impatience. There was so little flesh on her bones that Philip could make out the fibers of muscle as she tightened her jaw. No doubt he was meant to see this, just as she made sure he noticed every glance at her watch or roll of her eyes. It was quite a performance.

“Are you really going to, like, make me sit here the whole
fucking
time?” she said to the wall.

His move. “That’s what we agreed to. Last week you said you’d try.”

“That was last week,” she shot back.

“Are you saying that something has changed?”

She snorted again and shook her head in disbelief.

He was pretty sure it was a
you-don’t-know-the-half-of-it
snort, and he considered telling her as much. “Would you like to talk about it?” he asked instead.

“It’s none of your fucking business.”

“I’m just trying to help.”

She gave a sharp laugh. “Right. Just what my dad would say.”

He paused. “Really? What do you mean by that?”

But Melanie had turned away, pulling her legs up onto the couch and putting her head to her knees, her stick fingers buried in her stringy hair.

“Why won’t you speak to me, Melanie?”

“Leave me alone,” came the muffled cry.

His pieces were in position, and it was time to press. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “I’d like to, but your parents are afraid you’ll hurt yourself again. Frankly, so am I. Give me something to work with.”

She growled.

“Oh, come on,” he said.

Now came a thin roar of frustration. She was shaking her fists in the air and glaring at him. “You want something to work with? I’ll
give
you something to work with.” Her right arm whipped out with surprising speed, and Philip heard a clunk. A flapping mass with gray-white wings careened over his head, smacked into the wall, and collapsed. He swiveled around to examine the corpse. It was the book from the end table.

“How about that,” she cried.

“Ah,” he nodded. “Now we’re getting somewhere.” And he meant it. The moment of the transference was crucial.

“Getting somewhere!” Melanie howled. She leapt up on her spindly legs and whirled about. This time it was the water glass in her hand—a heavy-bottomed affair that could do real damage.

Philip was so busy studying the rage in her eyes that he forgot to duck. Luckily she threw like someone who had never pitched a ball in her life, so the glass ended up too far to the right, smashing against the wall between his framed diploma and the clock. He got off easy, catching only a spray of water.

It was good to see her letting loose—this could be productive—but he needed to keep it from getting out of hand. “Now that’s enough,” he said, deepening his voice.