Book 1 Chapter 1
What happens to a boy whose mother hates him? Was it Wally’s fault that his baby brother died? They found Wally’s pillow covering the tiny, delicate nose that had only been breathing for a few days. The baby, as everyone referred to him forever more–if they referred to him at all –shouldn’t have been out of his mother’s womb yet, but nature sent him screaming into the world early.
Wally wandered into the baby’s room when he woke up from his nap. At first, he thought the crib was empty and he pushed out his lower lip in disgust, assuming the baby was with his mother. Then he noticed the little foot, just one, peeking out from under the pillow. As he was about to reach into the crib, the light dimmed in his mother’s shadow and her screaming began.
Wally didn’t remember anything after that.
His memory resumed weeks later when he awoke in undefined terror. Wally jumped from his bed, ran down the long hallway to his mother’s room, and peeked in. She was lying in bed, staring straight ahead, with her head propped up by pillows. Illuminated from one side by a dull lamp and on the other by the small, amber glow of a cigarette, he noticed that her eyes were open, yet she didn’t blink. His stomach clenched and he held his breath waiting for some sign of life. She slowly raised her hand and sucked in the smoke.
He stayed hidden, looking through the strip of space between the door jamb and the door. The cold, hard wall felt good on the side of his head, so he pressed into it. He turned and breathed in through his nose. He liked the faint smell of paint and cement. Night after night, Wally crept to his place behind the door.
His mother stayed in bed, staring at the ceiling. Two months later, she began to reclaim her life; but to 4-year-old Wally, it was an eternity. By the time she made her way to the kitchen to begin cooking again, he had changed. He had a gap on the inside where life used to be. A black hole, swirling downward with ruthless love, stirring his craving for the mother who once tenderly held him in her arms, rocked him to sleep, and soothed him with milk from her breast, destroyed anything in its path.
At nine-years-old, he rarely stood behind the door, except late at night when he couldn’t sleep. In the dark, he couldn’t see much except the curve of the blankets covering his parents’ bodies. Sometimes they were groaning and moving together in a rhythm, which gave him a funny feeling and make him rub up against the door jamb.
One late afternoon, he sat in the kitchen watching his mother chop the lettuce, slice the cherry tomatoes in half, and peel the potatoes. Jealousy reared its head when his mother picked up the phone and called her sister. He watched her smiling and laughing, ignoring the boiling pot on the stove. He walked over and picked up the big spoon lying beside the pot. He stirred, feeling the hard pieces of potato bumping against the spoon.
“Wally, be careful,” his mother snapped, taking the spoon from his hand.
He looked up at her, eyes wide, without a word.
“Go to your room and do your homework. I’ll call you when dinner is ready,” she said.
She might as well have slapped him, the way the humiliation reddened his face. He went silently to his room, but he imagined kicking her and making her feel his pain. Her scowl and the image of her on the phone were forever burned into his mind. He tried to read but he couldn’t concentrate for more than short bursts of time. He picked up the encyclopedia and randomly chose bits of information that he could devour in brief bites. Then, remembering what they were studying in school, he looked up the word “astronomy.”
Before him was a diagram of the lunar cycle. Wally loved to watch the moon at night. He felt safest during a full moon, when the light shone through his bedroom window and down the hallway. He noticed words like “crescent,” “gibbous,” “waxing,” and “waning.” He thought “gibbous” was a funny name. The waxing gibbous moon meant that a full moon was just a few days away. The phases of the moon marked time; they were consistent and reliable. By the time his mother called him to come in for dinner, Wally was in a universe of his own.
The next day at school, his teacher held up a picture of the eight phases of the moon to show to the eager group of children. As usual, Wally sat quietly in the back row. Everyone mistakenly thought he was shy. He wasn’t. He simply lived within his own world.
“Have you ever noticed that the moon doesn’t look the same on all nights?” the teacher asked.
Wally nodded, as if in they were in their own private conversation.
“Sometimes the moon is a big round ball of light and other times it’s just a small slice of light.”
The girl next to Wally raised her hand, shifting in her seat like she needed to go to the bathroom. “My mom told me people used to tell time by looking at the moon,” she said before sitting back into her chair.
“That’s right. The moon circles the earth every twenty-nine days. When there’s a new moon, you can’t see any light, and by the twenty-ninth day there is a big round ball of light that we call the full moon.”
Noticing that Wally was frowning, the teacher turned to him and asked, “Did you have a question Wally?”
“The waxing gibbous moon means that the full moon is a few days away,” he said.
“Did you hear that class? When more than half of the moon is lit, it’s a gibbous moon and when less than half is lit, it’s a crescent moon.”
Bursting with pride, Wally couldn’t hold himself back.
“Waxing and waning means that the light’s growing or shrinking. That’s why it’s a waxing gibbous moon, because the light’s growing.”
The bell rang. The children grabbed their lunch pails and headed towards the door. Wally was still gazing at the picture of the lunar cycle, oblivious to time. When the other children were gone, the teacher came to Wally and put her hand on his shoulder.
“You’re a very smart boy, Wally. I think great things are in your future.”
Wally heard the words but mainly felt her hand, warm and gentle. He looked up and she was smiling at him, but it made him want to cry. He shrugged her hand off his shoulder.
“I think that’s when I realized how intelligent I am,” Wallace says. “I began taking bits of information to my teacher like treasures that I’d found.”
“I see,” Henry replies. “Your thoughts kept you company; they soothed you and excited you. In this way, you could feel big and deny your need for your mother’s attention. You replaced your love for your mother with a love for ideas. You were omnipotently self-contained, within your own internal orbit, with no awareness of your need for human contact.”
The word “love” flows over him, like a warm hand on his shoulder. Wallace wants to sit up on the couch, turn around, and look at his analyst, but he lies still. The rest of the words: “omnipotent,” “self-contained,” and “internal world” are sharp. Their clinical nature, right out of a text book, have a chilling effect and hold him back. He stares at the ceiling. A strip of light coming through the blinds behind Henry’s chair draws a line neatly across the ceiling.
“It’s time to stop,” Henry says.
Wallace stands and walks out of the door without a word. After he closes the door behind him, he leans over and smells the wall. Ashamed of this small action, he’s grateful to be alone. Why did he go back to see Henry anyway? The longing is unbearable, but he isn’t going to find anything on Henry’s couch.
Wallace walks slowly back to his own office a few blocks south on Bedford Drive. It’s the same street as Henry’s, but, of course, Henry’s red brick building is more sophisticated than his own drab, cement building. Although, being in the heart of the Golden Triangle, near some of the most sophisticated shops in the world-Ralph Lauren, Prada, Saks Fifth Avenue-lifts his spirits. Yet he still hears Henry’s interpretations drumming in his head. “Don’t be omnipotent. Don’t think too much of yourself. You’re envious.” Tired of the bombardment, Wallace feels trapped.
About fifteen years ago, Wallace felt similarly on most days. Then he met Dr. Henry Burns. The day they met, Wallace dragged himself to the weekly hospital staff meeting. He thought listening to a lecture about Bedside Manner would probably be a waste of time, but since his colleagues raved about Henry, he decided to go. Many psychiatrists spoke at the hospital because it was a lucrative place to reach people that made referrals, considered training, or sought treatment. Wallace was never impressed.
At the time, Wallace was preoccupied with an affair he was having with a nurse. She was different than the other women. Perhaps he could break out of his marriage and throw himself fully open to her. That would be wonderful and so satisfying. They would live together, making each other happy. He desperately wanted to make her happy. So why was he unable to move? What was wrong with him? Was he just a coward?
In the staff meeting, Wallace sat in a small, uncomfortable chair with his elbow perched on the arm and his head leaning into his hand. His eternal debate about love was circling around inside his head. Sex with the nurse was hot. But it wasn’t just sex. His desire for her in the first place was the result of the effect she had on him. What was it that touched him? She was loving, sensual, and made him feel alive. Eve, his wife, was comfortable but critical and controlling.
In the midst of his preoccupation, he heard Henry say, “Projection happens all the time. When you worry about what others think, you’re projecting your own thoughts. You’re hearing your own self-criticism. We psychoanalysts call it your Superego, which if it’s too harsh, can leave you feeling suffocated.”
The words interested Wallace. He began to listen. He watched as Henry put his hand on his hip and looked up into the air as if he were searching for something important. Wallace felt his own chest swell as he observed the arrogance seep out of Henry’s demeanor.
“In psychoanalytic treatment,” Henry said, “the patient comes in four or five days a week, which allows deeper work than other forms of psychotherapy. And now, thanks to the brilliant work of Caroline Ross, we see even deeper into the unconscious conflicts that underlie emotional symptoms, such as anxiety and depression.”
After the lecture, Wallace made his way towards the podium. Henry was gracefully engaging a young doctor who had been sitting in the front row. Wallace stood near them, crossed him arms, and leaned forward. Henry’s posture was erect but not stiff. He raised his eyebrows and laughed at the right moments. Wallace could see the fishing pole as Henry reeled in the young doctor.
Henry paused, noticing Wallace and extended his hand, “What can I help you with?”
“I’m interested in talking to you. I didn’t realize psychoanalysis had evolved so much. It sounds far superior to psychiatry,” Wallace said.
“Yes, psychoanalysts do much deeper work. The training is extensive, but worth the effort; an additional four to five years after one becomes a psychiatrist.”
A small group of people was formed around them, waiting to speak to Henry.
“I’d like to come and meet with you,” Wallace said.
“Of course, call me. Take one of my business cards from the table,” Henry said as he turned to one of the other doctors waiting to speak to him.
Wallace marveled. It didn’t seem like twelve years since they met. Wallace spent five of those years on Henry’s couch. Now they’re colleagues and perhaps friends. Wallace is never sure which. He went back today out of weakness. That isn’t going to happen again.
Wallace runs up his back stairs to avoid bumping into a patient who might be coming up in the elevator from the front of his building. Seeing patients outside the consultation room destroys the idealized illusion of him. Most of the time, sitting in his chair behind the couch observing, he believes that he is a better analyst than Henry, although Henry will never acknowledge it. Even when Henry invites Wallace to his consultation group, he treats him like one of the pupils. The last time, a young woman in the group smiled at him and asked him a question, but Henry responded, stepping right over him. What was her name? Paula? No, it was Paige. Wallace remembers thinking that she was an enigma, a blank page. Wallace shakes Paige and his irritation with Henry out of his mind before opening the waiting room door.
