Dr. Alicia Hunt swivels in her office chair to look out the window at the evening lights on campus. She sees a lot of activity in the courtyard, people scurrying to their dinner plans. Dr. Alicia spots Kalinda. People take notice as she passes, like a wave of heads turning behind her as she makes her way across the courtyard. She's dressed exactly as last time. The doctor glances at the big wall clock in her office. Four minutes before the hour of six.
Kalinda finds all the doors to Dr. Alicia's office building unattended and open. She strolls into the office and finds the doctor behind her desk.
"Right on time," says the doctor. The smile she displays is calculated and deliberate, meant to set the mood of ease, welcome, safety, unconditional acceptance. She rises from her chair and moves toward Kalinda, extending her hand.
Kalinda responds. "The building is pretty empty this time of day."
The doctor makes a quick overall assessment of Kalinda. Any noticeable difference since the introduction of the subject of alcoholism and a full day to process the concept? She seems strong and together.
"Yes. It's the end of the work day for some, the dinner hour for others. It's my favorite hour of the day in the office for reflecting.
Have a seat. Get comfortable," offers the doctor.
Kalinda takes off her coat, revealing that today's leather jacket is gray. She chooses the same seat on the sofa as last time.
"Comfortable isn't really the right word for all this. No offense."
Dr. Alicia continues to scan for any signs of deterioration from yesterday's comportment. "None taken."
Kalinda jumps right in. "What do I need to do to make this the final session?"
The doctor isn't expecting the directness. "This is already a good start," she says. "You're being up front with me. Let the walls down a little, let the armor slip away a little, answer my questions. This is a safe room."
"It's not in my nature to talk."
"I can imagine that," says the doctor.
There is an exchange of looks, thoughts shared without words. I don't want to do this. I know.
"You can trust me," offers the doctor.
"I don't do the trust thing," Kalinda tells her.
The doctor isn't surprised. "I know." She tries to ease her a bit. "Everything that happens or is said in this room is strictly confidential. There is no higher code in my work."
Kalinda has already committed to herself, before arriving at Dr. Alicia's office, that she is going to try to be open to this. She isn't sure if what she's learned about herself is going to help her slay some old ghosts, or send her off a cliff. The mere thought of letting someone help her is foreign and frightening. But what she's read in the past 24 hours has freaked her out enough to take the risk.
Kalinda removes her leather jacket and lays it carefully over the side of a chair.
The doctor takes note. Kalinda's under layer has her torso as tightly constrained as her outer layer had. But it is a symbolic gesture and it is definitely progress. Kalinda is here to cooperate, as much as she is able.
"Do you ever let your hair down, literally or figuratively?"
"No."
"No?" Two steps forward. One step back. The doctor has been gently warned not to push too far.
"What do you want from me?" Kalinda asks.
Direct, again, and right down to business. Dr. Alicia reciprocates.
"I want to find that you are psychologically stable. I want to find that you can manage any challenge in this project with mature healthy coping skills that maintain the integrity of you, and of the classified information." Momentary pause. Here the doctor wordlessly insists on eye contact. "In that order."
Dr. Alicia pauses again to watch Kalinda digest the statement of goal, but most importantly, of priorities. The doctor, satisfied that she has been heard and understood, resumes. "Let's talk about alcoholism, and the psychology of the adult child of alcoholic parents." Dr. Alicia pauses deliberately, dramatically. "Am I in the right arena?"
Kalinda has already broken eye contact. "Yes."
"Do you drink?"
"Yes."
"Do you drink a lot?"
"Sometimes, yes."
"Do you get drunk?"
"Never."
Really never, wondered the doctor? Truth? Or is this denial?
The doctor knows that if conditions are right, the next question could potentially open the flood gates.
"How was alcohol in your life as a child?"
"I haven't thought of anything else since you put the idea in my head yesterday. Reflecting now, I'm realizing that in all my memories of my father, he was drunk. He always drank with his friends before he came home. Sometimes the friends came home with him and they got drunk in our home. For as far back as I can remember, my mother taught me that it was our job to cook and clean and take care of daddy. She set down a rule that was never to be broken. Anytime daddy brought home his friends, I was to go to my room and lock myself in. She made sure my room was a nice place to be for hours on end."
"Was he a mean drunk, or violent or abusive?" asks the doctor.
"Never." Kalinda pauses. "Never to me."
Dr. Alicia makes a mental note of the distinction… maybe for later.
"And your mom, would she get drunk too?"
"She would drink with him, when he insisted. After he died, her drinking became an everyday thing."
"Tell me about that change in your mom. How did your dad die?"
"I was 12. I was ready for school but there was no breakfast on the table. I found my mother at the front door, panicked, talking to a cop. She rushed me off to school. When I came home from school, the police had returned. My father had been found drunk, in an alley, dead from hypothermia."
"Did she have any means to support you two after he died?"
"Now that you mention it, I can't imagine how she would."
The doctor chose to let that go. It may or may not come to her.
"She was a different person after that. She drank a lot more. She brought men home. I did as I'd been taught. I was big enough on my own to be responsible for cooking and cleaning and taking care of my mother. I locked myself in my room whenever she brought home a stranger."
"Which was a lot?" asks the doctor.
"Ya. A lot."
"So you were 12 when you lost your dad, but really you were 12 when you lost your mom?" notices the doctor.
"I guess that's true. She lived two more years."
"What happened to your mom?" the doctor asks.
"By the time I was 14, I locked myself in my bedroom every night. One night, in the middle of the night, I heard loud voices. I came out and found three neighbors in our apartment, the woman we knew as an emergency nurse, her adult son and her daughter. She was touching my mother and barking orders. To her son, 'get him out of here', 'call the police'. To her daughter, 'call an ambulance', 'watch the girl'. I watched my mother, the nurse and the ambulance speed away, and I was left alone with the daughter. She was very kind to me. She stayed all night with me. I could tell she was trying to keep me calm. She helped me get ready for child services who would come early in the morning to take me to a foster home, you know, pack a bag. They placed me with an Indian foster family that morning, and I got signed up for a new school the next day."
"How was the foster home?"
"It was fine," Kalinda pauses, "at first. I was there almost four years."
Dr. Alicia takes note – 'at first'.
"So, your mom died that night?"
"No, not that night," Kalinda answers. "I had a hard time getting news about her. I'd ask the foster mother a lot. She got tired of that real fast. She said my mother was probably recovering, and if she knew anything more than that, she'd tell me, so stop asking.
That's when I was obedient, so I stopped asking. I trusted that she would tell me if she knew anything. But she wasn't good for her word. It had been a long time with no news. And I asked again. To this day I can still hear her answer word for word. 'Oh, didn't I tell you? She died about a month ago'."
"I'm so sorry." The doctor watches Kalinda try to push away the pain of bringing those words to top of memory.
"I don't remember a lot about that night. I know I wept into my pillow all night. I know I made a vow to trust no one ever again. I remember the thought seeping into my pores; I have no family; I'm completely alone. I could either fall apart or I could become a fortress. I decided to be a fortress. I haven't cried since."
"Not since your were 14?" The doctor is finding that a very disturbing admission.
Kalinda is aware that the statement isn't literally true. But it is damned near true, with that one exception. Alicia.
"I remember when I emerged the next morning for school, I felt like a different person. They told me my color was funny. Ashen, they said."
"You were angry," says the doctor.
"Yes."
"Hurt and betrayed," the doctor adds gently.
"I shut off from everyone. It was a safer way for me to be. Most days, the foster mother would tell me that no proper Indian man would ever have me. I was so moody."
"Did you get any grief counseling?" asks Dr. Alicia.
Kalinda gives the doctor a look of disbelief. "What? No! Rich people's luxury.
I lost a lot of weight. I know she was worried about getting in trouble with the foster system or the school."
"On purpose?"
"No. Well, not at first. But then a little bit yes, when I saw how terrified she was. I let it get a little out of hand before I stopped. She squirmed pretty good. It was some revenge."
The doctor's reflecting on what she's heard thus far. "So, that was the first emergence of the untouchable Kalinda?"
"Untouchable?" Kalinda is surprised to hear her use that term.
"Maybe not literally, but certainly figuratively, yes, untouchable. Today, you are certainly a woman with armor and walls you let very few people see behind."
Kalinda pauses a moment to take in the doctor's assessment. "Back then, there was a teacher, actually a student teacher."
"Did you let her know you a little?" asks the doctor.
"She was young and she made a big deal about something I wrote in class, a story. Not like all the other teachers who were constantly telling me I wasn't performing up to my potential. I got so tired of hearing that. She became my first friend, well, for a while, well, as much as a teacher is allowed."
The doctor is taken aback. "So, you didn't have little friends in elementary school?"
"No. I could never have a friend. A friend would expect to come to your home."
Dr. Alicia is picturing a person of adult responsibilities housed in the body of a small girl. Sadly, Kalinda's is not a unique story.
"How did it feel to have a friend like this teacher?"
"I looked up to her. She set me on my path," Kalinda shares with affection.
"What do you mean?"
"That story I wrote, it was really just the beginning of a story. It was about a girl investigating the circumstances of her mother's death. She encouraged me to write another chapter. She told me about some 'Nancy something' mystery books she loved as a kid. A kid could be a detective, she said. She didn't know, but she gave me the courage to go to the police station in the old neighborhood in Toronto and ask questions. The cops blew me off, but the women, the clerks, helped me. I noticed right away that they knew as much or more than the cops. They informally ran the station. They coordinated everything. With their help, I found out most of what I felt I need to know of my mother's death and I found where she was buried. They told me to finish high school and come back. They'd make sure I got a job. That's what I did."
"So you didn't go to parochial school?"
"Not actually," says Kalinda. "I graduated from public school and went straight to the police station. I loved it and I was good at it. People counted on me for things and I could deliver. Sometimes I did things I wasn't supposed to know how to do. It felt good to be counted on by people who were doing something important.
I had a husband. I helped him stay out of trouble with the law, until I got tired of being punched, and conveniently forgot to help him stay out of the way of the law. He went to prison and I ran across the border. I changed my name so he couldn't follow me."
At the mention of her husband, Kalinda notices, an almost imperceptibly small relaxation of Dr. Alicia's posture.
"What?" says Kalinda.
"What?" says the doctor.
"What did I just say that changed you?" says Kalinda.
Damn, she's good, the doctor is thinking. Can she see my thoughts click? Not multiple personalities.
"What was your other name?"
"Can I refuse to answer that?"
"Yes," says the doctor.
Kalinda repeats her question. "What did I just say that changed you?"
The doctor feels she needs to be careful here. She needs to give an answer worthy of Kalinda's intelligence and equal in respect to the commitment she is showing in this session.
"Let's just say I had a sense of duality. Involuntary duality would have been a barrier. But it seems we're talking about a deliberate second self. So I relaxed a bit." The doctor is pleased with her choice. Duality sounds softer than dissociative identity or multiple personalities. There is no need to freak her out with a scary sounding diagnosis that has just been taken completely off the table.
"Tell me about your husband and why you felt you needed to run and hide."
"I met him when we were 15. He was placed in the same foster home. His mom had been an addict all his life and he had anger and violence problems. School was a nightmare for him. We both hated the foster mother so we became tight friends. When he'd go off, I was the only one who could talk him down. Even at school, I'd get called out of class if Nick was out of control."
Transference. The doctor picks it up immediately. Parents to Nick.
"He needed me and when I could help him, I felt important."
Co-dependence.
"There was a private Catholic school in our neighborhood, St. Mary's. We hung out there at night. Vandalizing the school helped Nick feel in control of something in his life. I kept him in check. He never did anything terribly damaging to the school.
He was around for almost a year before he ran away. Child services could never find him but he always let me know where he was. When he was gone, I found it hard to be without him.
In my senior year, I used to sneak onto the St. Mary's campus for the last two classes of their day. I guess I felt Nick there. I'd sit behind a tall shrub next to an open window where I could hear what was going on in class. I'd get there in time for senior year religion, and then AP world history. One day, I found a stool and a history book there. Both the teacher and I pretended she didn't know I was there."
They laugh together.
"I didn't walk in my high school graduation ceremony. I couldn't afford the cap and gown, but I watched from the sidelines. I picked up an abandoned tassel from the ground after the ceremony. I left it at St. Mary's, on the stool, dangling from the pages of the history book. I wanted her to know what I'd achieved. And that I wouldn't be back.
"So you kinda sorta went to Catholic school."
"Ya. Kinda, sorta." Kalinda smiles. "I don't know why I'm telling you this story."
"Another teacher had an impact on a smart, needy kid. We live for those opportunities; the chances to make those connections; to change a life through learning."
Kalinda looks at the doctor and smiles. The doctor's eyes are just the slightest bit moist. Ahhh, Kalinda thinks to herself, I forgot that you're a teacher.
"After graduation, I married Nick. No decent Indian man was ever going to have me, I'd been told. I was so moody. Life with Nick was about gangs and guns and knives and fist fights and cocaine and finally prison."
The doctor reflects on the picture drawn for her. "Physical abuse? Sexual abuse?"
Kalinda didn't respond.
The doctor is seeing the signs of shut down at this point. Can she coax out any more? "There's more you're not telling me."
Kalinda feels it's time to stop. The arson. The faked death. The identity theft. Too much. "I'm exhausted."
Dr. Alicia accepts the bar. "I bet. That was a lot for one day." The doctor has put enough pieces of the puzzle together to feel confident that Kalinda poses no risk to the security of Fisher Li's project. "I'm authorizing you for the project. I appreciate how hard you worked today.
You know, your life doesn't fit 'normal', whatever that means. I have no use for that word. You've twisted the variables of a life lived to define your own normal, and it's effective and psychologically healthy on your scale, uniquely for you. Your intellect, in no small part, is responsible for your survival. So there! You've been performing up to your potential."
They both smile.
"So, you surfed the net last night didn't you?" Dr. Alicia knows the answer to the question before she asks.
"Yes," admits Kalinda.
"Instead of sleeping." The doctor doesn't phrase it as a question. She knows it's a statement. The doctor already knows the answer to her next question before she asks. "Do you want me to share my thoughts? Like last time? Straight and clinical?"
"Yes."
"So, when I say classic hero type, responsible type, you've read this on line?"
"Yes."
"Workaholic? Perfectionist? Overachiever?"
"Yes."
The doctor knows Kalinda wants this straight. She knows this will be the hardest hit. "There isn't a way to do much candy coating here. There are some other traits, maybe not so quasi-complimentary sounding."
"I know."
The doctor begins, her voice quiet and non-judgmental.
"-tough self-judge
-manipulative
-actively attempts to simulate normal
-feels different from other people
-seductive, provocative, promiscuous
-drawn into relationships that are emotionally or physically abusive
-extremely loyal, even when there is evidence it is undeserved
-loses self in a relationship with another
-co-dependent
-difficulties with intimate relationships"
Kalinda takes it all in with her eyes cast to the floor.
The doctor attempts to soften the jolt a bit. "So there are some words. They're just words." Not her finest professional moment. Balancing compassion and professional distance can be hard; harder with some than with others.
"They're- not just words," says Kalinda. They're my life, and it's eerie as hell. I'm a damned textbook case. "How do I fix myself?"
The doctor is a little surprised. No self-pity? She's moving straight on to solution. "I don't know that you need to be fixed. You are who you are. You're functioning. You're moderating on your own. You're coping. Just continue the best of what you've been doing. Avail yourself of help when you feel you need it. That means me, if you're comfortable with me. Otherwise, I'll find you another therapist. Kalinda, are you hearing me?"
"Yes."
"Look at me." The doctor leans forward, wondering if a touch is right here. She opts not. She speaks with emphasis. "Listen to this. Being self-aware gives you that much more power over your choices. That's where your strength is. That's how you exert control over this. Overall, I think you're pretty damned fantastic. I think what you've achieved in your life, considering the crap you got dealt as a kid, deserves a freaking award."
A brief time for pause, for them both to breathe.
"How are you feeling?" asks the doctor.
Kalinda didn't have words at the ready. "I don't know."
The doctor let the silence just be.
"Shell shocked." It was a pretty accurate descriptor.
"Pissed!"
There it is, thinks the doctor. I thought you'd been awfully reasonable about this whole thing.
"Too sober," Kalinda says to the doctor, a pained smile on her face.
"Under the circumstances, that's not quite as funny as it otherwise might have been," says the doctor. She knows Kalinda is acutely aware of the poetry.
"Let's call our session complete for today." "Kalinda," says the doctor, "I'd like to see you again. This time it's optional, but I hope you'll come back. Here, 6pm, day after tomorrow."
The doctor doesn't want to just bounce her out of the room after such a profound catharsis. "If you like, you're welcome to stay and get some tea with me." Taboo? Screw it. Not with this one.
"Thanks. But I'm just going to go now."
The doctor quietly watches as Kalinda prepares to leave.
Kalinda, just slightly in a fog, picks up her leather jacket, puts it on, and ceremoniously fastens fasteners and zips zippers; her winter coat and its buttons come next. Then she takes her exit from the office.