All You Could Ask For: A Novel (14 page)

Dr. Gray is comparatively new, and I love her. I have seen a long list of New York’s finest and most discreet shrinks. I’ve been at it so long one of them retired and another recently died. I have also read just about every significant book on self-help and mental health published in the last twenty years and some older than that, everything from
The Road Less Traveled
to
Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff,
and I’ve learned bits and pieces from all of them. I have delved deeply into my past, time and again, always reaching the same obvious conclusion: I don’t trust men because the two that really mattered to me both let me down, and so I battle them in my past and all the others in my present and the trouble with that is it doesn’t bode well for my future. It’s obviously a challenge to find a man to love and to trust when I greet each new day with the words “Fuck him and all the others like him.”

The truth is, I haven’t really needed a shrink to explain any of this to me. I don’t think it takes a psychology major to figure out that a girl whose daddy disappointed her so terribly will have issues with men. And of the many ways a father can disappoint a daughter, mine, I think, was the worst, because he never got the chance to make it up to me, and worse yet he always said he did it
for
me, which seemed to make it better in his mind even though it was so obviously not, so I don’t need a therapist or a book to understand that is part of my problem. And then there was my relationship with Phillip and the way that ended. I suppose I was pretty much doomed right then.

So, the question is: If I know my problems so well, why do I continue to go to therapy?

There are two reasons. The first is rather sad, I guess, but it is true, and that is that I don’t really have any other woman I can talk to. The only women in my life either (a) work for me, (b) compete with me, or (c) are my mother, and there is just too much that you cannot say to women who fall into any of those categories. So there is that, and then there is the other reason, which is my deeply ingrained belief that eventually I am going to get better. It will just take the right doctor, or the right relationship, or an epiphany of some sort, any of those three might do it, and the way I see it, the doctor is the one most under my control, so I’m not going to give up on that. And if there was ever any chance I was going to give it up, that went away when I met Dr. Gray.

Dr. Gray’s practice centers on the Buddhist principle of mindfulness, which is to say whatever you are doing, your mind must be fully committed to it. To always look to the future is as dangerous as always looking to the past, because we live only in the present. And, even though this sounds like a cliché, my relationship with her is probably the best in my life; it is that valuable, that wonderful. And so, on this day after I turned forty and was fixed up on a blind date with a man old enough to be my father, I wasn’t going to take off on my first real vacation in a decade without conferring with her.

“I think this is absolutely perfect for you,” she told me. “They don’t put monasteries at the tops of mountains by accident. The tranquility will be wonderful. Go easy on the shopping and the restaurants, they have those here too. Climb mountains, ride horses, breathe deeply, and when you return I want you to answer one question, and if you need to spend hours each day thinking about the question, that’s fine with me.”

“I’m ready,” I said.

“When you come home from this vacation, I want you to tell me what it is that makes life worth living.”

“Oh good,” I said, “I was afraid it was going to be something deep.”

She shook her head at me. She isn’t much for my sarcasm. So I tried again.

“You know,” I said, “a lot of people would be happy with one of those T-shirts that says your friend went to Aspen and this is all you got.”

She shook her head again.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll make a note to spend some time thinking about it.”

“Good,” she said. “But, Katherine, try to do it without making a note.”

And with that, I was on my way.

SAMANTHA

FEELINGS ARE A FUNNY thing, because there isn’t always an easy way to explain them.

I can’t always account for why I react in a given situation as I do, and I have grown comfortable with that uncertainty. I guess that’s why it didn’t come as a total surprise when I opened the door, found my ex-husband standing before me, and burst into a hysterical fit of laughter.

I know what you are thinking: nervous laughter is very common. I’m aware of that, but this was not that. This was a belly laugh, as though finding Robert outside my door was a scene from a funny movie.

I could tell Robert was completely taken aback by my reaction, and I really can’t blame him. He stood in the doorway waiting for me to calm down so he could say something, even “hello,” but I just couldn’t stop. It was a howling laugh, the sort that would drown out anything short of a scream on his part, and he didn’t look like he wanted to scream. He looked earnest, as though whatever it was he’d come to say was very meaningful and serious, the kind of look you’d have when approaching the family at a funeral, which I guess was appropriate under the circumstances.

We stayed that way for a little while, me laughing and him looking sheepish and awkward in the hallway, and then I suppose I could have invited him in but I wasn’t sure I wanted to. So he just waited patiently until I quieted down and then finally he spoke.

“Hello, Samantha,” he said, “I’m glad to see you haven’t lost your sense of humor.”

That was a pretty good line. He delivered it well, too. He always was very comfortable with himself, I have to hand it to him.

I hesitated. “Hello, Robert. It’s been a long time.”

“Too long, and that’s my fault,” he said. “May I come in?”

I really didn’t have an answer to that so fast.

“Believe me,” he continued, without any hint of awkwardness, “I am under no misapprehension here. I have no expectation of forgiveness or anything like it. I certainly am not asking to come inside because I expect anything to happen between us. I just have some things I want to say to you and I think it would be best to say them in private.”

That sounded about right. “Okay,” I said, and stepped backward into the room. I pulled a chair out from behind the writing table and placed it in the center of the sitting area. Then I took a seat on the couch and motioned for him to take the chair. It was like a little courtroom: he was on trial and I was the jury.

“Make your case,” I said. “You’ve got as much time as you need.”

“If it please the court,” he said, with a smile, “I’ll begin at the beginning.”

Always comfortable, always glib. I could see how a girl could fall for him.

“I make no excuses for what you found in my computer,” he said. “That was the product of a relationship that began long before I met you and did not end, as it should have, the day after our first night in Sacramento. I’ve been thinking about how to say ‘I’m sorry’ to you for that. The words themselves don’t seem to be nearly enough, and yet I can’t think of anything better to say or to do. If there was some action I could take to better deliver my apology I would do it, but I can’t come up with anything better than just the words themselves. So, I’m very, very sorry, Samantha, for my inexcusable behavior. You are a good person and you deserved far better than that.”

I nodded. He was right.

“Also, I want to say something else, for the record, and that is that I do not love Stephanie and I never did, and I absolutely do love you. What we had was real for me in every way, even though my behavior would seem to contradict that, and I don’t blame you a bit if you do not believe me but it is the truth. I have no idea if that makes any difference to you or not, but in case it did I wanted you to know it.”

I nodded again. “It does, a little.”

“Okay, well, I’m glad.”

Then he cleared his throat, and his expression changed. I recognized that expression, remembered it from the campaign. It was his “time to get down to business” expression. I knew he was now ready to tell me what he had
really
come to say.

“There’s one more thing, Samantha, and this is probably the most important part of all. I want to tell you why I didn’t go after you that day, why I didn’t try to find you, and why I haven’t made any effort to talk with you since.”

“I didn’t know you knew where I was,” I said.

“Initially I didn’t, of course, but it wouldn’t have been hard for me to find out. You’re registered under your own name and the credit card on file is your father’s.”

“You’re right,” I said. “So why didn’t you come after me?”

He sighed and leaned forward, closer to me than he had been before. “Well, I can either tell you the truth or I can tell you the lie I have been telling myself for the past month.”

“This is getting interesting now,” I said. “Let’s hear them both, I’m not in any hurry.”

“The day you left, the first thing I did after I collected myself was call your father. I knew you weren’t coming back and I found your wallet and all your credit cards in the room so I knew you had no way of getting anywhere without him. So I called him and told him exactly what had happened. I apologized to him and told him I would do whatever he thought was in your best interest. He told me his first and only concern was for your safety, and he didn’t like you being alone without a wallet or a phone. I told him I shared that concern, but also that I was fairly certain you were in very little danger and that my guess was that he would hear from you before I would. As it turned out, I was right about that. He called me after he spoke to you, to tell me that you were safe. He was very cordial through the whole thing. He told me very matter-of-factly that you wanted to annul the marriage. I asked if he thought I had any chance of changing your mind, and he said he was certain that I had none. As I recall, he said something about you never changing your mind, and how lucky he was he never had to try to negotiate against you in a boardroom.”

I smiled. I couldn’t help myself.

“I think I said I felt lucky never to have had to face you in a courtroom, and he said I didn’t have to worry about that. He told me his lawyers would be in touch within a day, which they were, and so long as I didn’t want anything from you or from him there would be no trouble, which there was not. The next day I called him one more time and said I just wanted a chance to talk to you, to tell you I was sorry. He laughed and said that he was sure you knew I was sorry, and that the best thing I could do for you was just leave you alone. And so I did. He arranged to have your things picked up from our room, and I flew back to L.A. and told myself that I was doing what was best for you, leaving you alone and letting you get on with your life. That’s the lie I’ve been telling myself since this happened.”

That room was the quietest place I’ve ever been. For some reason I couldn’t hear the ocean anymore, I couldn’t hear the whir of the ceiling fan or the music from the buffet by the pool. All the sounds I had grown accustomed to faded away. There were just Robert and me.

“The truth, however,” he said, “is a lot simpler than that. The truth is I did it for me. When your father told me it would be best for
you
if I stayed away, that gave me a very convenient escape. It made it very easy for me to justify never having to face you, never having to own up to what I had done. And I told it to myself enough times that I actually started to believe it. But then, just the other night, it hit me that I wasn’t staying away because it was easier for you, I was staying away because it was easier for me. And the
real
truth is if there is anything I should really do for you it would be to have the courage to sit here and let you say whatever it is you want to say to me. So that’s what I’m here to do. You deserve to tell me what you think of me, and I deserve to hear it, and if you need some time to think first I will gladly wait downstairs for an hour or until morning if you’d prefer. You take your time and figure out what it is you want to say, and I will listen. I owe you that much. And I hope, in some real way,
that
will make it easier for you.”

He sat back in his chair, and I leaned back, too.

“Another thing,” he said, in a softer tone. “If I’m wrong, and the truth is you really
don’t
have anything to say, and my being here really
is
making it worse and not better, just tell me so and I’ll leave right now and you’ll never have to deal with me again.”

My father and my husband, they both
always
know what to say.

“Also,” he said, “there is one other thing.”

He looked a tad uncomfortable now. I leaned forward just the slightest bit.

“I don’t know exactly the right way to say this, but if by some miracle you want to give us another try, if you feel in your heart that what we had was meaningful enough to overcome what I know was unforgivable behavior on my part, please know there is nothing on earth I would want more. We wouldn’t have to make any promises, we could just try again. I would do it right this time. Not in the whirlwind of an election. A proper relationship, a courtship, with dinner dates and flowers that actually come from me, not a staffer. If you had any inclination to give that a chance, I would consider it a miracle and I would do anything to make you happy. If that means resigning my office, I will do it tomorrow. If you want to move back to New York, we could do that and I’ll go into private practice. What I’m trying to say is that I realize now what I should have realized from the second I saw you outside that elevator, which is that you are the most important thing in my life and if there is any chance that I haven’t destroyed this completely, please tell me. If there is any shred of hope, any at all, I will take that as a blessing and I will do everything I can for the rest of my life to prove to you I am worthy of it.”