Spin Doctor (10 page)

That's another reason I became a therapist: to try to help people get to the heart of the issue, not dance around it; to confront—which is risky and scary—but ultimately healthier than playing “ostrich” and hoping that if you hide from your problems, they'll magically go away.

If someone were to ask me whether I have a happy marriage, I suppose I'd have to answer them by saying that I am not
unhappy.
Eli and I love each other very much…although I'd hate to think that we've “plateau-ed.” He's been working like such a
demon on his
Gia the Gypsy Girl
book that he's practically fluent in Romany! I think
I'm also
using his writing schedule as an excuse to postpone talking to him about what's bothering me lately. Just because I can recognize deliberate procrastination and passive-aggressiveness in my patients, and encourage them to face and work through their issues, it doesn't mean I don't fear dealing with my own!

Who's playing “ostrich” now?

NAOMI AND CLAUDE

“We checked out other agencies, but the rules seem to be the same all around,” Claude sighed. “We thought it was maybe just the agency we'd selected—this place in Georgia—a state that still had a sodomy law on the books until 1988! And you have to go through an agency if you want to adopt internationally. Unfortunately, the rules are universal: no lesbian couples can adopt from China. So we're back to square one with the application process.”

“We were hoping you might be able to help us fill out the application,” Naomi added. “Well, I was hoping you'd help Claude, because frankly I'm still too angry to touch it.”

“Is it still the idea that you can't adopt as a couple that's bothering you?” I asked her.

Naomi looked darkly at Claude. Often they sat side by side on the sofa during their sessions in the laundry room, usually holding hands. But for the past month or so, ever since they'd begun discussing the adoption, they had gradually moved farther and farther apart from one another. Today, Naomi was curled up in a corner of the couch with her bare feet tucked
under her, as though she were a feral jungle animal, coiled and ready to pounce at a moment's notice.

“It's worse,” she said. “In fact it's so much worse, I don't even know why I'm still here. I should just pack my stuff and move out.”

“Do you really mean that?” I asked her.

Claude had tears in her eyes. She looked over at Naomi. “I wish you wouldn't,” she said softly. “I mean, I hope you don't. It's just—bullshit: the paper. It's a form, Nay. It doesn't really mean anything.”

“Yeah?
That's
bullshit. You have to have it notarized, so it's like swearing on a Bible in court and then committing perjury.”

“Would either—or both—of you like to tell me what this is all about?” I asked. “You just asked me to help you with the application, but I can't even help you get over today's hurdle if you leave me in the dark here.”

“I have to sign a paper,” Claude began, staring at the floor. Her expression admitted defeat; her voice was filled with resignation. She took a deep breath. “I have to swear before a notary public that I'm ‘heterosexual and actively seeking a husband.' Which, of course, is a lie.”

Wow.
My jaw dropped. It's been hard enough for me to behave impartially on this issue, but caught off guard by Claude's statement, I couldn't disguise my spontaneous expression of amazement and disgust.

“The whole thing is dishonest!” snapped Naomi. “This is coming from people who don't even
want
these kids—they think they're a drain on their society—and they have the nerve to decide who
is
allowed to want them?! Please tell me you see the irony—not to mention the hypocrisy—in this!”

Claude continued to focus on the floor. “All the background checks and the fingerprinting and bonding are intrusive enough,
but I can totally understand why they do them. Do you know that you have to provide the adoption agency with every address you've ever lived at since they instituted the background checks for pedophiles—all the way back to 1979 or something? And then they contact the police precincts in each one of those zip codes to make sure that your name doesn't turn up. But this paper swearing I'm straight—it's just too much for Naomi.”

“It should be too much for
you
!” Naomi insisted.

“It
is,
” sighed Claude. “But there's no way around it. If I don't sign this paper, we don't get our daughter from China. It's a horrible ethical dilemma. And
ridiculous,
isn't it?”

I nodded. “And it is dishonest to swear that,” I agreed. “You know that old saying that everything that's good for you is either illegal, immoral, or fattening. But I suppose it could be argued that signing the affidavit fits into the little white lie category, when you think of the greater good you'll be doing by giving the little girl a loving home.”

“I don't want to lie at all,” Claude said. “And this lie in particular makes me sick. It's evil. Sinister, anyway. I'm totally torn. I know that if I don't pretend to be someone I'm not, something I'm not, if I don't sign the paper, I lose our daughter.”

“And if you
do
sign it, you lose me.” Naomi said, springing up. She turned the lock on the door and bolted out of the laundry room.

“Goddamn it.” Claude put her head in her hands.

“You can't blame Naomi for how she's feeling.”

“I know,” Claude nodded. “I don't. And I'm not sure what I'd do if the shoe were on the other foot. I'd like to think I'd stick it out. Our whole situation, I mean. Not my foot.” She tried to force a smile. “And our relationship. For a lot of reasons. We've been together for eight years, for one thing. You can't just throw that away. Well, maybe Nay can, but I want to believe she really
can't and that she's just pissed off right now. And both of us really want to be mothers. So that's another reason to go through with this adoption. What would you do?”

“If I were you, or Naomi?”

Claude shrugged. “Either. Both, I guess.”

“If I were you, I'd give Naomi time to come around. I wouldn't push anything. I'd muster all the patience I could. I know you're on a timetable with the adoption application, and I'm happy to help you with that. Naomi's hurting and she doesn't want any part of that right now, which is also a totally valid position. Apart from her anger about the necessity of lying in order to play the game, she's not feeling as loved by you right now as she really is. If I were Naomi, I'd want time to sort things out without feeling pressured to do so. And if I could admit to being a bit needy for your attention and affection, and your reassurances that I'm not being pushed aside or thrown over in favor of the baby, I'd want to get that from you without having to ask for it. I know that sounds like a contradiction in terms.”

Frustrated, Claude expelled a puff of air from her lips. “I feel like I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't.”

“I'd say that Naomi's worried that your having to pretend you're straight in order to adopt a baby from China—having to lie, literally cutting her out of the picture—is the tip of the iceberg. If you can do that, you can cut her out of the motherhood process and even cut her out of your relationship…it may signal to her that even now you're choosing the baby over her and it's a sign of things to come. It's not an unusual or even an unreasonable feeling. A lot of potential fathers feel that way when they see their pregnant partners caught up in all the preparations for motherhood. It's something that they recognize there's no way they can share on a lot of levels. Yeah, it's going to be their kid too, but obviously, they're not undergoing all the phys
ical and emotional changes that the woman is experiencing. With you and Naomi, I know you plan to co-mother the baby after you adopt her, and it's not the identical situation, of course, because neither of you is pregnant, but the feelings of jealousy and possessiveness and fear of losing the partner who's going to be the mom—and that they're going to play second fiddle after the baby comes—are still very much a factor.”

Claude bit her lip. “Did you ever go through that with Eli?”

“Oh, boy!” I shuddered at the memories. “You'd think, with these ‘childbearing hips,' as my former modern dance instructor used to call them, that I would have had an easy time of it. Actually, when I was pregnant with Molly, things went pretty smoothly. I rarely had morning sickness, and my one weird craving—apart from Nathan's hot dogs—was that I wanted chocolate sauce on everything.” I laughed. “There are days when I still do in fact! And Eli was very into being a father; we did the Lamaze classes together and he brought the video camera into the delivery room—the whole nine yards. But after Molly was born, she was colicky and never slept more than a couple of hours at a time and was always a handful. To tell the truth, as pleasant as she'd been in utero, she was a pain in the ass as an infant; but what are you going to do? That's life sometimes. With Ian, things got weird. They're five years apart, and after what we'd been through with Molly, Eli wasn't sure we should have tried again. When Molly was a baby, I had to devote so much time to her, naturally, that he did feel very shut out. And he didn't always have the patience to handle her, so he stayed away and the whole situation became a Catch-22. I had a rough pregnancy the second time around and I needed to have a caesarian—so much for bikinis,” I joked. “Of course, the irony is that the tough pregnancy turned out to be the easygoing kid, and vice versa. Eli is a fantastic man, but to say that he likes to
avoid responsibility is putting it mildly. So if I'm doing the lion's share of the parenting, that's where the proportionate share of my attention is going, right? And Eli did act very resentful and hurt, and our sex life hit the skids for a while. Not only was I too tired to feel romantic, but who the hell wants to make love with someone who resents you?”

“Now I'm wondering,” Claude said hesitatingly, “if we've really thought this through. Nay and I have been talking about adoption for a couple of years now. And we thought we had it all figured out. But maybe we did bite off more than we can chew.”

“I think you may have factored in the bureaucratic red tape but you hadn't counted on the laws being against you, and that's what's causing the biggest problem in your relationship. I don't envy you and Naomi. You've got all the ‘is it time for us to have children' issues that straights have, with the added burden of being faced with the questions of prioritizing your values and beliefs. Now you have to ask: What trumps motherhood? Traditional politics? Sexual politics?”

Claude nodded in agreement. “When we got hit with this news from the agency—the no lesbian couples policy—it threw everything into a tailspin. I think Naomi and I each have an answer to that question you just posed to me about what trumps motherhood. We even answered it in our session. The problem is,” Claude added ruefully, “for now, anyway, we've each come up with different ones.”

MALA SONIA MAKES ANOTHER APPEARANCE…

“Perhaps the question I really should ask you is when Stevo will get around to replacing all these broken washing machines! Three out of six are down now. Or
should I say only three out of the
remaining
five washers are still working,” Amy said with a disgruntled gesture at the empty spot where the sixth machine used to be. Washer number two had an Out of Order sign taped to its lid, and the gap remained where the fourth one in the line, Ian's “boggart” machine, had stood.

“You want to waste reading, be my guest,” Mala Sonia replied dismissively. She appeared uncharacteristically elegant in one of those jersey wrap-dresses, and looked like she'd just come from the hairdresser. I found myself noticing her in a way I never had before, and realizing, to my surprise—and even to my horror—that I was a bit jealous of this uneducated, ordinarily blowsy woman who was always so comfortable in her own skin, at ease in a way I've tried for decades to convince myself
I
was.

“Stevo needs okay from landlord to replace,” said Mala Sonia. “They say too many people have sneaky washer and dryer in apartment. Not enough people use machines in basement. No need to spend money when not so many people use.”

“The un-sneaky of us are entitled to a full complement of building services, you know,” I butted in.

“Then you write letter to landlord, Mrs. Lederer. See where it get you,” said Mala Sonia with an imperious wave. Was she wearing an emerald? What happened to her ubiquitous bangle bracelets and terry-cloth Olsen-twin ensembles?

Mala Sonia graciously offered Amy a seat on a ratty old dinette chair. Amy hesitantly perched on the cracked vinyl upholstery, as though the flecking and modestly corroded foam rubber cushion might convey some bilious germs directly through her khakis. The Gypsy installed herself on a rickety café chair at the head of the table and removed her tarot deck from her large black purse.

“It's kind of bright in here,” Amy complained.

“Too bright for reading? You expect lanterns and crystal balls? Tablecloths with fringe, perhaps?”

“No, too bright for Isaac,” Amy said, rearranging her fussing son in her arms. “He could fall asleep,” she whispered, “if we didn't have to have these ugly fluorescents on.”

“Well, it is more conducive to sorting laundry than conducting séances,” I said, feeling unusually peevish. I must be PMSing. I should be more careful about what I say and how I say it around one of my clients. I let my estrogen levels get the better of me. Assessing and analyzing my own remark, I think my hostility was directed more toward Mala Sonia, whom I consider a harmful charlatan, than it was toward the annoyingly whiny Amy.

“My apartment has much softer light, but you didn't want to stay there,” Mala Sonia told Amy.

“It's filthy,” Amy retorted. “Too dirty to expose my son to. And your rat thing—your ferret—I thought he was going to eat the baby. He kept trying to find his toes and nibble them or something.”

“He's just curious, Mrs. Witherspoon.”

“Ms. Baum,”
corrected Amy tersely.

“Ferrets don't eat babies. Not boy babies, anyway.”

Amy visibly blanched.

“Just making joke,” Mala Sonia said with evident enjoyment at Amy's discomfort. “So,” she said, shuffling the deck, “you have question for cards.”

“I never thought I'd be doing this,” Amy said, looking over at me for some lifeline to rationality. I refused to choose sides.

“Oh, you can stay, Susan. It doesn't matter if you hear the reading. You'd hear about it secondhand later in the week, anyway.”