I fought to regain my composure and sat back. “You’re right. It might help.” I turned the television back on.
CHAPTER 5
MELANIE
New York, 1986
“When we left off last week,” Dr. Robinson said, “we were beginning to discuss your doctoral thesis about planes disappearing over the Bermuda Triangle.”
I tried not to roll my eyes, because after a week of reflecting upon everything we had talked about, I was convinced that my therapist was just humoring me when he pretended to take my project seriously.
Avoiding his gaze, I admired the standing lamp in the corner of the room with fringe hanging from the shade. It was raining again, just like the previous week, and I felt a chill under my damp clothes.
“Another dreary day,” I said, evading his question. “Here we are, sitting around in the middle of the afternoon with lamps on.”
“On the bright side, they’re calling for sun tomorrow.” He smiled warmly at me.
“Do you like your job?” I asked.
“I do,” he replied.
“You’re lucky. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with this degree after I graduate. If I graduate.”
“Does that worry you?” he asked, sitting forward slightly. “That you won’t finish what you started?”
“I’m not sure.”
When I didn’t elaborate, he asked another question. “Last week you mentioned that you felt your project was too personal to you. Can you tell me why?”
I kicked off my wet shoes, tucked my legs up under myself on the sofa, and hugged one of the decorative cushions—the one with the tassels on it. I took my time formulating my answer while raindrops struck the windowpane like pebbles.
“When I was a little girl,” I said, “I would sometimes stay overnight at my grandmother’s trailer, which was very cozy. It was kind of like this room. She had books everywhere, toppling over in big piles, and a tall, standing lamp like the one you have over there.”
I paused, and Dr. Robinson waited patiently for me to continue.
“She had this old black-and-white picture of my grandfather that hung on the wall in the living room. I never met him because he died long before I was born, but he looked so handsome and heroic in that photograph. He was a pilot during the Second World War, and he wore a leather bomber jacket and a smart-looking cap while he stood on the wing of an airplane with a confident smile. I used to stare at that photograph for what seemed like hours on end. I felt like he was smiling right at me.”
“Did your grandmother ever talk about him?”
“Oh yes. All the time. She would tell me what a wonderful man he was. Decent and honorable. A real gentleman. Looking back on it now, I think she was trying to teach me something about what a husband and father was supposed to be like. She knew what I was seeing at home—all the losers my mother kept falling for, the guys who couldn’t hold down a job and criticized the way she cooked. Or told her that she was useless and eventually smacked her around.” I sighed and looked at Dr. Robinson directly. “She didn’t want me to end up like my mother, obsessed with my looks, moving in with a guy just because he whistles at me in a bar. She wanted me to pursue my own dreams.”
Dr. Robinson nodded. “Do you feel that you’re pursuing them now?”
I inclined my head at him. “Isn’t that why we’re here? To figure that out?”
His hands were clasped together in front of him, but he opened them as if to say, I don’t know. Is that why we’re here?
I gave him a look. “Fine. If you’re forcing me to answer every question that comes up—”
He quickly interrupted. “I’m not forcing you to do anything, Melanie. This is a safe space. There are no tests or grades here. We can talk about whatever you want to talk about. No pressure. No expectations. No judgment.”
I considered that and realized I was relieved to hear it, because I had been putting a lot of pressure on myself lately—all my life, really—to not end up like my mother.
“Let’s go back to that picture of your grandfather,” Dr. Robinson said. “You mentioned that he was a pilot.”
I was beginning to discover that I rather liked therapy. Where else could you talk about yourself for a whole hour to someone who hung on your every word?
“Yes. As it happens, the grandfather I never knew went missing off the coast of Florida in 1945. It was a routine training exercise with the navy and a big news story at the time. They called it Flight Nineteen. Five planes vanished without a trace. You should look it up.”
“I already did,” he replied.
My eyebrows lifted. “You did?”
“Yes. After you told me about your dissertation last week, I was curious. I’ve always had an interest in aviation.” He left it at that, and I was disappointed. I wanted to learn more about him, but as usual, he brought the conversation back to me. “It’s incredible that your grandfather was one of those pilots.”
“My claim to fame,” I said proudly, as if it were a party trick.
Dr. Robinson picked up his pen and jotted something down on his notepad, then returned his attention to me. “So you’ve been passionate about planes that vanish ever since you were a child, and you’ve dedicated your entire life and education to a field of science that could potentially solve a famous mystery, something that is also very personal to you. It’s connected in a way to your family. Your grandmother in particular, who you respected and continue to hold in very high esteem. But lately, for some reason, you’ve lost interest. Your professors seem to think it has something to do with the death of your mother and the grief that you’re experiencing. Let’s talk about that.”
“Do we really have to?” I asked.
“You don’t want to?” He studied my expression intently. Whenever he did that, I experienced a swooping sensation in my belly, as if I were topping the high crest of a roller coaster, then dropping.
I twirled the pillow tassel around my finger. “I already told you what it was like growing up with her, with all the potential stepfathers coming and going. I’m sure you’re looking at me and thinking that I’m an easy textbook case of a girl with mommy issues who needs to come to terms with the past and recognize that I’m not an extension of my mother, and I should learn to separate my feelings about her death from my work.”
He sat back and regarded me with compassion. “Things are usually more complicated than that. But you do seem to have this therapy gig all figured out.”
I laughed. “Do I?” Secretly, I was flattered and delighted that he had said that. “What can I say? I always did excel in the classroom. Otherwise, I’d still be back in Oklahoma. Or maybe I’d be following the yellow brick road with Dorothy and Toto.” I chuckled and worried that it might appear that I was flirting with him. “That was a little bit of tornado humor,” I explained.
He nodded and held up a hand. “I got it.”
He said nothing more, and I had the distinct impression that he wanted to loosen the reins a bit and allow me to speak more freely about whatever I wanted to talk about, and it didn’t have to be my mother. I began to feel very relaxed and unafraid about opening up about other things, which was new for me. Normally I was a closed-off person. I found it difficult to be intimate with people. Most of my friends were just acquaintances or colleagues from the physics program. That’s why I lived alone.