(from the archives -- I sent Margaret a card recently, and it was returned to me, stamped "no longer at this address," and even though she retired in 1996, I felt the all too familiar panic as I fingered the card and began to weep with the grief of missing her.)
Separation Anxiety
The ripples of color in the painting on the wall soothe me somehow. I look at it week after week while I wait for her to come out of her office and into the waiting room to get me.
I don’t have a watch on today, but I’m sure it must be four o’clock
by now. I turn my head and look at this guy sitting on the couch next
to me. His arms are fat and unattractive. He’s wearing a muscle
shirt that reveals every lump in his body. His feet are dirty and are
also ba re in the flip flops that hang loosely on them. I hate that
about people when they expose themselves in public.
I ask him the time. He doesn’t know. I feel the panic beginning to set in. Where is she? It has to be four o’clock.
The door opens and a woman dressed in yellow rolls into the room, pushed by a short Latino man. She is old, and I immediately feel uncomfortable. The chair is big and the room is small. I am aware of her limitations, her age, her feebleness, her disability. The chair stops just to my right. I am anxious. She takes up too much space.
The guy in the muscle shirt starts talking about his watch, why he’s not wearing it today. I don’t care. He thinks I care. I open my book so he’ll get the hint. My hands sweat.
My god, Margaret, please rescue me. The door opens. It’s not her. It’s another therapist, and the woman in the wheelchair leaves.
I'm scared. She forgot about me. Something happened to her. My life will fall apart if something has happened to her. Oh god, my heart races. Muscle man speaks. “I bought my watch twelve years ago, and the battery ran out yesterday. It is a great watch.”
“Sounds like it,” I say. I stand up. Where is she? I open the door and walk out into the hallway and into the dentist’s office next door.
I am terrified because I need to see her.
I look at the receptionist. Her hair is pulled back tightly into a bun. That must hurt, I think to myself. “What time is it?” I ask.
“4:21.”
Oh my god! I turn and open the door. My heart pounds. She’s not here.
The elevator opens. Trash falls out of the ashtray, which hangs on the wall next to the elevator door. I push P3. Her car isn’t here. No, this is not the right floor. Where is she? Damn it! I’ve been here for an hour and a half. I’m angry now, but frightened.
What if she got into an accident? How would I get through it? I envision my life without her, and the tears come. P2, no wrong floor. P1, the door opens. I step out and look to the left through the glass doors. I see the sign. THIS SPACE RESERVED FOR M. BAILEY.
It’s empty. Where is she? This is so unlike her. She’s never canceled, never not shown up.
I can’t breathe. Lobby. The door opens. I stumble out unaware of my wobbly legs and light head. I pick up the pay phone and dial. I leave a message marked urgent and wait.
I know that I will not get to see her today. I had so much to say about David, about my writing, about the universal symbols. I wait. It’s taking forever.
From the phone room, I hear high heels striking the floor and I think it’s her. It’s not.
I wait.
I pick up the other pay phone and call the number I’ve given her just to make sure it works. It rings. I jump at the sound of it, momentarily forgetting that I have caused it. I hang up and dial home to check for a message. None. No one has called all day.
I hate it when I don’t have messages. I feel alone in the world, like no one knows or cares about me, where I am, what I’m doing, if I’m alive or dead.
I wait.
Another woman walks by. I ask her the time. “12 minutes until five,” she replies.
Oh god! Something must have happened. It’s taking too long for her to respond to my page.
Fear, panic, anger flood my body like a torrent of water that spills over and through a broken dam.
This is so unlike her.
Something happened.
The phone rings, and I pick it up. “Hello,” I say.
“Shelia, this is Margaret Bailey.” I hate that she always says her last name. I know who she is.
“I must have had cognitive failure because I don’t have you in my book for today. The only thing I can tell you is that I had a medical problem this weekend, and I was distracted.”
I feel relieved that she’s alive. Then it hits me. What did she say? “I was scared and preoccupied.” Oh god, she said she was scared. Margaret scared? Margaret ill? What’s wrong? Panic grips me.
I feel sick.
“I’m okay now. I just can’t see very well. I can be there in 20 minutes. I am sorry. Please accept my apology.”
I can feel her own surprise at her mistake. She, too, disbelieves that she missed an appointment. I am relieved that she is human, that she forgot, that she was scared, that she messed up like all of us do.
She wants to fix it. “I can be there in 20 minutes,” she says again.
“No,” I say. “I don’t want you to rush.” What if she rushes and has an accident and gets killed. It will be all my fault.
“No,” I say again. “I will see you tomorrow.”
The tears fall, but I’m okay because she’s okay.
And that bothers me.
_______________________________________________________________________________________ Margaret was my therapist from 1991-1996, and then she retired. We've kept in touch with cards every Christmas since then. This year my card was returned, so I dug up this piece from my computer archives. I wrote it in 1994/5, somewhere around there. (She is in her mid 70s now.)
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