When I was done talking, how thoughtfully Mark nodded. How tenderly he took me through a diagnostic examination. Asking me to bend forward. Carefully, carefully. Then bend backward. Easy now. How does that feel?
I thought I could tell Mark the truth.
It hurts, I said. Terribly.
I expected Mark to roll his eyes, to shake his head at this. I was so used to the cruelty of Luke, to the indifference of Matt. But Mark only nodded. Of course. Of course it did.
I believe I can help you, Mark said at last.
You do?
And I remember he took my hands in his. They were in blue surgical gloves, but I could feel their warmth pulsating through the latex.
I’m going to take ownership of your pain, Miranda, Mark said. He put a gloved hand to his chest, like he was making a declaration of love.
But what if you can’t help me? I whispered.
Mark smiled. How about we cross that bridge when we get to it?
We. My heart soared. Tears swelled behind my eyes though I did not cry. I had been trained by Luke, who told me he didn’t do crying.
If you cry, Luke had said, I’m going to walk out of this room. He’d said it smiling.
Miranda, Mark said gently, I’d like to show you something.
What? I whispered.
It’s a video. I’m going to send you a link. Will you watch it, Miranda? I think it would be such a great place for us to start.
Us.
Of course I’ll watch it, I said. I’d love to.
I watched the video later that evening, standing crookedly by my dining room table, my laptop propped on a stack of theater textbooks. What would it be? A new series of exercises? A new kind of therapy we were going to try? I was so excited when I clicked the link. It was a cartoon. It starred a giant cartoon brain with large unblinking eyes. A spinal cord dangled from its back like a rat’s tail. It had a stick for a body. Little stick arms and legs too. I watched the brain wander on its stick legs through a roughly drawn world under a smudgy charcoal sky. It looked sad. Because it believed it was in pain. Because, according to the voice-over narrator, pain lives in the brain. I remember feeling a flicker of rage then. Was this how Mark truly saw me? As a dour cartoon brain trapped in its own gray world? I recalled his wide-open eyes gazing at me in such rapture. His pressed-together palms. The warmth of his hands through his surgical gloves when they held mine. No. No, surely I was mistaken.
That was almost a year ago.
Now? Now after nearly a year of twice-weekly sessions, in which I have not improved, in which I have only gotten worse, things have grown colder between us. Now Mark doesn’t meet me at the elevator doors anymore. Now I have to wait for Mark in the waiting room, and he is often late, still with the patient he sees before he sees me. I can hear a woman’s hellion laughter ringing from the gym, and I know it is the laughter of a woman who still has faith in Mark’s capabilities. Now Mark barks my name from the opposite end of the hall, and he looks away while I rise from my chair and limp toward him, dragging my dead leg, no less stiff for all the needles he has driven into it, all the times he’s tugged on my foot attempting to pull my hip from its socket, scraped my thigh with stainless steel, pressed the pads of his fingers so deeply into the flesh that he’s left black bruises.
How are we doing? he’ll ask as I approach, but he’s already walking away from me toward the treatment room down the hall, my ever-fattening file tucked under his arm. Because he already knows how I am. No better, never any better. One of those patients. One of those sad cartoon brains who wants to live under a smudgy sky of her own making. Who refuses to believe in little victories. A fire he’s been valiantly trying to put out, but then I constantly, brazenly, insist upon erupting into flames again.
“Talk to me, Miranda,” Mark says to me now.
I think of the brain-pain video Mark sent me so long ago. The sad cartoon brain trailing nerves like jellyfish tentacles.
I want to tell Mark that I am capable of following instructions. That before Mark, there was Luke, and Matt. And I did everything they asked of me even though Luke was cruel and Matt a clueless sadist. How I followed Luke’s draconian program to a tee. His little hand-drawn illustrations of exercises, I did them, even though they made my spine and the nerves running down my leg scream. I also followed Matt’s, even though Matt looked very confused and afraid of me most of the time. All my questions and fears to which he had no clear response, no words. Umm, Matt would often say. Let me think about that.
And I have followed Mark’s program too.
I want to tell Mark that I can trust. I am a good patient. I am capable of placing myself in another person’s care for a reasonable period of time, weeks, even months. I’ve just been so disappointed in my experiences, and sadly, Mark is no exception. That’s why I started secretly seeing John on the side. Even though John isn’t especially good either. I have no idea where I am going with either of these relationships.