“I bet you’re involved with these idiotic hypno-parties, aren’t you?” said Ian. “I guess it makes it easier to rip people off en masse.”
Oh, God, if he knew her connection to Danny. How would he handle this sort of attack? Or Flynn? Both of them would do a better job than she was doing now.
“I expect you cure cancer, do you?” said Ian. “Forget chemo. Just use the power of your mind.”
“I have never, ever made unsubstantiated claims,” said Ellen. “Look, for heaven’s sake, I’m not a faith healer. I’m a fully qualified clinical hypnotherapist and counselor. Hypnotherapy has been recognized by the Australian Medical Association. Doctors refer their patients to me.”
(Although not my own mother.)
“I expect you give them a nice little kickback for that.”
“I don’t actually.”
(Although she had sent Lena Peterson a nice box of chocolates for Christmas last year. Was that wrong?)
Ian stood up and went to the window. He tapped the glass as if he was testing its strength. “Ocean view. This is a great house. Business is obviously good.”
“This was actually my grandparents’ house—” began Ellen. She could hear Flynn: You do not need to explain your financial situation to him.
Ian turned around to look at her. He spoke gently, almost kindly, as though he was paying her a nice compliment. “I’m bringing you down.”
“I beg your pardon?” She nearly laughed out loud. It just sounded so melodramatic. What was he talking about?
He smiled sweetly. “I’m putting you out of business.”
Chapter 20
All that we are is a result of what we have thought. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him. If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him.
—Buddhist quote on Ellen O’Farrell’s refrigerator
I was driving back to the office from an on-site meeting when it occurred to me that I was only a few minutes away from the hypnotist’s house.
Don’t do it, I thought. You’ve got that meeting with Steve later. A million e-mails waiting for you. You’re in a good mood. Why do you always do this when you’re in a good mood?
But I was already turning left instead of right, as if I had no choice in the matter, as if her house had some sort of irresistible magnetic force.
I’d been feeling a bit strange about what I did on Sunday. I kept thinking about it and feeling amazed at myself: that I could go into someone else’s house and make biscuits. I imagine how that sort of behavior would sound to someone else. Like the people I just met at that development site. One of the women told me that she’d spent last weekend in Mudgee, and I thought: Imagine if you knew what I did on Sunday. How your face would change, how you’d take a careful step away, how I’d be instantly transformed from fellow professional to strange, crazy woman.
It never really felt like I was doing anything wrong when I went into Patrick’s house, because it never stopped feeling like home. That’s where I spent the happiest years of my life. I scrubbed that bathroom every Saturday morning. I painted Jack’s room. I chose the rug for the dining room. It never felt illegal or wrong; I felt like I had a right to be there, even if nobody else would agree.
But going into Ellen’s house and cooking biscuits, and opening the door to angry visitors like I lived there—I feel like I’ve possibly crossed a line.
I woke up at three a.m. on Monday morning with this thought clear in my head: I have to get help. Therapy. Proper therapy. I have to stop. I even went and looked up counseling services in the white pages on the Internet. I wrote down names and numbers. It was the responsible thing to do.
And then I woke up a few hours later to go to work, and everything seemed so ordinary in the daylight, and I thought, Oh, look, I don’t really need therapy. I hold down a job. I’m not suicidal or bulimic or hearing voices. I’ll just stop. The biscuits will be my last hurrah. My au revoir gift.
That feeling lasted all through yesterday, and I felt great last night. I even went next door and reminded the happy Labrador family that it was garbage night. Which was a caring, neighborly thing to do, not the act of someone who needs therapy. They bounced about, all grateful because they’d forgotten that it was garbage night, and they had so much rubbish from the move, and oh, by the way, how was Sunday? For a moment I completely forgot the mythical fortieth birthday party, but then I did a completely believable act of remembering it, and saying how it was a great party, and the weekend already seemed like such a long time ago, even though it was only Monday, that’s what work did to you, and oh, ha ha ha, and tra la la la, isn’t life a hoot.
And today I went to work without thinking about Patrick or Jack or Ellen or the new baby at all. I enjoyed the meeting.
It was for a new shopping complex. It’s in a great spot high up with views of the ocean, and I thought of Ellen’s office with those big glass windows and the way the sun reflects off the water, and I told the developers that we need an area like a village square, with big glass windows, somewhere you could sit and have a cup of coffee and see the sky, with enough space for your toddler to run around in circles and pretend to be an airplane. It would be the sort of place I had needed when Jack was a toddler and I took him shopping. It’s strange how I still feel like I’m the mother of a toddler, even though he’s a schoolboy now and he doesn’t belong to me anymore. It’s like I’m frozen in time. The developers said, OK, chuckle, chuckle, we’ll call it Saskia’s Serenity Spot, with just a touch of that condescending but flirtatious yes-dear tone they get, as if the little lady was asking for a bigger kitchen, but I’m going to fight tooth and nail to make sure it stays there. I’m doing it for the mothers.
So I was filled with vigorous professional satisfaction, and remembering what I loved about town planning, and when I got in the car I had a phone call, and it was Tammy.
My old friend Tammy Cook. The one who let me stay in her spare room after Patrick said, “It’s over.”
She was a good friend to me at that time, taking care of me like I was an invalid. She made me chicken soup and cups of tea, and held my hand while I lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling and tried to breathe, even though I felt like a lorry had parked on my chest. I remember asking her if life would ever feel the same again, and she said, “Of course it will, honey.” She was wrong, but still, she was a nice girl, the sort of girl who calls you “honey” and says, “I love you.” I can’t actually believe I once had a friend like that. It’s like remembering that I once spoke fluent French, when now I can’t understand a single word.