5. Bill
CHAPTER 5
Bill
"You look uncomfortable."
"Do I?"
"Yes, Bill, you do." Dr. Sheinbaum is standing near the window of her office, arms folded as she watches him shift around in his chair. "Did you do what I asked you to do this week?"
"Talk to my wife about her dreams?" The slightest feeling of derision creeps into his voice, and he squelches it immediately. After all, he doesn't feel that Jo and her feelings are inconsequential, he just feels… well, he isn't entirely sure what he feels. Maybe that she would be better served by talking to Frankie about her feelings?
"Yes," Dr. Sheinbaum says, finally sitting in her chair.
Bill has wondered whether her restlessness has anything to do with her not wanting to fall asleep as she sits and listens to yet another stranger unpack his or her problems in her warm, mellow office. He glances around at the peachy-amber color of the walls; the perfectly faded and worn Oriental rug on the floor; the heavy wooden tables; the gold-framed paintings and certificates from medical schools that say Dr. Eve Sheinbaum in script lettering.
"I talked to her," he says reluctantly. Right now, he can't decide what's insulting his manhood more: that he actually poured Jo a glass of wine and asked her about whether she'd had to defer any of her own dreams to marry him, or that he now has to recount this conversation for a woman he knows nothing about--a woman who most likely goes home and laughs about his problems with her husband over dinner.
"Are you married, Dr. Sheinbaum?" Bill asks, suddenly realizing that it might be easier to talk to her if he knows something about her personal life. "If you don't mind my asking." He's already noticed that she wears a ring on the middle finger of her left hand rather than the ring finger.
She smiles placidly. "No, I am not, Bill." Her face tells him that the number of questions he'll be allowed to ask is extremely limited, but also that this isn't the first time a patient has inquired about her personal life. Dr. Sheinbaum says no more, but waits for him to go on.
"Well." Bill clears his throat. "I talked to her, and I thought you might know, if you'd been married yourself, that opening up a touchy-feely conversation can be a bit of a mixed bag."
"It certainly can."
Bill lets his eyes stray toward the window. "Anyhow, I asked her whether she'd given up anything when we got married. If maybe she would have preferred to carry on as a secretary instead of marrying and having children."
Dr. Sheinbaum lifts one eyebrow gracefully, but does not interrupt.
"She seemed surprised by the question, but we had an interesting conversation."
“How did it go?”
Bill moves around in his chair until he’s comfortable. “It started with her telling me she’d always known that she wanted to be a mother, and that marrying a good, kind man had been her lifelong dream. She said I made both dreams come true, and I wanted to take that as her full answer, but I knew that wasn’t the assignment.”
“Wonderful.”
It’s just a one-word response, but it’s encouraging, and Bill goes on. “So I asked her if she’d had any other goals or things she wanted to accomplish since we got married, and she said that sometimes she felt like she was meant to do more than just take care of a house and children.”
“And how did that make you feel?”
Bill thinks for a moment. “Like I didn’t really know her. I’d always felt like Jo was happy with me—with our life—but in that moment, I wasn’t so sure. I thought maybe I was married to a stranger.”
Dr. Sheinbaum doesn’t visibly react, but she reaches for her notepad and pencil and scratches something on it. “Did you ask her what those things were that she thought she might want to do?”
“I did. She said she thought she might have wanted to be a nurse, so volunteering at the hospital helped to scratch that itch—that was her phrasing.” He taps his knee with his fingertips. “And then she realized at some point that she wanted to write and tell stories, but then she discovered as she wrote that she was the type of writer who just likes to see what comes out as she’s working.”
“Meaning she doesn’t go into it with a full plan in place?”
“Exactly.” Bill pauses, remembering the betrayal he’d felt when he read Jo’s column in the magazine and discovered how much of their lives and their marriage she’d called on for inspiration. He’d wanted to encourage her to do something that he saw as a little hobby, but he’d never intended to be fodder for her work. “I think she just takes whatever is going on in her head or in our lives and uses the writing to work through it. If that makes sense.”
“It does.” Dr. Sheinbaum takes off her reading glasses and looks at Bill. “Does that bother you?”
Bill laughs softly. “You know it does.”
“How do I know that?”
“Because you’ve probably already got me pegged, Dr. Sheinbaum. I walked in here and you thought: Military. Astronaut. Tough guy. Won’t let anyone peel back his layers.”
She watches him quizzically. “Okay, you know yourself best, so I’m assuming that’s a list of how you see yourself, and not necessarily what you think others see in you.”
“No,” Bill says, shaking his head. “I think that’s pretty much what people think when they see me.”
“Aren’t we all more complicated than just a list of characteristics or job titles? Do you see me and think: Woman. Never married. No children. Went to medical school. Must hate men and conventional life?”
Bill stares back at her. That is precisely what he’s assumed about her. Instead of saying so, he lifts one shoulder and lets it fall.
“Okay,” Dr. Sheinbaum says. “I want to know something else about you. Something that no one sees when they meet you and think: Military. Astronaut. Tough guy. Tell me something that would be hard for a stranger to know.”
Now, this is asking a lot. It’s really uncomfortable for Bill to think of divulging something personal about himself in this way. He can feel his legs twitch, and he wants to close his eyes and then open them and find himself somewhere else—anywhere else—than in a psychiatrist’s office.
“You want me to tell you something I think is a secret?”
It’s Dr. Sheinbaum’s turn to shrug. “Not necessarily a secret, just something you reserve a bit and don’t announce to the world when you walk into a room.”
Bill hesitates, but just barely. “I had some really hard times in Korea.” The words are out now, and he can’t pull them back. He sighs, feeling like he’s just set down a weight that he carries with him at all times. “And sometimes I still think of it and have a rough patch.”
Dr. Sheinbaum’s nod is slow and careful. “That’s understandable. War can be very traumatizing for anyone involved.”
Bill sits forward a bit in his chair, finally looking right at her. “But shouldn’t there come a point where I can move on from it? Shouldn’t I be able to get past those little things that set me off? It’s been over a decade now, and sometimes I still need to just walk away from whatever I’m doing, find a quiet place, and shut myself away from the world. I can’t afford to do that, Dr. Sheinbaum. There will be times and places that I cannot just walk away, find a closet, and close the door on the world. I need to be better than that.”
Dr. Sheinbaum sets her notepad on the table next to her and looks at Bill seriously. “There have been many, many accounts of soldiers coming back from war and experiencing flashbacks and nightmares, Bill. We often use the term ‘shell-shocked’ to describe the debilitating feelings that people experience after war, and that doesn’t have a time limit. In fact, it could go on for the rest of your life.”
“I can’t live like this for the rest of my life,” Bill says vehemently. “I can’t shut out my family and go into a dark space mentally like that.” As he speaks of these episodes, the words flow, and his shame over the whole thing vanishes—at least here in Dr. Sheinbaum’s office. “How can I stop it?”
The look in Dr. Sheinbaum’s eyes is one of sympathy and understanding. “You can keep talking to me about it for one. It’s been proven that talking in a therapeutic setting is one way to take away the shame or the bad feelings that surround these memories. We can take it slow, and you can either tell me what triggers your episodes, or we can lead up to that.” She reaches for her notepad and pencil again. “And a really important thing that you can do for yourself is to learn when you feel the most vulnerable, and then gird yourself from the onslaught of whatever might trigger you. You can do some deep breathing exercises, and—just generally—you can take good care of yourself. Make sure you’re eating, sleeping, getting exercise. Are you doing all those things?”
“I eat well,” Bill says, thinking of the meals that Jo prepares for him. “I wouldn’t say that I get a lot of intentional exercise, and my sleep is hit-or-miss, depending on the stress of work and home.”
“Understandable. How about we try something this week to see if you notice any difference?”
“Okay.” Bill is amenable to this; while he isn’t a huge fan of being forced to see a psychiatrist, he’s also not a fan of wasting his own time, so if there’s something that Dr. Sheinbaum thinks he can do, he’ll at least try it.
“I want you to, very intentionally, go to sleep at the same time each night this week, and rise at the same time, no matter what day it is. If you can’t sleep, rather than tossing and turning, I want you to get up and go sit in a dimly lit room. Stay quiet, and read something that isn’t overly stimulating. A history book or a newspaper article. Give yourself twenty or thirty minutes, and then go back to bed and try to sleep. Do you think you can do that?”
Bill nods. “I can. Sounds easy enough.”
“And if you’re in a situation where you feel that you’re about to be reminded of Korea, then I want you to pause wherever you are, and maybe find a place to sit down and do some steady, even, deep breathing. Count to four as you breathe in, hold the breath for four more counts, and then release for four. Do this until your heart rate slows, and if you can, realign your thinking as you do. Rather than whatever image is troubling you, replace it with a thought of your family. With your children’s faces. With something Jo said or did that made you particularly happy.”
“Like… re-train my brain?”
“Essentially, yes.” Dr. Sheinbaum nods eagerly. “There’s a scientist at the University of Pennsylvania who is using this method to great effect. He calls it cognitive-behavioral therapy , and it’s quite new, but patients are responding well to it.”
The idea of being at the forefront of something appeals to Bill, but, more importantly, the thought that he might control his thoughts, and these episodes, appeals to him more.
“Interesting,” he says. “This is all new to me.”
A slow smile spreads across Dr. Sheinbaum’s attractive face, and between them, Bill can sense an unspoken agreement: he’ll lower his guard a bit more each time they talk, and she’ll give him whatever help she can to make this prescribed therapy more beneficial to him on a personal level. The realization that their professional relationship can actually benefit him is a new thought for Bill, and it sits well with him. It really does. He loves efficiency, he loves making the puzzle pieces fit together, and he loves the idea of possibly avoiding future situations where dark thoughts ruin his day.
“So,” Dr. Sheinbaum says, her eyes twinkling with happiness. “We’ve made some progress today, Bill, and I really appreciate your candor. This week, I want you to try the sleeping thing, and also do the measured breathing any time you feel yourself escalating internally or having dark thoughts. And then we’ll discuss it next week.”
Bill isn’t entirely sure how they got from a discussion about Jo’s dreams to him divulging something that has always felt like it needed to be locked away and not shared, but it’s happened, and with it has come a sense of relief. A release from the chokehold that he feels whenever something reminds him of the war.
“Thank you,” he says, standing. His posture is as erect as it is when he’s talking to Arvin North, and he looks at Dr. Sheinbaum with fresh eyes: she is not the enemy across the table who he must only tolerate. Instead, she is a wise doctor who might be able to help him.
And all he had to do was let her in—just a little.
What a revelation.
* * *
The buzz of the lawnmower dies down as Bill turns it off. It’s Saturday morning, and the sun isn’t high in the sky yet. Jo is hanging the bedsheets on the line near the fence, and the kids are splashing in the pool already. The scene is idyllic, and Bill pauses for a moment, taking in the peaceful tableau.
“Bill?” Jo calls to him, startling him out of his thoughts. “Do you want to go to the beach later on? Maybe do a mini bonfire and roast some hotdogs with the kids?”
This suggestion nourishes the sense of goodwill that Bill is feeling and he smiles at his wife. “That would be nice,” he says and then turns to the pool, cupping his mouth with both hands. “Hey, kiddos!”
The splashing stops and Nancy, Jimmy, and Kate look at their father expectantly. “What do you say we hit the beach later on and roast some hotdogs there?”
There are whoops of joy from the pool. Bill and Jo smile at one another and she turns back to the clothesline.
Since his meeting with Dr. Sheinbaum on Tuesday, Bill has been doing precisely what she said to do: going to bed at the same time and waking up at the same time. He’s had a couple of nights where sleep eluded him, and on those nights, he’s gone out to the pool and sat there in the dark, just watching the stars. It isn’t exactly reading in a dim room as Dr. Sheinbaum had suggested, but it is peaceful, and as he looks up at the moon, he practices the deep breathing exercise she gave him.
Bill pushes the lawnmower through the side gate and around the front of the house, where he repeats the process of starting it, pushing it across the grass until he has his lawn looking like a freshly cut head of hair, and then turning it off and listening to the motor whir to a stop. He puts it back in the garage and then finds a large broom to sweep the driveway.
It could be as simple as having a task (keeping reasonable sleep hours), or it could be as momentous as having a tool in his back pocket (the breathing exercise), but the week has gone smoothly for Bill. Work can be stressful, and it’s been particularly so in the past year, given the questions and investigations into the explosions of the Gemini three-man test mission in December of 1964, but even that has gone smoothly of late. Arvin North has checked in with him once a week to make sure that Bill is attending his meetings with Dr. Sheinbaum, and with her confirmation that he’s been making progress, Bill hasn’t had his work duties scaled back in any noticeable way.
But the fight was poor form on Bill’s part, and he still regrets it. In no way should he have lost his cool enough to punch the son of a senator, and in no universe was it okay for him to come unglued around Arvin North. Those are the facts, and those are Bill’s truths, but he understands he has more going on beneath the surface than just being upset by the way Ted Mackey had spoken about Jeanie Florence. Through his talks with Dr. Sheinbaum, he’s starting to see that Margaret’s death at Desert Sage, and even his dark moods that come on whenever he thinks about Korea, are factors in his everyday dealings with others. They’re even factors in his marriage and in how he interacts with his children. Those things are worth exploring.
Bill hangs the broom back on the wall of his garage and closes the door, admiring his Corvette in the driveway as he does.
This is a pleasant life , he thinks, feeling more self-satisfied than he has in a while. I’ve given my family something to be proud of here .
And he really has; their life in Minnesota had been nothing to sneeze at, but this house, this beach town, the opportunities that have come to the entire family because of his position at NASA—those are huge to Bill. They make him feel like a man and a provider, and that feels good.
His overall sense of pleasure lasts throughout the afternoon as the kids pitch in around the house, and as he kneels on the sand late in the afternoon, watching them kick a ball around by the water. Jo is sitting next to a cooler, taking out the things they’ll need for the beach barbecue, and for a moment, Bill wonders if they should have invited friends to join them.
But then Jo stands and comes to sit next to him, and he realizes that being alone with his family during this twilight hour is a gift that he wouldn’t want to miss.
“Hi,” Jo says with playfulness in her voice. He can feel her watching him expectantly. “This was a good idea.”
Bill tosses some kindling on the fire and holds a long match to it, setting it alight. He looks at Jo from the corner of his eye, smiling at her. “Yeah? I thought so.”
With the fire lit, he sinks down onto the sand next to her. Jo folders her legs under her and she’s holding a bottle of soda in one hand. She passes Bill a beer, and he pulls one knee up towards his body to brace himself as he stretches the other leg out straight.
“How have things been going?” Jo ventures. He knows the question is broad, but her meaning is clear: she wants to hear how things are going with Dr. Sheinbaum.
“Good,” Bill says, feeling disinclined to say more. But he knows that Dr. Sheinbaum wouldn’t want him to drop the conversational ball here and just walk away. “Things have been good. My appointments with the therapist have been… helpful.”
Jo nods as she chews on her lower lip. She looks out at the water. “I’m happy to hear that.” They sit there for a minute, watching their children romp and frolic in the surf as they chase their ball. "Do you talk about us?"
Bill can hear the apprehension in his wife's voice. "The family?" he asks gently, knowing that this therapy will be less useful if he's forced to share every detail and every breakthrough with Jo.
"Us," she says, looking at the sand beneath her legs. "You and me."
Bill stares out at the water for a beat. "I do," he says. "I talk about anything that's on my mind, really. But usually Dr. Sheinbaum leads the questioning and we go where she takes us."
"Is that how therapy works?" Jo swivels her bottle of soda in the sand until it's being held up by the barrier of sand she's created. She brushes her hands together and then rests them in her lap.
Bill shrugs. "I'm not sure. I've never been to therapy before." He knows he isn't being especially forthcoming, and that Jo is only asking out of curiosity and because she wants to help him, but these are hard questions for him to answer. "This seems to be how Dr. Sheinbaum does things, so probably? I guess?"
Jo nods and sifts her fingers through the sand on both sides of her thighs. "Bill?" She looks up and stares at his profile, which he senses. "Do you talk about problems in our marriage? Is that why you wanted to know about my dreams last week?"
Bill had hoped that conversation flowed so seamlessly that Jo could’ve mistaken it for him simply wanting to sit down and talk about her feelings. But it must have been so out of character for him to focus entirely on Jo that she'd noticed. He wants to smack his palm to his forehead at his own stupidity; how could he talk to his wife so little that when he did, she knew right away that someone else had prompted it?
But he has to own up to this fact. "Yes," he says, swallowing. "Dr. Sheinbaum explained the way things are for women, and we talked about you a little. She thought it might be helpful for me--for us--if I heard what kinds of things you might have given up in your life, or what things you still wanted to pursue." It feels weirdly shameful to admit to Jo that someone else had needed to push him to ask these things.
"I see," Jo says. When he looks over at her, she presses her lips together and looks thoughtful. She's clearly thinking, but she doesn't appear to be angry. "How would you feel if I were talking to a stranger about you? Telling someone your deepest, darkest thoughts, and discussing your issues?"
At this, indignation rises in Bill. "I can tell you exactly how I'd feel, Jo, and it's not good. Do you know why?"
She frowns at him and gives a single shake of the head. "I don't talk about you like that to Frankie or any of the other women. I don't, Bill. I promise you."
"Jo," he says, looking at her incredulously. "You talked about me, my job, my thoughts, and the things you think I'm doing behind your back--you laid me bare on paper and sent it off to some magazine to print for everyone to read." He watches her face as this hits her like a bucket of cold ice water. Her jaw drops. "You wrote things about me, and then every woman in America read them. That was incredibly intrusive. I walk the halls at work now, knowing that all the secretaries have read your stories and dissected my life and our marriage." He stands up abruptly, brushing the sand from the seat of his shorts as he looks down at Jo. "How do you think that feels?"
Bill holds her gaze for a few seconds before throwing up both hands and then walking down the beach. He needs to kick the ball around with the kids or something; he needs to be away from Jo while he lets these feelings of resentment wash away like the tides.