26. Guest v. Finbow Day Five
GUEST V. FINBOW: DAY FIVE
This email might come as a shock to you.
I am writing to let you know I am taking a healing separation from our relationship.
I need to step back and reflect on our (voluntary) parental bond.
So I ask you to respect my desire to turn my energy inward.
I am in good physical health and have plenty of resources at my disposal.
This message is not intended to undermine any of the happier times we have enjoyed together, for which I am grateful, but please don’t try and find me. I am working toward forgiveness.
“Oriel’s email arrived in the summer of the year she first began seeing Ms. Guest, is that correct?” Ms. Carr asks.
“Correct,” Lucy Ayres replies calmly.
It is the fifth day of the trial, and Anna has summoned Lucy—another tortured mother—to speak in her defense.
“Do you believe your daughter was the real author of this message?” inquires Ms. Carr.
Lucy’s stare is rigid. “There is no doubt in my mind: It was written by Jean Guest.”
“Why?”
“At that point, she was controlling every aspect of my daughter’s life. No correspondence went unchecked. She wanted her all to herself.”
Ms. Carr pauses, then brings to the judge’s attention a second email, which is projected onto the screen. This one is signed by Mary. As Ms. Carr flips between them, my skin prickles. They are eerily alike. Lucy Ayres confirms her belief that Mary’s message was also authored by Jean Guest.
“Everything is the same. Oriel cut us off shortly after she began therapy with Ms. Guest, too,” Lucy explains.
Ms. Carr nods sympathetically. “Did Oriel have any other reason to enforce an estrangement from you?”
“None whatsoever,” says Lucy, her chin trembling. “She loved me.”
Ms. Carr lowers her folder of notes and leaves a reverent pause.
There is a shift in her manner, a softening.
“Mrs. Ayres, perhaps we should have acknowledged this at the beginning. We are profoundly sorry for your recent loss.” I look up.
My awareness sharpens. “We understand your bereavement is very recent, so it must take great strength to stand here today. We are grateful for your courage.”
A cold feeling seeps into my stomach: a slow, sickening dread. Did she mean the loss of her husband? Or could it be Oriel? I look toward Anna, but her face bears no surprise. She shakes her head grimly. There was often talk of Oriel’s hospitalization. Had she never recovered?
“My daughter was the brave one,” Lucy says, bowing her head.
I hear myself make a small cry. “The reason I am standing here is because of what happened to her. I cannot let the same thing happen to anyone else. It’s the same pattern: meeting in Rome, pressuring young girls into therapy… ” She trails off, suddenly overcome.
As she pauses to compose herself, I look over at Jean, who is writing, obstinately, in her notebook.
Look her in the eye, Jean , I think, with boiling outrage.
At least have the guts to look Oriel’s mother in the eye.
But her head remains lowered, and I don’t know why I am surprised—facing Lucy would be to acknowledge her role in her suffering.
For months, I was just as spineless, witnessing Anna suffer the loss of Mary without facing my own part in what had happened.
There was, at first, a rush of relief when, two Januarys ago, I received my own version of Mary’s hateful email.
Sheer dopamine, just to see the letters of her name in my inbox.
It came about a month after I’d found Jean’s apartment in Rome empty.
I was back in London by then, subletting a room in Archway and staggering about beneath a cloud of confusion and shame at the way I’d been ghosted.
In the first week of the new year, Jean had texted briefly to say she was busy working.
But Mary wasn’t even reading my texts. For a couple of weeks, I blocked her.
Then I unblocked her, expecting a flood of messages.
Nothing. Why was I being erased? What had I done to make them both shut me out?
And had Jean openly lied to me about owning that apartment, or had I just assumed it was all hers, like I assumed she was all mine?
When I remember how I responded to Mary’s email, I’m ashamed at how swiftly I went on the attack.
HEALING JOURNEY? I replied mockingly, trying to suppress my queasy acquaintance with the phrase.
I asked her what the fuck this self-important insanity was all about.
In my next message, I grew defensive. I’d tried to be helpful when she dropped that bombshell in the club, and I’d done her a huge fucking favor in introducing her to Jean, so it wasn’t fair to just vanish like this.
All the wrong things to say, but I was so hurt, I don’t think I really read Mary’s email properly at all. As always, I turned to Jean to decipher things:
I know you’re busy, but did you receive this too? I forwarded Mary’s message to her. Can we at least talk on the phone?
The following day, Jean finally messaged from a British number.
Her profile picture no longer showed the black-and-white image of her smiling at a party, which I used to admire, but two white curtains blowing beside an open window.
She apologized that work had been very absorbing.
There was no acknowledgment of Mary’s bizarre message.
How’s my Gus getting along? she asked. I’ve missed you!
Can I come over? I begged. Please.
Jean’s flat wasn’t 1970s at all. It was on the lower level of a 1930s low-rise building on the outer fringes of Primrose Hill.
When I arrived, it was early evening. Jean answered the door, dressed more casually than I’d ever seen her before, in loose-fitting trousers and an ugly cardigan.
The only expensive-looking item was on her face: a pair of new rectangular glasses.
They made everything about her seem altered.
“Hello, Gus,” she said, taking a slight backward step.
For the first time ever, I came inside and there was no hug. No watchful, interested gaze. She surveyed me with sympathy, but only fleetingly; then she looked away. My body felt stung.
We went down a dark hallway into the kitchen, a damp, sloping room at the back of the flat lit by dusty lamps.
It was confusing to me as I looked about.
In Rome, Jean had boasted about a gloriously minimal and airy flat which she rattled around in, but this place was cramped and depressing.
Gone were the art books and records, the fresh cream upholstery.
The whole kitchen was pine: the cupboards on the walls, the chairs, the table. Bright orange and oppressive.
Sitting at the table, I read Mary’s email aloud while Jean got me a drink.
“?‘Turn my energy inward’? What does that mean? She sounds unhinged. What’s she said about me? Is she cutting me out?”
“Not permanently, Gus,” she said sharply. “She’s asking for a temporary separation.” Jean brought over two glasses of wine and pulled out a chair alongside me. “Just a short break. You should respect it.”
“How do you know it’s only temporary?”
“How do I know?” Jean asked. A flicker of something new crossed over her face. “I helped her write it.”
My stomach turned. “But,” I stammered. “I don’t get why she has to isolate herself. Doesn’t she need her friends?”
Jean sipped her wine primly. “You know I can’t comment on another client’s treatment,” she said.
A slow sense of betrayal began to dawn on me. I registered, with fear, the fancy gauzy tea bags that Mary liked to have before bed, propped on the side next to Jean’s kettle.
“Is she coming here a lot?” I asked quietly. I couldn’t imagine Mary’s golden energy occupying such a claustrophobic space.
“Don’t press this, Gus,” Jean warned harshly.
Jean had always let me into little secrets from other sessions before.
Why not now? Hit by a fresh wave of uneasiness, I got up from my chair and began pacing the narrow kitchen.
“But is she okay?” I asked. “Did she break it off with Law?” Four small steps on the slick linoleum floor and then back again. “Is she returning to Rome?”
“For now, no.”
“Why can’t I talk to her?”
Jean shook her head. “She needs space, Gus. That means, stop texting. And no more phone calls.” She gave a chuckle, though her expression was serious. “You’re frightening her.”
Humiliated by the thought of them both discussing—even complaining about—me, I collapsed back into the kitchen chair.
“Oh my God,” I whispered.
Jean placed a warm hand on my back. “Poor girl,” she murmured, stroking my scalp and then down again. I leaned into her, feeling a rush of well-being, not only from Jean’s touch but also that soft voice she used. “My funny girl.”
I tried to cling to the thought that Mary would know Jean’s comfort, too. But my sadness wouldn’t lift.
“Will you tell her that I miss her?” I sniffed, once I had gathered myself together. I reached into my bag and pulled out a letter I’d written. “I’ll give her space, if that’s what she really wants. But will you give her this?”
Inside the envelope were photos of us. Silly drawings we’d made together on the stationery in Beaker’s hotel suite.
A list of the films we’d watched, with pompous reviews I’d made up when we were drunk one evening at her flat.
There was an apology for how term had ended.
A postscript promise that she could tell me anything and I’d always be there for her.
I signed it off using a jokey nickname she’d used for me once: your scowling muse.
Jean took it from me quickly. “Of course. I do know she misses you, Gus. She mentions you a lot. I’m sure she’ll be back in touch soon. She just needs a break. We all do from time to time.”
“But I’m worried about her. I’m sad about her feeling so sad.”