Benedicamus Domino
By Beverly Stevens
“The most important thing is not to end up like my mother,” I was telling my therapist Dr Becker, who nodded at me in a slightly disapproving way. She disapproved, I knew, because it is not healthy for a woman to not identify with her mother.
Also, because there is nothing so wrong with my mother; she is like every other woman of her generation in Germany. They are called ‘the 68-ers,’ the university students of 1968 who rebelled against the Establishment and ushered in the modern Germany, leader of Europe. Here in Mittel Europa, at the beginning of the 21st century, the 68ers reign supreme.
am seeing a therapist because, at age 32 and a successful gynecologist, I
am despondent. You see, my partner Andreas has left me. We had been together since university, in the early, wonderful, warm and giddy days when we brought our sweet Otto home. He was a lovely puppy; our child, really. When he died of old age twelve years later, our grief spilled over in a black pool, flooding our bedroom and the boredom of our life together.
It was not long afterwards that Andreas told me that he had accepted another position, a significant promotion at the Uniklinik in Hamburg, 500 kilometers from the university town where we have lived together since our student days. He said that it would make no difference to our relationship, and that the promotion was too good to pass up.
I have known him too long to be deceived by his lying. He gradually eased himself out of my life, and I let him go reluctantly, feeling helpless all
the while.
A Short Story
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