“Do you drink, Mrs. Douglas?” the doctor asked gently.
Catherine stared at him in panic, feeling cornered, attacked. “Sometimes.”
“How much?”
She took a deep breath. “Not much. It—it depends.”
“Have you had a drink today?” he asked.
“No.”
He sat there studying her. “You’re not really ugly, you know,” he said gently. “You’re
overweight, your body is bloated and you haven’t been taking care of your skin or your
hair. Underneath that facade there’s a very attractive young woman.”
She burst into tears, and he sat there letting her cry herself out. Dimly over her
racking sobs Catherine heard the buzzer on his desk ring several times, but the doctor
ignored it. The spasm of sobbing finally subsided. Catherine pulled out a handkerchief and
blew her nose. “I’m sorry,” she apologized. “C—can you help me?”
“That depends entirely on you,” Doctor Nikodes replied. “We don’t really know what
your problem is yet.”
“Take a look at me,” Catherine responded. He shook his head. “That’s not a problem,
Mrs. Douglas, that’s a symptom. Forgive me for being blunt, but if I am to help you, we
must be totally honest with each other. When an attractive young woman lets herself go as
you have, there must be a very strong reason. Is your husband alive?” “Holidays and
weekends.” He studied her. “Do you live with him?” “When he’s home.” “What is his
work?”
“He’s Constantin Demiris’ personal pilot.” She saw the reaction on the doctor’s face,
but whether he was reacting to the name of Demiris or whether he knew something about
Larry, she could not tell. “Have you heard of my husband?” she asked.
“No.” But he could have been lying. “Do you love your husband, Mrs. Douglas?”
Catherine opened her mouth to answer and then stopped. She knew that what she was
going to say was very important, not only to the doctor, but to herself. Yes, she loved her
husband and yes, she hated him, and yes, at times she felt such a rage toward him that she
knew she was capable of killing him, and yes, at times she was so overwhelmed by a
tenderness for him that she knew she would gladly die for him and what was the word that
could say all that? Perhaps it was love. “Yes,” she said.
“Does he love you?”
Catherine thought of the other women in Larry’s life and his unfaithfulness and she
thought of the awful stranger in the mirror last night and she could not blame Larry for not
wanting her. But who was to say which came first? Did the woman in the mirror create his
infidelity, or did his infidelity create the woman in the mirror? She became aware that her
cheeks were wet with tears again.
Catherine shook her head helplessly. “I—I don’t know.”