Peanut Butter

 Muffled pleasantries from outside the Therapist's closed office doors let her know the next appointment had arrived. The Therapist recognized the patient's voice exchanging niceties with the secretary on the other side of the doors.

"Tsk," said the Therapist, quietly reprimanding herself for using the term patient rather than client. The Therapist did not need to look at her calendar to remember who the next client was or her notes concerning the details of the previous appointments.

She couldn't forget such an intriguing case.

"Are you ready for Ms. Gilina Deckard?" the secretary asked as she opened the office doors. The Therapist nodded, and the secretary replied, "I will let the client know." The Therapist smiled at the secretary, and the secretary, who had difficulty using the term client at first, felt a bit of pride in reciting the appropriate terminology.

The distinction between patient and client was critical to the Therapist's endeavor to establish a clinic free of the modern atrocities associated with mental health practices. The Therapist thought of the groundbreaking ceremony of the Palms Clinic last year in 1956. It was the first of its kind. Many people, some of whom she considered colleagues, thought a woman running a mental health facility was unnatural. They thought her methods of having patients acknowledge their psychological narratives were foolish. The Therapist smiled as she remembered how cutting the red tape to the clinic a year ago felt like cutting ties with institutionalized mental health administrators that chose abhorrent practices like electroshock and lobotomy.

Gilina would have been diagnosed with hysteria if she had gone to one of those other clinics. The "doctors" would try to cure her with all sorts of heinous methods like placing bad smells under her nose and pleasing aromas near her genitals, or a cannon of water fired at her inner thighs, or raping her with their fingers because they believed female semen turned venomous if not released. Then the “doctors” would have locked Gilina in a room at night and do it again the next day. The thought made the Therapist shudder.

That was the nature of the therapist-patient relationship, one person in power with all the answers and one person who knows nothing except that they are sick. The therapist-client relationship took another approach in which the therapist guides the client in finding their truths. For Gilina, the most crucial difference between status quo methods and what was practiced at the Palms Clinic was that she could go home to her family instead of being locked in a psychiatric ward.

The doors to the Therapist's office opened again, and Gilina walked into the room. Gilina was tall with long flowing black hair like a model in a magazine hocking shampoo. Her face had a unique narrowness that was exotic and unusual but not gaunt, just foreign. Gilina wore a long dress with a flower pattern that seemed to tell the world she was a happy homemaker.

But Gilina wasn’t the happy homemaker she wanted to be.

After exchanging salutations, the Therapist asked, “Are you ready to begin?”

Gilina nodded, then said, “I am the Mother, but I don’t have to be when I’m in therapy. I can be the person I am, not the one I want to be.”

“Good,” the Therapist said and wrote in her notebook that the mantra was said. “Have you felt any paralyzing decisions this week?”

“I went to the grocery store, like you asked, before coming to my session today,” Gilina replied.

“Did you have a moment of indecision?”

“Yes,” Gilina replied.

“Tell me about it,” the Therapist asked.

“Well, I was worried about my son’s birthday party. He’s turning eight and asked me to bake him a cake. Of course, I was excited to do so, but I started to get nervous at the grocery store.”

“What made you nervous?” the Therapist asked.

“He asked for a peanut butter cake instead of a chocolate cake. I already had all the ingredients except peanut butter. Still, I couldn’t force myself to reach for it, let alone add it to the groceries in my basket. So, I started looking at cocoa powder for a chocolate cake instead. Then I thought of my son being disappointed with the cake being chocolate instead of peanut butter.”

“Why did you find it difficult to grab the peanut butter off the shelf?” the Therapist asked.

Gilina was quiet for a minute and gazed through the window at the pleasant spring weather. It always took some time for Gilina to adjust to her discomfort of not acting like the perfect mother she wanted everyone to see. The Therapist waited and passed the time by flipping through her previous notes.

Gilina was an exceptional artist and photographer. Her favorite hobby was drawing three-dimensional shapes on exposure film and developing images in a dark room. Then by splicing the film together, she created a moving picture of magnificent topological objects that morphed and inverted their shapes in a bewildering display. Gilina’s talent was different because it was nothing anyone had ever seen. She called the art projects of morphing shapes of spliced film Tori. The Therapist’s notes told the details in terse statements.

Gilina says that her Tori are derived from mathematical equations of symmetry.

Client has no mathematics degree. When asked, she says that the equations come to her when she focuses on what she wants the Tori to look like. Says the shapes need to move.

The Therapist looked at Gilina to see she was still gazing out the window at the trees blowing in the wind. Perhaps it would storm later. The Therapist returned to her notes, but in her mind’s eye, she remembered how Gilina’s Tori enthralled her. The day Gilina showed the Therapist her Tori, the blinds were drawn, and the film’s shapes were projected onto the Therapist’s office wall. Further down the notepad, the Therapist tried to describe how impressive the Tori were.

Her creations are more artistic than mathematical. The beauty of the moving shapes is like a dance that tells stories, like how individual instruments of an orchestra can evoke emotions dissimilar to the ensemble. Like a story within a story but in opposition to each other. By looking at the shapes morph into others, you knew how you should feel by how the shapes twisted or rippled. Words can’t describe it, but I'll try for the sake of my notes.

There was a donut that turned itself inside out, then formed lines that split into spaces that became squares that unhinged into a flat sheet to wrap itself back into the simple donut shape again.

It was intuitive and emotional. To me, that’s an art more than math.

           “Dr. Silveria?” Gilina asked.

           “Yes, please continue if you feel comfortable. Why didn’t you put the peanut butter into your grocery basket?”

           “Yes, well, that’s because of that sixth sense I have; that’s what you called it last time,” Gilina responded. “I knew, I just knew, that putting that peanut butter jar in the basket would lead to the end of Earth. I didn’t want that to happen, so I stood in the aisle with other customers passing by me. I stood there for maybe an hour, walking back and forth between the cocoa powder and the peanut butter.”

           “You’ve stated before that your pathological ambivalence sends you into a spiral of fear. Is that your wish still?” the Therapist asked.

           “Yes, oh yes. It is a debilitating malady,” Gilina said.

           “Do you remember discussing how your ambivalence is tied to your self-narrative? For example, you say you want to be the Mother, even said being the best Mother would be something you wanted.”

           “Yes, I remember.”

           “And do you remember acknowledging that the indecisions that plague you might be related to your sense of self, your own portrayal of being a mother?”

           “Yes, but that isn’t everything.”

           “I know it isn’t,” the Therapist replied. “So why did you think you have this sixth sense to know that buying peanut butter leads to the end of the world.”

           “Like I said, it is because of my sixth sense. That’s what you called it anyway,” Gilina said.

           “I said there are people that claim to have a sixth sense, but this is not a scientific claim, more fiction than anything, but it seemed the best way to articulate what you have described in the past. This ‘knowing’ that you have.”

           “Feel,” Gilina said. “I feel it more than I know it. I felt that getting the peanut butter would kill Paul’s friend. That’s where my thoughts started.”

           “Why did you feel it would kill your son’s friend? Do you mean at the birthday party?”

           “Yes, at the birthday party, Paul’s friend, Sammy Miller, would have a piece of the peanut butter cake and then die.”

           “Why do you think it would kill him?” the Therapist asked.

           “Because one time, after a ball game, oh, Paul looked so strong that day, anyway, I happened to put my hand on Sammy’s back as I escorted him off the field. When I touched him, I felt something like an itch that I couldn’t scratch. I just knew that peanuts were dangerous for him.”

           “Does Sammy have a peanut allergy?”

           “I don’t know,” Gilina replied. “I get that feeling about myself sometimes too. Sometimes it happens when I look a food like lettuce or chicken, but other times it happens when my hand brushes against rusty metal. I get this feeling of repulsive forces, like two like-pole magnets pushing each other away. Not like an allergy, no, that’s not it, more like a dissonance.”

           The Therapist took a few notes and then asked, “Do you think you might have heard Sammy has a peanut allergy from Paul’s teachers or some other way?”

           “I don’t know. I don’t remember someone telling me that. Paul and Sammy are on the same ball team but attend different schools. So, it’s possible I overheard it, yeah. And I guess you would say it is more possible for me to have heard something than sensed it.”

           The Therapist looked Gilina in the eyes and said, “Perhaps I should say that, but I will not. I don’t want to influence your reality with my own. I want to hear what you think.”

           “I think if I bought the peanut butter, then Paul would see it, then I would have to bake the cake, then Sammy would die when he ate it, then Paul would blame me for killing his friend.”

           “So why not just be safe and choose the cocoa powder and make the chocolate cake?” asked the Therapist.

           “Because then Paul would be upset that he did not have the peanut butter cake, and I wouldn’t be a good Mother.”

           “If disappointing your children makes you a bad mother, I think there are no good mothers,” the Therapist stated.

           “But as you just said,” Gilina replied, “your opinion shouldn’t influence me. So where does that leave us?”

           The Therapist nodded in concession and said, “You are correct. Please continue. Tell me how this would lead to the end of the world. I have only heard of Sammy and Paul’s plight; how does that propagate to the world?”

           Gilina winced but forced herself to say what was on her mind.

           “That happens years later when Paul is a grown man. Paul’s teenage years will be awful; no matter what I do, I can’t change that. Buying the peanut butter will kill Paul’s friend, and Paul will hate me for it. If I buy the cocoa powder, Paul doesn’t trust me as his mother. The results of either path are the same for Paul. He doesn’t graduate high school because he refuses to let me support him. He starts working at the same grocery store and has to drop out of school. But if I get the peanut butter, it’s even worse.”

           “I’m not trying to influence you, but do you feel those are a lot of ‘if’s’?” the Therapist asked.

           “I can acknowledge that,” Gilina said, “but it doesn’t make the feeling disappear. See, Paul then joins a cult, and they make him feel more at home than I ever could. The cult believes that aliens are on Earth and—”

           “Aliens?” the Therapist asked. “I thought we discussed that the alien fears were unfounded. You admitted that a few sessions ago.”

           “I did,” Gilina responded, then bit her lip. A smudge of red lipstick stained her front tooth. “But you asked me to answer why I thought the decision of peanut butter would end the world, so that’s what I’m doing.”

           The Therapist made a few more notes:

Patient Client seems hostile when discussing aliens again. What is the link between the Mother and the Alien? Discuss next session!!!

           “Please, don’t let me stop you,” said the Therapist. “What happens next?”

           “The cult convinces Paul that I am an alien, and that’s why I killed his friend Sammy. The cult preaches that all aliens are bad. I don’t think all aliens are bad, especially if I’m one of them, but if I kill Sammy, then—”

           “It’s okay; remember you are in a safe place to speak your mind,” the Therapist says.

           Gilina has a few tears fall over her rosy cheeks, but she wipes them away and cocks her head to throw her gorgeous black hair over one shoulder. She then collects herself and continues.

           “Many years from now, Paul confronts me about being an alien. The conversation becomes heated. Paul is strong, a grown man and my husband isn’t there; I don’t know where he is, but he isn’t there, and then Paul hits me. He hits me, and my skin breaks, but I don’t bleed. He sees that there are scales under my skin, and he screams. He then beats me, my own child. He hits me over and over. Then there’s a flash of light, and Paul is vaporized, just a dirty ashen spot in the same kitchen I had made the peanut butter cake years ago.”

           Gilina’s eyes glazed over, not from tears, but as if she was in a trance. The Therapist had seen Gilina’s outbursts before, but it had been close to a year since one like this. Still, the Therapist knew it was essential for Gilina’s delusion to be spoken out loud to its conclusion. She asked Gilina, “What happens after Paul disappears?”

           “That’s when I give up on Earth. I’m no longer the Mother and have no purpose anymore. I somehow know that Paul contacted the CIA and convinced them I was an alien. When the CIA comes after me, I feel like I’m being squeezed like a lemon to make lemonade, except the lemonade is more than sour; it's caustic, and it burns your throat going down, and you know, you have to vomit, but the vomit makes it burn even more so you swallow it. You swallow the vomit and live with it. I’m an Alien sent to this planet not to be a Mother but a Destroyer. I must contact my home planet of Slish so they know the location of Earth. Slish is a dying world, and my children there will die, not Paul, not yet; I don’t mean him. I mean my other children. My alien children on Slish. That’s the future if I buy peanut butter instead of cocoa.”

           The Therapist’s mouth is open but closes it before Gilina notices. The Therapist writes notes furiously, then meets Gilina’s eyes and says, “So you couldn’t decide between peanut butter and cocoa because, in either case, you would lose your motherhood. Which means you would lose your identity. What do you think of that analysis?”

           “I guess that is an interpretation,” Gilina replied half-heartedly. She looked emotionally drained, and the Therapist knew their session was ending even though time was not expired.

           “Gilina, I know you feel these small actions have big consequences, but even if they do, you can’t be stuck with such indecision, or life will pass you by. You said that yourself a few weeks ago?”

           “I know,” Gilina said, and the acknowledgment seemed forced and void. As if she knew that, Gilina quickly added, “And I know what people say if I told anyone but you. They’d think I’m crazy, call me hysterical, and take me away from my family.”

           The Therapist said, “We don’t use that word. You seem tired. Do you feel like continuing, or should we stop here?”

           “I think that’s enough for today,” Gilina said. “I want to return to being Mom, not this person.”

           The Therapist and Gilina scheduled their next session and said their goodbyes. On Gilina’s walk home, she passed by the same grocery store that had given her the previous indecision. She stood outside the store, thinking of how kind humans can be and how much they care about their families.

A few minutes later, Gilina exited the store carrying a brown paper bag. It contained only a single item; a jar of peanut butter.