twenty-three stories

Eleanor sits perfectly still in the chair, the way she has learned to do after so many sessions with Dr. Gullen, the Portland therapist who always wore the same rose-colored button-up sweater. Sitting still calmed her, and more desirable, it caused listeners to take her more seriously than they ordinarily might have. Not that many people have ever taken her story seriously. But she uses every advantage she can find, and this, though subtle, is her strongest.

The similarities today are many, she notices, and as her new therapist unrolls her first-time-patient spiel, Eleanor ticks them off. This office is on the twenty-third floor, northeast corner, of a very tall building. (Dr. Gullen's office consumed one-quarter of the sixty-sixth floor of Portland's tallest building, a cozy carpeted nest in a warren of cool steel and glass.) This new therapist, a woman named Dr. Teresa Weathers, also wears rose, though it is the lenses of her glasses that are tinted this color. It's obviously intended to make a point, but Eleanor chooses not to take it. Rose-colored glasses, she thinks, can't be this therapist's backbone suggestion. Later, when Eleanor is given her opportunity to speak, Dr. Weathers removes her glasses, and Eleanor can't hide a tiny smile.

Dr. Weathers is a trim, tidy woman of sixty. She is narrow, and when she comes from behind her desk to shake Eleanor's hand, she doesn't simply stand and walk; she unfolds, and surprises Eleanor with her sheer height. Eleanor, who considers herself almost tall at five-nine, finds herself at eye level with the doctor's amethyst pendant necklace.

So, Dr. Weathers finally says, concluding her opening statements. What can I do for you?

Eleanor says, I don't have a particular problem. I was referred to you by Dr. Gullen. In Oregon?

Dr. Weathers seems surprised. Dr. Gullen?

Yes. He was my doctor when I was young.

Dr. Weathers recomposes herself, and waves a rickety hand at Eleanor. Go on, please.

I saw Dr. Gullen for two years immediately following an accident I had when I was fourteen, Eleanor says.

How long ago was that?

Eleanor has to think about this, and the answer isn't what she expects. She can't believe it's been as long as it has when she says, About twelve years.

You're twenty-six, Dr. Weathers says.

Twenty-eight, Eleanor answers. I meant twelve years since I stopped seeing him.

And why was that? Dr. Weathers asks, and adds, If you don't mind me asking.

When I was sixteen I ran away. I was going to join the Peace Corps, I thought.

Did you?

I was sixteen, Eleanor says. Too young.

Dr. Weathers waves her hand again, almost impatiently. Eleanor rushes to the point, intimidated: My accident was I jumped off of a cliff. I broke my leg pretty severely. There were a couple of skull fractures; they tell me I'm lucky I can remember my name. There were other minor bumps -- I fractured my left wrist. Weirdly enough, that's the thing that bothers me most -- my leg healed well, and my head, I guess, was just fine, because there were no serious after-effects, but my wrist throbs madly when the humidity goes up...

Dr. Weathers says, Dear, are you aware that I'm not a medical doctor?

Eleanor nods, and goes on. I was comatose for eleven days, she says, and when I woke up I remembered two things: exactly how it all felt, hitting the rocks like I did and everything cracking; and I remembered something that happened while I was 'away', as the doctors put it.

Dr. Weather interrupts her. May I ask why you jumped? I should have asked a moment ago, but ... well, I am getting old. If I pause in my inquiries, I tend to become swept up by other things.

I was with a close friend, and he took me to the cliff to show me where his father used to dive when he was our age.

So -- forgive my bluntness, but -- this wasn't an early attempt to ...

To take my life? Eleanor finishes. No, of course not. I was fourteen. I was fourteen, and blissfully in love with my best friend, and I had just started reading The Babysitters Club.

You were trying to cliff-dive, then, Dr. Weathers said.

It was something to do, Eleanor answers.

You said something a moment ago that I wanted to ask you about, but I instead asked you about something I'd forgotten to ask you about. I'm doing it again, in case it isn't as glaringly obvious to you as to me, Dr. Weathers confides. You said something about remembering things that happened while you were ... while you were comatose, I assume you meant. Can you elaborate?

In the past, when Eleanor had been asked this question, she had paused involuntarily, not for dramatic effect but simply to try to frame in words an answer that wouldn't send up warning flares on the other person's face. But the pauses were dramatic despite her intentions, and when she answered, she always felt absolutely looney.

While I was comatose, Eleanor says, perhaps a little slowly but still quite confidently, I had a conversation with God.

And Dr. Weathers wrinkles her brow, but in a knot of fascination, not derision. She rolls across the room in her tall-backed chair, weaving expertly around the desk and to the couch Eleanor is sitting on. When she comes to a stop, she bends over and rests her forearms on her knees and says, Tell me, Eleanor Witt. What did you talk about?

And when she is finished, Eleanor has to tell Dr. Weathers that their time is up, that it has in fact been up for ten minutes. Dr. Weathers says, Wait, and swivels the chair so that she is facing the desk. She rolls forward and taps a button on the telephone, and says, William. Pick up. Apparently William, who is the young man at the lobby desk, does so, and Dr. Weathers says, Who's next? and William tells her and Dr. Weathers says, Can you do something for me? and William of course says he can and Dr. Weathers says, Tell her I've just received word that my sister has been taken to the hospital. Tell her it's an automobile accident. William says something in return, and Dr. Weathers says, No, trust me: if any patient would understand, this one will.

Eleanor watches, unaware that her mouth is hinged open, and when Dr. Weathers turns back around, she says, My dear, please don't look at me like that. It isn't every day I get to talk to an interesting young lady, and believe me, it most certainly is every day that I get to pretend not to nap while Henrietta grouses about the damned drunken driver who ran down her baby sister.

Dr. Weathers is trying not to smile. Oh, damn, she says. I've just broken all kinds of confidentiality laws. Don't tell, if you don't mind.

So Eleanor stays, and the two women talk while the blue sky drains to red and then charcoal, and then copper, the gray turned shimmery by the warm amber glow of the rising city lights.