A.N.D. - Through the Looking Glass

It was time for her weekly session with Wolf and Virginia, or, as she couldn’t resist thinking of them, “Freud Revisited: Oral Fixations and Their Attendant Eating Disorders” and “Long Term Effects of Parental Abandonment: A Case Study.” When they’d arrived it was obvious they were obviously in the middle of one of those cloyingly sweet “Honey, I love you forever ‘n’ ever but!” arguments. Dr. Horovitz had braced herself to hear a barrage of stupid complaints about who left the lights on and who dropped wet towels all over the floor. She’d been almost pleasantly surprised to discover that they had a real, fixable problem and were both very eager to work on a mutual solution.

She should let them work out their feelings for themselves. But that would take time, and why damage the relationship more by letting them get more upset before they fixed it? She firmly rejected the thought-true though it be-that the prospect of many sessions with an unhappy Wolf was utterly exhausting. A guy that earnestly clueless could take years to figure it out and oy! what a rough time she’d have until then! Better to nip it all in the bud.

Dr. Horovitz cleared her throat. “Let me make sure I understand, and that you understand each other.” She pointed her pen at Virginia, who watched her with wide but wary eyes. “You have always taken care of your father, so you are used to running the household. You don’t want to give that up because it is what you are familiar with and you would feel bereft without that power.”

“Yes,” the girl said, then bit her lip and looked sideways under her lashes at her fiance, who was squirming beside her on the couch.

He opened his mouth, but Dr. Horovitz rushed to cut him off, stabbing the pen at him. “And you were her guide and protector when she visited your country, and now you feel that she is treating you like a child instead of letting you remain her provider.” He didn’t answer in words, just nodded rapidly and looked at her hopefully.

The pen went back to the girl. “On top of this, you feel smothered, that he is not giving you any time to adjust to your new relationship.” Virginia gave Wolf another one of those sideways looks, then nodded. “Have you ever been apart for any length of time since you met?”

Ah, ha! The girl stared down at her hands, while the boy looked at her bowed head with an expression of sorrow. Emotional baggage, the psychiatrist’s bread and butter.

“What happened?” Dr. Horovitz demanded.

Virginia muttered something.

“Speak up.”

“We fought.” Virginia’s voice was stronger and she looked up. “I told him to go away, and he did.”

Wolf whined and scratched at his temple, and Dr. Horovitz suppressed a sigh. His identification with his namesake animal was quite tedious, but curing that would be a problem for a different session. In the meantime, better to encourage him to talk and think like the man he was. “You obviously didn’t stay away.”

He shrugged. “She needed me. She needed me to rescue her, and I did.”

“To rescue her? How?”

The question was aimed at Wolf, but Virginia was the one who answered. “Things are... different in his country. I didn’t know the rules. I got into trouble. There was... I went to... the wrong part of town, and I was almost killed. He saved me. He really saved my life.” She beamed at him, and he grinned goofily back, reaching for her hand for the first time during the session.

“So the argument and separation were painful, but the resolution was not,” Dr. Horovitz pointed out.

“It was the first time she said she loved me,” Wolf told her as he stroked Virginia’s cheek.

“So, Wolf, you have been afraid to let her out of her sight because your previous separation was painful and she got into trouble. But you must understand that Virginia is back in her own home, where she is more confident. You can let her go and know that she will be all right and that she will come back.”

“But...”

“You must learn to let her go,” Dr. Horovitz insisted. “It hasn’t been two weeks and she feels frustrated enough that she has to steal away from you. If this keeps up, it won’t be long until frustration turns to resentment.”

Wolf launched to his feet, pacing frantically around the room. “No! We’ll do anything, Doc, anything!”

“The first thing you will do is let Virginia speak for herself!” She put a little snap to her voice. Wolf stopped bouncing off the walls and dropped back to the couch, almost quivering. Dr. Horovitz had to shake the sudden mental image of a dog obediently sitting and staying.

Virginia patted his thigh soothingly. “We really will do anything. We both want to work this out. What do you suggest?”

“First, I want you to take him with you the next time you go to the grocery store. I don’t know what you think might be the problem, but if anything comes up, we can discuss it next time. Next, I want you to set aside a little money for each of you, every week.”

“For each of us to do what?” From the girl’s expression, she was probably already calculating a budget.

“For each of you to develop an outside interest. You both need separate interests, and you both need time alone. Yes, even you, Wolf. I want each of you to pick a time every week to go out alone for at least three and a half hours. You will take a little money to spend only on yourself. Do you understand? No presents for each other. This is a time for you. And the one left in the apartment is to take that time alone to enjoy doing whatever you like to do that the other one does not. This isn’t selfishness. The happiest marriages are built when two people feel free to grow, rather than strangled by always being merely one half of a couple. Can you do this?”

They both looked as though she’d hit them, but they nodded dubiously.

New York with Virginia by his side was exciting, glamorous, and fun. New York alone was noisy, dirty, crowded and heartless. And he was stuck out here for another three hours. He was trying to do what Doc Horovitz wanted, but it was so hard!

Virginia had been very good, and had done exactly what the Doc had asked them to do. Almost as soon as they’d emerged from their session, she’d taken him to get what she called “full moon supplies.” Oh, that had been difficult. He hated to admit it, but now he knew why she didn’t want to shop with him.

Meat! Everywhere he looked, more and more meat! The smells! The sights! The HUNGER!

Wolf swallowed hard, then bit his tongue. The flash of pain briefly overrode his instincts, but still, it was a struggle. Be strong! Be strong! Be strong, be strong, bestrongbestrongbestrong… Wolf scurried up to the counter, hoping to cut the overwhelming scent of all that food with a discreet sniff or two of Virginia. He arrived just in time to hear the butcher telling her “... an awful lot of packages. Maybe you’d better grab a cab; the two of you will never be able to carry all this.”

“I’ll hail a cab,” Wolf blurted, glad to have an excuse to get back out on the street before he disgraced himself. Oooohhhhh, he was never going to ask Virginia to take him shopping again!

They did need a cab; as soon as he’d hailed one, Virginia came out of the butcher’s trailing a parade of helpers carrying bag after bag of neat white packages. Wolf’s mouth started watering again as they passed him and started filling the cab’s rear seat. By the time the parade ended, there was barely enough room for him and Virginia to scrunch in.

“What did you do, buy the whole cow?” the cabby asked irritably as they pulled away from the curb.

“Yes,” Virginia answered simply.

He’d been good, too. He had! He hadn’t eaten anything-well, not in the store and not in the cab. He had helped himself to a chicken afterwards, as a good conduct prize, but Virginia got all upset because he ate it raw. Silly girl!

Then Virginia upset him by asking to have her night alone in the apartment that evening. They’d put the food away and talked about how they would handle the full moon and he’d hoped she’d forgotten what she’d said, but as darkness fell, she’d said she loved him but she wanted some time to herself like the Doc said, handed him $20, and told him to go away for three hours.

So there he was, a lone Wolf in the city feeling sorry for himself. He couldn’t even do what he wanted to do, which was buy presents for Virginia to make her not be mad at him anymore. Dr. Horovitz said that occasional presents were good, but trying to bribe Virginia with them was bad. It wasn’t bribery! How could a present be bribery? He liked presents... well, he would like them if anyone ever gave him any. It was natural to like people who gave you presents.

His wolf half was no help, either. It wanted to give her presents too-more accurately, it made him want to go kill something really big and bring it back to her and the growing cub to prove what a good provider he was.

He had no idea where to go. At first he thought he’d go back to the museum and look at the pictures that made Virginia jealous, then sit and think at that temple with the animal-headed gods. But the building was closed when he got there, and he didn’t know what to do. Restaurant after restaurant teased his nose as he walked by, but he knew his $20 wouldn’t take him far. Besides, even eating new kinds of “ethnic” food wasn’t any fun without Virginia to tell him about the kingdom whose food he was sampling.

Wolf wandered aimlessly until he found himself facing a magical vision-a brightly lit building with 4 stories, every story with a window full of people reading or buying or looking at books. Wow! He didn’t think there were that many books in the whole of the Nine Kingdoms!

Wolf hustled across the street and into the store, only to find more wonders. There were big comfy chairs and tables everywhere, with people sprawled out at their leisure. Someone brushed past him as he stared, wafting behind her the scent of melting chocolate and coffee. As Wolf watched, fascinated, she sat down on one of the chairs and started reading while she ate, careful not to mess up the book. She flipped through a chapter, then put the book back on the shelf and picked a new one.

Goodness gracious me! You can read them and not pay for them and nobody yells at you? I wonder if... Before he finished the thought, Wolf had located the cookbook section, delighted to discover several unoccupied chairs and an entire section of shelving called “Cookbooks.”

He collected a pile of books, then decided he wanted to snack too. The little coffee shop thing was on a different floor, but he bought himself a cafe au lait (lots of lait, little cafe) and a couple of big, irresistibly warm chocolate chip cookies. Slightly worried that his chair and books would be taken, Wolf rushed with his booty back downstairs as soon as he’d gotten his change.

Everything was as he left it. Happy for the first time that whole emotionally wrenching day, Wolf snuggled down to discover why it was important that Yan Can Cook.

The first cookie was gone in seconds, and it was tempting to inhale the second one too, then go back for more. But that was being greedy, and even though Virginia wasn’t there, Wolf still was anxious to prove to her that he could control himself around food. He wrapped up the second cookie and stuck it safely in his pocket.

Besides, it was confusing to taste chocolate while reading about meat.

The only thing keeping him from perfect contentment was that odd feeling of exile that no book could quite erase. This would be a nice place to come when Virginia wanted the apartment, but he was still lonely without her, and Wolf found himself checking his watch every other chapter. As soon as his three hours were up he bounded away, not even bothering to put his last books neatly back.

With an odd sense of disappointment, he discovered that Virginia wasn’t eagerly awaiting his return. She wasn’t waiting for him at all; instead he found her soaking in a bubble bath, reading a trashy book and listening to soft music. But all the unhappiness vanished in the warm smile she gave him as she looked up.

“You’re home? I’ll be right out.”

“Don’t rush, I’ll wait,” he told her gently, turning to go.

“Wolf?” At her soft call he looked back at her. “Wolf, thank you so much. I really wanted some time alone to relax before your cycle. Thank you for understanding.”

He didn’t entirely understand, but suddenly that was okay. He’d given her something she wanted after all. He’d made her happy.

Virginia pulled the plug on her bath, slightly embarrassed. She’d meant to be through before he came home, but it had been so relaxing to just pamper herself and not feel responsible for anything. The morning had been so stressful, and the next two days were going to be worse with his cycle-she’d just felt that she really needed time to herself to prepare.

Wolf had been so completely understanding. It was hard to appreciate him when he was doing something gross like eating raw chicken and then trying to kiss her, but then he’d been so sweet. It was obvious he didn’t want to go, but he did, and just for her.

She found him in the kitchen, stirring a little pot of milk as he warmed it for his bedtime snack. “Did you have fun?” she asked him.

He shrugged. “I missed you.”

“Y’know? I missed you too.” She had. She hadn’t realized it until she’d felt that sudden rush of happiness when he peeked around the bathroom door. It was nice to do her nails and have her bath and all, but the evening just wasn’t going to be complete until they’d shared a mug of warm milk, something they’d been doing almost since the beginning.

Virginia went over to peck him on his stubbly cheek and saw a cookie on the counter. “That looks good. Did you get it when you were out?”

Wolf nodded, then picked it up. “Ginny, I... I know Dr. Horovitz told us that we were to spend our money all on ourselves. And I did buy this for me but... does it break the rules if I share?”

He held out the cookie to her. It was such a simple thing, but Virginia’s heart almost broke with the innocence of the offer.

“I think sharing is just fine,” she told him, breaking the cookie in half. They smiled at each other, then settled down to share their snack.