If Only I Had Told Her

It’s stunning how little Dr. Singh’s office has changed over the years. I wish other things in the world were as static as the pictures and diplomas on his walls, the piles of patient charts on his desk.

The only thing that has changed is the green plant on the top of his bookcase, which has continued to birth new leaves, one after another, in a long chain that almost reaches the floor.

Dr. Singh was very pleased when he weighed me this time.

“You are looking very healthy,” he says. “When I saw you in the hospital, it was—” He throws up his hands. Apparently there aren’t words. “But now? You have some color. You have some weight on you. How are you feeling?”

“I think I’m done with the nausea,” I say. “So that’s good.”

“That is good, that is good,” Dr. Singh says. “And how is the new therapist? I’m sorry Dr. Kleiger didn’t work out.”

I can’t help making a face. “I didn’t like the new lady either. I don’t want to go back. She didn’t feel right.”

Dr. Singh frowns. “It can be hard to find the right therapist. But you are in dire need, hmm? You were suicidal not that long ago, and with a baby coming? Did you know that the brain changes more during the months of pregnancy than it does during all the years of adolescence? It’s amazing! But—” He shakes his head. “It is a lot. So I am here to make sure that the new medication that’s safe for you and the baby is working, but you need someone to talk to every week, Autumn. You have so much work to do.”

“I know,” I say. “But I also have so much to do to prepare. We only started talking about where and how the baby will sleep, and I’m so tired all the time.”

“You must try again with someone else,” Dr. Singh insists. “My office will call with another recommendation, hmm?”

I nod, and he smiles. I can’t help but smile back.

“While we are here, you can tell me, how are you feeling, in your head, not your body?”

I tell him the truth. “I don’t know. I want to have this baby, but it’s like the hurt of missing Finny cancels out the joy. I feel blank. I don’t know how to be myself in this new reality.”

Dr. Singh sighs and rubs his face. “That is not as much of an improvement as I would have hoped, and it speaks to your need to find a regular therapist. Tell me again why Dr. Kleiger did not suit you?”

“I felt like a bug he was studying,” I say. “The way he peered at me.”

“And Dr. Remus?”

“I was a book she was reading.”

“And how do you feel about our conversations?”

“Like you’re a paramedic and I have a wound that you’re treating,” I explain.

He loses his smile, but not exactly in a sad way. He sighs again and takes off his glasses to inspect them, then puts them back on.

“I am extremely busy, Autumn,” he says. “But I am certified as a therapist as well. I could see you every other week, hmm?”

“Really?”

“You would have to go to the group therapy sessions I run at the hospital on the other weeks.”

I can’t help it; I make a face.

“What is so bad about that?”

I look away from him and down at my hands. “When I was in the hospital… Dr. Singh, I’m sad. Depressed. Back at the hospital, I had group therapy sessions. There was one woman who talked about seeing demons. She said that even when the meds were working, she would see them, but as long as she remembered they weren’t real, it was fine. But then one of the demons said something to her, so that’s how she knew it was time for a med adjustment. I mean…” I’ve failed to articulate what I want to say, because part of me knows that I shouldn’t be thinking it.

When I lift my gaze, Dr. Singh looks absolutely exhausted.

“Autumn, you tried to end your life because you believed your life was not worth living without your lover, yes?”

I nod.

He sighs again and holds out his left hand. “So here you are, a bright young person full of possibility, and you saw nothing worth living for and thought you were better off dead. Now over here”—he holds his right hand like a balancing scale—“we have another young person. When she looks at the world, she sees demons sometimes.” He moves both hands up and down like he’s weighing us against each other. “To me, you are more or less the same. You are both seeing something that is objectively not true. But then at least she knows that her demons aren’t real.” He folds his hands on his desk. “So, eh? But that is how I see it as a doctor. You both have chemical imbalances in your brain that make you see the world incorrectly.”

“Finny really is dead. I’m not imagining that.”

“No,” Dr. Singh says. “But thinking that you are better off also dead? I know you cannot see it now, but it is objectively true that you are capable of living a happy life full of love—with or without this baby. You are so young. What a waste it would have been…”

He isn’t looking at me. He is looking over my shoulder, like his brain has short-circuited, and I recognize the feeling.

“Dr. Singh?”

He shakes his head. “And finally, Autumn, the group I want you to go to is for my patients with PTSD. It’s on Tuesdays, so you just missed it, but I’ll see you next week, and the week after that, I’ll see you here. Hmm?”

I agree. It can’t be worse than my in-patient stay at the hospital or trying another therapist who doesn’t listen to me like a person.