Read Online The People in the Mirror by Thea Thomas - Free Book Online Page B

to take you, but he said he had some errands to run and he’d just take off an hour early and get both birds with one stone, so that’s all organized.”
      “Ah. I’m just a stoned little bird, am I?” I went to my bedroom and changed into jeans and a sweat shirt. Then I realized that I wouldn’t be coming home at my usual time tomorrow, if, by any chance, Mitch was watching for me.  Yet another downer.
      On the other hand, I decided, I really could use a good talk with someone who didn’t have it all decided in her mind what I think, and what I mean, and what I need, like Mom did. If only Dr. Carcionne would be that person! It still felt like Mom was putting her fears onto me. It was Mom who felt violated and invaded and threatened and afraid since the theft. And, honestly, I couldn’t blame her. She didn’t have the visitation from Grammy that I had that made everything all right.
      That’s when a wonderful plan sprung full blown in my mind. I could nab a couple of birdies with a single stone too!
    *  *
      Once inside Dr. Carcionne’s inner sanctum the next afternoon, I tried to remember exactly what I had rehearsed the night before, but the clever way I’d put it together slipped my mind. Then Dr. Carcionne really messed it up by starting off with her own agenda – or rather, Mom’s.
      “You mother mentioned that you’ve started up a friendship with a neighbor boy.”
      Something came over me. I wasn’t going to tolerate this spying any more. “Look, Dr. Carcionne, it’s like this – my Mom feels obligated to force me to come and see you. I’m interested in seeing that it’s as few times as possible, because you and she have an agenda for me. But it’s not my agenda. If I can’t come in here and and talk about what I want to talk about, and if I can’t feel like what goes on in here is confidential, then I’m going to be honest and tell you I’m going to clam up. It’s that simple. But if we can strike a bargain that this is my time, and my agenda, that it’s strictly confidential, then I might try to get involved in this process. If not, then... not.”
      Dr. Carcionne’s eyebrows went up. Btu, slowly, a smile spread over her face. “I agree with you completely. First let me reassure you that what little interaction you and I have had has been confidential. I haven’t told your mother what we’ve talked about. She just tells me what her concerns are about you, and, of course, I listen. But I agree with you that these sessions need to serve your needs, not your mother’s.”
      Now it was my turn for my eyebrows to go up. “Wow! That was pretty painless.”
      “So – what do you want to talk about?”
      “Well, if we’re going to work on what’s important to me, then I have tons of stuff. But at the top of the list is sort of this same subject. Let’s say there’s a mother who, whenever something happens to her , she has her daughter go to therapy because what’s upsetting to the mother she’s sure is causing the daughter to freak out. But it’s not true. The things that are biggest to the daughter, the mother either doesn’t think are important, or she doesn’t know about them at all.
      “So let’s say the daughter wishes there was something she could do to help her mother. For instance, when the mother had something stolen, and she’s really, really upset about it, instead of admitting that, she tells the daughter, oh, you must be so upset about this theft. You must be unhappy , you must be scarred . And the daughter answers that it does make her unhappy, but she’s not afraid or angry, and she’s certainly not scarred. She’s not afraid because she feels protected by her parents, she’s not angry because everything that was stolen was insured. Not that she doesn’t feel awful about it, but she’s not quietly freaking out. But she does think the mother is quietly freaking out. What could a daughter in a situation like that do to help the