“Nikki? She’s great,” I say, and then smile, feeling the warmth that fills my chest whenever I say her name, whenever I see her face in my mind. “She’s the best thing that ever happened to me. I love her more than life itself. And I just can’t wait until apart time is over.”
“Apart time?”
“Yeah. Apart time.”
“What is apart time?”
“A few months ago I agreed to give Nikki some space, and she agreed to come back to me when she felt like she had worked out her own issues enough so we could be together again. So we are sort of separated, but only temporarily.”
“Why did you separate?”
“Mostly because I didn’t appreciate her and was a workaholic—chairing the Jefferson High School History Department and coaching three sports. I was never home, and she got lonely. Also I sort of let my appearance go, to the point where I was maybe ten to seventy pounds overweight, but I’m working on all that and am now more than willing to go into couples counseling like she wanted me to, because I’m a changed man.”
“Did you set a date?”
“A date?”
“For the end of apart time.”
“No.”
“So apart time is something that will go on indefinitely?”
“Theoretically, I guess—yes. Especially since I’m not allowed to contact Nikki or her family.”
“Why’s that?”
“Umm … I don’t know, really. I mean—I love my in-laws as much as I love Nikki. But it doesn’t matter, because I’m thinking that Nikki will be back sooner than later, and then she’ll straighten everything out with her parents.”
“On what do you base your thinking?” he asks, but nicely, with a friendly smile on his face.
“I believe in happy endings,” I tell him. “And it feels like this movie has gone on for the right amount of time.”
“Movie?” Dr. Patel says, and I think he would look exactly like Gandhi if he had those wire-rim glasses and a shaved head, which is weird, especially since we are in leather recliners in such a bright, happy room and well, Gandhi is dead, right?
“Yeah,” I say. “Haven’t you ever noticed that life is like a series of movies?”
“No. Tell me.”
“Well, you have adventures. All start out with troubles, but then you admit your problems and become a better person by working really hard, which is what fertilizes the happy ending and allows it to bloom—just like the end of all the Rocky films, Rudy, The Karate Kid, the Star Wars and Indiana Jones trilogies, and The Goonies, which are my favorite films, even though I have sworn off movies until Nikki returns, because now my own life is the movie I will watch, and well, it’s always on. Plus I know it’s almost time for the happy ending, when Nikki will come back, because I have improved myself so very much through physical fitness and medication and therapy.”
“Oh, I see.” Dr. Patel smiles. “I like happy endings too, Pat.”
“So you agree with me. You think my wife will come back soon?”
“Time will tell,” Dr. Patel says, and I know right then that Cliff and I are going to get along, because he does not preach pessimism like Dr. Timbers and the staff at the bad place; Cliff doesn’t say I need to face what he thinks is my reality.
“It’s funny, because all the other therapists I’ve seen said that Nikki wouldn’t be back. Even after I told them about the life improvements I have been making, how I am bettering myself, they still were always ‘hating on me,’ which is an expression I learned from my black friend Danny.”
“People can be cruel,” he says with a sympathetic look that makes me trust him even more. And right then I realize that he is not writing down all my words in a file, which I really appreciate, let me tell you.
I tell him I like the room, and we talk about my love of clouds and how most people lose the ability to see silver linings even though they are always there above us almost every day.
I ask him questions about his family, just to be nice, and it turns out he has a daughter whose high school field hockey team is ranked second in South Jersey. Also he has a son in elementary school who wants to be a ventriloquist and even practices nightly with a wooden dummy named Grover Cleveland, who, incidentally, was also the only U.S. president to serve two terms that were not back-to-back. I don’t really get why Cliff’s son named his wooden dummy after our twenty-second and twenty-fourth president, although I do not say so. Next, Cliff says he has a wife named Sonja, who painted the room so beautifully, which leads to our discussion about how great women are and how it’s important to treasure your woman while you have her because if you don’t, you can lose her pretty quickly—as God really wants us to appreciate our women. I tell Cliff I hope he never has to experience apart time, and he says he hopes my apart time will end soon, which is a pretty nice thing to say.
Before I leave, Cliff says he will be changing my medication, which could lead to some unwanted side effects, and that I have to report any discomfort or sleeplessness or anxiety or anything else to my mother immediately—because it might take some time for him to find the right combination of drugs—and I promise him I will.
On the drive home I tell my mother I really like Dr. Cliff Patel and am feeling much more hopeful about my therapy. I thank her for getting me out of the bad place, saying Nikki is far more likely to come to Collingswood than to a mental institution, and when I say this, Mom starts to cry, which is so strange. She even pulls off the road, rests her head against the steering wheel, and with the engine running, she cries for a long time—sniffling and trembling and making crying noises. So I rub her back, like she did for me in Dr. Patel’s office when that certain song came on, and after ten minutes or so, she simply stops crying and drives me home.