This probably isn't what you're expecting on our first visit, not exactly a litany of symptoms or something truly helpful, but it's been on my mind ever since I made the appointment. I'm at this Fourth of July celebration, and I point out my most recent therapist to Charlie, my second husband, from whom I’m semi-separated. “Near the soft-drink stand,” I say, “in the striped shirt.” 

Charlie looks across the way, does a double take, and says “You’re kidding! Gee, somehow I don’t feel quite so threatened anymore.”

Charlie’s expression is subtle, but I read it as a mix of surprise and amusement, and I take exception, as if he's laughing at me along with taking a dig at psychotherapy in general. “So he’s a little stereotypical, what with the Van Dyke,” I say. “What’s your problem?”

“Van Dyke?” Charlie turns around to look again and laughs out loud. He pulls me close to him and points toward the drink stand. “I thought you meant that guy.” 

Then I see him too, a huge, circus tent of a man in a shirt of vertical stripes—wide, fluorescent bands of lime green, hot pink, and banana yellow. He wears a sailor hat from which flutters a small American flag, and shouts something to a man dressed in army camouflage several yards away who walks over and slaps a low-five greeting into his hammy palm.

I start to laugh too, but not until we have turned to conceal our faces. Because we're each thinking through the scene that had briefly occurred to Charlie—of me, tense and apprehensive, taking myself weekly to a small, claustrophobic room half-filled with that striped shirt, confiding my fears and confusion under that tiny flag—we continue to laugh. Now, we know our laughter, which isn’t meant to be unkind, is unkind. We also know we’ll never be able to tell our friends about this mix-up. How could we be that cruel? So we sink down onto the grass, bursting with secret mirth, and my side gets a stitch.

That’s how I remember it, my stomach muscles hurting, the grass tickling my legs, Charlie’s lovely, wide face all open and pleased with us. I try to focus on things like that about people who touch my life in more good ways than bad. He knows I miss him. We talk on weekends. I honestly don’t know if I want him back for good or just for safe sex. . . .