TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

THERAPIST: This thing is recording from time to time because it's been acting up lately. I'll just be – and it stopped recording spontaneously.

CLIENT: Yeah?

THERAPIST: Yeah. I don't know – I think it might be because I have too many recordings on here but I deleted some. I'm just going to be checking it from time to time.

CLIENT: Okay.

THERAPIST: You said though that this is the only – one of the few times you have to –

CLIENT: The peace and quiet. Oh my God, yesterday after screaming around. I only have two rooms and I'm screaming, ‘will ya shut up so I can handle it?' I can't even hear myself, ya know? In between being kind of hard of hearing in one ear and I can't hear if somebody's talking in the other room if I'm in my bedroom, but yet they're talking a mile away. Asking me questions. I'm like, ‘I can't hear a word you're saying.'

THERAPIST: Un huh. Un huh [yes].

CLIENT: I mean they could be calling me a bitch, because I'd answer to that anyways, but you know. If you can't hear, you can't hear.

THERAPIST: So what – do they yell louder, then get mad? (Cross talk)

CLIENT: No, they just still keep talking.

THERAPIST: Oh, okay.

CLIENT: And of course I'm being the loudest. Just being impossible and then he's got the dog with him and the dog's barking a mile a minute. Oh yeah, it's just wonderful. I got Mary sitting there. She's in lala land and oh yeah, it's just wonderful. And the visiting nurse is knocking on the door. I got the two maintenance men in the kitchen working. Oh it's just so wonderful.

THERAPIST: A three ring circus.

CLIENT: (Laughs) I wouldn't know if you wandered in all that. And then Dolores comes in and she's got her walker and she walks in, she kind of jiggles and the thing's going this way and that way, you don't know if she's going ass over teacup. Oh yeah, it's just wonderful. And Deborah's saying, ‘Let me help her up to the third flo-ah.' ‘Oh yeah, you do that.'

THERAPIST: (Laughs)

CLIENT: (Laughs) Stay there while you're at it. I said, ‘Wait a minute, maybe Mary wants to go up, too. Is it cocktail hour at Dolores's?'

(Pause): [00:02:44 00:02:56]

CLIENT: And I said to the nurse, ‘I called to let you know that I wanted to cancel today's session,' I said, ‘because I had places to go,' and I said, ‘I could only get a ride and ya know, I could only get rides whenever,'

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: I said, so you know. Oh well, you know, all right, ‘just come in.' Not that they do anything. All she does is check my blood pressure. She measures my heart's (unclear) and my pulse rate which was zero.

THERAPIST: Zero, huh.

CLIENT: Yeah. It wasn't my heart rate, zero. But my blood pressure was good. Uh huh.

THERAPIST: But you just don't – your heart's not beating but the pressure's good.

CLIENT: No pulse, no nothing.

THERAPIST: No pulse. Okay.

CLIENT: I said, ‘just let me lay down and I'll put a couple of lilies on my chest, ya know?

THERAPIST: Yeah, so you're in some ways dead.

CLIENT: Yeah, ya know? Does it always do this with the [aximeter] (ph)?' ‘Yes it does. Well, your fingers are awful cold.' I said, ‘yeah, I know I have Raynaud's disease. That's why they're blue.'

THERAPIST: Diabetes?

CLIENT: Yeah. I have the cold hand syndrome where your hands turn purple –

THERAPIST: Yeah, you can't get the circulation down there.

CLIENT: Yes, and also –

THERAPIST: What does she – do they measure the pulse, put one of those monitors on the tip of your finger?

CLIENT: Yeah. It never registers.

THERAPIST: Yeah right. There's no blood.

CLIENT: I know. So, and then I says, and then, so of course in the meantime Mark gets up and introduces himself and you know says he leaving and as he's leaving he's got to give his sweetheart a kiss and then him and the dog leave so now it's a little bit quiet because the only one I got left is Mary and of course you don't know where she is. Whether she's with you or if she's with –

THERAPIST: Naughty.

CLIENT: Yyeah.

THERAPIST: Yeah, doing the nods.

CLIENT: So I says and then the only thing you have to do is change the bandage on my backside because I have an open wound that I got from in the hospital because they were supposed to turn me and they never did so I says that's all, one, two, three and she was out the door within a matter of 15 minutes.

THERAPIST: Really she's just there to make sure that your heart's beating and I guess you do need somebody to replace the bandage.

CLIENT: Ya know. Yeah. I think Mary can do that.

THERAPIST: Mary could do that.

CLIENT: Deborah could do it. In fact, see what I was doing, I'd do it.

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

CLIENT: Oh! But, so –

THERAPIST: How is your back by the way? Where is it –?

CLIENT: It's still, the coccyx area down there that hurts and that's where the wound is. But now what's killing me is the incision from the pacemaker. Because it's still all swollen underneath it and around it. Yeah. And the lymph nodes you can really see are (unclear). [00:06:12]

THERAPIST: Ah.

CLIENT: So of course now I can feel it over on this arm. I'm saying to myself, ‘maybe I'm just getting, you know, a little scary there.'

THERAPIST: Well you start noticing more when all that stuff is. You get very sensitive about it.

CLIENT: Yeah, especially when you know, your ma had it – your mother had it.

THERAPIST: Yes.

CLIENT: So, I get kind of worried about it.

THERAPIST: Oh yeah.

CLIENT: So. But yeah. Physical therapist, that's another breeze. She's in within five minutes.

(Pause): [00:06:45 00:06:50]

CLIENT: ‘How ya doin'?' I said, ‘okay.' ‘You been doing your exercises? Fine. All right. Let me take your blood pressure.' She does the same damn thing then she's out the door. She says, ‘I'll be back twice next week but then we might cut it down to one week.' I says, ‘that's nothing, but we're cutting it down to zero the following week.'

THERAPIST: Yeah, what good is she?

CLIENT: Yeah. I mean what do you – she never has done anything with me.

THERAPIST: Doesn't even to exercises with you.

CLIENT: (Coughs) Yeah.

THERAPIST: Makes sure you're doing it right.

CLIENT: No. (Coughs)

THERAPIST: They don't even stay to do it with you then.

CLIENT: This is my exercise. Thirty times on each leg. And then I got to go like this – up, down, up, down 30 times, three times a day and then this – sitting on the chair the whole time. So I mean that's nothing.

THERAPIST: Yeah, you're already to that point.

CLIENT: Ya know. The point was getting me up and out of the chair and into walking. That was the whole point. But –

THERAPIST: What do you mean?

CLIENT: Because they were afraid that I – of me falling again, so they monitor the strength in my legs and you know, getting up make sure I'm using both hands and the walker, so yeah.

THERAPIST: Do they do that?

CLIENT: She did bring me a shower chair to sit in the shower which I almost killed myself on, so you know that went out. She brought me a thing to put over the toilet seat. That's sitting inside the tub. She did bring me a bed rail that you put in between the mattress and the box spring. That's the only good thing that she did bring me because –

THERAPIST: What is the chair like in the shower? Does it not stick or something?

CLIENT: No. It's just, you know, you got to put it in the middle of the tub and then, you know, my toilet is right next to the end of the tub, so it's really kind of confusing.

THERAPIST: Ohh.

CLIENT: So I'd just as soon take it out and stand up.

THERAPIST: Oh, okay.

CLIENT: You know. I like get in there –

THERAPIST: Do you have a rail in the tub?

CLIENT: I have plenty of railings because that's what they – when they did the new bathrooms a couple of years ago. I have a grab bar at one end of the tub, another one at the other end of the tub, one inside and then another one inside. I've got like five grab bars.

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah. You never fall in the tub.

CLIENT: No.

THERAPIST: It's usually when you're getting out that's kind of –

CLIENT: Getting my leg over the tub to get in.

THERAPIST: Over the tub. Once you're in you're all right.

CLIENT: Yeah. And I can't – well, I probably could but I don't take a tub because I can't get this leg to bend to get up again.

THERAPIST: Ohh. If you're – okay, you can't get the leverage or whatever. You need somebody to come help you, or at least to –

CLIENT: So, but now like Dolores she has a handicap bathroom where she's got a bathroom that's twice the size of mine and she doesn't have a bathtub. Her shower goes from the ceiling down to the floor so all she has to do is if there's a rail, ride in or walk in and she has a chair that you pull down from right in the back and then a handrail, so.

THERAPIST: That would be better for you, especially when you can't take baths.

CLIENT: Yeah, ya know. So, but with my luck I'd flood the place. And like Dolores's kitchen is different.

THERAPIST: Why would you flood the place?

CLIENT: Well, because it's –

THERAPIST: Flat?

CLIENT: Yeah, it's got just a little bit of an edge ya know.

THERAPIST: Yeah, but there's a big, big drain.

CLIENT: Yeah. And then her kitchen is altogether different. It has no bottom cabinets so that you can put a wheelchair underneath when you're doing your washing the dishes or whatever. But she has a person who comes in and cleans and –

THERAPIST: Is that right?

CLIENT: Yeah. Huh. Does her laundry and I said, ‘you're slip is showing. That's all you have on is that?'

THERAPIST: That's all, what?

CLIENT: ‘Deborah does that now.'

THERAPIST: For Dolores.

CLIENT: (Near whisper) Yeah. She was doing her laundry at 9 o'clock last night.

THERAPIST: (Near whisper) Yeah, yeah.

CLIENT: (Near whisper) Yeah.

THERAPIST: (Near whisper) Yeah.

CLIENT: (Near whisper) Oh well. (Chuckles)

THERAPIST: Has she – what has she been doing for you? Has she been –?

CLIENT: Ant, ay.[no]. She's been fighting with me more than anything. In fact [Daddy] (ph) [00:11:52] told her to give the keys back. He said, ‘go up there and stay, will ya?' He said, ‘in fact, give me your keys.'

THERAPIST: Hmm.

CLIENT: She wouldn't. Because I had to have that little bit of a nag in me yesterday morning and I said something, I said, ‘why don't you just go up by Dolores's.' Kelly was in the house at the time and she [Deborah] turned around and she said to me, ‘why don't you get fuckin' laid?' And I'm going, ‘well, Deborah, I already did. So what do you want to argue with me about now? You got anything more you want to say to me?' She didn't say anything. So when Kelly left I says, ‘oh, Deborah, talk to me again like that when anybody's in the house or even if anybody isn't in the house and you're out of here.' I said, ‘it's my apartment, I pay the bills and I'm doing you a favor by letting you stay here so remember that, Deborah.' So yeah, when she was giving me a hard time yesterday afternoon again he was just, ‘yeah, come on, Deborah, give your mother the keys, get a couple of garbage bags and get your shit and get the hell out.' She goes, ‘who the hell do you think you are?' He says, ‘your mother's boyfriend.'

THERAPIST: That was all for you.

CLIENT: I – oh – calling me sweetheart in front of the nurse, giving me a kiss goodbye –

THERAPIST: Calling him your boyfriend.

CLIENT: Oh yeah.

THERAPIST: Called himself your boyfriend.

CLIENT: Oh yeah because you know, he loves me.

THERAPIST: Oo, yeah. It also sounds like it's kind of been more he's been on kind of like a roll here and has been on a roll here for quite a while. He hasn't been –

CLIENT: Nothing bad.

THERAPIST: He hasn't pissed you off in a long while.

CLIENT: Nope. Not at all. It's awful. (Laughs)

THERAPIST: It's awful?! How's that? What did you mean by that?

CLIENT: Oh, Monday he was having a fit because he wanted to have sex and Deborah was in and out of the apartment left and right and baa, baa, baa, baa. He was getting more aggravated and then Tuesday she started to act up again so he said, ‘get the hell out.'

THERAPIST: He got you to kick her out?

CLIENT: You're getting kicked out, Deborah.

THERAPIST: How about that?

CLIENT: We got to fool around and you know.

THERAPIST: Where did she – she just goes up to Dolores's right?

CLIENT: But sure enough doesn't she come back in?

THERAPIST: Jesus.

CLIENT: I says, ‘it's a good thing Mark's –' No, Mark was doing the (unclear) in the bedroom I think when she came in. Yeah, he had a towel on. (Coughs) I said, ‘Deborah, nothing like knocking at the door, you know, or calling before you come down, you know.' Yeah.

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah. What's yours is hers sometimes, but you know one thing that it seems to me like when you're kind of recognizing is like in some way it sounds like you've been starting to confront her with your sense of it being your space.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Your sense of it being your space, you know, somewhat. Yeah, there's something about that that I've kind of sort of noticed lately.

CLIENT: I feel like my cousin Mary. She says, ‘you really like to be left alone?' I said, ‘yes.' I says, ‘this is my place. I want to be alone. It doesn't bother me, nothing.' I says, ‘well, this way here if I want to have sex through a partner I can have one without having to worry about who's going to be at my house, who's going to be coming through the fucking door.' I said, ‘yeah, I like my life the way it was.' [Mary]: ‘You can't stand to be alone.' ‘Well, that's your problem, that ain't my problem.' [Mary]: ‘I can't stand to be with the lady I live with.' Well, hey, again, that's your problem not mine, you know. You let your kids back in school, you left (unclear) and you knew it all along but you just ignored it. I said, ‘that's why your cousin Joanie washed her hands of you, Sue, and the fact that she knows you're back on drugs.' And I says, ‘boy, wouldn't she really love to hear how you're back on the heroin, Mary?' [Mary]: ‘I'm not on that stuff.' ‘Okay, you want to lie to me, lie to me. Dolores came down yesterday and she had 100 mg Fentynl patch that was stuck on your back. Well, she only can wear a (unclear) [00:17:18] so she had it – Mary took a half.' I says, ‘oh.' I'm sitting like here and I can see the couch, I can see Mary putting the pack, the pouch with the other half of it in it in her purse. I says, ‘oh, what did you just put in your purse?' ‘I didn't put anything in my purse.' I says, ‘Mary,'

THERAPIST: Jeez. Jeez.

CLIENT: ‘What do you think, just because I'm deaf in this ear I'm blind in this eye?' I says, ‘I saw you just put the package in your purse.' ‘Oh, well she gave me a half.' I say, ‘oh, really.' She says, ‘but I gave her some pills.' And I'm like, ‘okay. Fine, whatever. But don't lie to me.' You know? Because I had her drive me over to Social Security yesterday. Well, we almost get hit on the way over because Mary thinks there's no cars behind her – that she can just stop in the middle of the road. You know? And this is at an intersection.

THERAPIST: She's just really out of it.

CLIENT: (Yells) Mary! What are you doing?' Oh, she's a bitch with, ‘I couldn't make up my mind if I wanted to go right or straight.' I said, ‘oh, okay.'

THERAPIST: And she's dangerous.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: She's dangerous.

CLIENT: And as we're coming out of the, on the ride home she almost hits a crossing guard on the walk.

THERAPIST: Oh boy.

CLIENT: He was right at the edge of her front bumper with his hand up.

THERAPIST: Oh my God.

CLIENT: I screamed (unclear).

THERAPIST: I'm surprised she hasn't run somebody over yet or something.

CLIENT: And then she's say things – that she can't see at night. I said, ‘but you're gone at nighttime and you're drinking when you're out at nighttime. Plus, you're doing all those drugs,' and then she falls asleep, you know.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Yeah, you're taking a risk just getting in the car with her.

CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And like she'll come into my house and she'll have a couple of tall cans of beer with her and she'll have like maybe five or six nips in her purse. She'll drink the whole two cans of beer and plus the five or six nips and then get in the car and drive home. I don't know how she does it. I don't. You know.

THERAPIST: She's out of the place. Wasn't she in elsewhere or something?

CLIENT: Oh, she's been all over, now in a single family house that this woman owns and the woman that owns it is a little – well let's say a lot off her rocker and how Mary got to get the apartment was Mary's best friend, who's really Louise, and her – the lady, go to the same group meetings because they've been at the same place up in, I don't know where.

THERAPIST: Like an NA or AA meeting?

CLIENT: Well for the crazies, yeah. There's a place up there? Yeah.

THERAPIST: What do you mean – the hospital?

CLIENT: Yeah. It's people that – yeah. So she lives with this lady, who has got major problems. She owns a nice house but you can't use the bathroom on the second floor because that's where her husband used to bathe in and all that stuff and she still has all his clothes in the bureau drawers. I said, ‘Mary, when did he die?' She says, ‘oh no, he didn't die. He left her. They got a divorce.' I was like, ‘okay.' And the woman doesn't like to take showers and she pisses herself and she shits herself. Oh yeah. (Coughs) And she'll say to Mary, ‘Mary, I can't wipe myself.' And she's only 50. (Coughs) I had one Riccola this week – you know Riccola?

THERAPIST: Oh yeah.

CLIENT: Isn't that what you got there?

THERAPIST: You want more than one?

CLIENT: One's just fine.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: (Coughs) So Mary hates staying in the house with her.

THERAPIST: I can see why.

CLIENT: Because the lady's always up Mary's ass.

THERAPIST: Oh boy.

CLIENT: And, well – and Mary thinks it's the lady's responsibility to supply food for Mary to eat. I said, ‘now, Mary, why do you think it's her responsibility for you to eat there?' And she says, ‘Well, I don't know.' I says, ‘Mary, you're only paying for a bed to sleep in. That's it.' You know. So Mary gets upset over that. And between the two of them I just don't know who's more whacked out.

THERAPIST: Her or –?

CLIENT: Mary. Mary or Mary. You know?

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: So, she tries not to go home until late hoping that Mary will be asleep.

THERAPIST: Yeah, well your place really is the home of the wayward children.

CLIENT: Yeah. I don't know what night she came over during the week but I fell asleep and when I woke up she was asleep on the couch. So evidently she went from laying on my bed watching TV with me – oh, Sunday night, the awards. I fell asleep. So she went in the parlor and slept on the couch.

THERAPIST: She doesn't want to, yeah. She – you're going to have another roommate on your hands. You almost do.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Yeah! No and what seems to happen is – and this can happen a lot in your life because we've talked about is that people in kind of desperate times come to you and you I think out of care for them open yourself up but in a way you end up feeling like they've taken a lot of space from you. It's a very – I mean that's, that's you and Deborah and it's certainly you and – it's been you and Mary. It could be – it's less that way now, but it's felt that way at times with Mark, you know, especially when he's using – if he's just drinking a lot and coming over.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: I know it's different and it's been feeling very different but there's that element of your space being kind of taken over by other people and you not knowing really well, it being confusing I imagine going, ‘where can I draw a line? Where can I –'

CLIENT: That's true.

THERAPIST: ‘Where can I – when can I have my – what's my space and what's theirs?' They're certainly not going to stop short of taking up space.

CLIENT: I do for myself. You know when Mark comes here in the afternoon he's only here from 1 o'clock until 4 o'clock, maybe even 5 o'clock. ‘So I don't want to see you until then, Deborah, you know? It just doesn't – I guess it's all right when you're up there with Dolores. Do I come up knocking at Dolores's door? Do I have a key to Dolores's door and just walk in like you do?' She says, ‘you're my mother.' I says, ‘yeah, well Dolores's your girlfriend.' You know? ‘Don't think you're doing me any favors by coming back here, Deborah,' and you know, just starting an argument with me because you're not.'

THERAPIST: What does she tend to argue with you about?

CLIENT: Anything. ‘Oh sure, I don't do nothing for you. All I ever do is this and this and this and this.' I says, ‘(unclear) I apologize for getting sick, Deborah, and having a pacemaker put in and you know falling and you know, fracturing my back, you know, God forbid, you know.' I says, ‘what do you think, I rolled out of bed on purpose?'

THERAPIST: Well. Yeah. I mean in some way, too, she knows that she's – she knows that she's not paying her way, that you're supporting her, that it's on your dime that she's living.

CLIENT: All these papers that she filled out for housing and everything. They're all just stuck by magnets on my door. I said, ‘Deborah, you filled them out last year and they're still sitting there. Have you ever brought them back?' [Deborah]: ‘No.' Because she doesn't like sitting there. This morning she had an 8 o'clock doctor's appointment checking on her white blood count cells. She didn't go. She had no way. I says, ‘oh, I mean, Dolores couldn't have taken you to your appointment?' She goes down to the store at 8 o'clock in the morning so why couldn't she have gotten up at 7:30 and taken you then?' ‘Oh, Dolores was up and back.' ‘Well, okay. Don't cry on my shoulder that you didn't go.'

THERAPIST: What do you think she expected? That somebody would get her there?

CLIENT: I don't know. I mean, Dolores drives.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Well, there's this whole thing, too, around Deborah not taking many steps to take care of herself. I think she really wants you to, or somebody to. Somebody else to. I think she's – I think she feels – I was wondering if you feel like she sometimes feels owed it in some way or if she feels –

CLIENT: Oh, she's always felt that way.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Especially when she's with me. I owe her everything because I ruined her life, you know. So – and in a way she had no father, no upbringing, yeah. And so okay, and I used to beat her as a child, you know, all this wonderful stuff. All these wonderful things, you know?

THERAPIST: Yeah. And you owe it to her.

CLIENT: Yeah. I said, ‘I had it just like you. I owe it to you because you won't have your daughter anymore. That's all my fault, too, ain't it, Deborah?' [Deborah]: ‘Well if you didn't stick up for Heath instead and me and Bennett could a raised him.' And I said, ‘oh, yeah, on a park bench for free.' That's how she would have been. I said, ‘no, my granddaughter isn't going to become like that. No. No way.' Who knows? So Mary has all these papers that she's had from last year about filing for housing and all this stuff which I don't know how to fill them out and she's sitting out in the car and she says, ‘what do I put as my address?' And I says, ‘ask Deborah, she knows better.' Deborah goes, ‘one park bench, anywhere.' But put your meals in somebody else's name which Mary already has her meal (unclear) with her friend Louise's house. So Deborah says, ‘So that's all you do?' She says, ‘well then how do they get a hold of you?' She says, ‘well you want to give them your cell number you can.' She says, ‘or they can call Louise's house and leave a message and she'll get in touch with you.' Not me, but my friend Louise, ya know. I said, ‘yeah, why don't you go there, too?' Deborah goes, ‘you fill that out the same way you went for housing.' So she just did it, everything. ‘Dear, oh, dear, don't know' where she lived last. I said, ‘yeah it was on a park bench. You know, just do whatever you want to, Mary.' I says, ‘oh, I don't know.' And then I get a kick out of her because she has this friend, that, he owns a house and he wants to sell the house but then he wants to apply for housing and get a two bedroom because Mary's going to move in with him. I says, ‘they're not going to give him a two bedroom apartment just because he's going to have a friend move in with him to split the cost. I said, Mary, no way. Especially with what he's got for an income. He's a paralegal. And you make over $1,500 a month in Social Security. You think they're going to give – I said, no way, Mary, you'll be paying maybe 800 for rent just for yourself, Mary.' And then with his income. I says, ‘no sir.'

THERAPIST: So she's applied for Section 8?

CLIENT: Section 8, yeah. And she's applying for housing. She may get a place in housing but I tell ya, they go by your income.

THERAPIST: You've got to pay a portion of your income, you've got to disclose it.

CLIENT: So I mean I think it's like a third of your income that they take, ya know, so the money you're getting from –

THERAPIST: She's going to have to pay.

CLIENT: Yeah. I said some people may only pay 200 bucks and some people may pay – I know the one upstairs from me pays 700.

THERAPIST: Is that right? She has a big -

CLIENT: She has, you know, Social Security and then she had a pension, all this stuff and you know, so –

THERAPIST: Yeah, so some amount goes to –

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Yeah, she's not going to be able to fool anybody.

CLIENT: You know, I says, ‘Mary, it's not going to be 80 bucks a month or 200 bucks a month. It's going to be up Mary.' [Mary]: ‘Oh, Jesus Christ, I get screwed out of everything.' Another one. Everybody, you know, they all owe them. ‘And my father's screwing her out of they're money.' I said, ‘Mary, how the hell can you –?' I mean, my father was the executive (sic) of her father's –

THERAPIST: Oh, I know, that is –

CLIENT: He let Mary have the condo for nothing. You know, that was in the settlement and he bought her brother a condo, you know. It was only like a, one, two, three in a row. Now you get like this size room and then one upstairs and then a third – three of them, you know. So, oh he took (unclear) [00:35:08] and then he had my uncle in assisted living. He paid for somebody to come in and sit with my uncle from whatever time in the morning until 7 at night because that's the time my uncle would be in bed. You know. I said, ‘Mary, you got to go look at all the bills that my father paid for your father's upkeep. And then for you what was left and what he – the costs for this condo that you're living in is and what the cost of the condo was. And plus, you figure, Mary, my father was paying at the time for your cell phone, for a private phone and also another phone for you to get whenever your father needed you there would be no trouble with him getting a hold of you. But no, she doesn't think of things that way. You know?

THERAPIST: Yeah. She really feels like Deborah I think really given a really raw deal and they feel like they're –

CLIENT: I says, ‘well how do you think I feel?' I got screwed out of anything. I says, do you think I call up my son and ask him for a fucking penny? I said, no. He can take that fucking penny and shove it up his ass. That's the way I look at it.

THERAPIST: You really haven't spoken since your father's death.

CLIENT: I haven't spoke to my son in how many years.

THERAPIST: Probably three years.

CLIENT: Longer. Yeah.

THERAPIST: It was around the time that he was starting to talk about taking custody of Darla.

CLIENT: Yeah. I think there could be – the last time she was up was what – 2008. Yeah.

THERAPIST: But part of his deal was that he was going to say that Deborah didn't have any rights to see her.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Wasn't that what you'd said?

CLIENT: Yeah and Darla wouldn't go for that anyways. Not at that age. Right?

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: She'll be 17 in August. She got that, I don't know what those grades are called, the tests that they take.

THERAPIST: SATs?

CLIENT: SATs – 3.5 average.

THERAPIST: Hmm. I don't know what that would be.

CLIENT: She's gotten all A's except for one D that she lost her book and when she finally found it so now she can get back to doing her work and she'll have that mark up to a B.

THERAPIST: Lost her math book?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: (Laughs)

CLIENT: I don't know.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Ya know? And her father's finally going to let her get professional help for her blackouts that she has.

THERAPIST: Blackouts!

CLIENT: Yeah, she evidently goes through these blackout phases where she loses anger control.

THERAPIST: Oh, she gets in a rage or something like that?

CLIENT: (Unclear) she takes after her. [00:38:30]

THERAPIST: Well, she's got a lot to feel angry about.

CLIENT: Yeah. I know she just, she had a lot, yeah. Poor little shit.

THERAPIST: She was in [with Moira] a couple of weeks back.

CLIENT: Oh yeah. She hated her mother.

THERAPIST: Yeah?

CLIENT: Yeah, her mother was evil. Darla was ugly –

THERAPIST: Yeah?

CLIENT: – wanted to commit suicide. Oh, my God did she sound (unintelligible) [00:39:04] Deborah had her whole bedroom painted black when she was – black sheets, walls, oh yeah.

THERAPIST: Was she kind of like in the Goth scene?

CLIENT: Yeah, she wanted to be dead.

THERAPIST: She wanted to be dead.

CLIENT: Yeah. You know. So – death rules, you know all this stuff. Music by the – I don't know – weird named groups, you don't know who was who.

THERAPIST: Uh huh.

CLIENT: Heath at that time had been listening to classical music, you know?

THERAPIST: You couldn't get more opposite.

CLIENT: Yeah. She goes, ‘(unclear) is a fag.' I says, ‘yeah, your brother's a fag but look at the grades he's getting.' I shouldn't have complained though because she did graduate with all A's and B's.

THERAPIST: How are they as a duo growing up?

CLIENT: Nope.

THERAPIST: Because they were only, they were only two years apart, right?

CLIENT: Fourteen months apart, yeah. I think Deborah started with a minor resentment when she was about five or six of the close attention that he was getting from my father, you know, always going away on weekends and stuff and coming home with bags of new clothes and everything and nothing for Deborah.

THERAPIST: Nothing for Deborah. She was like Cinderella.

CLIENT: Hm hmm [yes]. You know, he wouldn't wear anything unless it was a brand name where she wouldn't mind if you got her two pairs for a buck down at K-Mart at the time or something, you know.

THERAPIST: And your father never would foot the bill for her?

CLIENT: No.

THERAPIST: He didn't take any interest in her?

CLIENT: None at all.

THERAPIST: None at all.

CLIENT: And once –

THERAPIST: And that's the father figure.

CLIENT: Once Heath was born my brother's three kids were out of the picture even though they had been in the picture beforehand, but the moment Heath was born that was it.

THERAPIST: Like it was his child.

CLIENT: Yeah. You know, maybe I do – he was my husband's kid. (Laughs) But yeah.

THERAPIST: So, confusion. I mean on a psychological level for you.

CLIENT: Oh yeah.

THERAPIST: Who's kid is this? Did he? Did he father this child? He thinks he did.

CLIENT: He thinks he did.

THERAPIST: He thinks he certainly acted –

CLIENT: You know.

THERAPIST: He acted every bit like it was his kid.

CLIENT: And you know, people would say, ‘oh, you must be so happy about your little brother.'

THERAPIST: Your little brother.

CLIENT: What little brother? I says, ‘you mean my son? That little brother?' I says, ‘Sorry, I gave birth you know?' I'm going to tell you, yeah.'

THERAPIST: A lot of confusion. Yeah.

CLIENT: Yeah, my little brother's marrying my little stepsister. (Laughs)

THERAPIST: Which is really what it was.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Which is really what, yeah, which is what it was. In effect, yeah.

CLIENT: I says, ‘yeah, this is wonderful,' you know? Definitely coming on Jerry Springer.

THERAPIST: It's one of those stories that you wouldn't – it's stranger than fiction as they say. Stranger than fiction. You wouldn't believe it if somebody told you.

CLIENT: Yeah. I tell ya.

THERAPIST: But it's almost as if he set up, your father set up a situation where in fact he would be his son and in a legal sense I guess he was in the legal sense of his wife's daughter, his second wife's daughter married him –

CLIENT: Married Heath. So that made him –

THERAPIST: His son-in-law.

CLIENT: His son-in-law.

THERAPIST: So you just cover over the in-law part and that's not too hard to do.

CLIENT: I never looked at it that way. Jesus. I'm going to have to do some thinking on that one now.

THERAPIST: He was quite the puppet-master.

CLIENT: Oh shit, yeah. Always. Always. I thank God for the [guys] (ph) [00:43:40] and (unclear) all three, their kids.

THERAPIST: They what?

CLIENT: Like, my brother. He knew how to pull the strings and my cousins. Oh, yeah. They were all a bunch of doozies.

THERAPIST: Yeah, and how there's also something very, very just striking about your father almost with women including you could kind of just pretend they weren't there in order to kind of make this story come together. You know, whether it was not really paying attention to what – you were trying to instill in your children, you know, some fairness between the children, as they were growing up, some equality. He never cared one bit – he just brushed that aside.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: He brushed aside your relationship with your son.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: He brushed aside your mother and that you would have a relationship with your mother.

CLIENT: Oh yeah. He really was an asshole.

THERAPIST: Major league. Professional.

CLIENT: I have to say if Mary wants to go in on a book –

THERAPIST: It would be a best seller.

(Pause): [00:45:22 00:45:28]

CLIENT: Oh well.

THERAPIST: What is it like to think about?

CLIENT: Well, I mean you know, it would be a best-selling book. It would have to be rated "R" though.

THERAPIST: Oh, yeah.

CLIENT: Because there would be a lot of swearing and a lot of, you know, I want to kill, but you know. Not just want to kill. I would actually love to do it. And I really don't think I would give a shit if I got away with it or not. It wouldn't phase me.

THERAPIST: Your father.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Well there's just a lot of, a lot of feelings you had to hold on to. You had the kind of cruelty –

CLIENT: He wasn't (unclear) you know you could say, ‘I love you, Dad,' because you know you really wanted – instead of putting your arms around and saying that to him you really want to put your hands around his neck and choke him to death. Yeah. You know? [00:46:33]

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: When he first came down with lung cancer and the lady says, ‘would you like to have your father record something so you can remember what his last voice sounded like,' and I says, ‘shit, I didn't like listening to him when he had a voice, let alone when he ain't going to have a fucking voice. Why the hell would I want one of those?'

THERAPIST: They wanted to record something before they took out his trachea, was it?

CLIENT: Yes.

THERAPIST: Larynx.

CLIENT: He had that damn thing that, [raspy voice] ‘you think Mary's a little a/c d/c?'

THERAPIST: What does that mean – a/c d/c?

CLIENT: Well, is she bisexual or what?

THERAPIST: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

CLIENT: Does she like the girls? Does she like the guys?

THERAPIST: Mary.

CLIENT: Oh yeah.

THERAPIST: Your father was one (unclear). [00:47:29]

CLIENT: Yeah. I could have told him that years ago. Yes, she was. (Laughs) Ah, shit. (Laughs) So, Mark's going, ‘so, let me fix you up with my brother.' I says, only if he works for Roto-rooter. (Laughs)

THERAPIST: How did you (unclear) that?

CLIENT: Because she hasn't opened her legs since I think she gave birth. (Laughs) Twenty-eight years ago. Ah, shit.

THERAPIST: Only if he works for Roto-rooter. (Laughs) Oh God.

CLIENT: So he gets on her case. Oh yeah.

THERAPIST: Oh yeah, Mark the matchmaker. Yeah, that's one to put in the book.

CLIENT: He's so much fun. (Laughs)

THERAPIST: Well listen, I should let –

CLIENT: Same time next week?

THERAPIST: Same time next week. I'm going to be away the week of March 18th so on March 22nd we won't meet. March 22nd.

CLIENT: That's okay.

THERAPIST: Three weeks from today.

CLIENT: All righty. I can handle that. Did I tell you last week when I got here they picked me up at 9 o'clock so I went downstairs and had some breakfast – do you know at 10 o'clock they got another bus at my house to pick me up?

THERAPIST: You could have probably gotten here at 10:15 right?

CLIENT: I said, ‘I'm on my way home, let alone a bus at the house waiting to pick me up.'

THERAPIST: Two. That's some serious – really.

CLIENT: Yeah, they double booked me.

THERAPIST: Where did they drop you off this time?

CLIENT: This guy came from around my – what's that street in back of here?

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, so he got you closer this time?

CLIENT: To the front. And then I walked up the side.

THERAPIST: Oh, okay, okay. You still had to walk around.

CLIENT: Yeah. I don't know either.

THERAPIST: Well, is it getting easier? A little bit easier to walk around then?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: That's good.

END TRANSCRIPT