Denial by Keith Ablow Page B

remanded for psychiatric assessment and definitive treatment.
On November 21, Mr. LaFountaine, who previously had been decorated for bravery, participated as a member of an elite group raiding the Son Tay prison camp near Hanoi, an operation for which he had trained extensively.  The camp was believed to house U.S. POWs but was found abandoned.  The patient spent several hours searching vacant buildings, some of which were booby-trapped.  A close friend, searching with the patient, was killed by explosives.
     
    Looked up and tried to imagine the muddled surges of hope, fear, hate and sheer panic that must have swept over LaFountaine as he burst into each empty room in that abandoned camp.  I pictured him holding his dying friend, blown up on a mission to free no one, by an enemy nowhere to be found.
    "Don't," Rusty scolded.
    "What?"
    "You were looking at me eating.  I asked you not to."
    "I wasn't.  I was just thinking."
    "Right.  About what a pig I am."  She gathered her Baggies of vegetables and got to her feet.  Standing, she looked even bonier.  "I'm not going to play your game."
    I couldn’t leave it alone.  Pain has always been irresistible to me.  "The truth is, Rusty, that you were never fed enough, not that you swallow too much."
    She took a step toward me.  "Who the hell do you think you are coming at me with that slick analysis crap?  You wanted a record.  I got you one.  I don't remember askin’ to lay on any goddamn couch."
    I nodded.  I could tell I was already deeper into some crevice of Rusty's unconscious than I wanted to be.  "You're right.  I'll just finish my reading."  I made a point of hanging my head over the chart so that I couldn’t be accused of looking at her.
    "And to say I wasn't fed enough.  Another goddamn shrink who thinks he knows everything."
    I stole a glance at her feet.  They weren't moving.  She wanted the couch.  Deep down, everybody wants to tell the truth.
    "You probably grew up with a silver spoon in your mouth, Doc," she prodded.  "My father worked three jobs to put food on the table."
    I closed my eyes, hoping she'd let me off the hook.
    "Dad cooked for us, too.  I ate plenty well.  Better than well."  No footsteps.  "So what's your point?  Or don't you have one?"
    I looked up reluctantly.  "Did your mother work?" I surrendered.
    She seemed startled.  "Huh?"
    "Your mother.  Did she have a job?"
    "She wasn't around.  But..."
    "Why not?  Where was she?"
    "Why would I tell you?"
    "I don't know.  You certainly don't have to."  You need to .
    "What the hell.  You want to know so bad, she got sick — mentally sick — right after I was born.  Killed herself in this very hospital."  She put her hands on her hips.  "Happy?"
    My shoulders sloped under the burden of her revelation.  I sighed.  "Pretty big job," I said quietly, "filling the space she left behind.  Especially as an only child."
    "How did you..."
    "Just a guess.  But I can see how much it would make things that much harder for you."
    She shrugged.
    The rest of what I had to say forced its way out, like a child being born.  "He couldn’t give you enough by himself.  Your father, I mean.  No man could — no matter how good he was.  And you couldn’t let him know that.  That's what I was getting at when I said you weren't fed enough.  I meant emotionally.  A mother's love."  I looked straight into her eyes.  "I'm sorry you ended up feeling guilty about your needs."
    "I feel guilty all the time.  About everything.  Even..."
    "Of course you do.  That's why you think everyone's watching you eat.  You're not allowed to have an appetite, let alone a big one."
    She tightened her grip on her vegetables.  "I don't know about all this," she said.  She walked to the end of the corridor and around the corner.
    I stared after her a few seconds, warmed by the very part of her — the neediness, the capacity to be loved and filled — that she feared letting anyone know.  I took