A Death in Canaan by Joan; Barthel Page A

don’t. No, I don’t.
K:
Why?
P:
Well, your chart says I did. I still say I didn’t.
K:
You’re not sure, are you? Let’s go over this thing again. Maybe we can bring it out of your subconscious, then we can get this straightened out and see what we can salvage out of this mess. You don’t look like a violent person. Maybe, spur of the moment. Now, have you ever hit your mother in the past?
P:
Yes. Three months ago. It had something to do with fixing the car. I threw a flashlight. I didn’t mean to throw it hard. It was a metal flashlight and it caught her on the shin.
K:
Did you throw it deliberately?
P:
Yes. Spur of the moment. But I realized I had done it and apologized for it.
K:
This thing is so violent. Maybe you don’t want to remember.
P:
You’ve lost me now.
K:
The last time you hit your mother you hit her lightly. This time when you lost your temper it wasn’t just a little bit. She is now dead. Maybe you’re so ashamed of this thing …
P:
What about that question where you asked me about being ashamed?
K:
Not very much reaction. The big one is hurting her. I think this is possibly the whole thing here. It wasn’t a deliberate thing. Something happened between you and your mother, and one thing led to another, and someway, you accidentally hurt her seriously.
P:
But how?
K:
I don’t know, Peter. You were there; I wasn’t.
P:
I wouldn’t mind so much if they could prove I did it. But there’s a doubt in my mind. I know consciously I didn’t do it. Subconsciously, who knows?
K:
I think you’re trying to eradicate it and not let your conscience say you did it.
P:
Would it definitely be me? Could it have been someone else?
K:
No way. From these reactions.
P:
Now I’m afraid, because I was so sure I didn’t do it, you know what I mean? I want to go back to school. I don’t have any place to go.
K:
This isn’t the end of the world. As long as you don’t get it straightened out in your mind, you’ll never have a day of peace.
P:
I gotta get it straightened out right now.
K:
Right. Once we do that, we’re halfway home. There’s no doubt in my mind from these charts you did it. But why and how?
P:
That’s what I don’t know. If I did it, I don’t remember it. What I told you is exactly how I remember it. Is there any way they can kind of pound it out of me?
K:
Peter!
P:
Well, not pound it out of me, but dig deeper into me.
K:
This is what we’re trying to do here. And I think you can give me the answer if you want to. I think you’re so ashamed, that if you tell me, you don’t know what I’m going to say to you. You’re so damned ashamed of last night that you’re trying to just block it out of your mind. You just feel that by sitting here and denying it and denying it and denying it, that it’s going to go away.
P:
I’m not purposely denying it. If I did it, I wish I knew I’d done it. I’d be more than happy to admit it if I knew it. If I could remember it. But I don’t remember it.
K:
How are we going to solve this? What’s your suggestion?
P:
I don’t know. Another test would help. Find out what they found in the house. The thing is, I don’t want to go into a mental hospital. I don’t want to leave the people I know. I don’t want to leave the band; we’re starting to go professional.
K:
Is that what’s worrying you, Peter? That you’ll have to go into a mental hospital?
P:
The thing is, if I did it, I don’t remember. I don’t want to go into a mental hospital. I don’t mind a session with a psychiatrist once a week, but I want to stay in the school I’m going to. But I’m stuck. I’m hung up. I don’t remember.
K:
My charts say you remember this right now.
P:
But I don’t. Can you fire this thing up and ask me again?
K:
No. I have enough now. I think our problem is that you don’t want to