Envy by Kathryn Harrison

therapy. Nothing works.”
    â€œUse it or lose it?” Will asks. The hour’s up, but finally it seems as if they’re on to something.
    The man nods. “I even hear it in my head,” he says. “Well, I hear a lot of things like that, phrases that get stuck in my head.”
    â€œTell me about them.”
    The man shrugs self-consciously. “Some just bug me,” he says, “like that old ‘Step on a crack, break your mother’s back.’ And the other one that always pops up when I walk outside. As soon as I see dog crap, I hear ‘Eat shit and die.’ Well, obviously I don’t act on that, but the words stay in my head. They play over and over until something, I don’t know what, distracts me or turns them off somehow. I can’t tell you how they stop because as long as I’m trying to turn them off, I can’t, you know? They have to stop when I’ve given up, when I’m not paying attention anymore.”
    â€œAre there others of these directives?” Will asks. “Others you can remember?”
    â€œOh, yes, many of them. There’s ‘Haste makes waste’ and ‘A stitch in time’—things like that. ‘No pain, no gain.’ ”
    â€œSayings, you mean? Aphorisms?”
    â€œYes. But while most of them bother me by repeating over and over, the ‘Use it or lose it’ one forces me to act because the idea that it’s true, that I will lose it, is so powerful.”
    â€œDo you avoid cracks in the sidewalk?”
    â€œI guess I do, yes.”
    â€œDo some of these directives occur more frequently than others?”
    â€œNo. At least I don’t think they do.”
    â€œAnd mostly they stop when you obey?”
    â€œYes. I hadn’t spelled it out that way to myself, but you’re right.” Will makes a note. He’s allowed the new patient to use up not only the few remaining minutes of his hour—he’s never been one for forcing a fifty-minute break-off—but a little of the next patient’s as well, and she comes in glaring at him. It’s six minutes past.
    â€œMaria,” he says, standing to greet her. “Please forgive me. The . . . the gentleman whose appointment was immediately before yours was describing a complicated set of circumstances. You know I don’t like to cut people off.”
    She nods, looking slightly mollified. “It’s okay, I guess.”
    â€œPlease,” he says. He gestures toward the couch. “I was hoping that today, as I have a cancellation following your session, we could run overtime. If your schedule allows, that is.”
    â€œYeah, thanks, okay.” She hangs her coat in the closet but keeps her purse with her, lies down holding it in front of her crotch. Several times, she has pointed this habit out to Will, as if afraid he hasn’t picked up on this self-conscious Freudian allusion. He never takes the bait when she asks him what it might mean, just lobs the question back at her.
    â€œI feel like you’re always watching me,” she says as soon as she’s comfortably settled.
    â€œYes, I remember. We were talking about that last week.”
    â€œNo matter what I’m doing—I can be at work or eating dinner or changing my clothes or even having sex, and I get this feeling that if I look up, you’ll be standing there. Not saying anything, just watching me. Making your silent judgments.” She uses her hands as she speaks and doesn’t return them to her purse during pauses but leaves them hanging in midair, above her chest. “Well,” she says, “don’t you have any response to that?”
    â€œYes,” Will says. “I’m wondering why you think I judge you.”
    â€œBecause you do. You sit there thinking how purposeless and stupid my life is.”
    â€œWhy do you imagine me thinking that?”
    â€œWhy wouldn’t you? After all,