Phantom Poodles

When we enter the dim-lit cave of the therapist I am ready to sacrifice my soul in order to save our marriage. The place is so dark she can’t see our poodles who jump up on the couch between my husband and me.

We are here because Peter has become anorexic. I didn’t realize it had gotten so bad, because, similar to the dogs that rest between us, he likes to remain invisible, and hides his condition even from himself.

The poodles, like Peter, are dead-leaf-colored—the main reason we chose this particular breed. But unlike Peter they are forward and needy. At home they crawl up on the sofa between us where they bark at the video dogs. Animals on the screen seem alive to them, just as Peter seems alive to the therapist now.

If Peter were to waste completely away, the poodles might still come and lean on him, lending him their weight, but he doesn’t like to feel them getting too close. He doesn’t like their phantom breath on him.

The therapist uses phrases like: Blind Spots and Thank you for asking. She tells us we must do exactly as she says, and the poodles begin to get anxious.

Peter confesses, rather timidly, that he no longer cares for my cooking.

Before I can open my mouth, the poodles start making a ruckus. They protest that they love everything that I make.

The Buddha-bodied therapist hulks into her chair and draws up her legs so the poodles can’t mark them. This therapy cave smells like a dog run. “The trouble with you is,” she looks directly at me, but at this point I’m thinking about something else and miss her point entirely.

She tells Peter that I’ll never understand his palate— the subtleties of his sensate self—how he could have been a sage in some other world, where he might have discerned the seventeen ingredients in some savory sauce, though he sits on his therapy cushion now holding both nostrils shut.

Does she know he refuses to even trade bites when we go out for dinner?

“You must cultivate culinary compassion,” she continues.

Try compassion on yourself, bark the poodles.

Does she realize that Peter is not a normal human being any more than the poodles are regular dogs? She obviously sees herself inside the invisible fence he’s constructed for us, telling him how he must have the patience of a saint, one who merely subsists on a nibble from a Host once a day, every evening.

Peter quietly excuses himself, and makes a quick trip to the toilet where he regurgitates everything he’s heard. I’m next! I wonder if the therapist knows what he’s up to, if she even hears him flush.

When he returns, he hands the Buddha-bellied therapist a schedule of his weight loss program. He has been losing weight steadily for months and is proud of his progress, weighing less than your average teenage girl. You can barely see him in profile.

Surely he could ride one of the phantom poodles if it would take a saddle. What a go they would have-- over hill and dale… for the poodles are nighttime adventurers. Nothing scares them because they aren’t afraid of death. “That’s the only way to live!” I shout at the therapist, who is cringing over this weight chart schedule, for she weighs at least twice as much as she should.

“You should try eating over at my house,” she says as if to entice him. Obviously she hasn’t observed his miniscule portions routine that can make a wife want to throw the spoon back in the pot. He might not want to partake in my Stay-a-Bed-Stew, but somebody here is starving!

The therapist leans so far forward that I’m afraid she might fall from her perch like a medicine ball person and roll across the floor. If she does, she may be fair game for the poodles.

“Peter could have been a mystic in some other lifetime,” she goes on. “He doesn’t need physical food, he just needs to…”

Wait a minute here. I sit up straight alongside the phantom poodles who both have good posture and an appetite for life. If Peter crumbles from within and disappears into a muddle of mental quicksand, who’s going to be responsible, HER?

But she isn’t listening. She is trying to prescribe her own method of whisking-- “When you make a request, make sure your partner says—

Give the dog a bone! The poodles second-guess her.

“You must come to me weekly,” the therapist instructs, as I write the first check of many. “Peter is a wonderful man,” she exclaims, “he is simply addicted to his wound,” which he licks and licks, as if it could nourish him. The poodles would lick it for him if he didn’t relish it himself.

We are about to leave, when she hurls this last tidbit—“If you were to die, it would devastate Peter. He would never eat another bite. But if he were to pass away, you’d just go on with your courses.”

Well, thank you for sharing, bark the phantom poodles, snapping at her kneecaps, taking invisible but fragrant dumps on the carpet.

I find Peter’s hand and drag him towards the door, but he has become like a dead weight person, looking back at the therapist, as if to say, “When can I eat with you again?”