Sanford Crow

CHAPTER 12

The snow flurried steadily outside. It reminded Sanford of that day; every time it snowed it reminded him.

His fingernail dug into his cuticle and he began to peel away a raw layer of skin. It was a compulsion he developed in his early teens, picking and biting until the skin came loose and blood formed, mixed with a sharp and adequate pain.

It made him uneasy to be in her office, it always had. Shouldn't you feel comfortable in therapy? His eyes stayed fixed on the window as white flakes fell from the sky.

"I should have moved to California."

"What was that?" Diane asked, and Sanford stared at her like she was in his head. "Did you just whisper something?"

Did I?

He was always getting lost in his mind. It was bad when it snowed, and it was even worse around Christmas. Moving to New York hadn't helped. But he'd established himself in Peekskill; he had a job, an apartment, and a beautiful daughter who was his whole reason for trying, for existing.

I wonder what Sadie is learning in school tod—

"Sanford?" Diane broke his train of thought.

"What? Oh, did I? Oh, I was just...just saying, I don't think I can do it."

"You can do it. You already wrote it, right? That must've been the hard part, no?" Diane said, sitting in an armchair across from him. Her black, pinstripe jacket with those enormous pads hugged her shoulders, where her black hair ended. A matching skirt dangled inches above her knees. Sanford wondered how she'd walk through the snow in such an attire. And in those heels? She looked good though, as always.

Her notepad was in her hands. She looked at Sanford through her green eyes, then jotted something down. That always annoyed him. How can you have a conversation with someone who's always judging you?

"What'd you just write?" he asked.

"Don't be concerned with what I wrote, this is about what you wrote. Writing is what helps you, Sanford. You know this. We know this. This is important, the most important breakthrough we've made yet in our sessions. But you still have to face it, and reading it out loud is the best way to do that."

He leaned back on the couch which was overly stiff. He stretched his neck and looked around. Her office was pristine; everything was in perfect order. From her psychology degrees on the wall, hanging at a perfect right angle, to her pencils and pens standing upright in a cup on her desk. Sanford had to fight the urge to rip the story he wrote in half and storm out of her office.

Breathe, he said to himself, just breathe.

"It's been twenty-five years, Sanford, and you've only moved on from what happened to you, you've never faced it. I think that's the main contribution to your psychogenic amnesia. If you—"

"That sounds like a disease," he interrupted.

"It's not a disease, Sanford, just a state of mind right now. It's only a clinical term: don't be afraid of it. I believe if you can move past your past, those blackouts of yours will stop." she said, and then bit her lip, afraid to push him too far. "First, just tell me how you wrote it."

"With a pen."

"Don't be a smart ass, that's not what I meant. When did you write it? Where? How? In what format?"

"This morning," he said looking at his watch, "about three and a half hours ago."

She sighed. "Did you write in the third person again?"