"Previously on "In Treatment"..." "We're lying there, face to face, petting each other like high school kids." "One thing seems perfectly plain to me:" "you slept with my patient." "He doesn't belong to you." "He's a great guy." "A little insecure in bed, maybe, but" "I think I'm gonna have a tremendous affair with him." "Are you saying that when I was fucking Alex, I was actually -- fucking you?" "It seems more like, "Look what you missed out on, Paul, you... coward, you idiot."" "Paul, if there's one thing I've put right out there without hinting or manipulation, it's that I've wanted you." "There's more intimacy between us than most couples in the world." "Isn't that right?" "I don't deny that there's a certain intimacy " "Is there intimacy here, or not?" "Yes... there is." "S01E21:" "Laura, Week Five" "I'm sorry." "Laura, I think that, um... we need to discuss in a little greater detail, uh... your ending therapy." "We're, we're not stopping yet, but in order to do it gradually, we have to create what we call a timeline." "No timeline." "We're -- finishing today." "Yeah, today." "This is, uh, our last session." "Good." "Feels good." "Resolved, I guess." "I was a little nervous about telling you, but now that that's over, I feel better, relieved... maybe a little tired." "And, uh... and sad." "How about you?" "How do you feel?" "Or, uh " " I'm sorry, is that not okay for me to ask?" " No, it's perfectly okay." " Oh, good, so... tell me." "Well... to be honest, it's, it's come as a bit of a shock." "Shocked?" "Well -- okay, what else?" "Well " " I feel sad, too." "Right." "Yes, I do." "You don't believe me?" "It just doesn't look that way." "It looks like you're holding back this huge sigh of relief, this... huge gulp of air trapped in your lungs." "See, I, I'm trained to see that stuff, remember?" "Monitoring respiration, that's anesthesiology 101." "Go ahead, let it go." "Exhale." "No?" "Well..." "Maybe I'm a lousy doctor." "So, how's your week been?" "Don't ask me about my week." "It was terrible." "How terrible?" "I was in surgery on Friday, and, um... this 15-year-old girl, she... she had this tumor, on her cheek." "It was nothing, benign, cosmetic." "And everything's going great -- right?" "Nothing, nothing wrong with the anesthetic." "And my attending gets called away to consult on a procedure, and the surgery ended faster than normal." "It was simple." "And I'm left with her, still anesthetized." "So I called to ask what to do." "I'd never been in that situation before with a patient who's never woken up." "And they told me to... take her into the recovery room." "She was still intubated, and the attending was supposed to remove the tube when she wakes up." "She was a sweet girl, pretty." "Michelle was her name." "Before the op, I, uh, was talking to her mom who told me that she'd been asking for this operation since she was -- nine." "They recommended that she put it off for a while, and... but she wasn't afraid... just wanted this thing gone, this fatty lump off her pretty face." "And then suddenly, she wasn't breathing." "I don't know what happened, Paul." "I..." "I took her into recovery, and two minutes later she was blue, I mean..." "Atcheson, he's the... senior attending, he pushed me aside and pounced on her with... chest compressions." "I had no idea what went wrong, Paul, I..." "They extubated her, and she was breathing." "Everything was fine, it was, it was okay." "How did you feel... during those... few minutes when the..." "Fantastic!" "Never better." "I felt..." "like shit." "I only look competent, Paul, you know... white coat, stethoscope, pen in pocket..." "I'm like those doctors from the pharmaceutical ads, you know, like, hand on hip... brow a little furrowed with concern... nice smile " " I have a pretty smile, right?" "Mm-hmm." "Do..." "Do you expect that -- nothing will ever go wrong with a patient?" "I dropped the ball." "But is, uh, is that what the... the attending concluded?" "I mean, couldn't it have been something else like a..." "I don't know, an allergic reaction or " "It's always my responsibility." "Paul." "Tell me a little bit more about that, uh, about that girl." "She had braces." "And through her surgical cap, you could see, um..." "What do they call it, the, uh... the barrette, the little butterfly pinning back her bangs." "They were old." "Must have her mother's or... from a thrift store or something." "And she had these, um... beautiful hands, gorgeous hands." "I mean, she's just a girl, and she had these hands of a, of a woman... very long fingers, pretty little nails." "I mean, shit, when I was her age I used to eat my nails." "I mean, they were ugly and stubby and short." " Nerves, I guess." " Why were you nervous?" "Well, it was... you know, around the time that my mother passed away, so..." "And whose responsibility were you then?" "What do you mean?" "Well, who was -- taking care of you?" "You mean, who was watching my sleep?" "Yeah." "I wasn't that girl on the operating table, Paul." "No, it's just that you told me that when your mother died, that it was like... a kind of a death for you, too." "Yeah, but you know what?" "Shit happens." "Life isn't fair." "I mean, what are you going to do -- sue god?" "Who would you sue?" "You." "No, suing you wouldn't do me any good, either." "That's my problem with psychology, Paul." "You dig and you dig and you uncover all sorts of truths about yourself... and you touch on all sorts of painful places, but what good does it do, Paul?" "I'm serious." "I'm not being cynical." "What good does it do me today, to know how much I suffered then?" "I'm sick of feeling sorry for myself." "Fucking hate feeling sorry for myself." "That's one of the things I hate." "What else do you hate?" "Uh, there's a long list." "Well, for example?" " Omelets." " Omelets?" "Omelets and all sorts of eggs, but mostly omelets." "Well, that was the thing my father and I ate, the entire year after my mother passed away." "I still have flashbacks, but -- from behind, you know?" "I'm standing at the stove, and I'm... breaking eggs into a frying pan, and everything's very quiet, no talking, and... my dad's just sitting there... reading the newspaper or something and I'm just... beating the eggs with a fork." "Sometimes he wouldn't even be reading the newspaper." "He would just be... sitting there with a vacant look, in a daze." "I used to..." "I'd fantasize that he'd disappear." "Such a terrible thing to say." "It's not that I wanted him to die," "I just didn't want to continue living like that." "Everything was so bleak, so suffocating." "I just didn't wanna be there." "So, then... then you went to California." " Yeah." " So you stayed there for a while, and..." "How was it coming back home after spending that -- time with David and Celia?" "Well, you know, you have plans... full of beans." "I thought, "Shit, I can make him feel better, I can."" "But I couldn't." "That house was like a black hole that just... sucked me in." "Anyway, I, um..." "I saw David again six months later." "He came to the D.C. area to try some big case." "He stayed for a while, a few months." "I thought you said, you never saw him again." "Well, I never saw them again, but I, I " " I saw him." "He used to have a room at the Hay-Adams, and... but occasionally, he'd -- you know, stay over at our house." "He didn't have a car, so when it got late he'd stay." "He always, you know, offered to take a cab back into town, but... my dad refused, since he was... so hospitable to me during the summer." "I mean, he was lonely." "But he wasn't the same David, you know... with the Ray-Bans and the sunblock and the surfboard, he was this, this lawyer guy with a... three-piece suit, an expensive haircut... and a middle-aged pot belly." "Not that there's anything wrong with a pot belly." "Anyway, he, um... he came to our house for... for dinner the first night he was in town." "My brother Oliver was away at college, and... so, it was just the three of us, one big happy family... my dad, David and I." "What was that like, sitting there with... these... extremes, your father on one side and..." "Nick Nolte with a pot belly, sitting on the other side?" " What was that like?" " At first?" "Self-conscious, I guess." "You know how you always feel more like a kid, when your parents are around?" "That happened." "I remember... slurping up spaghetti, trying really hard not to let the noodles drip down my chin." "Later, I..." "I guess, I wasn't as self-conscious." "No?" "Why?" "Later, after David and I made love." "I seduced him." "Have you read "Lolita"?" "Sure." "It's amazing, because, uh, pretty much the same thing happened to me." "That night when he came over for dinner, my dad was still at work." "So we sat on the porch and... you know, caught up." "I was painting my toenails." "And it became pretty clear that he and Celia were having problems, I mean..." "He said just as much, which is why she hadn't joined him on the trip." "So, we were just sitting on the porch... swing..." "I was on one side, he was on the other." "And I was resting my... legs on his, to dry my nails." "And he was... he was just asking about me... what was going on with me." "And I started telling him about the" "Red Hot Chili Peppers." "God, I was so into them." "You know, you're at that stage, where you're writing down the lyrics and analyzing them... and I started singing at the top of my lungs:" "# I don't ever want to feel, # Like I did that day" "And David joined in, and we were so bad." "I mean, we were screaming it." "And then I felt his hardness... under my foot." "And we we're just rocking in the swing, and... the rhythm of it starts to take over." "And I'm just rubbing him with my foot... although I've never done that before in my life, never." "I had on this loose skirt with these little flowers." "And he pushed up my skirt with his finger." "And his finger just started... climbing further and further up my thigh." "Then we see my father's Volvo coming down the street... so we ran over to help him... um, with the groceries, and I remember laughing so hard because David was carrying his bag of groceries in front of his hard-on." "We were just... we were just cracking up like teenagers." "He stayed over that night, in Oliver's room." "And around one o'clock in the morning, I got up 'cause I, I couldn't sleep, and I walked down the... the corridor in the house." "Oliver's room was at the back of the house, and... and I saw his light on." "And the door was open, and..." "he was waiting for me." "David." "We made love." "It was -- it was lovely." "During the two months that he was in town, we made love almost every day, mostly in the mornings when my dad went to work, but occasionally, if he didn't have to be in court until the afternoon..." "I'd play hooky." "Sometimes I'd go to his fancy hotel." "I felt very important and grown-up... walking through that lobby in my mother's high heels." "Did you ever feel that -- this man... that David was... was taking advantage of you?" "He wasn't taking advantage of me." "I'm telling you, I seduced him." "Well, Lolita seduces Humbert Humbert in the novel, and she's only twelve." "You disapprove, obviously." "Yes, I do." "What's the matter?" "You're making a judgment on me, you're allowing yourself to stray from the rules." "Gosh, it's too bad you weren't like this before," " willing to say what's on your mind." " Well, you never told me this before." "It's our last session, so I thought it was only right you to tell you." "Remember, I told you that the guy from debate society was my first?" "Well, David was my first." "And I'm sorry." "What are you sorry for?" "For lying to you." "I wasn't a victim, Paul." "I -- don't look at me like that." " I wasn't a victim." " Really?" "I got into his bed." "He was a 40-year-old man, for Christ's sake." "He had a responsibility to send you away." "I mean, he was... he was very gentle." "Gentle or not, it is beside the point." "He was 40 years, he had a moral responsibility." "He should have known better." "Let me ask you something." "Do you feel..." "Do you feel any anger towards this -- man, towards this David?" "Look, Paul, it's not such a big deal." "He didn't hurt me." "It didn't hurt at all." " It wasn't rape." " Where was your father... during all this?" "He was asleep in the next room." "Yes, but during the two months that David was..." ""visiting"... your father had no idea what was going on?" "He was -- depressed and grieving." "It hadn't even been a year since my mother passed away." "He needed someone to protect him, and guess who?" "Yes, I understand that... but children aren't supposed to take care of their parents, Laura." "It's a burden that no child deserves." "Do you feel any anger..." "towards your father... for not being there... to protect you... for not noticing?" "No resentment?" "Okay.Let's just say, you could talk to your father now." "What would you say to him?" "I have nothing to say to him." "But just imagine for a moment -- if you were face to face... and you were... talking about this incident..." "What do you think you might say to him?" "Have you ever spoken to your father in that way?" "I wish I could." "Oh, so, because you can't talk to your father, you're asking me to talk to mine?" "No, that's not what I'm saying, Laura." "I think, it's important... that you talk to your father... about this... while it's still possible -- not for his sake... but for yours." "Can I have something to drink..." "other than water?" " Sure." " Do you have any soda?" "So, this is the -- famous coffee machine, huh?" "Alex's famous coffee machine, yeah." "How do you use it?" "Excuse me." "He's such a coffee freak, Alex." "It's the best smell, don't you think?" "You know that this thing with me and Alex is over." "I ended it." "Are you relieved?" "Jesus, Paul, look at you." "How can you -- how can you live like this?" "Can't you just say or, or do something on impulse?" "You know that I connected that girl to the wrong tube." "I inflated her like a balloon." "And I almost killed her, and you know why?" "Because I was thinking about you." "And I realized what an insane effect you're having on me, and it... it has to stop." "Laura..." "Laura, we can continue to talk about this if you want." "All of a sudden, you're very generous with your time." "You know, for months, I spent the week, thinking," ""It'll be this Monday." "I'll tell him that I love him, and he'll tell me he loves me... and the session won't be 50 minutes." "It'll go forever."" "But then Monday would come and I wouldn't dare say anything." "And the session would end, and I would just walk out of here, thinking," ""Fuck!" "I didn't say anything again." "Now I have to wait a whole other week, for my life to begin."" "I can't continue, Paul." "Every minute here is tearing me apart."