It doesn't look like a habitrail.
Rosie said that you thought it looked like a habitrail.
Yeah, I know.
I just...
yeah, it's like the only thing
I could come up with at the time.
It's more like an erector set.
I don't think well on the spot.
Neither do I sometimes.
But it looks like a really cool place to live.
Is that Steve's studio back there?
Yeah, he converted the garage
and, like, totally rebuilt it
and then built another garage around back.
I see.
You can fit, like, a whole fleet of monster trucks in there.
But he only drives a prius.
- He thinks about the environment... - That's good.
But, like, from a positive angle.
That's great.
That's something
Steve and I have in common...
that and you.
We both think about you
from a positive angle.
In fact, from what your mom tells me,
we both love you.
Max, I just wanted to say that it's okay
for Steve to love you
and I'm happy that he does.
And it's okay for you to love him back.
What are you gonna do when you're all alone in Brooklyn?
I'm not gonna be all alone in Brooklyn.
Wait, do you know Jared, the fat kid in my class?
- With the mustache? - Yeah, he's already growing a mustache.
His parents are getting a divorce.
And his dad, like, reads a lot.
And from what Jared tells me,
he will not watch a movie without subtitles.
- Hmm. - So you could call him.
You guys could go see a documentary.
That's a really...
that's a really nice idea.
The most important thing for you to remember
is that you don't have to worry about me.
I'm gonna be just fine, really.
How will I know?
I'm gonna...
'cause I'm gonna call you all the time, non-stop.
I'm gonna be calling you so much, you're gonna say,
"dad, please stop calling me."
And we've got that week together in January
when Steve and your mom go on their honeymoon.
In the meantime, I want you to promise
that you're not gonna worry about me.
You promise me?
I promise.
Okay.
You ready?
- Yeah. - Let's go.
Hi there.
Oh, hi.
Hey Max.
Steve.
Paul... Paul weston.
Kate should be back any minute.
Will you come in for a cup of coffee?
Oh, that's kind of you,
but I need to beat the traffic back.
Yeah.
So I'll call you later, okay?
Knock the rock.
Explode the rock.
I love you.
Oh shit.
- I forgot. - Thanks.
- Yeah. - Drive safe.
Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you.
Come out back.
I've got something I want to show you.
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I'm sorry.
More traffic?
Yeah, it got even worse after I called from the turnpike.
Just into Chinatown...
completely stalled out.
I started thinking, "this is it.
This is how I'm gonna spend the rest of my life... on canal street."
The parking was awful too.
Another headache?
Well, I figured I'd keep this in your medicine cabinet.
Then I can help myself when necessary,
if I can open this.
Okay, that's it.
So what do we have left... half a session?
If that.
You've had a big day.
I got in the car and drove back.
Traffic started immediately.
I started to sweat. I thought I was having a heart attack.
The last time you were here,
you hadn't been able to talk to Max
about your health, Steve and...
I talked to him.
What made you finally decide to?
You did.
At least in part.
It took me till last night, but I finally,
thanks to you,
forced myself to talk to him.
And?
It was clear right away that this was
what he really wanted
and that he'd only come to stay with me
because he'd been worried about me
and that really he ought to be there.
In Maryland?
Yeah, it was the only option,
yeah,
as painful as was to realize that.
The two of you spoke just last night?
The whole thing just happened so fast.
You know, I guess I felt
that he'd been up here a month
and I just wanted to get him home for his sake
and also to...
What?
Get it over with.
He asked me inside
for coffee.
You mean...
Steve.
Kate wasn't there.
You know, he seemed...
he seemed, you know, okay...
all-American, you know,
a big smile, a strong handshake.
He looked, you know, like dad.
Unlike you?
Did you go in?
I...
I couldn't.
I just had to get out of there.
It made it easier in some ways, you know...
his glaring decency,
his ease with Max.
And yet in other ways
I can imagine that was very difficult to see.
I think maybe it was the hardest thing
I've ever had to do, you know...
walk away from that house
leaving Max behind
with him.
But after our session last week
I saw that...
I saw that you were right,
that I didn't have a choice,
that I had to face the truth.
Will you tell me about your talk,
how you got yourself to face the truth?
We were making pancakes late.
And I was just beginning to get into it, you know,
trying to find the right words.
And the doorbell rings. And it's Jesse.
What time was this?
I don't know. About 10:30 maybe.
And you let him in?
- I had to. - Okay.
He'd been to visit his birth parents
and they fucking rejected him.
The kid was devastated.
Did it feel easier for you to deal
with Jesse's problems in your office
than the ones with Max at home?
If you'd seen what Jesse looked like, you would have let him in too.
So I said to Max, "okay look, we'll talk about this later.
This is an emergency. I have to deal with it.
"We'll make the pancakes for breakfast."
Then I went in. I spoke to Jesse.
15 minutes later the smoke alarm goes off.
I'm sorry?
He'd tried to make the pancakes himself
and the pan went on fire.
So I put the flames out and I realized
that I had to talk to my son.
I... I... I... I couldn't wait any longer.
You just told me you were determined to do it anyway.
The point is that I did it.
Once Max set the stove on fire,
once you left Jesse.
Oh, for fuck's sake.
I'm telling you about this traumatic event
where I finally faced up to something
that is extremely painful with my son,
maybe the lowest moment of my life,
which you have encouraged me to tackle,
which took all the strength that I had,
and all you can do is focus
on a mistake that you think I made...
that I, God forbid, tried to help a troubled patient?
I do see how wrenching this was for you.
- Do you? - I do.
And at the same time, since you've walked in,
I've been fully aware of your clear need
for me to grasp and acknowledge your pain.
Well, you are my therapist.
Yes.
And I do happen to be in pain.
I know that. I see that.
You even brought in a prop
to demonstrate in case I missed it.
Well, I do also have a fucking headache.
I believe you.
But the more clearly I see the pain you're in,
the greater the chance I'll see what you've done
as courageous and heroic
and less of a chance that I'd question
or criticize any part of it.
Well, go ahead
and criticize,
if that's what you feel the need to do.
I do find I have some questions
regarding your decision about Max.
What made it so urgent for you to finally bring him...?
Can I say something?
All right.
You say that I seem to be looking
for a certain response from you,
that I'm invested in your reaction.
But you're avoiding
any acknowledgment
of why that might be.
I'm not sure I'm following.
I think you're dancing around the obvious reason
you might think that.
I would have thought you'd see the value
in addressing it directly.
What's the obvious reason?
You really need me to say it?
I'd like to hear what you think.
We both know as therapists
that that's the meat of all this anyway...
not my day-to-day struggles, no matter how torturous,
but what's actually happening right here,
what's going on in the room. I just...
I don't know. I find it strange that...
I find it strange that you haven't mentioned what happened last week.
From your point of view,
what happened at the end of last week?
You don't remember?
I remember our session quite well.
So why the delicate evasion,
the muted suggestion?
You're talking about your pronouncement
of your feelings for me?
Have you been hurt by the fact
that I haven't brought up what we discussed last week?
I was just surprised
that you hadn't mentioned it.
The truth is
that this hasn't been foremost on my mind.
Okay.
Because for most of the week
I've been concentrated on my son.
I mean
you weren't even on my radar.
And...
I thought those thoughts had disappeared.
But they hadn't?
They came back somewhere in Delaware.
I was sitting in my car,
just thinking about my life,
my kids,
plus everything that awaited me when I got back here...
Wendy, my work,
the next neurologist.
What?
And I just realized
that the only person I wanted to see
when I got back to New York
was... was you.
I'm supposed to meet Wendy at my place for dinner.
And all I could think was, "I can't do it."
Telling her what I went through today,
telling her what it was like to say goodbye to my son...
I just... I couldn't imagine it.
But I knew that you would understand.
Last week you spoke about these feelings
as ridiculous, a kind of comeuppance.
It's true that I've seen this kind of thing before.
I'm familiar with the dynamic of transference.
And... and t
I can't help but think
that maybe this is
something more.
I don't know. I just can't shake the thought
that somehow,
someplace else
we might...
we might be able to help each other,
that we might...
that we might make each other happy.
"We might make each other happy."
How do you imagine...?
Look, I know
it's impossible, of course
that you and I could never be together.
Impossible that we could never?
Impossible that we could ever...
there's no way it could happen.
I should have kept my mouth shut.
This impossibility...
your certainty that a relationship between us
could never happen...
I'm wondering if in part
that's what allows you to contemplate it.
I mean, does it feel safer
within the confines of a therapist's office...
of yours or mine...
to allow yourself to engage in,
to imagine a personal relationship?
Safer?
I don't know about you, but I'm not feeling
particularly safe right now.
When you think about us making each other happy,
what comes to mind? What do you imagine?
I...
I don't know. I... I...
tell me what you're thinking.
I suppose I just sense
that you and I...
well,
I... I imagine us having dinner
at the end of a day of work, you know,
having a glass of wine,
talking about our minor triumphs with patients,
helping each other to sort through
difficult cases.
Anything else?
Are there other things you imagine,
other romantic situations you might...?
It's not so crazy, is it really,
to imagine sharing ideas, advice, encouragement
with somebody who's
engaged in the same kind of work as a profession,
seen the same challenges?
No, it's not crazy.
No.
You know, for instance,
I've been wanting to talk to you about Sunil.
I'm a little bit, I don't know, kind of...
I've been thinking about my last session with him.
And I'm not quite sure what to make of it, you know?
This is the kind of conversation
you might imagine we would have
if we were involved in some sort of relationship?
Look, I've told you about Sunil's anger,
his... the deep rage that he has
toward his daughter-in-law.
Yes, you did tell me,
but because we're just about out of time...
and this week he told me this extremely vivid dream that he had
where he imagined that he was defending his grandchildren
against this woman who was walking towards them,
and he was trying to strike her.
And when I pressed him about this,
he suddenly started to scream in bengali.
And obviously I didn't know what he was saying,
but then afterwards he said,
"a man can only be pushed so far."
It was just... I mean,
do you think that I should be worried about...?
I really couldn't answer that.
I sit across from him and my gut instinct,
you know, as a professional
is that he is... he is...
he is a gentle man.
But then he uses this kind of alarming language
like "smother" and "strike."
What do you think? Am I wrong to consider
that he could become violent?
I honestly don't know. I've never met Sunil
and I haven't heard the dream in any real detail.
Well, I can fill you in on the...
I'm afraid you can't, actually.
But we could schedule another appointment,
continue this next week.
I don't need another appointment.
Well, there's a lot that came up today and there's not much time.
It's the end of the day. It's Friday.
I know that I'm your last patient.
- If we could just... - How do you know you're my last patient?
Because I stood outside last week
and I looked at the building.
Nobody came in or out, including you, for an hour.
Well...
We can talk about what you were thinking
while you were standing outside my building next week.
All I need is a minute or two
to address this issue of Sunil which...
- his outburst was pretty ex... - If we had two more minutes,
this is what you'd like to discuss...
your patient's outburst, not the fact that you stood
- outside my building for over... - Yes, the depth of his anger,
his intensity... I need to know for my sake if you...
if you're concerned about that,
you know very well what you're supposed to do. You have...
I'm asking you to help me figure out whether I should be...
you have a duty to notify the authorities
or warn the potential victim. You know that already.
- Now it's 5:53. We really need to stop. - 5:53?
5:53.
How would 10:00 A.M. Monday morning work for you?
I can't do it. I have a patient.
All right, how about Wednesday at 1:00?
I'm seeing a neurologist.
And then I've got a 3:00, a 4:00, a 5:00.
I actually have a practice
where I routinely go five or 10 minutes over if necessary.
You're seeing another neurologist?
- Yes, I am. - About the Parkinson's?
I... why...? I don't understand
why you can't be just a little bit more flexible.
I mean, think about it:
I've just lived through one of the worst moments of my life;
I've got a patient who potentially could hurt somebody and...
- again if you believe that... - And we've only had a half-an-hour session...
we've only had half a session because...
because I left my kid in Baltimore;
- the traffic was insane and... - Paul.
Why are you so fucking rigid?
You've got an enormous amount going on right now
and I would really like to help you see your way through,
but whenever I dare ask you to look at yourself
or your patterns of behavior,
you get angry, you raise your voice, you get impatient
and I think deeply afraid.
You do anything you can to push our relationship
past its prescribed time and purpose.
You ask me to be your colleague,
your supervisor, your life partner...
anything except for what you came to me for...
to be your therapist,
to get me to challenge you to look at yourself.
I don't think you realize
just how paralyzed you've become.
It took you weeks to speak to your son,
and only after a real crisis
forced you to do it.
You have an inability
to act decisively with one of your patients
despite the fact that you say
you're genuinely concerned for him.
You have doubts about your current relationship
which you've done nothing about.
And you've convinced yourself you have a debilitating disease
despite medical opinions to the contrary.
Now I would really like to help you see your way through,
but I cannot do it alone and I will not do it past 5:50.
Now I really urge you to come see me twice next week.
I'm... I'm unable to do that.
All right then.
For now we need to stop.
Are you so paralyzed you're unable to stand up?
I'm standing.
And I'm leaving.
Your pills.
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