Original Cyn by Sue Margolis Read Free Book Online Page B

all this therapy nonsense. You’re the sanest person I know. Why do you need therapy? I mean, it’s not like you’re mad. Not like your late Aunty Millie, God rest her soul. Your dad took her to see a therapist once because she had suicidal tendencies.”
    “What happened?”
    “I don’t know, but I think the therapist made her pay in advance.” She giggled at her joke. “Seriously, though, is it me? Is it something I’ve done? Or your dad? You hate us because we called you Cynthia, don’t you? It was all your dad’s fault. Never forget that it was me who saved you from being called Yoko.”
    “Mum, it’s nothing to do with my name.” One day she would discuss how Barbara’s cancer affected her, but she wasn’t ready yet. She didn’t want to hurt her—after all, her mother had been the one with the illness, the one who thought she was going to die. And even though Barbara had been clear of the disease for over twenty years, Cyn didn’t doubt that at the back of her mind, she still worried about the cancer returning. “I just find it hard to be assertive sometimes and therapy helps.”
    “Of course, you get that from me. I’ve always been a bit of a shrinking violet.”
    Cyn smiled to herself. Her mother was many things. Neither shrinking nor violet was among them.
    The traffic was unusually heavy and Cyn arrived a few minutes late. There were no parking spaces outside Veronica’s house, so Cyn was forced to park around the corner. This was no bad thing she decided because it meant that when everybody left after the session, nobody would notice the Anusol ad.
    Veronica always left the front door on the latch on group therapy nights so that clients could let themselves in. Cyn stepped into the hall and opened the door to Veronica’s large white office. There were four people plus Veronica sitting in a circle on hard black Ikea chairs. Cyn slipped in silently, hoping she looked sufficiently apologetic, and took the nearest empty seat. The woman who had been speaking broke off and looked up at Cyn. “Sorry I’m late,” Cyn whispered. “Traffic. Please, carry on.” The woman gave her a small smile. “I was just saying that sometimes I just don’t know who I am. I’m still really struggling with this whole identity crisis thing.”
    “God, Jean,” Cyn said, “that must be awful, constantly trying to work out who is the real you.”
    “My name is Jenny.”
    “Omigod. Jenny. Of course you’re Jenny. I’m so sorry. You’ve been here for three months, how could I think you weren’t Jenny?” Cyn sat there, feeling her cheeks burn with embarrassment. Jenny was looking down, now fiddling with her nails.
    “It’s all right, Cyn,” she said. “Not to worry. I know I don’t have very much impact on people. The thing is I just don’t know what to do to change.”
    “I do.” It was Clementine, a bossy, Sloaney sex addict who worked as a fashion assistant on
Vogue
. “You’re forty-five. Losing the hair plait and calf-length florals might be a start.” Clementine could be blunt to the point of cruelty. Cyn watched Jenny recoil in shock.
    “You know, Clementine,” Cyn came back. “I think that’s a bit much. I wonder why you always feel the need to be so unkind.”
    “And I wonder,” Veronica broke in quietly, smiling at Cyn, “why you find it so easy to stick up for other people, but not yourself. Maybe you would like to say a bit more about that.”
    Cyn shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said, feeling cross with Veronica because she had managed to cast aside her good intentions about Jenny. She knew she needed to stand up to Veronica and tell her she was angry with her—practicing saying stuff like that was the main reason she was in group therapy—but she let it go.
    It was hard to judge, but Cyn suspected most people in the group found Veronica as intimidating as she did. The woman had this quiet, almost smug confidence about her. Throughout the weekly one-and-a-half-hour