The Choice

ey wanted to tell me every detail of Emma’s behaviors that
concerned them: the food she refused to eat, the food she pretended
to eat, the food they would ĕnd tucked inside napkins aer family
meals, the food they discovered stuffed into her dresser drawers, the
ways she pulled away from them and retreated behind closed doors,
the terrifying changes in her body. But I asked them instead to talk
about themselves, which they did with obvious discomfort.
Emma’s father was short and compact—he was a soccer player, I
learned. He looked a little like Hitler, I realized with unease—he had a
thin mustache and dark, pressed hair, and a way of barking when he
talked, as though behind every communication was the insistence on
not being ignored. Later I would have individual sessions with each of
Emma’s parents, and I would ask her father how he had decided on
his career as a police officer. He told me that as a boy he had walked
with a limp, and his father had called him Shrimpy-Limpy. He chose
to be a police officer because it required risk taking and physical
strength; he wanted to prove to his father that he wasn’t a shrimp or a
cripple. When you have something to prove, you aren’t free. Even
though I didn’t yet know anything about his childhood during our first
visit, I could tell that Emma’s father was living in a prison of his own
making—he was living within a limited image of who he should be. He
behaved more like a drill sergeant than a supportive husband or
concerned father. He didn’t ask questions; he ran an interrogation. He
didn’t acknowledge his fears or vulnerabilities; he asserted his ego.
His wife, who wore a tailored cotton dress with buttons down the
front and a thin belt, a look that was both timeless and no-nonsense,
seemed hyperattuned to his tone and speech. He talked for a few
minutes about his frustrations at work when he was skipped over for a
promotion, and I could see her searching for a careful balance point
between affirming his indignation and stoking his anger. She had
clearly learned that her husband needed to be right, that he couldn’t